Steam dominating PC market. Not a good thing.

[Mr.Hemiroids]

Steam is by far the largest PC game purchasing service on the market. And in any good business practice they are trying to get bigger. With the Steam box their own operating system etc. But that's not a good thing a monopoly or dominance in the market is not healthy for us the consumer. Competition leads to better prices. Good customer service. The possibility of refunds on your game etc. Origins provides a good example. Of course Origins is often broken and has issues of its own. But they do provide refunds. I had an issue that I needed assistance with. I was able to talk to an actual human within an hour. The problem was resolved within an hour and a half. It is practically impossible to get any assistance through Steam. That worries me. So I would offer this suggestion that we do business with other services as often as possible. Uplay Origins GOG Green man gaming etc. if anyone bothers to read or respond. I'm sure it will be negative for the most part. But I would love to hear if you ever had a problem with Steam. And how you were able to get the matter resolved? Was the experience a good one?

[Tito Shivan]

Origin deals with a reduced userbase compared to a service like Steam.
Origin also deals only with games they develop and produce. Which allows a single support service. Syeam cannot do that, since most if the sold games are made by third parties.
Origin returns are only for EA titles, it's the equivalent of Steam offering refunds only for Valve titles. (note you can't get refunds on DLC on Origin)
Also, as good as it sounds, chat support is not omnipresent. Every single time I've had to resort to Origin support, chat support never was avaiable, and had to request support 'steam's way'
Origin doesn't have to support a trading enviroment with the volume Steam has. (a chat support will be swarmed with traders complains on Steam. Bloating the system)

So it's kind of comparing apples and oranges.

But most important, the fact that services like Origin or Uplay are getting track and pulling their heads out of the water, shows that a monopolistic scenario is far from happening. If anything, competition is getting tighter nowadays.

[Mr.Hemiroids]

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Origin deals with a reduced userbase compared to a service like Steam.
Origin also deals only with games they develop and produce. Which allows a single support service. Syeam cannot do that, since most if the sold games are made by third parties.
Origin returns are only for EA titles, it's the equivalent of Steam offering refunds only for Valve titles. (note you can't get refunds on DLC on Origin)
Also, as good as it sounds, chat support is not omnipresent. Every single time I've had to resort to Origin support, chat support never was avaiable, and had to request support 'steam's way'
Origin doesn't have to support a trading enviroment with the volume Steam has. (a chat support will be swarmed with traders complains on Steam. Bloating the system)

So it's kind of comparing apples and oranges.

But most important, the fact that services like Origin or Uplay are getting track and pulling their heads out of the water, shows that a monopolistic scenario is far from happening. If anything, competition is getting tighter nowadays.

Yes that's exactly my point. Origins provides a better service in a lot of areas because of competition. It would be nice to see Origins provide more games from a variety of companies. Which both Uplay and Origins due to an extent. It's kind of unfortunate that Steam is so large. With a 200+ game library which a lot of people on Steam have. There needs to be a better level of customer service. Regardless of the load on the company. It is a simple truth that a capitalist market provides better service. Competition drives innovation and better service. I think anyone could agree with that. I would think Steam is a great company if they provided better customer service.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by Mr.Hemiroids:

Yes that's exactly my point. Origins provides a better service in a lot of areas because of competition. It would be nice to see Origins provide more games from a variety of companies. Which both Uplay and Origins due to an extent. It's kind of unfortunate that Steam is so large. With a 200+ game library which a lot of people on Steam have. There needs to be a better level of customer service. Regardless of the load on the company. It is a simple truth that a capitalist market provides better service. Competition drives innovation and better service. I think anyone could agree with that. I would think Steam is a great company if they provided better customer service.

While my point is quite the opposite. Origin can offer a better service not because competition, but because of a lesser customer volume.
Had Origin to give support to 6 million concurrent users, many of those making continuosly item/game trades and selling a great percentage of games they cannot give any support to, support experiences would be way more similar.

-Chat support would be unusable or have humogous queues due to every trader requesting for instant support.
Many issues could simply not be solved by Origin and would require the user to contact a external support (as happens on steam) and a return police would be not feasible due to contractuary obligations from third parties.

That's why i said comparing both support services is like comparing apples and oranges.

[Τhe Rolling Cheese Wheel]

I'm too invested in to steam, and steam is a superior platform compared to everything. I'm not about to use inferior gaming platforms just to use a different platform.

[Trondheim]

I prefer Steam, but it is not good to only have one option.

[AbioticViper]

I have never had an issue with steam so I cant complain, games havent worked for me before alrite but thats not steams fault its more offen then the developer or a hardware issue on my side.

Google is your best friend and offen better then any chat support, google your issue and 80% of the time you will find the answer.

As for refunds, its a mixed bag, I have bought games before didnt work due to me not reading up about them so in the most part I think thats down to me not steam.

If a game is released on steam and doesnt match what it offers to do or doesnt work full stop then res you shuold get a refund

[rojimboo]

I agree with Tito Shivan that comparing Origin to Steam is like comparing apples to oranges.

Increased price competition is greatly beneficial to the consumer for instance but Origin has only recently started price competing as most of its games are Origin exclusive. There is no competition in that sense if Origin is the only place to buy Mass Effect 3.

