aka: once again a dev says the quiet part out loud and gamers everywhere nod in exhausted agreement

Steam discourse has once again returned to the timeline, and—surprise!—it’s messy, brutal, and accidentally hilarious.

So here’s the setup: a new survey dropped claiming 72% of developers believe Steam is basically a monopoly, or at least functions like one. Cue the usual debates about Valve’s dominance, the Epic Games Store’s eternal exclusivity hunger, GOG’s preservation crusade, and whether anyone will ever dethrone the big storefront in the sky.

And then Michael Douse, publishing head over at Larian Studios (yes, the Baldur’s Gate 3 people who accidentally made one of the most influential RPGs of the decade), quote-replies on X with the bluntest assessment of the year:

“It’s almost as if it isn’t providing a shit service defined by public shareholder KPIs.”

I swear you could hear the entire indie dev community exhale like “finally someone said it.”

basically: Steam wins by… not being terrible?

Douse’s point isn’t complicated. Steam’s success, in his view, comes from offering a functional, reliable, stable platform that doesn’t prioritize quarterly shareholder demands over user experience.

There’s no mysterious algorithm. No secret sauce. No NFT marketplace experiment gone wrong.
Just:

• a storefront that works,
• policies that (mostly) don’t light your studio on fire,
• and a userbase that doesn’t have to fight the launcher every time they want to play Vampire Survivors.

Wild how rare that is.

the Gabe Newell dread is real

Someone else in the thread asked a very real question: what happens to Steam after Gabe Newell eventually leaves?
Douse responded instantly and honestly:

“A post-Gabe world is a terrifying one.”

And you know what? Fair. Gabe is basically the cryptid CEO gamers actually like. When he disappears into the void, we all lose something—possibly Steam’s sanity.

meanwhile: the harsh reality of releasing games on Steam in 2025

Here’s where the news gets bleak:

• 40% of Steam games released this year made less than $100.
  That means they didn’t even break even on the $100 Steam listing fee.
  Imagine working on a game for months and the platform says, “thanks for the $60 loss, champ.”
• 20% of 2025 releases disclosed using generative AI, which is an 800% increase from 2024.
  The AI tide is rising and it’s coming for Early Access before anything else.

This is the modern PC gaming ecosystem: Steam is simultaneously the best place to launch and the graveyard of a thousand unnoticed passion projects.

why people keep coming back to Valve’s kingdom

Love it or hate it, Steam has:

• the biggest audience
• the most consistent UX
• the deep library everyone has built for years
• the Deck ecosystem + Proton magic
• the least intrusive launcher experience
• a storefront that doesn’t break into a million pieces every other patch

Other stores exist, yes. But “exists” ≠ “is good.”

And that’s basically Douse’s thesis: Steam isn’t a monopoly because it traps everyone — it’s a monopoly because it’s not a clown show.

final vibes

Whether you agree with him or not, Douse’s statement hit a nerve because it reflects what most developers and players feel: the bar for digital game stores is very, very low… and somehow Steam is the only one consistently stepping over it.

Tags:
#gamingnews #steam #valve #gaben #baldursgate3 #larianstudios #industrytalk #pcgaming #gamingdiscourse #tumblrnews #steamonfire