Steam is on a warpath

Summary

Steam has become a powerhouse in the video game industry, wielding significant influence over how games are marketed and sold. They've made substantial strides in consumer protection, ensuring fair play in an industry often criticized for its lack of regulation. By fostering a player-first environment, Steam has established itself not only as a leading digital game distributor but also as a critical watchdog forcing publishers to adhere to higher standards. Steam's continuous success story is a testament to its user-friendly policies and strong community trust.

Highlights

• Steam is championing consumer rights by enforcing transparent policies and holding game publishers accountable. ⚖️
• Amazon attempted to challenge Steam's dominance but failed due to underestimating existing user loyalty. 😅
• Steam has been instrumental in setting industry regulations due to a lack of broader governmental oversight. 🕵️
• Valve, owner of Steam, is praised for understanding gamer needs, unlike other mega-corporations. 🎮
• Steam's player-centric approach has helped them grow enormously, even crossing 40 million concurrent users. 🚀
• The launch of Steam China has significantly boosted their growth, tapping into a massive consumer base. 🇨🇳

Key Takeaways

• Steam is a powerhouse in the gaming industry, actively setting consumer-friendly standards. 🌟
• Amazon failed against Steam due to a lack of understanding of player habits and loyalty. Oops! 😬
• Valve, through Steam, strictly upholds transparency, forcing fair play in the gaming market. 🚦
• Steam's approach contrasts sharply with other platforms focusing mainly on profits rather than community. 🤑
• As a result of these practices, Steam's growth is unstoppable right now, especially with international expansions. 🌍

Overview

Steam has become a force to reckon with in the video game industry, setting regulations and standards that many other platforms shy away from. Unlike competitors who focus solely on profit, Steam's player-first mentality creates a haven for gamers who value transparency and fairness. This approach isn't just talk—Valve's insistence on full disclosure of AI content and banning intrusive ads is reshaping how games are marketed and sold.

Despite its size, Amazon, along with several others, has tried and failed to outdo Steam. The reason? A fundamental misunderstanding of gamer loyalty and the intrinsic value of community. Steam continues to appeal to players by offering them full control and respect, standing as a testament to how a business model centered around its consumers can thrive in a profit-driven world.

