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this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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Is Steam really a monopoly when Valve doesn't try to stifle competition and no other company could be bothered (besides maybe GOG) to make a half decent store?
It is a monopoly - they just don't abuse it as much against their audience.
For developers it's either take their 30% deal or just don't sell your game because a lot of people only use steam.
Not even Cyberpunk or the Witcher could sell more on gog than on steam even though you knew that there the developers got 100% of the money spent. Gwent standalone flopped so hard on GOG that it had to be rereleased with limited features on steam and sold more there
People are just fundamentally lazy so it totally is a problem that you have one store with such a massive market share even if it's very convenient for the end-user they can completely exploit their position against publishers.
Sure EPICs way of making games exclusive to their store is not elegant but without that no-one would choose that store over steam
I am not sure if it's just people being lazy. Steam legitimately is a good gaming platform. It just has so many features that really bring the PC platform to the level of consoles in terms of UX. Social features, discussion boards, reviews, matchmaking, chat, broadcasting, remote streaming, all this alongside a kickass store. That's why Valve could roll out something like Steam OS and not have it feel woefully inadequate compared to what consoles offer.
Don't forget notes for games, steam workshop, and for those of us open source enthusiasts, making easy/reliable gaming on Linux. It has never been so good being a Linux gamer.
Tell me a game store that supports Linux out of the box (not messing with wine stuff or lutris)
This is partially on these companies for failing to provide an equal experience to Steam on their platform. I bought Witcher III in GoG to support the devs, and my reward was a lost save by the time the DLCs came out, because their client didn’t have cloud saves. So guess where I bought their stuff from there on? Sure, they added these features later but for some people the damage is already done.
If you're so sure Steam is a monopoly, can you please provide any evidence for that? To be clear, being very successful does not make someone a monopolist.
If Valve were a monopolist, they'd be listed here: https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/commission-designates-six-gatekeepers-under-digital-markets-act-2023-09-06_en
They account for about 75% of game sales on PC from what I'm finding, it's a "virtual monopoly", i.e. they have enough reach to control the market even if they have competitors.
75% of the units sold or 75% of the overall revemue. Given that the most successful PC games aren't even on Steam, the latter seems unlikely to me. Roblox alone is a sustained revenue stream in insanely high numbers.
Do they block the competition in any way? They aren't the stewards of Windows. Epic buys exclusive rights to games. Does Valve do the same? On Steam Deck, there's even an entire independent app store (Discover with Flathub) enabled right out of the box. That's how the community made Minecraft and Heroic Game Launcher available. Official EGS, GamePass, and GOG launchers could be made available via Flathub but MS etc. choose not to.
Yeah, to say a successful business is a monopoly because it is far reaching is absurd.
Call me when Good-Old-Epic-Steam launches.
One can have a monopoly without directly trying for it. Especially when it comes to services with a lot infrastructure involved. Once you make those investments, it's hard for anyone to compete against them.
A monopoly just means you control a significant amount of the market. I think, technically, they would fall under oligopoly. Where a few businesses have control of the market instead of just a single business. But the point is they have a far larger share of the market than most others. This is mostly because they create a product that people want to use, instead of making a service that unfairly captures the market through things like game exclusivity or hostile takeovers.
But when the EU recently announced service gatekeepers, Valve was not among them. Microsoft is.
It's a monopoly, but it's one that a big company like EA or Epic Games can defeat. But, they have to actually put in the work and effort to present an experience that isn't an enshittified version of Steam.
So far, none of them are willing to put in the time, so they don't get the prize.
Most gamers don't know and/or don't care, so they will take the least resistance path, which is Steam.
~~Steam has a "most favoured nation clause" which prevents companies from actually selling for cheaper on other platform. This is how steam maintains its monopoly. If it were possible for CD Projekt Red to sell it cheaper outside of steam it would force steam to actually charge developers less.~~
Edit: see below, it's actually not that clear.
They could sell for cheaper, they just can't sell Steam Keys specifically for cheaper than what's on Steam itself. Which makes sense honestly, you're literally using their service for both presence and distribution.
Looking at steam's own policies, this is true for steam keys, but there is an an going lawsuit that claims steam also makes this apply to non steam-enabled games: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/valve-issues-scathing-reply-over-the-facts-behind-a-steam-antitrust-case/
But looking mosre closely than I did previously this is based on:
So I don't really know, but if what valve says is true (which looks like it is), then I don't see any monopoly abuse indeed.
They do have a monopoly, but it's in large part for providing a better service. As a Linux user, I prefer Valve 100% over Epic that buys Rocket league and discontinues linux support. I do prefer Itch and GOG for the possibility of no-DRM games, but I've got to say it's overall a worse experience (no auto updates, no social features etc...)
I made my initial comment after watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOEG5qmMQas which suggested that Steam applied the MFN for non steam - enabled games too, but was done prior to Valve's response.
Many years ago I bought some old DOS game where Linux runtimes using the original files exists on GOG. What I expected was a disk image or a zip containing the files - what I got was some exe containing the files. Why would I ever try to buy something from someone fucking up something that simple again?
I might buy some indie games from a developer directly - but with a middleman steam is the only option.
They are a monopoly because they.....provide the best most fair platform. Also why would linux users support ubisoft or epic.
Most fair? 🤔 Epic's cut on the sale is lower than Valve's...
And yet they charge the same amount...
Seems they use that as a way to get developers to join them, then guilt consumers into using their less useful platform.
