Former Epic Engineer Says Steam's PC Gaming Lead Is Too Entrenched to Dislodge

Steam's position at the center of PC gaming has long been debated by developers, publishers, platform holders and players, but former Epic Games engineer Kiaran Ritchie has offered an especially blunt assessment of why competitors continue to struggle. In a lengthy social-media post published after discussing Valve's revenue share, Ritchie argued that no rival storefront is likely to remove Steam from its dominant position--not necessarily because Valve's software is impossible to reproduce, but because the audience has already committed to the ecosystem around it.

Ritchie's central argument is that a competing platform could be superior on paper and still fail to attract the players most invested in Steam. He contends that many users regard an alternative store less as a welcome choice and more as a disruption to the library, routines and social features they have built over years. In that view, a store's technical speed, lower fees or cleaner interface may matter far less than the fact that Steam is where a substantial portion of a customer's games already live.

The comments arrive amid Epic's long-running efforts to challenge the economics and influence of major digital marketplaces. Epic has repeatedly criticized the commissions charged by platform owners, including Valve's commonly cited 30% top-tier cut on game sales. That critique has also extended to mobile storefronts, where Epic has fought major legal and policy battles involving Apple and Google in an effort to change distribution rules and bring Fortnite back to broader mobile access.

A Storefront Problem That Is Bigger Than Storefront Technology

Ritchie does not portray the basic idea of a PC game client as an unsolvable engineering project. His argument is almost the opposite: he suggested that much of the core infrastructure is comparatively straightforward in an era when cloud services can handle major backend requirements. Downloading games, processing payments and adding supporting services are all capabilities that other companies can build or buy.

For useful background on this topic, read Former Xbox COO Helen Chiang Denies Rumors Surrounding Microsoft Departure.

But building software that functions is very different from building a destination that players feel reluctant to leave. Steam has spent decades becoming more than a purchase screen. For many PC players, it is the launcher that contains a back catalog stretching across hardware upgrades and operating-system changes. It is also a place for wishlists, seasonal promotions, achievements, trading cards, community pages, user reviews, friend lists, cloud saves, workshop tools, mod support and other features whose importance can vary from game to game.

No individual feature necessarily explains Steam's reach. A player may not care about cards, while another rarely uses achievements. Some users might only open the client to install a game. Yet the combination is significant: the platform is familiar, dependable and connected to previous purchases. Ritchie's point is that this accumulation of conveniences and history creates a barrier that is difficult for a new or existing competitor to overcome.

That barrier is especially strong because digital libraries cannot be easily moved from one storefront to another. A person who owns hundreds of games on Steam is not merely choosing between two checkout pages when a new release arrives. They may be deciding whether to split their collection across another launcher, another friends ecosystem and another set of account tools. Even players who have no particular affection for Valve may see consolidation as the less complicated option.

Why Player Habits Matter to Epic's Challenge

Epic Games has made no secret of its interest in reducing the power of established storefronts. The company's dispute with Apple and Google became one of the most prominent fights over app-store rules in the games business. Epic was ordered to pay Apple $6 million in the course of its legal fight, while its case involving Google produced a favorable outcome for Epic. Those campaigns were driven by concerns over payment restrictions, platform fees and the ability of developers to reach customers on their own terms.

On PC, Epic has also operated the Epic Games Store as a direct alternative to Steam. Its strategy has included offering free games, securing major releases and exclusives at different points, and emphasizing a lower standard revenue share for developers. More recently, Epic chief executive Tim Sweeney highlighted work on a version of the Epic Games Store that launches more quickly than Steam.

Faster startup performance is a meaningful quality-of-life improvement, particularly for users who want immediate access to their library instead of waiting through a lengthy client launch. Still, Ritchie's assessment is that a speed advantage alone is unlikely to alter the market in a major way. If users believe Steam already meets their needs, improvements at a rival service may be viewed as nice additions rather than reasons to change their buying habits.

