Last year, I pointed out how many big publishers came crawlin' back to Steam after trying their own things: EA, Activision, Microsoft. This year, for the first time ever, two Blizzard games released on Steam: Overwatch and Diablo 4.

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[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

I know Steam isn’t a technical monopoly. We don’t need to have that discussion

That's one way to swat away all criticism about the premise of your comment....

When Valve gets sold, or even when gaben isn’t in total control anymore, things are going to start changing, and there isn’t going to be a healthy, diverse marketplace to soften that.

Considering the fact that Steam is not a monopoly and alternate storefronts continue to exist (Microsoft will not stop selling games individually on their own store even if it's just an afterthought to GamePass but it's the same platform as GamePass), there will be alternatives to Steam if Valve turns anti-consumer. There is little actual loyalty among gamers. Just look at Blizzard: At one point their customer base was almost as die hard as Nintendo's and it took only a couple of years to throw that away. (I noticed it when the audience actually booed at the Diablo Immortal reveal.)