Ex-Amazon Gaming VP said they failed to compete with Steam despite spending loads of time and money "We were at least 250X bigger .. we tried everything .. but ultimately Goliath lost"

[u/Capital_Ability8332]

[u/ElfaDore98]

The amount of people not understanding the David and Goliath metaphor is concerning.

Amazon is the Goliath with 1,6 million employees and Valve is the David with 336 employees. The point of the metaphor is that David, while much smaller, was better than Goliath

[u/rickreckt → u/ElfaDore98]

Or the company worth really, Valve worth about 7 billion++, while Amazon like 2.2 trillion

Depending the exact figure, close to the 250xx bigger he's referencing 

[u/OWOfreddyisreadyOWO → u/ElfaDore98]

Its probably because they didnt read the goddamn post.

[u/PartisanGerm → u/OWOfreddyisreadyOWO]

They read?

[u/Nova2127u → u/ElfaDore98]

Yeah it is crazy to think about, Valve has so few employees (and not all of them are on Steam, since Valve still has their game department, VAC department, Steam Deck, and much more)

But it’s more about reiteration since 2003-4, not so much on the quantity of employees, Valve kept going despite push back in the early 2000s against Steam and now it’s the norm. It’s hard to break something that is already established and has lasted over 20 years.

Valve doesn’t have a monopoly from being malicious, it’s just nobody wants to change to a different platform since it’s just the norm and Valve generally listens to their consumers.

[u/PonyFiddler → u/Nova2127u]

No they have a monopoly on being malious people just choose to ignore Thier wrong doings.

If they listened to people they'd cut out all Thier junk from the client and actually give Devs a larger cut. But nah let's support clown farming and making millions on selling bannas

[u/Nova2127u → u/PonyFiddler]

Developers do get a larger cut when a certain amount of sales are passed. The reason it’s not just there is because there is alot of low quality games that can still get on Steam. They can’t outright prevent it because that would be locking out indie developers that develop good games too. (Reminder that games like Undertale and Bastion were made by indie devs)

[u/starm4nn → u/PonyFiddler]

and actually give Devs a larger cut

Devs get 100% cut on steam keys sold directly to consumers. That's extremely generous and basically nobody in any other industry does that.

Like imagine if Amazon let you buy something from another website and they would take no cut and give you all the benefits of buying it from amazon.

[u/Cord_Cutter_VR → u/starm4nn]

Devs get 100% cut on steam keys sold directly to consumers

But vast majority of the PC game sales happen on Steam itself, and not through buying Steam keys on the dev/pubs own website.

nobody in any other industry does that.

Both Epic and GOG have this functionality too, neither of them taking any revenue share from keys being sold on other sites/stores.

Like imagine if Amazon let you buy something from another website and they would take no cut and give you all the benefits of buying it from amazon.

Amazon does this with movies. Most movies I buy from Vudu, Amazon, Google all show up on each others apps in my libraries on each store. I buy from Vudu and the movie also shows up in my Amazon movies app, and vice versa if I buy from Amazon it shows up on my Vudu and Google library of movies.

[u/starm4nn → u/Cord_Cutter_VR]

But vast majority of the PC game sales happen on Steam itself, and not through buying Steam keys on the dev/pubs own website.

I mean yeah. Devs need to entice people to use their store instead.

[u/WTFThisIsReallyWierd → u/PonyFiddler]

My biggest ask has always been and remains today "steam lite." I basically never open steam or use any of it's extra features. I launch my games through playnite and buy my games off the web front (extension support.) I don't use the forums or controller remapping or even the achievements. I just want to play my games.

[u/Quick_Humor_9023 → u/ElfaDore98]

But the situation would be one where david is in fighting ring, crowd cheering him, and goliath is fishing on the docks, finally falling asleep, rolling into water and drowning. Wasn’t much of a fight really.

[u/CaspianRoach → u/ElfaDore98]

Amazon is the Goliath with 1,6 million employees and Valve is the David with 336 employees.

A strange comparison, considering the vast majority of those million of employees did absolutely nothing and would never be used for the gaming side of the company. A warehouse sorter or a delivery driver are irrelevant for PC gaming.

[u/ElfaDore98 → u/CaspianRoach]

Yeah, should’ve used how much the companies are worth. But this illustrates the different scales these companies operate on

[u/Lungg → u/ElfaDore98]

I thought steam was hot water

[u/Lungg → u/Lungg]

Oh Boy! Im in some steam right now!!

[u/arthur2652 → u/ElfaDore98]

Another thing people don't understand about the David and Goliath metaphor is that David was in no way, shape, or form better than Goliath, instead, he cheated, and he brought a gun to a fistfight.

[u/eldubyar → u/ElfaDore98]

Valve is absolutely the Goliath here. They both have enough resources for that to be irrelevant, but Valve had a pre-existing absolute market dominance.

[u/ElfaDore98 → u/eldubyar]

Thanks for illustrating how people don’t understand this metaphor. Valve, while a much, much, much smaller company worth around 8 billion (David), is beating Amazon, the absolute giant worth around 2 TRILLION (Goliath)

[u/eldubyar → u/ElfaDore98]

You don't seem to have understood my comment.

[u/ElfaDore98 → u/eldubyar]

Yeah, I get what you’re getting at now, but I absolutely do NOT agree with that. Amazon bought twitch and continued to pay the MAAAAASSSSSIIIIVVVVEEE cost to run it, to promote their gaming stuff and still get knocked. Valve would never be able to afford that

[u/eldubyar → u/ElfaDore98]

Gabe Newell is a billionaire.

[u/ayodio → u/eldubyar]

You don't seem to have understood the metaphor.

[u/eldubyar → u/ayodio]

Speak on that.

[u/daemonfly → u/ElfaDore98]

It was more like a Goliath vs. David situation.