| kirby007 said: But on the pc platform you can make an alternative to steam... |
That's because the PC platform has so far been an open platform. And being open comes with its own quirks. First, you see multiple stores, then you start seeing "store" exclusives. And before you know what. you start to see content specific to certain stores within games available on both stores. Its just competition, its just business. All these people are in it to make money.
Lets put our personal biases (god or bad) towards any company aside and look at this practically. I am going to use Playstation as an example here since I am most familiar with them, but what I am saying is applicable to everyone in some way or the other.
- You set out to build a new console. You spend hundreds of millions to billions of dollars on R&D, infrastructure, and marketing. You release your product. If this product fails, it's all on you. You absorb all the losses associated with that product.
- Now you have created a product that can and will be sold to as many people as possible. You even do things like take a loss on the hardware to enable you to come in at a price that would allow you to sell as many consoles as possible.
- The cornerstone of this business model is that you make money from the actual sales of software on your platform.
- Then someone comes along, decides they want to tap into the users on the platform you have created, but also decides they don't want you getting a dime from them and they instead make all the money?
How is that fair?
An argument can be made that publishers can push for platform holders to take less money from them, but you will find that platform holders would require certain things from the publisher in turn (again, it's a business) eg.. fine, we will drop what we take from you for every game sold from30% to 5%, as long as you make your game exclusive to our platform.
That just how it works, and its a fair system.
