Former Epic Games engineer Kieran Rich recently published a lengthy article criticizing Steam and Valve. He argues that regardless of how many competitors emerge in the market, Steam's current dominance is difficult to replace, directing criticism at the platform's impact on the PC gaming industry. Rich's core assessment is that Steam's user network effect has formed a nearly irreversible lock-in state, making it hard for alternative stores to shake players' usage habits even if they offer superior functionality.
Rich previously discussed Valve's revenue share model, noting that the company takes a 30% cut from game sales. He believes this fee nominally corresponds to Steam's infrastructure services, but "in reality, it is purely for gaining access to the massive Steam user base." PC developers have no choice but to publish through Steam, or they will lose the vast majority of their sales. He further points out that this 30% is "siphoned off into a black hole" from the PC gaming industry, arguing that Valve could lower distribution fees while maintaining healthy profit margins.
Summarizing his views, the quality of alternative stores themselves is not the entire issue; player attitudes toward platform competition also fall within his critique. Sweeney states, "Even if an alternative is objectively better by any standard, Steam users still won't be interested," further adding that competition is "not only irrelevant to most Steam users but actively disparaged." In his view, Steam users are precisely those "maintaining this unbreakable deadlock," yet they stand to benefit the most from a healthier game development ecosystem.
These statements represent Tim Sweeney's personal opinions as a former industry practitioner, not official statements from Epic Games, nor do they constitute evidence of any new objective changes in Steam's market position. Sweeney rates the technical barriers of the Steam client as low, describing them as "somewhere between 'not too difficult' and 'negligible,'" essentially a download service plus a payment processor with some additional features. However, he also acknowledges that even if someone were to create a better client, Steam users would still "love Steam and the experience of having all their libraries in one place."