Why Can’t Anyone Beat Steam?
Steam, one of the most open platforms in the PC gaming world, continues to dominate the field unrivaled. In a recent statement on LinkedIn, Ethan Evans, former VP of Prime Gaming at Amazon, detailed why many companies, including Amazon, have failed to take over Steam. According to Evans, Steam’s success is due to user habits and the platform’s multifaceted structure.
Reasons Why Steam Is Unrivaled
Amazon has made three main attempts to compete with Steam. First, it bought a small game store called Reflexive Entertainment and tried to grow it. Second, it built its own PC game store by leveraging Twitch’s popularity. Finally, it launched its game streaming service Luna. However, none of these attempts had the expected impact on users.
Ethan Evans stated that the main reason for these failures lies in the fact that Steam is much more than just a store for users. Steam meets the needs of users on a single platform by offering a store, social network, game library and achievement collection all in one. He emphasized that Amazon, on the other hand, has not been able to offer an innovation that will change these habits.
According to Evans, the reason behind Steam’s success is understanding existing user habits and offering solutions suitable for these habits. The reason why even a large company like Amazon could not overthrow Steam was that users had already found a solution that met their needs and there was not enough incentive to switch to a new platform.
Steam continues to solidify its place in the industry with discounts organized every season, opportunities to expand users’ game libraries and social connection features. Although rival platforms such as the Epic Games Store organize free game campaigns, it does not seem possible to break the ecosystem created by Steam at the moment.
