Amazon Tried to Beat Steam for Over 15 Years Without Success — Former Prime Gaming CEO Reveals What Went Wrong

Since its debut in 2003, digital store Steam has gone from a hack for playing Half-Life 2 to a people’s platform. As it turns out, Amazon has been trying to displace Valve’s service from its leading position for 15 years, but has failed time and time again.

Image source: Valve

Former Amazon Prime Gaming vice president Ethan Evans explained on his LinkedIn page why Amazon, being “250 times larger” than Valve, still lost to it.

According to Evans, after 15 years of trying, Amazon’s management has not figured out the secret of Steam’s popularity and has not been able to push Valve’s service aside, despite the steps taken to do so:

  • The purchase of a small digital store, Reflexive Entertainment, with the aim of developing it – the initiative did not go far;
  • Creating its own digital store on PC following the acquisition of Twitch – Amazon mistakenly expected gamers to switch to it, since they already use Twitch;
  • Development of the cloud gaming service Luna, which, like Google’s Stadia, did not gain much popularity.

While Amazon Tried to Displace Steam, Valve’s Service Continued to Dominate the Market

Evans said Amazon’s biggest mistake was failing to understand why consumers choose Steam: “It’s a store, a social network, a library, and a trophy showcase all rolled into one. And it all worked well.”

«The truth is that gamers already had a solution to their problems, and they weren’t going to change platforms just because a new one came out. We needed to create something significantly better, and we failed,” Evans lamented.

Amazon thought its size and visibility were enough to attract users, but it underestimated the power of their habits.

«”Just because [your company] is big enough to build something doesn’t mean people will use it. Looking back on my mistakes, I realized how important it is to deeply understand your customers before making big moves,” Evans concluded.

In the comments to the post, Evans also acknowledged that “it’s easy to underestimate Steam (Valve).” Despite its modest size, Valve’s profitability per employee is even higher than Google, Microsoft, or Amazon.

admin

Share
Published by
admin

Recent Posts

MSI MPG Infinite X3 AI 2nd System Unit Review: All That’s Left to Do Is Play

As part of the expansion of the diversity of the "Laptops and PCs" section, it's…

24 hours ago

Curator Deflects Largest DDoS Botnet in History with 4.6 Million Devices

Curator (formerly Qrator Labs) reported successfully neutralizing the largest DDoS botnet ever observed, consisting of…

24 hours ago

Gigabyte Introduces AORUS Z890 Tachyon ICE Motherboard Without Conventional DIMM Slots — Only CAMM2

Gigabyte has unveiled the AORUS Z890 Tachyon ICE motherboard at Computex 2025, which features CAMM2…

24 hours ago

Trump tariffs will break the internet, analysts fear

The trade war started by Donald Trump, involving almost all countries in the world, threatens…

24 hours ago

Google has started filling its AI Mode search with unstoppable ads

Google has begun testing ads in its new AI-powered search feature, AI Mode. Now, when…

24 hours ago

SnowRunner creators’ ‘revolutionary’ RoadCraft simulator earns ‘mixed’ reviews on Steam release

As promised, the “revolutionary” construction simulator RoadCraft from Saber Interactive (SnowRunner, Expeditions: A MudRunner Game)…

2 days ago