Re:Twitch source code and customer data has reportedly been ...
by ratww on Wednesday October 06, 2021 @04:53PM
(#28778283)
> Who knows, maybe there will be some way to verifiably move your Steam library over to an Amazon account?
The library is the #1 reason people stay in Steam. Lots of people just buy games in other places and just add it there.
Amazon could, for example, offer different royalties (say, 10% instead of 30%) for publishers willing to have their old games "moveable" to Amazon's hypothetical new platform and I bet a lot of studios would take the deal. This is not unheard of: it's how Apple does iTunes Match.
Re:Twitch source code and customer data has reportedly been ...
by junon on Wednesday October 06, 2021 @01:56PM
(#28776119)
> Who knows, maybe there will be some way to verifiably move your Steam library over to an Amazon account?
Given that steam has pretty strict terms with publishers over this, I highly, highly doubt they would do this unless they wanted to dump a huge ocean of money into free license comps for developers to make money from and for users to get free games.
Competing with Steam isn't only just a money/size thing, though of course that helps.
> no users, no publishers, neither want to join without the other
> Amazon will definitely get publishers but will users join?
Well, the publishers will be there. If users have a reason to go there over Steam, they will. Amazon will lock in a few exclusives, people will start to come over. Who knows, maybe there will be some way to verifiably move your Steam library over to an Amazon account?
I don't think the bar to compete with Steam is as high as you're suggesting, but even if it is, if anybody was going to start listing companies that could conceivably do it, Amazon would probably be on the list.