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Debunking the grey market beyond Steam
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But there *is* competition in PC gaming, GOGA, EGS, and Prime (and others) exist. One player being dominant isn't an issue if that player isn't being anticompetitive. The closest thing I've seen is the policy that you can't sell for less than on Steam, while allowing for sales to happen separately from on Steam. Publishers can even generate keys for free and sell them without any profit sharing elsewhere, and customers can still use those keys on Steam. EGS is acting more like a monopoly than Steam and undercuts Steam on fees, Prime bundles its services, and Microsoft has an inexpensive subscription for unlimited games, yet Steam is still more popular. Why? People prefer Steam's service, and publishers are willing to pay a premium to sell on Steam, all without anticompetitive behavior. Valve is a shining example of how to handle having a commanding market share: they invest in their products so customers want to stay.Steam has about 90% market share. That’s a monopoly even if niche competition exists.
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Steam has about 90% market share. That’s a monopoly even if niche competition exists.Sure, and that's because: 1. Nobody bothered competing with them for years 2. Those that did eventually compete didn't get anywhere near feature parity I think EGS and GOG could get most of Steam's features with 2-3 years of solid development effort, but instead EGS whines about Steam having unfair market share and GOG just refuses to innovate on their client. That's not Valve's fault, what is in their control is whether they use their market position to kill off competitors, and they don't do that.
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ITT: People saying Steam is bad and a monopoly, no I won't name reasons why. Do your research.> …no I won’t name the reasons why. Do your research Oh. Oh no. I will explain the reasons why, because it’s important to understand this without sounding like the antivax equivalent of a white knight. First, forget the word monopoly. It’s a red herring. We are going to talk about *trusts*. A trust is any kind of organizational structure (one *or more* companies) that control or seek to control a market through centralized leadership. Trusts can *lead* to monopolies, but they are distinct and do not need to be (and rarely are) monopolies. The key defining feature of a trust is the use of market capture strategies that are unethical, anti-competitive, clandestine, underhanded, etc (“legal” or not). Valve is neither a monopoly nor a trust, by definition. While they control a huge portion of the PC gaming market, they operate with transparency, do not sabotage competitors, share their technology freely with potential competitors, and do not push any anti-competitive policies (like exclusives, rules preventing offering products cheaper on other outlets, etc). There is healthy competition in the PC game space, but Valve has held the lead by offering the best, most attractive platform for *consumers*. From social features and integrations, to regular discounts and sales, to a healthy and robust community review system, to automatically elevating great new content that might otherwise be missed, to enabling new platforms and technologies (VR, Steam Deck, Linux)… they provide things that customers and sellers love. Compare their competition. GOG is great but their DRM free policies (which are great) limit their use by sellers. Publishers all have their own stores now, but those are unattractive for a wide variety of reasons - splitting your library, using even more proprietary software to access your content (new stores and launchers), and for all that inconvenience you don’t even get a discount when Valve isn’t taking a cut. Finally, there’s Epic. Market share is Epic’s game to lose, and they are losing on their own merits. Their product lacks basic consumer features that Steam users expect (social features, performant storefront, trustworthy reviews, etc) and they *have* repeatedly engaged in anti-competitive behavior through the use of exclusives. At one point, Stardock’s Impulse platform was well on its way to becoming a legitimate competitor, but then came the fateful decision to sell out to GameStop, who destroyed it. Steam is no monopoly or trust. They are simply successful because they are well liked and they are well liked because they give customers and sellers what they want. Nobody else is even trying to compete with Steam right now. Epic could, but they aren’t, and only Tim Sweeny could tell you why.
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> …no I won’t name the reasons why. Do your research Oh. Oh no. I will explain the reasons why, because it’s important to understand this without sounding like the antivax equivalent of a white knight. First, forget the word monopoly. It’s a red herring. We are going to talk about *trusts*. A trust is any kind of organizational structure (one *or more* companies) that control or seek to control a market through centralized leadership. Trusts can *lead* to monopolies, but they are distinct and do not need to be (and rarely are) monopolies. The key defining feature of a trust is the use of market capture strategies that are unethical, anti-competitive, clandestine, underhanded, etc (“legal” or not). Valve is neither a monopoly nor a trust, by definition. While they control a huge portion of the PC gaming market, they operate with transparency, do not sabotage competitors, share their technology freely with potential competitors, and do not push any anti-competitive policies (like exclusives, rules preventing offering products cheaper on other outlets, etc). There is healthy competition in the PC game space, but Valve has held the lead by offering the best, most attractive platform for *consumers*. From social features and integrations, to regular discounts and sales, to a healthy and robust community review system, to automatically elevating great new content that might otherwise be missed, to enabling new platforms and technologies (VR, Steam Deck, Linux)… they provide things that customers and sellers love. Compare their competition. GOG is great but their DRM free policies (which are great) limit their use by sellers. Publishers all have their own stores now, but those are unattractive for a wide variety of reasons - splitting your library, using even more proprietary software to access your content (new stores and launchers), and for all that inconvenience you don’t even get a discount when Valve isn’t taking a cut. Finally, there’s Epic. Market share is Epic’s game to lose, and they are losing on their own merits. Their product lacks basic consumer features that Steam users expect (social features, performant storefront, trustworthy reviews, etc) and they *have* repeatedly engaged in anti-competitive behavior through the use of exclusives. At one point, Stardock’s Impulse platform was well on its way to becoming a legitimate competitor, but then came the fateful decision to sell out to GameStop, who destroyed it. Steam is no monopoly or trust. They are simply successful because they are well liked and they are well liked because they give customers and sellers what they want. Nobody else is even trying to compete with Steam right now. Epic could, but they aren’t, and only Tim Sweeny could tell you why.
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I would take a shitty store with 10% cut if it had all the games Steam does and if I could take my games with me. I don’t care for what Steam provides but I have no choice.
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Is there a monopoly though? Other store fronts exist. They are usable and often sell the same games. It's not Nestle owning half the food options in every food store, this is whole foods, vs all the other grocery stores. You can get game pass and stream your games and never own them past your subscription lasts. Or the Microsoft game store which isn't great but exists. GOG gives you installers and has big games on it. Fanatical, GMG, Humble Bundle, are all store fronts. You could even consider Nintendo and PlayStation to have their own game storefronts while needing their hardware. Is Steam a monopoly?It is not a monopoly. It’s not even a trust. A business being successful on it’s own merits, which does not engage in anti-competitive behavior, which even helps its competitors, is neither a trust nor monopolistic. Disliking something for no reason other than being popular is just being a contrarian. If Valve started behaving anti-competitively, particularly toward underdogs like GOG, the masses would turn on them like sharks in chum-filled water.
