Cover Games in the Platform Economy
Games in the Platform Economy
Steam’s Tangled Markets

6: Shaping Market Interactions on the Steam Platform

Publication Date:
29 Sep 2023
Pages:
79–91
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51952/9781529223064.ch006
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In Chapter 2, I introduced the notion of ‘platform configurations’ to cover the development of game platforms across the previous four decades. I observe that it is not just the game platforms themselves that have changed but also the very concept of ‘platform’, which has altered its meaning from signifying a computational system to signifying large market actors in Big Tech. Thus, the notion of ‘platform configurations’ includes the platform as a standardized computing system along with another range of factors that constitute contemporary platforms, such as market orders, ownership structures, and value chains. The specific role of the platform as a standardized computing system varies across these configurations from being primarily development and publishing devices to including storefronts and shaping multi-sided markets. The latter involves that platforms are strategically designed to shape market interactions (Srnicek, 2017) in ways that serve the economic interest of the platform owner. In the current chapter, I will analyse in more detail how this is specifically done by the Steam platform, that is, I will analyse the way the platform’s API allows third-party actors to operate on the platform through a critical reading of the documentation. The aim is to map and discuss the ways in which the different contexts of economic exchange are made available as sets of strategic design choices by the platform design, more specifically, through the Steamworks API.

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  • Valve (2020) Half-Life: Alyx. Digital game distributed by Valve.

  • Valve and Gearbox Software (1998) Half-Life. Digital game distributed by Sierra online and Valve.

  • Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment (2012) Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Digital game distributed by Valve.

  • Verant Interactive and 989 Studios (1999) Everquest. Digital game distributed by Sony Entertainment and Ubisoft.

  • VRChat Inc. (2017) VRChat. Virtual Wordl distributed by VRChat Inc.

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