Valve backs this player-friendly atmosphere further by expanding internationally with initiatives like Steam China. This has opened up the platform to even more players, boosting its user numbers to record highs. The future of Steam looks incredibly bright as they continue to innovate and protect their community with integrity and focus.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Steam's Influence The chapter discusses a cultural revolution in the video game industry influenced by Steam, a platform that allows players to have a voice in a way that is not seen elsewhere. While this influence by Steam is more passive than active, its impact is significant as it sets standards and regulations that other publishers must follow. This influence has led to an increase in Steam's popularity.
• 01:00 - 02:30: Amazon's Failure Against Steam The chapter discusses the dynamics of Amazon's competition with Steam, highlighting Steam's regulatory influence in the gaming industry. Despite Steam's significant power, which raises concerns about market dominance, the platform's self-imposed consumer protections are noted. These measures are significant in an industry that lacks widespread regulation. The chapter suggests that Steam's actions are driven by a commitment to its audience and compares the struggle within an industry often at odds with itself.
• 02:30 - 04:00: PC Gaming Growth and Steam's Position This chapter discusses the significant growth and success of PC gaming, focusing on Steam's dominant position in the industry. It highlights Steam's achievement of reaching 40 million concurrent players and its influence, even against large companies like Amazon and Activision Blizzard. The chapter argues that if Steam were to ever face a competitor, it could have been Amazon, given its financial resources, infrastructure, and potential for integrating with Twitch. However, currently, Steam remains unchallenged as a leader in PC gaming.
• 04:00 - 06:00: Steam's Consumer and Developer Policies Ethan Evans, a former Amazon VP, reflects on Amazon's failed attempt to compete with Steam, despite being significantly larger. Evans admits that their size did not translate to success. A piece from Michael Hogland highlights these insights, emphasizing that being big doesn't guarantee usage or success in the market.
• 06:00 - 08:00: Transparency and Industry Impact In the chapter titled 'Transparency and Industry Impact,' the focus is on comparing market shares of companies, particularly highlighting the dominance of companies like Amazon and Steam in their respective sectors. It discusses how Steam has maintained an unprecedented share of the PC market, likening its position to that of a Goliath. The chapter also features an admission by an individual named Ethan, who acknowledges a misunderstanding when challenging Amazon. He assumed that the company's vast size and visibility would naturally attract customers but failed to account for the power of established user habits and did not properly validate his core assumption. This reflects a lesson in the importance of understanding consumer behavior and validating assumptions in business strategies.
• 08:00 - 10:00: Steam's Unique Market Position The chapter discusses how gamers are unlikely to switch platforms due to their existing investment in the form of purchased games, achievements, friends, and game hours. It highlights the misunderstanding of user habits by outsiders who do not fully grasp the dynamics of the gaming industry and player loyalty. It implies the failure of other platforms to recognize the stronghold Steam has due to these factors.
• 10:00 - 12:00: Steam's Role as an Industry Regulator The chapter discusses the role of Steam as a crucial regulator within the gaming industry. It highlights players' frustrations with large corporate entities that fail to consider the player's perspective. The narrative emphasizes that companies like Amazon attempted to enter the PC gaming market without acknowledging why players gravitate towards Steam. Steam is portrayed not just as a storefront but as a platform based on trust, distinguishing it from other large corporations focused solely on quarterly profits.
• 12:00 - 13:00: Conclusion and Community Engagement In the chapter 'Conclusion and Community Engagement', the discussion focuses on how successful gaming companies like 'Ste' prioritize understanding their audience and fostering meaningful interactions over just profit. Unlike Amazon's unsuccessful attempt to enter the gaming market with a lackluster service, companies that treat their ecosystem as a community rather than just a source of revenue manage to thrive. This approach emphasizes providing real tools for developers and fair play experiences for users, enhancing their relevance and untouchability in the competitive gaming market.

