> I wonder why it is that Steam hasn't had any issues remaining such a successful video game platform, while other forms of media have struggled to keep up.
Well, Youtube's ad problem comes from the fact that it is run by the largest internet advertiser. Netflix--video streaming in general--suffers from the fact that there are very few major content producers, and after seeing the monetary success of Netflix, the content producers decided to create their own streaming platforms and deliver their content only via them.
While there have been attempts to build alternative video game platforms than Steam (notably Epic Games Store and Origin), they haven't been able to enforce an exclusivity deal of the kind that showed up in video streaming. I'm not entirely certain why, but it seems to be a mixture of the lack of centralization in developers (so must-have is much less a factor in video games as it is for movies), the need for multi-platform distribution anyways to reach consoles, and the necessary social media integration (you need friend lists to be able to invite friends) making fragmentation more painful for users.
Epic game store definitely tries to enforce exclusivity. Prime example beeing Square Enix games. FF7 Remake first released on Epic Game Store and only much later released on Steam. Kingdom Hearts still isn't available in Steam and probably never will be. It's one of the prime reasons I will never buy from them. That way lies madness.
Yes, they've tried to, but as I've said, it hasn't been particularly effective. Most of the games that had the year-long Epic store exclusivity period happily released on Steam at the end of that period.
Epic giveaway tactics is mainly targeted at their Fortnite audience. There are some kids who never had a Steam account before, but who play Fortnite. So Epic goal is to get them on the hook by providing them with a library of free games.
At the same time giveaways mean very little for existing Steam audience. Piracy was always easy on PC and gamers choose Steam over piracy not jusf because of law or moral reasons, but because Steam is more convinient and offer tons of features.
EGS is simply lacking a lot of niche, but importanf features. Most people likely only ever 5% of Steam features, but you soon find how useful are some of them when you try other platform.
At the end of the day a movie or tv show is a non-interactive stream of media that has two states, play or pause. (Rewind, fast forward and skip sometimes too.)
A games launcher is a lot more complicated. A few publishers have tried their hand at it (EA Origin, Ubisoft Uplay) and for the most part they suck.
I disagree re Netflix. They invented their own problems by pivoting from an video platform to a platform that measured itself by how much attention it could steal or time it could waste.
You may recall they were patting themselves in the back by adopting this strategy of minimally viable programming. Well, Disney got their shit together and turns out people want to watch good TV. Whatcha know?
It’s a management failure and the ad pivot is a bigger failure. If there was a board with a clue, they would fire the management and start over.
Well, Youtube's ad problem comes from the fact that it is run by the largest internet advertiser. Netflix--video streaming in general--suffers from the fact that there are very few major content producers, and after seeing the monetary success of Netflix, the content producers decided to create their own streaming platforms and deliver their content only via them.
While there have been attempts to build alternative video game platforms than Steam (notably Epic Games Store and Origin), they haven't been able to enforce an exclusivity deal of the kind that showed up in video streaming. I'm not entirely certain why, but it seems to be a mixture of the lack of centralization in developers (so must-have is much less a factor in video games as it is for movies), the need for multi-platform distribution anyways to reach consoles, and the necessary social media integration (you need friend lists to be able to invite friends) making fragmentation more painful for users.