Ironically this is actually an example of Valve using its dominant marketshare to suppress rivals - Steam's ToS require devs to have equivalent pricing across all storefronts if they want to sell on Steam at all, so making it harder for cheaper storefront cuts to translate to lower prices to consumers, who might otherwise move to a different storefront.
Devs aren't going to drop Steam as a store, so they're stuck.
It's not ideal, but I'd say the reason they require equivalent pricing is, so that people don't just use Steam as a marketing platform, while diverting all sales to their personal website where they sell the game for $X cheaper.
Yeah I do understand the reasoning and honestly can't fault them for it - they are a for-profit company after all.
Doesn't mean that it's not a good example of them throwing their weight around (which is admittedly rare).
It's a perfect example of them abusing their position in the market. But since you're a valve cultist, you make up a bunch of weak excuses for it. If epic or ms did the same thing you'd blow a gasket.
Do you have a source for that claim that doesn’t reference the sale of Steam keys specifically?
The reason it's the same price on Steam and Epic is that Steam prevents the sale on their platform if the game is sold for cheaper on other platforms...
I would also gladly increase the developer's profit instead of the platform's profit if the price is the same on both as I don't use all the extra crap that Steam comes with...
Games that are Epic exclusive aren't cheaper either. This is a nonsense argument.
As a user and not a developer, idgaf. Steam gives me features, EGS doesn't.
Only because EGS is trying to take market share, not because of the goodness of their own hearts.
So what? That's also the only reason valve supports Linux.
And thereby fighting the Windows monopoly.
No, it's not a monopoly. They aren't even a gatekeeper as defined recently by the EU.
The most successful PC games (Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox) aren't even on Steam.
That doesn't mean anything. Jesus Christ these arguments that valve isn't a monopoly are just so incredibly weak. They've created a fucking cult.
Wrong, the US has antritrust laws and you can bet your bottom dollar that epic would have sued them already if they had any ground to do so.
One aspect through which one could argue that they might stifle competition is their price parity rule, for which it seems they are being sued. See here (not sure if there is any new development.
Hard to compete with steam if you cant at least do it through lower pricing. Although this article suggests that at least for epic exclusives publisher seem to prefer to just pocket the difference, rather than pass on those savings.
Isn't that just saying you can't sell access to a game on steam (through a steam key) for a lower price than what's on Steam? It's not like they can't just offer a lower price... just that they can't offer it for a lower price bundled with Steam access.
So they can offer a lower price, just not as a third party through Steam itself.
I think you are right, the first article I linked was a bit ambiguous about it, but rereading the second one it seems that I misunderstood it and you are right.
No it means that if the game is for sale on Steam then it can be sold elsewhere (GOG, EPIC...) but it's in the contract with Steam that it can't be sold for a lower price elsewhere, it's not about Steam keys sold by third party vendors.
Even if they are considered a 'monolopy' it seems like people haven't thought that we are the ones that have thrown our money at Valve and it is the ONLY reason why they are in the position they're in now. They offer a fantastic service to the gaming community and Valve is supposed to apologise for that? I'm not aware of any abuses within their own company that has contributed to their success or any anti-competitive behaviour?
Yes. Nothing you said doesn't change the fact it's a monopoly. Sure, it might not be a Microsoft-level-evil monopoly, and as far as monopolies go, this is probably the best one, but it's still a monopoly.
I think it's better to reframe the question as "Are there downsides to Valve's PC market dominance?" or "How is Steam's 30% cut different from Xbox or Playstation?"
For the latter: it's worth noting that Microsoft and Sony sell their hardware at a loss, and make up the difference through software, so there are obvious developer benefits to the 70-30 split. For Steam, the equivalent value-add for developers is only the platform itself, and I would wager for many of those developers the biggest reason for selling on Steam is not the feature set - though obviously useful - but because that's where the users are.
So, users get a feature-rich distribution platform, and developers (and by extension users) pay a tax to access those users. So the question is, how fair is that tax, and what effect does that tax have on the games that get made? Your view on that is going to depend on what you want from Steam, but more relevant I think is how much Steam costs to operate. How much of that 30% cut feeds back into Steam? My guess is not much; though I could be wrong.
But anyway, let's imagine you took away half the 30% cut. Where does that money go? Well, one of two places: either your pocket, or the developers (or publishers) pocket (depending on how the change affects pricing). The benefits to your pocket are obvious, but what if developers just charge the same price? Well, as far as I'm aware, a lot of games are just not profitable - I read somewhere that for every 10 games, 7 fail, 2 break even, and 1 is a huge success - so my personal view is that this is an industry where developers need all the help they can get. If that extra 15% helps them stay afloat long enough to put out the next thing without selling their soul to Microsoft or Sony or whoever is buying up companies these days, and Steam isn't severely negatively impacted, I'd call that a win.
But of course, that won't happen, because Steam has no reason to change. That's where the users are, and they are fine with the status quo.
I think you undersell how feature rich steam is for both users and developers.
They offer community forums, reviews, mods through workshop, cloud saves, automatic controller support, openish vr ecosystem (epic cant even do vr, if you buy a vr game you likely need to use steamvr anyway), broad payment and currency options, regional pricing and guidelines, remote play, and more I'm sure.
This is much more feature rich than even console platforms, so I think the 30% fee is justified.
And they do this all without really locking down their ecosystem.
Don't forget how far they've advanced Linux gaming and hardware
A private monopoly or virtual monopoly is always bad for consumers.