In
a
surprisingly
refreshing
and
candid
post,
former
Amazon
Gaming
boss
Ethan
Evans
has
tackled
why
he
thinks
Amazon
failed
to
compete
properly
with
the
biggest
storefront
on
PC.

“We
were
at
least
250
times
bigger,
and
we
tried
everything,”

he
wrote.
“But
ultimately,
Goliath
lost.”
He’s
not
kidding:
compared
to
Amazon,
Vave
is
tiny,
although
as
a
private
company
Valve’s
actual
worth
can
only
be
estimated.

Evans
explains
the
company’s
earliest
attempts,
starting
with
Amazon
purchasing

PC
games
store
Reflexive
Entertainment
with
the
aim
of
simply
scaling
it
up.
This
“went
nowhere”
he
said.

The
second
attempt
was
when
Amazon
purchased
Twitch
and
created
a
storefront
for
it.

“Our
assumption
was
that
gamers
would
naturally
buy
from
us
because
they
were
already
using
Twitch.
Wrong,”
wrote
Evans.

Then
came
Amazon’s
third
attempt
at
conquering
the
PC
market
and
Steam,
this
time
in
the
form
of
Luna,
an
online
game
streaming
service.
Google
tried
something
similiar
with
Stadia,
but
as
Evans
admits,
neither
service”gained
significant
traction.”
Evans
goes
on
to
say
that
during
all
of
this,
“Steam
dominated
despite
being
a
relatively
small
company
(compared
to
Amazon
and
Google).” 

So
despite
al
the
cash
and
tech
that
Amazon
could
throw
at
the
problem,
why
couldn’t
it
crush
Steam?

“The
mistake
was
that
we
underestimated
what
made
consumers
use
Steam,”
said
Evans.
“It
was
a
store,
a
social
network,
a
library,
and
a
trophy
case
all
in
one.
And
it
worked
well.”

Evans
continued:
“At
Amazon,
we
assumed
that
size
and
visibility
would
be
enough
to
attract
customers,
but
we
underestimated
the
power
of
existing
user
habits.
We
never
validated
our
core
assumptions
before
investing
heavily
in
solutions.
The
truth
is
that
gamers
already
had
the
solution
to
their
problems,
and
they
weren’t
going
to
switch
platforms
just
because
a
new
one
was
available.

“We
needed
to
build
something
dramatically
better,
but
we
failed
to
do
so.
And
we
needed
to
validate
our
assumptions
about
our
customers
before
starting
to
build.
But
we
never
really
did
that
either.”

Steam
continues
to
trundle
along,
continuing
to
gain
more
and
more
users.
In
December
of
2024,
Valve
announced
that
Steam
had
yet
again
broken
one
of
its
own
records
by
attracted
39
million
concurrent
users.

Its
biggest
rival
is
probably
the
Epic
Games
Store
which
has
managed
to
attract
players
by
the
simple
strategy
of
throwing
free
games
at
them
constantly.
The
Epic
Store
does
actually
seem
to
be
doing
quite
well
for
itself
and
to
its
credit
takes
a
much
smaller
cut
of
a
game’s
price
than
Steam
does.
With
that
said,
it
still
lacks
many
of
Steam’s
beloved
features
and
remains
looked
down
upon
by
the
PC
gaming
crowd.

Truthfully,
though,
even
if
the
Epic
store
were
a
match
for
Steam
it
still
wouldn’t
be
enough.
Valve
has
built
an
incredibly
loyal
following
through
Steam
of
people
who
genuinely
like
Valve
as
a
company.
People
appreciate
that
it
has
remained
private
and
therefore
able
to
focus
on
what
it
wants
like
making
random
hardware
and
fun
projects
like
triple-A
VR
games.
That
loyalty
along
with
people
already
owning
heaps
of
games
on
Steam
have
helped
it
remain
the
biggest
PC
store
around.

All
hail
Lord
Gaben.