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Amazon thought it could compete with Steam because it was so much larger than Valve, but Prime Gaming's former VP admits that 'gamers already had the solution to their problems' (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I did not realize they were trying to compete in the first place.

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[–] ryathal 281 points 2 days ago (93 children)

Steam is a platform that happens to also have a storefront. Other companies are building storefronts and hoping that's enough.

If you can't provide fast downloads, cloud saves synced across devices, achievements, mod support, friends lists, and multiplayer support, it's not a real option. Being cheaper or having some exclusives aren't attractive. Gog already has the drm free angle to be a legitimate competitor.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

This is something from before 2010, but I distinctly remember not being able to play Borderlands 1 with my friends because the site I bought it from didn't have a patch yet that Steam did. This was one of the things that sold me on Steam. Prior to that I hated it. It's nearly two decades ago so it's hard to really remember why, but it wasn't always viewed as favorably as now.

This isn't some dig at Steam, like I said, this was over a decade ago.

[–] ryathal 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There was definitely heavy skepticism at first. Buying online was new when it launched and physical was still king. I remember thinking it was dumb to buy from a website that could disappear instead of good old CDs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I think the need to be online was what bothered me more, I remember a few times having trouble launching stuff.

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