So, someone figured out that Gaben is rolling in cash right now. We could talk about that. But let's not. Instead, I want to talk about the retards crying about Steam having a "monopoly". And by the retards, I mean other video game stores.
So, motherfuckers, let's talk. You say Steam has a monopoly on PC games. Not only is that wrong, since plenty of places still sell PC games, and other online services like GOG have sprouted up, but it's obviously trying to obfuscate the truth: The reason Steam took such a large portion of the market is because they offer a good service. I mean, consumers had to fight tooth and nail to get digital distribution to finally become a thing, and not just in the video game market, but in film, music, books, etc. The physical format peddlers did everything they could to prevent the appearance of digital distribution, and it's only because a handful of people too stubborn to let lawsuits stop them just kept going that we have it right now. Steam was one of those enterprises.
Now, I want you to realize something: Steam began offering the possibility of refunds less than a year ago. They've had security issues. They've brought DRM to the next level. And despite all its failings, Steam is still superior to the alternatives, and has been for well over a decade now. Why is that? Simple: They aim to make money by providing a service as well as possible instead of trying to screw consumers out of as much money as possible.
Seriously, that's it. I haven't been to a place like Gamestop in years, but I don't recall them ever, EVER having sales. They would sell used, scratched to hell copies of a game at 95% of the full price after giving back 5% of the full price to the person who returned it. Steam doesn't harass me with extended warranty bullshit either. I don't have to leave my house and bother with traffic and noisy kids to get a copy. In fact, I don't have to worry about them being out of copies. None of that "Expect 50 sales, send 20 copies" bullshit publishers used to pull. They don't pull games from their "shelves" because of regressive fucktards either. And despite the DRM, all my single player games are available offline, unless the publisher made it unavailable, in which case that's on them, not Steam.
Steam has a semi-monopoly on PC games because for over a decade, none of you bothered to try and do better. I mean the first true competitor Steam got in the digital distribution game was Origin, which sucked complete and utter ass and only gained some traction because it was forced on people for some games. The only half-decent competitor Steam got in the last few years is GOG for fuck's sake.
tldr: Quit bitching and start providing decent services to your customers and maybe you'll get a significant market share.