Two real competitors for Steam?

[trokari]

After slowly getting fed up with Steam's policies, I began searching for some alternatives.
Here's what I found: WeGame and Robot Cache.

WeGame is owned by a big Chinese corp called Tencent. They're making the WeGame -service friendly for international users. We'll see what kind of western games they're able to attract, but they should have the muscle atleast.

Robot Cache is another upcoming platform that has it's own internal crypto currency called IRON which you can mine to buy games. Of course you can pay with plastic as well. You can also SELL the games you own in Robot Cache which is a great feature imo and beats hands down Steam's greedy practices of forcing their customers to keep the games they've tried for more than two hours or are just otherwise fed up with them.

We desperate need some competition on this field to crack the Steam's tyranny. I really, really hope one or both of these upcoming services will offer quality games from the western perspective because if they do, I will be switching over to them faster than light.

[American Dove Mitten]

I expected to see Origin and Uplay. Which are not much of a competition to be honest.

I personally don't mind Uplay. They just don't have many games XD

[trokari]

Eh, Origin's offering is what... different versions of Need for speed, Sims and Battlefield? Really, they lack the selection and they lack the muscle. WeGame for example, already has over 200 million chinese users and are backed up by a major corporation. If they can lure in a growing number of indie etc. developers, we'd see a service that will easily match what Steam has to offer right now.
And as you said, Uplay has the same problem... no real selection.

[Falro the Great]

WeGame is not likely to expand into western markets much, in my opinion. Not like I'd willingly give my data to the Chinese Google, either.

All I can say about RC is good luck finding any worthwhile games there, if it ever even comes online. Gaming has been moving away from reselling games for a reason.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Sorokonojka eredeti hozzászólása:

I expected to see Origin and Uplay. Which are not much of a competition to be honest.

I personally don't mind Uplay. They just don't have many games XD

I expected to see GamersGate, GOG, and Humble.

[trokari]

If WeGame went through the trouble of making their service internationally friendly, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't want to expand to western markets. I wouldn't have any trouble giving my data to them. We've had leakakes from western services as well so they're not any safer in that sense.

And what would be the reasons why reselling's a bad thing and which platforms have previously implemented it? I hear Robot Cache will be giving a bigger share of the profits to the devs as well.

[trokari]

Quint the Pondering Ghost eredeti hozzászólása:

Sorokonojka eredeti hozzászólása:

I expected to see Origin and Uplay. Which are not much of a competition to be honest.

I personally don't mind Uplay. They just don't have many games XD

I expected to see GamersGate, GOG, and Humble.

They're already there and haven't made it :D.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

trokari eredeti hozzászólása:

Quint the Pondering Ghost eredeti hozzászólása:

I expected to see GamersGate, GOG, and Humble.

They're already there and haven't made it :D.

What do you mean "they're already there"?

Also
> Robot Cache
> cryptocurrency
sounds like something to not touch without a ten-foot pole

[trokari]

Quint the Pondering Ghost eredeti hozzászólása:

trokari eredeti hozzászólása:

They're already there and haven't made it :D.

What do you mean "they're already there"?

Also
> Robot Cache
> cryptocurrency
sounds like something to not touch without a ten-foot pole

Well, if you can mine it, what's there to loose? :D

I mean, they are not NEW and they have not become an alternative for Steam.

Also.. this gamershate looks like a game museum.

[Start_Running]

Quint the Pondering Ghost eredeti hozzászólása:

trokari eredeti hozzászólása:

They're already there and haven't made it :D.

What do you mean "they're already there"?

Also
> Robot Cache
> cryptocurrency
sounds like something to not touch without a ten-foot pole

I.e They haven't displaced Steam. Which isn't surprising. 80% of the games Sold on Humble are steam activations after all. And Gog well. their DRM policy tends to keep many publishers and developers from bringing their Fresh crop their. Oh they get to GoG eventually but usually after 6 18 months on steam first.

Origin would be a good contender but they aren't on good terms with independents and smaller publishers so it's just EA's personal storefront.


And when a store uses Crpto currency... yeah... you know that freemium currency people hate so much in games these days. That's basically what that is. You eeither buy with real money or you let os use your pc for 'stuff' which will accrue you funbucks at whatever rate we determine.