This is one of the awkward realities of platform competition. Consumers frequently say they want more choice, lower prices and fewer restrictions. At the same time, fragmentation can create its own frustrations. PC players may already use several launchers because a particular title is exclusive to one service, included with a subscription elsewhere or tied to a publisher's own account system. The prospect of adding yet another launcher can make Steam's all-in-one appeal even stronger.

The Debate Over Valve's Revenue Share

Ritchie's criticism is not simply about consumer preference. He connects Steam's staying power to the amount of money Valve collects from sales made through its marketplace. In his view, the industry consequence of Steam's entrenched position is that a major share of gross revenue is drawn away from developers and publishers. That is the core of the dispute: whether Valve's commission is justified by the value of its platform, tools, reach and services, or whether its scale lets it retain an outsized portion of money that could otherwise support game creation.

Valve's standard 30% revenue share has become a familiar reference point in debates over digital storefronts. Steam also has a tiered arrangement under which the percentage changes for games that reach certain revenue thresholds. Critics nevertheless often focus on the headline figure, arguing that digital distribution should be less expensive than it was when platform holders had to support physical retail, manufacturing and boxed-game logistics.

Supporters of Steam's position can point to a different calculation. A storefront is not only bandwidth and a payment processor. It involves fraud prevention, regional pricing, refunds, customer support systems, discoverability tools, content delivery, account security, multiplayer-related services for some games, moderation challenges and the enormous task of maintaining a platform used around the world. Developers also gain access to an established audience that is already accustomed to shopping there.

Neither side of that argument is likely to disappear soon. The disagreement is partly about cost, but it is also about bargaining power. A developer with a game that can succeed anywhere may have more room to negotiate or self-distribute. A smaller studio trying to reach a large audience may see Steam's visibility and customer familiarity as valuable enough to accept the fee. The practical answer will differ from one project to the next.

Steam's Strength Is Trust as Much as Scale

Ritchie's remarks also put attention on something less measurable than feature lists: trust. Steam users know what to expect when they buy a game there. They understand where it will appear, how it will update and how it will fit beside the rest of their collection. That familiarity is built through repeated use, and it can be difficult for a rival to replace with a promotional campaign or a better launcher benchmark.

There is also a network effect at work. Friends can see what one another are playing. Communities gather around game hubs. Workshop content and guides can become part of the routine for titles that support them. Developers have learned to use Steam's tools and storefront visibility systems, even as many also criticize discoverability pressures on a marketplace with an immense volume of releases. Each additional participant can make the platform more useful to the next.

That does not mean competitors are irrelevant. Rival stores can pressure Valve to improve features, reconsider policies and compete for developer support. They can provide alternatives for publishers that want different commercial terms. They can also make PC distribution more resilient by ensuring that no single client is the only practical route to market. Competition can matter even if it does not produce a new market leader.

Ritchie's position is simply that "unseating" Steam is a far higher bar than offering another place to buy PC games. It would require changing deeply established consumer behavior while persuading customers to value a new service more than the convenience of keeping everything together. That is a challenge shaped by years of purchases and social investment, not just app design.

What This Means for PC Players

For players, the continuing rivalry could still bring benefits regardless of whether Steam loses its lead. Competition can encourage better launch performance, improved libraries, more consumer-friendly policies, different sales strategies and better terms for studios. Epic's pressure on digital-store economics has helped keep the revenue-share debate in public view, while Valve's scale continues to set expectations for the breadth of services a PC storefront can offer.

For now, though, Ritchie's comments capture a reality that is visible every time a major PC release announces its storefront plans: Steam remains the default reference point. A rival can have strong technology, developer incentives and high-profile games, but it must still contend with the fact that many players already see Valve's platform as the home of their PC library.

That loyalty may frustrate companies seeking a more competitive market, especially those who believe the prevailing revenue share is too high. But it also explains why Steam's dominance cannot be reduced to a question of who has the fastest client. The hard part is not creating another launcher. The hard part is convincing millions of players that the one they have trusted for years is no longer enough.