Steam is on a warpath Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 there's very much been a cultural revolution within the video game industry between the players and the Publishers and the media and a lot of it has been platformed off of Steam not actively so to say more passively than anything else because it's one of the only places it's one of the only platforms where the customer still has a voice and that voice can be heard we just don't see that in a lot of other places and I don't think a lot of people have picked up on this but not only has stee been getting more popular they've been on a war path they've been setting up rules and regulations for all of these other Publishers to follow and if
• 00:30 - 01:00 they don't fall in line well then they're not going to be on Steam and these guys want to be on Steam and I realize that a lot of people are going to push back and say that's a lot of power for one company to have and you're absolutely right in that but from my perspective they've also become our deao legislators in an industry that is wildly underregulation they are putting Consumer Protections in place in an industry where those consumer protections don't exist and why are they doing it well it's because they value Their audience we've had plenty of conversations about an industry at war
• 01:00 - 01:30 with its own audience well this is the last Bastion of that industry where they still care about us so from hitting 40 million concurrent players on Steam and exposing Activision Blizzard to beating Amazon and not even knowing it today what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the continued success of steam and how they're drawing battle lines nobody wants to cross if steam was ever going to have a competitor it would have been Amazon because they have the money the infrastructure the twitch Integrations they could do to be able ble to create something massive but
• 01:30 - 02:00 instead they threw billions at a problem and made nothing a former Amazon executive admitted as much in a recent article from window Central written by Michael hogland titled Amazon adits defeat to steam his former VP declares we were 250 times bigger but Goliath lost just because you're big enough to build something doesn't mean people will use it Michael writes in a LinkedIn post Ethan Evans recalls his lost esteem when he led the division we were at least 250 times bigger and we tried everything but ultimately Goliath lost that's an interesting choice of words when you
• 02:00 - 02:30 compare market share while it's true Amazon by itself is a company that vastly outsized steam no other company has ever held a portion of the PC market like steam has to me they've always been Goliath it's just been other goliaths coming to battle them with similar tools and identical features but a simple change of attire Ethan admits to misunderstanding what it took to take on the giant at Amazon we assumed that size and visibility would be enough to attract customers but we underestimated the power of existing user habits we never validated our core assumption
• 02:30 - 03:00 before investing heavily in Solutions the truth is Gamers already had a solution to their problems that they weren't going to switch to another platform just because the new one was available when a person is happy they don't go look elsewhere because something else is available when a player has a large library of games achievements friends and hours spent on a product platform what's the reason for them to shift beep boop beep boop does not compute we fail to understand user habits these suits are complete Bots failing to understand anything about the industry the games or the players just
• 03:00 - 03:30 one time I want to hear these guys say something that genuinely reflects the perspective of the players just one time I want them to put themselves in the player shoes they were so close saying Gamers already have a solution the issue is these suits don't understand the problem being solved is them Amazon thought that they could brute force their way into the PC gaming space but they never understood why people use steam in the first place ste's not just a storefront it's a platform that's built on trust valve isn't some faceless Mega Corporation chasing ing quarterly
• 03:30 - 04:00 earnings reports it's a company ran by people who actually understand games when they make changes it's almost always in the favor of the developer or the player they give developers real tools they don't try to nickel and dime their players they treat the ecosystem like a living thing not a cash register meanwhile Amazon thought that they could just throw some money at twitch streamers slap together a launcher and all of a sudden compete with steam but they were wrong nobody cared nobody wanted to use Amazon's half-ass gaming service even with all of their unlimited money they still couldn't buy relevance and that's why Ste is Untouchable it's
• 04:00 - 04:30 not about the games it's about how the platform treats you and unlike every other company within this industry valve doesn't treat its customers like walking ATMs Amazon failed epic failed Ubisoft failed every single competitor who has tried to take on Steam has failed and it's because valve actually respects their customers imagine that a company that doesn't hate us you know I'll be honest with you guys if it wasn't for me actually reading these headlines I wouldn't even have known that Amazon even had a storefront That's how little people were talking about it that's how little people were interested in anything of other than Steam and steam
• 04:30 - 05:00 success isn't going to be stopping anytime soon because it's part of a much bigger shift in this industry PC gaming is growing faster than ever and the data proves it as reported by IGN in an article titled steam tops 40 million concurrent players for the first time as we all jump in to play Monster Hunter Wilds Vicky Blake reports steam the most popular digital game distributor for PC players has once again broke its own concurrent user record breaching 40 million concurrent players for the first time over the weekend which just so happened to coincide with monster hunter Wilds launch on Friday February 28th
