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Re:An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD by PurpleRamen on Thursday March 19, 2026 @05:31PM (#47446513)
> You can literally just go download it off their website for free

That's cumbersome. The main benefit of platforms is comfort. Steam takes care of installation and updating, while often also offers some access with the community. Open internet has more choice and liberty, but for the price of more work and annoyance.

That the main reason why all big platforms succeed and the small platforms fail. Comfort is just too valuable.

Re:An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD by philistine on Thursday March 19, 2026 @07:12PM (#47447726)
OpenTTD has an automatic update mechanism already and its installation is as simple as could be.

Steam succeeded because of its store, which still has the best prices on the market. That’s their original moat. Their current moat is sunk costs. People have thousands of dollars in their Steam Library. At this point Steam’s advantages as software are negligible, especially considering its poor performance.

Re:An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD by Aeolun on Thursday March 19, 2026 @11:45PM (#47450241)
Steam, and Valve are solely responsible for me never having to deal with Windows, because they’ve made linux gaming easy. I’d use steam just for that.
Re:An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD by akimbostrawman on Friday March 20, 2026 @04:06AM (#47451796)
>Steam succeeded because of its store, which still has the best prices on the market. That’s their original moat. Their current moat is sunk cost.

Then how come epic games store is not able to get a foothold for years despite offering literally free games? Not even children which are most likely to use it because of Fortnite use it for anything but that. Steam is objectively the better store and game launcher regardless or price.

Re:An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD by NoboruWataya on Thursday March 19, 2026 @07:11PM (#47447718)
Easiest of all is `pacman -S openttd`.
Re:An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD by satertek on Friday March 20, 2026 @01:07AM (#47450729)
Or even `winget install openttd`
Re:An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD by thaumasiotes on Friday March 20, 2026 @12:53AM (#47450647)
> That's cumbersome.

Nothing cumbersome about it. No one who wants to do this is going to fail at it, or even be inconvenienced.

> That the main reason why all big platforms succeed and the small platforms fail. Comfort is just too valuable.

The value of the platform, in this case, is that people know where it is, but they don't know where openTTD is.