http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/tencent-we-game/

Grand Dad 14 on PC when?

nice find

Don't know about dethroning Steam. But Tencent is a powerful company in China that holds popular web properties. What this really means is that if it takes off, Steam will likely lose it's China market share, and other companies looking to make inroads into providing similar services in the Chinese Asian market, will face pretty tough competition.

Not sure this is a good thing, aren't the Chinese super drm pro due to rampant piracy? Replacing one rentware store with a more restrictive rentware store isn't going to help consumers.

Competition should drive down prices and give consumers more voice, however.

They are a Communist dictatorship. Leaving your house comes with DRM. :P

Don't worry, it's not going to be so easy up-heaving all the other western providers. As, you said, if I'm a Steam user, what's in it for me, that would make me want to jump ship? More DRM? You gotta be joking. This mostly concerns the Chinese market, which doesn't really affect us.

There's not much down where they can go and it's not Valve who sets the prices.

I guess the North Korean version of Steam failed at launch.

http://mrwgifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ba-Dum-Tsss-With-Harley-Quinn-On-The-Drums-In-Batman-The-Animated-Series.gif

This. Competition and more choices for customers are about the only positive aspects of this, at least from the view of western gamers. I doubt they'll be any better than Steam, though, or anywhere nearly as open and customer-friendly as GOG. Besides, it looks like they'll focus primarily on the Asian market ( for now ).

Interesting. I guess more competition is always good.

I wonder though what will be their angle, how to make non-Chinese buy from them, instead of e.g. Steam? Will they have important games that Steam won't (ie. how EA Origin has tried to compete with Steam), or will it somehow offer a better service (how?), or will it sell games just cheaper, with lower margins than Valve?

They are also probably fairly unfamiliar with the Western market, and I suspect they will make a lot of rookie mistakes.
Competition is good, and Steam can use a good kick in the butt,but I am not sure this company will be much more scuessful in competing with Steam then other companies, have.

Good luck. What I'm interested in are the games they are going to offer and who is on board with them.

Some Chinese companies seem to have skyrocketed also in the west, like that Alibaba or whatever it is. It is simply that they sell stuff so cheaply. I keep hearing these stories that you buy some cadget from Alibaba and it costs maybe 1€, including the delivery to your door... Heck, sign me in! Cheap cheap cheap, buy before you die! I am more accustomed to having to pay my arm and a leg for the "handling and delivery" to Finland alone, so I can't understand how Alibaba does it.

And then there are places like Amazon with their "delivery only to US/UK", ok then you don't get a customer from me in that case. F U, Amazon.

Not sure if this new Steam competitor can similarly compete with much lower prices, and we have Humble Bundle already. But let's see.