• 05:00 - 05:30 steam loged 4,270 n97 simultaneous players breaking its previous record of 39.9 million players set in February 2025 in fact according to steamdb steam's concurrent record seen by some as a way of measuring the success of valve's digital platform has been broken almost every single month since May 2024 with a concurrent Peak rising from 35.5 million players to 40.2 million in just 6 months
• 05:30 - 06:00 so now let's put all this into perspective steam isn't just growing it's growing faster than ever while gaming platforms are struggling with engagement loss live service failures and subscription fatigue while steam is doing the exact opposite every single month their records keep breaking every year their foothold in the industry gets stronger and that's because PC gaming isn't slowing down it's accelerating consoles used to be the convenient option plug it in Press Start and play but that illusion has started to crack NextGen console Hardware launched with big promises but what did the players actually get 30 FPS modes aggressive
• 06:00 - 06:30 upscaling missing features and all the while these platforms have done little to improve the customer experience I mean we have people that are buying the hardware outright subscribing to play online using the internet they already own and they're being filtered into a limited ecosystem of games where their reviews mean nothing they're being bombarded with ads on their dashboard and they're locked out of basic features what exactly are these people playing for of course they're going to start going to PC and then we have streaming culture because more players aren't just
• 06:30 - 07:00 playing games anymore they're creating content they're streaming on Twitch editing clips for YouTube and engaging with gaming in ways that well consoles just simply weren't built for the steam deck has made a huge difference as well this is one of the smartest things that valve has ever done because it's not just a handheld PC it's a bridge it pulled in console players who had never touched steam before and once they saw what was possible no paid subscriptions for online full access to an entire library of games the ability to tweak and mod things whenever you want to why would you go back more games fewer
• 07:00 - 07:30 restrictions steam doesn't have the same Walled Garden nonsense that PlayStation Nintendo and Xbox do Early Access thrives here Indie Games have a real shot at success modding is alive and well and valve isn't strong arming developers into exclusivity deals and trying to push a storefront that nobody wants but arguably the biggest Catalyst for steam's recent success is actually the launch of steam China back in 2021 while initially the adoption rate was pretty slow we've seen with the launch of black myth Wukong and more recently Monster Hunter Wilds just how much of an
• 07:30 - 08:00 impact that can have I myself am welcoming my Chinese Brethren into the fold because these guys do not put up with poor optimization did you guys know that most of the negative reviews on Monster Hunter Wilds were written in simplified Chinese steam now has access to one of the biggest consumer markets in the entire world with a population of 1.4 billion people that's going to have an effect the numbers don't lie PC gaming isn't just growing it's pulling in players away from consoles and steam is leading the charge not because
• 08:00 - 08:30 they're trying to force anybody's hand but because at the end of the day they don't need to when given a choice players choose Steam and that says everything and steam's only going to get bigger especially because of steam China because we've already seen that month after month we're going to see more and more of these Chinese games release and we saw the effect of Blackmouth Wukong and how many players that brought into the ecosystem and with some of these Chinese games they are going to be coming out they're going to get National support and that's going to act like a bullhorn that's going to bring in more Western players they're going to be attracted to that game and how popular it is that how this thing continues to
• 08:30 - 09:00 work and other than Gog see I mentioned Gog praise me in the comments I don't see any reason for me to use any other platform that's out there because none of them are as consumer friendly and as convenient as Steam is sure I realize that that's monopolistic but I really like it when a monopoly works for me and that's exactly what steam does steam works for me at a glance I can see everything that I want to about a game I can see how many people are playing it I can see what people are saying about it I can see
• 09:00 - 09:30 screenshots or the trailers or people streaming it they have streams right on Steam I can see what contents included in the version I want to buy maybe it's included in a bundle or maybe it's on sale it'll put up in big bold yellow text whether or not it has any type of third party software like DRM or whatever else it might be if I don't like it within two hours I can return it no questions asked and you just do not have those things on any other platform not a single one of them
• 09:30 - 10:00 it makes no sense to me how any of these companies would try to compete with steam if they will not compete on their terms if you are not trying to iterate on the things that make Steam successful the reason why people go to steam in the first place then why are you even trying all you're doing is wasting time and money because every single month that you're not doing what they do the players are buying more games on Steam they're becoming more invested on that platform and it's getting even more popular and you won't stand a chance but I think that's the critical issue it's not that they don't understand why Steam