This has slightly recently changed since Origin is now stocking some Ubisoft games and others and Uplay some EA games plus others. For example AC4 is available now on all three platforms. This is price competition. Though in many cases it is the market forces that decide the price eventually anyways, i.e. interest in the game by consumers.

As to increased product quality and innovation due to competition, yes I too agree that the big names Uplay Origin and Steam are likely to keep each other on their toes, though right now it's more of a case of them catching up to Steam.

I doubt they will ever catch up to Steam in the social aspect, even if they one day develop superior, more innovative services, as Steam has had a decade of a headstart garnering users and they are largely 'locked in' with the persistent leveling system, which was genious.

[Τhe Rolling Cheese Wheel]

Originally posted by rojimboo:

I doubt they will ever catch up to Steam in the social aspect, even if they one day develop superior, more innovative services, as Steam has had a decade of a headstart garnering users and they are largely 'locked in' with the persistent leveling system, which was genious.

Exactly, there isn't a platform anywhere that has the full feature set that steam offers. Not even close. EA and UbiSoft had a full decade to observe steam's fails and success and has failed to even implement a competent community system. The lack of a proper community system leads be to believe that Origin and Uplay is simply a DRM system rather than a service system that adds value to my gaming experience.

What's the difference between a uplay bought game and a pirated uplay title? The pirated title is easier to access and is less of a hassle.

What's the difference between a steam bought title and a pirated title? The steam title has some accessibility problems but that is traded for community features added to the game that doesn't exist in the pirated title.

That is why steam is superior.

[Lu]

I use GOG a lot because they offer better games and do better sales than Steam. And occasionally I buy Steam games via Green Man Gaming if the price is better there, however there's no way in hell i'm using more than one digital distribution software.

Thankfully, Origin and Uplay don't offer anything i'm desperate to play, so I don't have to go through the ordeal of switching between the three constantly.

[NisseDood]

Uplay is way overhated. It works fine and the reward system for completing some ingame achievements are nice.
I use Steam for like 95% of my online game purchases But I hope there will be another company that will give Steam some REAL competition.

[Pl@cebo]

Price is often irrelevant as it is quite easy to shop around for better prices on games (physical or otherwise) & simply enter the code into the steam client for download. I personally never pay the (sometimes outrageous) full price that Valve commands for the triple A games on their client unless it is a game that I simply must have (very rare).

On the flip side of the coin, I find that EA’s Origin is just as outrageous on their prices (if not more so) than Valve.

[Carth]

Although I agree with you about monopolies being a bad thing, my personal experience with Steam support has only been good. Granted I haven't had a problem recently. A few years ago I moved country and was unable to play some of my games due to licensing issues, and Steam support promptly resolved it in a way that I found very satisfactory.

I despise Origin just because of various things EA has done with it. They have no regard for the customer or your rights.

[Sleeplessgamer]

Steam in no way holds a monoply on game distribution thats just crazy talk, i have bought many games from other places that fill my steam library. Amazon,humblebundle,GoG,GMG,GameFly,just to name a few places that you can find non steam deals that activate on steam.
Steam lets PCgamers have a space for just us much like xboxlive or ps network. Where it really excels at is giving developers a greater freedom, a few cases may seem like the opposite but they are more about publishers than developers.

[CloudGT4]

this is simple.. Orgin is Horrid, and there tech support is even worse. If you get live support there answer is always "uninstall and reinstall the game or orgin as a whole". Thats if you can even understand the typing they give you since support is based in India. Gamersgate is okay, but there sales do not match steams, and well sometimes ISPs block downloading from them due to it being sweedish for some reason. Though I do love the Blue Coin loyalty system there. GOG will always be open and good cause its that Good Old Games that steam abandons after a while. I only shop UPLAY cause Ubi is by far my favorite Publisher, behind Lionsgate and Bethesda. But Steam is just the best. The servers rock 89% of the time.. The user base is huge, and well it offers everything. They pretty much have a monopoly already, and its not gonna change.

[Mr.Hemiroids]

@Tito Shivan... So if I'm understanding you correctly you're saying I should somehow be sympathetic to Steams position. So let's say General Motors partnered with Honda. General Motors was the largest company in the US selling Hondas cars. I purchased one and something goes completely wrong. General Motors gives me lackluster service. I have a hard time contacting someone. Wait weeks for a response. Should that not bother me or be a bad thing. Because of their volume and dealing with a third-party company. Perhaps if a larger market were allowed to sell those Hondas General Motors would have to strive to be even better. Regardless of the difficulties laid before them.

Perhaps Steam should broaden their market. Start getting into market share the stock market. If there aren't capable of handling such a load. And dealing with third-party partners. No matter how much you like something a company makes. Or the deals and freebies they give you. Doesn't excuse or somehow give them a pass for poor customer service. Steam could block me from my account close my account. Shut down tomorrow and there wouldn't be much repercussion. That makes me a little bit nervous. With Steam being a juggernaut in the service they provide. Origins and Uplay have a lot more to lose. They have shareholders they have to answer to. And they also provide more than one service. Making AAA games.