72% of Devs Say Steam Is a Monopoly, and I'm Part of the Problem
In other news, water is wet, and the sky is blue.
A new study just dropped that's sending shockwaves through... absolutely no one who actually plays video games on a PC.
According to a whitepaper from Rokky, a whopping 72% of game developers believe Steam has a monopoly on the PC market. This is backed by the fact that for most studios, Steam accounts for over 75% of their total revenue.
My first thought? "Duh."
My second thought was to look at the comment that nailed the real story. As one user put it, "I don't want to download 10 different launchers for 10 different games... That's why I tend to buy majority of my games on Steam or GOG".
This, right here, is the entire story. The "monopoly" isn't a mystery. We built it, and we did it out of sheer, unadulterated exhaustion.
The Developer's Dream vs. The Player's Nightmare
I get the developers' side of it. They feel trapped. They look at Steam's 30% cut, and they see a walled garden they can't escape.
The study shows they are desperate to find another way. 80% of them expect to use alternative channels within the next five years. 75% are predicting a "10% uplift in revenue" if they do. They're already spreading out to the Epic Game Store (48%), GOG (10%), and Itch.io (8%).
This is their "solution." But their solution is my problem.
I'm already at my breaking point. I have Steam, which is my main library. I have GOG for the oldies and DRM-free goodness. I have the Ubisoft Connect launcher because Anno 1800 holds a gun to my head. And I have the Epic Games Store because I am poor and they give me free stuff (fight me, I don't care).
It's already a fragmented, annoying mess.
Steam Isn't a Monopoly, It's a Convenience
Steam isn't winning because it's a "monopoly" in some evil, mustache-twirling sense. It's winning because it's the default. It's the one launcher that has all my friends, all my achievements, and a functional shopping cart. It's the one place that, for the most part, just works.
The "competition" isn't competing.
The Epic Games Store is a coupon booth attached to a resource-hungry launcher that still feels like a beta.
Ubisoft Connect and the EA App are just mandatory pop-ups I have to click through, even when I buy the game on Steam.
The study also mentions developers' concerns about the gray market (like G2A and Kinguin). But what do you think happens when you create a dozen different storefronts with a dozen different regional prices? You create the very gray market you're afraid of.
Developers can look at these stats and see a problem. I look at them and see a symptom.
We, the players, don't want 10 storefronts. We don't want to check five different apps to see which friends are online. We just want one big, functional library.
So, yeah, 72% of devs can call Steam a monopoly. They're not wrong. But it's a monopoly we gave them, because the alternative they're offering is a chaotic, fragmented, user-hostile nightmare.