who are you I am St there are dozens of game launchers and marketplaces available right now a handful of them exist because they have extremely popular games on them and want to maximize their profit without a middleman one of them gives away two free games every week and steam just exists and wins well it's actually a lot more complicated than that despite the service being old enough to drink in America and suffering from almost every AAA gaming company out there trying to outdo it steam still rains is the ultimate gaming marketplace with 132 million average users each month but when the service first launched it was nothing like the steam we know in love today in the early 2000s valve faced a serious problem with their games which was updating them it wasn't the development of the updates that was the problem it was getting players to download the updated files that sucked for everybody to make sure you could play with everybody else you had to go on valve servers and download the files from there which was pretty inconvenient since you couldn't have the update automatically installed for when you get back from work woke up in the morning or returned from going outside for the first time in centuries because you were too busy playing Star Wars nights with the Republic and on that day September 12th 2003 steam released for the convenience of mostly Counter-Strike players all around the world and the service continued to be used as a spot where people could play valve's games and it's not like their games weren't good enough to justify having a separate app for them they were insane for the time and even if you go back in your library and play halflife 2 in the modern day it's still a fun experience because of its physics based gameplay don't drink the water they put something in it to make you forget it's safer watch it will you Ambience soundtrack Barney and Luscious water Reflections at this point in valve's lifespan they had already changed the industry in ways nobody could have anticipated Grand Theft Auto San Andreas has a few different versions of it on the PlayStation 2 because Rockstar couldn't just update the game through digital distribution and instead had a physically re-release the game without anybody knowing and this happened quite a few times among a bunch of different physical titles but because of valve's New Creation which was steam updating games Post Release it was finally possible through that service and to this day valve keeps their games even from 20 years ago up to date using that feature steam was made for I sure wish other companies would keep their older games up to date instead of just letting them decay under the weight of new drivers while keeping them at an $80 price tag aside from my gripes and cries of grief steam was flying from the early to late 2000s getting more games from more Publishers all the time and eventually it became the PC game storefront claiming 75% of digital video game sales in 2013 however steam also took and takes 30% of a game's cut when it gets purchased look at that so if you pay $90 for a video game the developer will only get 63 of those dollars now it can be debated whether this is good or bad but one thing's for certain it's the industry standard the PlayStation and Xbox digital storefronts take a 30% cut of profits and so does Nintendo GameStop sh in basically every single service except the epic games store but it's not all sunshine and rainbows the epic games launcher has its own problem and it's that the launcher just isn't very good steam is so convenient and I'm not talking about how it has a way bigger game Library than epic I'm talking about its overlay while playing video games as somebody with one Monitor and a completionist steam offers a fantastic variety of digital gadgets that I can access anytime I click shift and tab I can have a website open with every dream catcher location in Red Dead 2 that I check every time I get to my next Waypoint I can manually change what each button on my controller does I can find a community guide that can help me with an achievement steam has been around for over 20 years and in this time it's built a strong community that exists to help other people using the platform if you're having a problem with a game chances are there's already a few steam Forums on that subject and if you don't have anybody to play with chances are there's a steam group surrounding the game you want to play if you don't know whether a game is good or not Steam Reviews have your back but if you go to the Epic store to make a purchase and look for what people thought about the product the only thing you can check is this bag one to five star system influenced by what the players thought out of five the problem with this system is that it might work for YouTubers who can elaborate with a whole 8-minute video but video games are so complex from Level design and storytelling to the controls and optimization you can't just rank a game from 1 to five as someone with well over a 100 games on Steam user reviews have saved my ass multiple times that warned me about certain computer parts that might not work well with the game's engine or just a dragged out story that loses its touch halfway through the game on the epic game store Assassin's Creed Valhalla is rated 4.6 stars out of five and reded Redemption 2 is rated 4.9 I hate to be that guy that's very sure about his opinion but I am very sure in my opinion in believing that Assassin's Creed Valhalla is in no way only 0.3 Stars worse than Red Dead 2 but how is someone using the service supposed to know that because there's nothing to base it on other than what the Stars say steam also heavily encourages player customization which makes playing games through Steam even more worth it because if you get a really cool or rare achievement you can display it on your profile or when you get a smexy screenshot you can slap it on your page and some games offer exclusive profile picture and background displays that make you want to play for those bonuses I think it's amazing there's even a user oriented Marketplace like how in pubg if you don't like a shirt you got chances are another player will so you can throw it on the marketplace and get a few cents from it then you go back to the epic games launcher to check on your friend and there's nothing to that person except a username but steam gives everybody a sense of true individuality which is without a doubt great to have in unlike PlayStation which makes you pay to change your username or Nintendo that barely lets you express yourself on your profile it's probably the best gaming platform for customization but even though steam is awesome for consumers it's clearly not as awesome for developers so naturally a lot of AAA Studios pulled away from Steam and instead released their games on Epic or even their own launchers when Ubisoft publicly announced they wouldn't be releasing Tom Clancy's The Division 2 on Steam and would be releasing it on their own launch launcher in Epic they claimed we entrust epic to deliver a smooth Journey for our fans from pre-ordering the game and enjoying our beta to the launch epic continues to disrupt the video game industry