Your ice is so cool. ^

Personally i think it's only reasonable to expect your store to get the same pricing and sales as other stores, else they'll just put their game there as a teaser and entice or even push people to other or even their own storefront to make the purchases happen there. There was something similar when F2P games all started putting their games on Steam but had their own stores ingame with microtransactions (before Steam mandated they'd get a cut from that, if it was done through Steam)

That said, surely there were other ways to compete? Epic's been handing out free games left and right for years, surely GOG could've done that as well? If we're to assume they have the money to compete with lower pricing that is.

GOG tried with things like GOG Connect, but obviously all that didn't generate enough sales or pull customers permanently from Steam to GOG.

They have even created GOG DRM (= Galaxy achievements) which is supposed to be an alternative to Steam.

It's unlikely that GOG could come up with anything to challenge Steam, even Epic with free game spamming hasn't been able to really do that.

And this is where we circle back to this point. You can be GOG and throw Connect, Galaxy (with a literal focus to manage a fractured PC game library), free games every now and then, captivating sales, have a couple exclusives including and up to Thronebreaker, and when all doesn't work, appeal the Gamers to please buy Cyberpunk 2077 on GOG to better support the CD Projekt group as a whole. Of course, can't forget the main selling points: DRM-free, installers.

Or you can be Epic and throw free games all the freaking time, including stuff that actually get people excited, including even Grand Theft Auto V... Oh, and have your launcher be the literal gateway to Fortnite, now expanding way beyond its tower defense (I think?) and battle royale roots.

But both combined barely do much to make valve feel the heat. I guess in the end, it's really all down to the Gamers, who were mostly willingly trapped by the behemoth and now don't really care. You may offer a better product but it's not steam, so why even bother. At this point it's all about slowly and agonizingly convincing people enough to come here, or to itch, or to zoom or the likes, over steam and epic.

We have two new threads about people wishing to flee steam here on the GOG forums. Now imagine that if the popular theory that "no one visits the forums" is true (I mean, there's no reason not to believe it), this is... some kinda indicator.

But yes. Literally nothing has changed for these people, the games were always licenses for a long time. They'll shout against the machine for a hot minute and then go back to supporting it. There's just not enough push to rage against it.

It took Ubisoft many a fuck up, all chained together, to finally bite them in the butt. Sadly that's not something every AAA company is capable of despite being seemingly capable of doing it. They just know how to push the buttons, and for how long. Ubisoft didn't - or burned too much of their luck.

There still needs to be bigger wake up calls though. Particularly for the young'uns (it's weird that I say this considering I'm still in my 20s but).

Like many such terms, "monopolistic" and its ilk have been overused to a point of losing any significance. No, Steam doesn't have anything even remotely similar to a monopoly. Just because it's the best service, doesn't make it a monopoly. It has a lot of competition in this space. Developers and publishers look to Steam first and foremost due to the high exposure. They may have had a nice running start in the industry and became ubiquitous, but they wouldn't have survived this long if they didn't continuously improve. Prior to Steam there were other similar services, but they sucked, so they died.

GOG on the other hand started as more of a niche storefront for, you know, good old games... there is a ton of old stuff that's only available on GOG and nowhere else. It is also optimized better. Take Dungeon Siege for example. Try playing the one on Steam. Not to mention offline installers, the goodies, and DRM situations. GOG isn't competing with Steam head-to-head (because it would lose miserably), but rather offers a slightly different storefront service altogether. The same can be said with Epic.

As to why certain games are on one storefront and not the other, that's a question directly for developers/publishers. Those decisions are made in-house with appropriate partnerships. Currently, Steam provides the biggest and best platform for PC game distribution. Its install base is absolutely enormous. It has the best social features out of any PC storefront. It has the best multiplayer support. It has achieved ubiquity in the field.

In economics (as this is a part of), monopolies are used in two different ways. Firstly, there is the 'true monopoly,' which occurs when a supplier is the only provider within a market. This is extremely rare, and I cannot think of a single instance where this has occurred; a totalitarian autocratic system would be necessary for it to happen.

What is more commonly used, however, is 'monopoly power.' This occurs when one supplier in a market has an overly large market share or power, allowing them to dictate market conditions. Monopoly power is harder to define because it depends on the market, the different actors within it, and the market share of the company. Within the UK legal system, monopoly power has been described for companies that have as low as 35% of the market share, a similar standard exists in the USA (though I do not remember the exact percentage at this moment).

Steam does not have a true monopoly, but it would be easy to argue that Steam does have monopoly power

Okay, I will be another sucker and respond, even though you possibly won't.

You've had an account since 2020, but clearly never looked at the GOG store properly. GOG have a lot of games.

You mention a few games, that don't seem very mainstream to me, and bemoan GOG not having them ... or not yet.

GOG is not Steam, and should never try to be.
Because GOG is a DRM-Free store, there will always be significant differences to stores that are primarily DRM, like Steam.

Steam will sell you almost anything, while GOG is much better curated. Curation has a good and bad side, due to those doing it being human.

