I can't imagine any competitor is anywhere near what Steam has in user numbers, however many publishers have their own exclusive clients now. EA with Origin, which actually has great customer service (you can chat with customer service reps without waiting a month), Activision-Blizzard though I think Activision still releases games on Steam, GOG which I have no experience with but hear its good and then there's Uplay which is fine, integrates with Steam. But I like many Steam users am invested in the platform, I just wish they did some things better.

> GOG which I have no experience with but hear its good

You heard right. They have quite a good setup: the Steam-style GOG Galaxy client is entirely optional, you can also download, install and run your games manually without hindrance.

Well done web site with lots of user reviews. They also have very cheap older games and regular freebies - they're such a nice seller that you feel like buying something more expensive (Witcher 3 at half-price was a good deal ;-)

Edit: they also have a 'connect your Steam account' feature that allows you to have some of your Steam library games added to you GOG library.

When I tried last fall, I was able to buy Total Annihilation on GoG on Windows 10 client, but unable to launch the game on Windows 10. That was rather disappointing - no messaging it would be broken before purchase, no insight into if it would ever get fixed.

In instances like those, they'll refund you. I haven't had to do it myself, but I understand that to be the case. Since they sell a lot of old games, some of which they have to actually use cracks to disable the DRM on, they don't always work on newer machines unfortunately.

Activision has historically released their games on Steam, but their last PC release, Destiny 2, and their upcoming game Black Ops 4, are both only on Battle.net (Blizzard's client). Looks like they'll be releasing their games on Battle.net from now on.

Not a storefront per se, but I think Blizzard's Launcher that includes most of their newer games (as well as Destiny 2!) is a good example of one that's gone from nothing to pretty-darn-good while the Steam client has been relatively stagnant.

Activision is starting to move all of their big multiplayer games to Battle.net. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will be the first PC release of a Call of Duty game on Battle.net after it being a Steam only game for 11 years. For big publishers and tentpole titles it makes sense to completely control the platform, because people will install a custom launcher and make a new account to play a big title, and there is no reason for publishers to give away 30% of revenue to Valve. The same trend is happening in video streaming with Netflix and Netflix isn't hurting.

That said I think the Valve hating in this thread is... overblown? DOTA2 and CS:GO are some of the most played games period outside of Fortnite, LOL and PUBG. HN has been complaining about Valve not releasing a new game for years but why release a new game when you have multiple, popular, heavily played titles? All the complaints seem strange coming from a site where many of the users work for SaaS companies that don't follow a business model that requires releasing an entirely new product every year or two.

Steam is crap but they have a captive audience. Can't transfer your Steam account to a competitor so your years of gaming history is stuck.

GOG is trying to alleviate some of this with their Steam Connect stuff, where you can connect your Steam account and gain access to some of those games on GOG, but it'll never be 100%.

Right, there are clients/stores from some of the very big players for their products and some stores for more niche products (e.g. GoG) but I can't think of anything else on PCs with the scale and money-printing power of Steam.

I wouldn't call it good, at best it looks pretty while it is functionally lacking, especially when you compare it to Steam.