Hacker News Reader

The Windows Store was introduced in 2012, 14 years ago, and promptly went nowhere; Gabe Newell is ex-Microsoft himself and undoubtedly had a good understanding of how dim the prospects and how poor the execution was for it. Yet he persisted in pursuing the Steam Machine and Proton long after it was clear that the Windows Store was a flop.

If you want philanthropy (or perhaps not), Gabe Newell has $1 billion worth of yachts and research ships.

View on HN

So I dunno anything about Gaben’s actual motives, but I will say, I personally would not be assuaged just because the store flopped. The underlying problem is that Valve sells games, and games needed Windows, and that’s exactly the sort of dependent relationship that Microsoft (and others) use to extract value and dominate new markets. It makes sense to me that Valve looked at how hard it would be to break out of that, and decided that it would remain diligent regardless of how credible the immediate threat was.

Not a single one of the other gaming giants (Blizzard, EA, Epic, Activision, etc.) or marketplaces (Epic, GOG, etc.) who also depend on Windows bothered to counter this supposed threat? Doesn't sound like much of a threat then.

Really, they're probably more displeased about the Valve near-monopoly as a marketplace for Windows games than displeased about MS.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com