and their thirdparty digital distribution model is the latest example and something Ubisoft wants to support Electronic Arts for a long time didn't have their games on Steam as well but that wasn't because of epic games being a superior platform it was because EA wanted to push microtransactions and didn't want valve taking a 30% cut from each one while both companies at one point weren't releasing their games on Steam if you check the store today you'll find pretty much every single one of their titles up for sale so what the hell happened Call of Duty Modern Warfare from 2019 didn't release on Steam and instead was up for sale on blizzards launcher Battle.net Modern Warfare 2019 reached $1 billion in sales revenue after 54 days of being out Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 from 2022 which was released on Steam 2 reached the same sales number 10 days after launch ubisoft's newest game Assassin's Creed Shadows is as of March 27 back in 2025 sitting right under CSO in the top sellers section of the store and considering counter- strike is a free game that's pretty damn impressive and for the last 5 years or so PlayStation exclusives that would never have seen the light of day on PC have been launched on Steam and Xbox also jumped on that train as well throwing pretty much every Halo game on PC the numbers say it all it doesn't matter if epic games takes a 12% cut opposed to 30 steam is such a popular platform among consumers that developers will make more money releasing their games on Steam no matter what what because let's face it it's for consumers an awesome service the other day I was browsing Steam and I saw a bundle of four games that were 25% off if you bought them through a package well 6 years ago I had already purchased three of the four games individually but because I hadn't got the fourth game I could still buy it through that bundle for 25% off Shifting the price from a steep $80 to a much more agreeable $60 this is such an unnecessary but wonderful feature for customers to have valve does not need to push discounts this much to be massively successful but they do just because steam's that kind of marketplace every few months there will be a new huge sale where almost every video game over 4 years of age goes under $40 in Canada inv valve games usually go for less than $2 and hell for the anniversaries they gave them away for free steam has even banned games that Force players to watch ads before progressing like a lot of mobile games do valve could have easily taken 30% of the ad Revenue but instead they banned the practice altogether just because of how inconvenient it is for the player while steam certainly takes a sizable chunk out of the developer pocket when it comes to game sales I'm happy that out of all the services that could be the top dog it's steam because valve is setting a standard of what a Marketplace should be think about Nintendo that never puts their games on sale and charges a monthly fee if you want to play their older titles instead of just archiving them in the eShop imagine if they were behind the biggest digital game store in the world it would be way different because the fact is the one on top influences everyone else fortnite didn't invent the battle pass but it sure as hell wasn't a coincidence that after fortnite implemented the seasonal leveling system a lot of other games out of their own including massive companies like Rockstar with the outlaw pass and redit online Xbox Live launched in 2002 offering an online multiplayer console experience if you paid $50 a year and prior to this online gaming on PC at least was completely free and thank God it still is because now PlayStation and Nintendo also capitalize big time on paid multiplayer because of Xbox's influence in the early 2000s it's like valve is given every opportunity to monetize their products to the brim like every other gaming company is doing right now but they don't which allows them to stand out in the corporate world it also helps that valve's hiring process is very unique and that they don't offer internships or Junior positions they exclusively hire Professionals in their field so the employees can take charge of whatever they're best at so there's a reason why halflife stood out when it came to physics in the early 2000s because the game was made by computer Wizards who knew everything they needed to create an authentic physics-based shooter steam is run by marketing professionals who do what they believe is best based on pure experience unlike most companies valve is no pressure from shareholders meaning there's no external Investments going into steam their video games or Hardware it's all entirely in-house and the only people who get stock options for valve are the employees themselves which gives each member a small piece of the company so naturally every single one of them wants the company to be at its best all the time the fact is when you treat your employees well and give them the creative freedom they deserve whatever your company puts out is going to be amazing and valve is living proof of that my favorite example of valve as a company standing out in the game industry was in 2004 when Eric wpaw was diagnosed with ulcerative kitis with something that bad he thought he'd have to leave the company so he spoke with the CEO of valve Gabe nle about it not only did Gabe give him paid leave but he also left him his spot in the company on the condition that he takes the time he needs to recover to quote what Gabe said to him himself your job is to get better that is your job description at valve so go home to your wife and come back when you are better this kind of generosity in the corporate world especially from businesses that are self-funded is extremely rare and after recovering from his sickness he worked as the head writer for Portal 2 which as we all know was a massive success sorry this video is about steam with a platform like steam with over a 100 million people using it every month like I said at the start of the video you'd think the customer service would be pretty lackluster because of the amount of traffic the employees would be dealing with which by the way in total is between 300 to 500 people and roughly only 70 of those people are in the steam Department most people including myself have had overwhelmingly positive experiences with Steam support refunds are easy bug reports get taken seriously and I even had a friend whose account got hacked once and in 2 hours he had his account back with no other issues steam can't be beat because it's a staple of what a digital Market should be and if Val continues to run with their current values in business I'm sure that steam will continue to set an example and keep the industry from diving into a complete anti-consumer Market like all these other companies seem to be catering towards but what do you guys think about all this do you like steam do you hate steam let me know in the comments below and I'll check them out as soon as I possibly can as always thank you so much for taking time out of your day to watch this video and make sure to have a good one you look worse than I feel what are you doing that for what are you doing