Steam have been around longer, and have far more power and a bigger user base. GOG within the limits of DRM-Free, have very little power, and a much smaller but always growing user base. Steam are in a position where they can pretty much call the shots and dictate things ... GOG can rarely do either of those.

Mostly any lack on GOG's part, is really the lack by game providers, who mostly prefer what Steam offers. Most game providers only need Steam, and find the effort to support a different version of their game for GOG, to be onerous.

There will never be parity between Steam and GOG, due to the nature of the beast.

I generally use a key on Steam, makes stuff much cheaper... but there is just about a dozen i ever got from there.

Besides, nope, using a key is safe if a reputable seller is used, just do not get the cheapest bastard you are able to find: Sometimes it is wise getting a 5 coins pricier deal.

Exactly.

The only exception I can think of when something was forced onto Steam from the outside was when Epic launched and everyone had to lower the store cut to match them.

No, because Valve already has a rule they cannot talk about other stores with in their games/store page anyways, so there isn't any pushing. It would take the gamer to search for themselves to see if it is cheaper anywhere else.

And there is nothing reasonable about a near monopoly store using contracts, threats, and negative actions towards anyone to prevent pricing competition, that is absolutely abuse of their market power, is highly anti-competitive, and is highly anti-consumer.

Valve could have competed with the better pricing by lowering their own revenue share, but Valve is way to greed and scummy of a company to do that, so instead the used strong arm tactics abusing their market power to make sure their competition cannot get an upper hand through pricing competition, resulting in higher prices for consumers and less choice of where to buy games for consumers.

You don't need Steam to be happy. Case in point, here's my spreadsheet..... Not listed is every game I got as a store giveaway or in a bundle that I decided I didn't like:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sbYtmxQA3jOUYptwJi_1blD2L3hXXLIi/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=112882206293283405691&rtpof=true&sd=true

I've arranged my PC games tab by store, and you can see I own all of two Steam games that I got free. Both work without the Steam launcher or I wouldn't have them. I have enough games to keep my busy for years without every resorting to needing to give Steam my money.

It's also not true at all that Steam has all games that matter. Steam does not have:
* Civilization 4 (GOG exclusive)
* Diablo with or without Hellfire (GOG exclusive)
* Nox (GOG exclusive)
* Blooming Panic (itch exclusive)
* ᗢ (itch exclusive)
* Little Things Remastered (itch exclusive)
* the King's Quest 1-3 remakes are only on the developer's website

Any custom content for Neverwinter Nights worth downloading, including modules, can be found on the NWVault but not necessarily the Steam workshop. This is so true that anything on the Steam workshop for this game worth downloading got migrated to the NWVault.

Oh and that Steam Workshop, the only three games that I would even want anything off the Steam Workshop are Curious Expedition, Don't Starve, and Megaquarium..... which I have without owning the Steam versions or knowing someone that has the Steam versions to download it for me.

Even when a game is available on multiple storefronts, it's the Steam version that always has DRM and sometimes only the Steam version. Cat Quest can be purchased from GOG, Epic, and Steam. Only the Steam version, including stores that only provide Steam keys, sells the game with DRM attached to it.

DRM is a big deal and not just because they could cut off your ability to play the game at any time. For people like myself that play on a laptop, integrated graphics can create a performance issue that you can't get around without buying a whole new computer. The Steam launcher is another program running in the background that I don't need, especially if it is going to DRM up my game to phone home and therefore increase my load times.

edit -- Forgot to mention abandonware. While we're talking about games not on any store here, what matters is that there's games we'd like to see back in print like No One Lives Forever, Dune, Wizardry 1-5, Disc World, Hard Nova, Buck Rodgers, The Sims, SImEarth, and many many others. The fact that we're talking old DOS era and WinXP games should be more than enough proof that these games do matter and are worthwhile.... not on Steam.

edit2 - Apparently Diablo 1 is also on Battle.Net, which I'm not checking to confirm. Regardless, it's not on Steam.

For better or for worse, unlike other launchers, Steam is actually using very little resources other than RAM. I played a few games on a very weak laptop using Steam without issues other than of course, waiting for the launcher to finish his business.

Note that I'm not defending, I avoid launchers/clients like the plague but tradionally I tend to use very weak hardware to play games and from most of what I've tried, Steam is actually the least intrusive regarding computer resources.
I can't remember the old Galaxy build but even 3rd party launchers like Launchbox with no attached DRM were far more resource intensive, using a full GB of RAM and some CPU time. Epic on my main desktop using a slow and old HDD and a very slow internet takes 5+ min to open, in the same conditions Steam opens in 10-20 seconds.

I recently tried Lutris (on Linux) and was actually amazed how lean the program is for what it does. Maybe because of my previous ̶d̶e̶s̶d̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ contempt towards launchers...

That does not make it any less of a malware ;)

Wow, we really do not all have similar standards. There is literally not a single software on my whole system that would take as long to start, even when including video games themselves.