As the games industry struggles to compete against other entertainment, as well as its own free-to-play sector, for people’s time and money, games marketing analyst Chris Zukowski posits that developers’ saving grace is Steam.
In a recent blog post (via GamesRadar), Zukowski argues that Valve has cracked the problem that other entertainment services like Netflix have where success is measured by the time consumers are engaging with content. That is because gamers aren’t just consumers, but collectors.
“The power of Steam as a platform is that it enables hoarding,” he writes, comparing gaming with other hobbies–whether that is Lego, Warhammer, or knitting–that is made up a diehard audience that are “very interested in a subject and doesn’t worry about how much money they are spending on it.”