The reason Steam does well is because developers bring their games here. The provide developers a platform and an infrastructure as well as offer some protection.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

trokari eredeti hozzászólása:

Quint the Pondering Ghost eredeti hozzászólása:

What do you mean "they're already there"?

Also
> Robot Cache
> cryptocurrency
sounds like something to not touch without a ten-foot pole

I mean, they are not NEW and they have not become an alternative for Steam.

How have they not become "an alternative for [sic] Steam"?

A number of notable Steam games can be bought there. Not all, sure, but the number is nothing to sneeze at.

Now if you're saying "Steam sucks, but GOG hasn't been able to topple it yet", well, (1) Steam of today isn't necessarily the same as Steam of the future, and GOG of today isn't necessarily the same as GOG of the future either, and (2) I don't see a reason why PC gaming ought to have only one dominant digital vendor, as opposed to a variety of vendors none of which are hugely dominant.

[trokari]

I still don't see the problem with service's internal currency. If you can mine it, but a game with it and sell a game for it.. where's the problem? Of course the exchange rate can fluctuate, but even that's better than the current situation with Steam where the money you paid for a (bad?) game is lost forever.

We need some competition really bad and I guess we'll just have to see what these new contenders have to offer.

[Falro the Great]

trokari eredeti hozzászólása:

I still don't see the problem with service's internal currency. If you can mine it, but a game with it and sell a game for it.. where's the problem? Of course the exchange rate can fluctuate, but even that's better than the current situation with Steam where the money you paid for a (bad?) game is lost forever.

We need some competition really bad and I guess we'll just have to see what these new contenders have to offer.

It should never take you more than 2 hours to decide if you want a game.

[trokari]

Quint the Pondering Ghost eredeti hozzászólása:

trokari eredeti hozzászólása:

Now if you're saying "Steam sucks, but GOG hasn't been able to topple it yet", well, (1) Steam of today isn't necessarily the same as Steam of the future, and GOG of today isn't necessarily the same as GOG of the future either, and (2) I don't see a reason why PC gaming ought to have only one dominant digital vendor, as opposed to a variety of vendors none of which are hugely dominant.

Sure we can speculate wether or not GOG will change, but essentially we now DO have only one dominant player on the market and that's not healthy. GOG is not nowhere near a competitor for Steam.

[Start_Running]

trokari eredeti hozzászólása:

I still don't see the problem with service's internal currency.

Because you're thinking 'Hey Free Money'. You're not thinking like an adult. Put it this way. Developers and publishers are not going toa ccept their cut in fun bux, they are going to want real bankable currency Something that more or less is the bane of every cryptocurrency out there. Last i looked evn the good ship Bitcoin was starting to ride low in the water.

If you can mine it, but a game with it and sell a game for it.. where's the problem?

Where's the profit in it? is a better question.. Free money you earn by doing nothing is rarely anything good.

Of course the exchange rate can fluctuate, but even that's better than the current situation with Steam where the money you paid for a (bad?) game is lost forever.

Only if you played it for more than 2 hours, in which case it provided you about as much entertainment as a movie. Again. Ask yourself. If you were a puiblisher putting a game on the service.. where would you getting the money from?

We need some competition really bad and I guess we'll just have to see what these new contenders have to offer.

Is what the gaming industry needs more competition, because that was said about game development at one point and now we have a state of perfect competition. And y'all seem to hate it.

As said. Internal funbux is not a sensible thing. You don't see any store like say Amazon doing something like that do you? Or EA, or GoG. Why do you think?

[trokari]

Falro the Great eredeti hozzászólása:

trokari eredeti hozzászólása:

I still don't see the problem with service's internal currency. If you can mine it, but a game with it and sell a game for it.. where's the problem? Of course the exchange rate can fluctuate, but even that's better than the current situation with Steam where the money you paid for a (bad?) game is lost forever.

We need some competition really bad and I guess we'll just have to see what these new contenders have to offer.

It should never take you more than 2 hours to decide if you want a game.

How on earth it should not? I've had that it happen to me multiple times, lastly with Foxhole. It seemed nice in the beginning and two hours went past like nothing. The downsides and things that really bugged only turned up at the 20+ hour mark.
What would be the downside of not letting people test a game for 24 or even 48 hours? If you like it, you're prolly not going to turn it down at that point.