• 10:00 - 10:30 Works or why steam is popular it's that they hate that it does because they hate how userfriendly it is they hate how much control and how much transparency it has they hate how much control the players have how much Choice the players have and they really don't like the fact that they have to operate on steam's terms instead of their own steam isn't just a storefront it's an industry Watchdog and that becomes more obvious every year Activision Blizzard recently tried to to sneak in AI generated art
• 10:30 - 11:00 into Call of Duty without telling anyone letting players assume that they were paying for real handcrafted content until steam's latest policy forced them to come clean as of 2025 steam requires full transparency if a game contains AI generated content it has to be disclosed upfront AI itself isn't necessarily the issue I don't think that players are necessarily against it but I think that players are against paying more for Less AI should in theory lower costs and improve efficiency yet somehow Publishers are using it to cut corners
• 11:00 - 11:30 while still charging premium prices that's what players hate not that AI exists but that it's being used to shortcut and pump out lazy overpriced content and if steam hadn't stepped in Publishers would have kept pretending like it wasn't happening at all and this isn't the first time that valve has forced Publishers to play fair in 2024 EA openly discussed adding in-game advertisements one of the most profitable ways to be able to nickel and dime your customers at the expense of their experience but steam shut it down immediately they Bann Force advertisements in games just just like that while other companies may see
• 11:30 - 12:00 gaming as another passive entertainment platform to monetize like streaming services valve made it clear players should not have to sit through a commercial break to play a game that they paid for don't wonder Sony's been so hesitant to move to steam I'm sure they'd love to cash in on that ad patent they've been sitting on but if that wasn't enough and this is something we've talked about in a previous video Val also cracked down on one of the biggest publisher scams selling season passes in DLC with no intention on delivering the content on time for years developers have been getting away with promising post-launch expansions
• 12:00 - 12:30 collecting money up front and either delaying their content indefinitely Or just canceling it all together but steam changed the rules now if a developer misses their content or their DLC deadline and they don't notify steam of the delay steam will automatically refund players no waiting no arguing just instant refunds name another platform that does that you can't but what really pisses off these Publishers About Steam isn't their policies it's their transparency valve actually gives the players the information they need before making a purchase and that's a
• 12:30 - 13:00 serious threat to an industry that's built on hype artificial scarcity and manufactured popularity taking current player data for example steam lets players see exactly how many people are playing a game in real time a feature that Ubisoft reportedly wanted to see them remove but it's obvious why they would want to have it gone Publishers do not want you to see the actual numbers they want you listening to journalists to tell you that the game is popular but on Steam you don't have to take anyone's word for it you can go see the numbers yourself you can go see if a live service game is thriving or barely
• 13:00 - 13:30 hanging on you can decide if it's worth investing your money into or if it's already a ghost town that won't last another 6 months and that's a problem because this directly conflicts with their financial goals these companies have no problem making players spend money before they eventually pull the plug and they have no issue gaslighting players into believing a game is Alive and Well when it's not you know what else directly impacts their sales or at least should reviews and nothing forces Publishers to be more honest than steam's review system this isn't just a feature it's one of the most powerful forces in gaming a single bad decision
• 13:30 - 14:00 can sink your game overnight when Sony tried to force in PlayStation logins into hell divers 2 Steam players review bomb the game so hard that Sony backtracked in record time this wouldn't have happened on any other platform but on Steam negative reviews can actually affect sales which means developers can't ignore them and it's not just PC players that are checking out these Steam Reviews console players are relying on them too because let's be honest gaming journalism is dead IGN Kotaku Gamespot these Outlets have turned into nothing more than mouthpieces handing out nine out of 10
• 14:00 - 14:30 scores to garbage half baited games dismissing Real Player concerns and treating criticism like it's toxic nobody trusts them anymore players aren't going to waste their time and money based on some paid for Metacritic score instead they're going to go check out steam because that's the place where real unfiltered player opinions actually matter steamless players organize and warn each other unlike other platforms that try to suppress discussions that might hurt their sales steam allows open unmoderated discussions take sweet baby detected as an example a group that
• 14:30 - 15:00 tracks a specific game consultancy agency that was involved with writing different games whether you agree with them or not players deserve the right to know who is shaping their games and if they want to buy something that they are involved in the gaming press wanted steam to shut it down developers tried to call for its removal but valve they didn't cave they didn't censor it they left it up here's the truth steam doesn't just compete with these other storefronts it is regulating the entire industry anytime stee makes a change or bans something entirely these Publishers and devel Vel opers have to fall in line
• 15:00 - 15:30 otherwise they're not going to have their games on the biggest platform in the world and with how hard it's been for some of these companies to actually profit off of some of their games they cannot afford to not be on Steam that's why steam is such a threat to Modern gaming it exists in direct opposition to everything that these big Publishers have been wanting it's too user friendly it gives players too much control it's too transparent and it forces them to play fair and that's why these companies keep trying so hard to replace it epic burned billions trying to make a competitor Amazon before they even got started Ubisoft EA and a bunch of other
• 15:30 - 16:00 Publishers have abandoned their own PC launchers because nobody wanted them every attempt to take Steam down has failed and why is that well that's because when given a choice players are always going to choose Freedom over control and that's why they're choosing steam valve isn't just another faceless Corporation it still operates like a game developer it's not run by Marketing Executives or analyst that don't play games it's run by people who actually understand video games they make video games that's why Steam has a clear identity and one that prioritizes the
• 16:00 - 16:30 players over the Publishers and that's why every single competitor is going to fail Amazon epic Xbox EA Ubisoft every single one of these PC platforms was built by people who only put profits first and players second they don't understand their audience because they aren't Their audience but steam steam is different it was built for the players and because of that valve is the only company that is actually regulating the industry I for one am completely happy that we have Steam on our side and they are the ones that are laying out the rules right now because if they weren't
• 16:30 - 17:00 doing it then nobody would because well you know in a lot of cases there's nobody that's actually trying to fight on our side legislatively it's governments and whatnot half these people are too old to really understand video games to begin with and they don't really care about it and even if they did well they just probably have some people that would Lobby against it and then it make it worse so yeah but there isn't a single company within this industry that could compete with steam and I say that with the utmost confidence because you have a company that one isn't publicly traded so
• 17:00 - 17:30 they're not being influenced by investors or trying to make money for other people they're just trying to make money for themselves and on top of that these guys make more money per employee than Apple and Google they're making more than enough money that they don't even care and the only way for them to make more money at least from their perspective is just to invite more players in and then protect that audience protect those customers because that's the way that they stay if you use them and abuse them well they're going to go they're going to go somewhere else
• 17:30 - 18:00 or something like that that's not what you want no no no no no that's the reason why when we look at steam Steam for the most part has been on autopilot they don't need to change anything they don't need to do anything to it you don't need to add anything other than video games more games for me to play and buy that's the reason why these guys are going back to making video games right now that's the reason why they're going and making a steam deck because they're making ways to invite more players into the ecosystem rather than milk the players that are already there that's how their vision is completely opposite for the rest of the entire industry because these guys are so
• 18:00 - 18:30 focused on trying to squeeze every drop out of whoever they have they end up scaring everybody else away including the people they're squeezing that doesn't work out in the long run now while valve is definitely betrayed us in the past I'm not going to pretend like they're a perfect company they are the ones that popularize loot boxes in a lot of ways from my perspective they're one of the very few that are still on our side and are still working for our best interest they're still working for us and that's the most
• 18:30 - 19:00 important thing well I think a lot of people believe that steam's going to change one day and fair enough all companies change things change it's how the world Works more than anything else you know this company is so small they make so much money they have 300 employees they have such a focused philosophy on video games and players and customers and their platform I don't see that going anywhere when you have a company that small with that strong a leadership that doesn't just disappear overnight that doesn't disappear when Gabe Newell leaves the company yes I
• 19:00 - 19:30 know we have a 62 62y old man that basically has the health and fairness of the entire video game industry Weighing on his shoulders but he doesn't really take me as the kind of guy that would just walk off and leave somebody else to burn it down you're likely going to pick somebody that's going to be a solid successor so yeah man these Publishers have to hate steam they are stomping all over every single dirty little nasty trick they want to pull and they're not going to get away with any of it not
• 19:30 - 20:00 unless they want to make money if you want to make money you better be on Steam anyway hope you guys enjoyed the video I enjoyed it thank you guys for watching share the video subscribe to the channel follow me on Twitch like the video comment on the video follow me on Twitter that is all I have for you today stay cool stay righteous stay safe I'll catch you in the next one peace family family family family