[svpk]

Key distinctions between Steam and similar contenders in other spaces (google play store, the apple app store) are that:

1. Steam isn't bundled with the OS, it must be installed.

2. Steam isn't a gatekeeper to installing software (as the app store is and in a somewhat different way as google has proposed doing with their plans to require app signing).

At least the US, and I assume most legal schemes, require an attempt to monopolize, simply being the best player in town isn't enough. Perhaps if the steam deck, etc. achieved a high level of market dominance you could argue that bundling steam was anticompetitive, but I don't see it yet.

[jorvi]

Valve has market power though, which is a key part of a monopoly.

If tomorrow Steam decided to charge 30% extra to developers with the stipulation that sticker price must equal that of outside Steam, developers wouldn't have much of a choice but to eat the cost, because PC gamers are extremely reluctant to leave their Steam library and features.

A good example of market power is Apple vs Spotify. When Apple launched Apple Music, they changed Music.app into Apple Music on every iDevice in the world, with a handy subscription pop-up the first time you launched it.

This was massively anti-competitive overreach despite Apple not technically being a monopolist. You can easily install Spotify, and Spotify was much bigger. Without making this move, Apple Music would have crashed and burned, but Apple basically forced themselves into the market, using their marketshare and user migration reluctance as a crowbar.

The fair competition thing to would have been to show a pop-up on first Apple Music app launch, asking "hey, would you like to try one of these streaming services?", and show Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and Deezer in a random order. Just like Microsoft and their browser pop-up.

Then again, aside from a decade of stagnation (2010-2020 Steam saw very few updates, until Valve started working on the Deck), Valve hasn't really abused their position. Gabe Newell famously said that piracy isn't a pricing problem, it's a service problem, and Valve is a private company, so as long as he is at the helm I assume Valve is going to continue delivering good service. After that.. who knows.

[TheDong]

The even more anti-competitive thing Apple does vs Spotify and all competitors is avoiding app store fees, while forcing all competitors to pay them.

To have the same profit, Spotify has to charge $13/mo when apple music charges $10/mo with all else being the same.

That's very obviously the App Store monopoly being used to give Apple Music a massive unfair advantage that is practically impossible to break through.

Steam does not have anything like that, if someone else decides to make "Epic Game Launcher" tomorrow for PC, that new company doesn't need to distribute it on the "Steam App Store" and pay valve 30% of all sales.

[Retric]

> To have the same profit, Spotify has to charge $13/mo when apple music charges $10/mo

Last I checked as long as an App Store is not handling subscriptions Apple doesn’t take a cut. Did that change?

[TheDong]

Yes, subscribing outside the app does avoid the cut. Which is why you can't subscribe to spotify in the iOS app, you have to open a browser: https://support.spotify.com/us/article/cant-subscribe-to-pre...

Until this year, Spotify couldn't even tell you in the iOS app that you could pay for premium: https://newsroom.spotify.com/2025-05-01/following-landmark-c...

This meant in apple music, the user could open the app and it would work including paid features.

In spotify, you could open the app and it would tell you "You can't subscribe here, sorry" and couldn't even link you to a webpage you could subscribe at.

I'm certain a non-zero number of users couldn't understand what to do with that apple-approved error and gave up.

Maybe there's a reason that apple lost in court for that one.

[Retric]

> subscribing outside the app does avoid the cut. > Maybe there’s a reason Apple lost in court for that one.

The App Store as a sales channel isn’t a monopoly. The App Store as an installation method is.

It’s an interesting separation, but Apple really didn’t want to make that clear to customers which is probably why they lost.

[galagawinkle489]

"Monopoly" is a distraction. The issue is abuse of market power. Having market power is fine. You can't punish people for being successful.

Steam doesn't abuse being successful to lock out competitors. You can sell products sold through Steam via other platforms too. You can sell outside of Steam and give your customers Steam keys for the game. You can install Steam on different platforms alongside other stores and programs.

Nothing Steam does makes it harder for consumers to buy games from Valve's competitors. That's what matters, not whether Steam is very successful.

[jorvi]

To be clear, I don't think Valve has abused their position at all. I was merely musing on how they could. Which would operate on a similar concept as Apple did: "my users will stay in my ecosystem almost regardless of what I do."

[Incipient]

>so as long as he[Gabe] is at the helm I assume Valve is going to continue delivering good service

THIS. Valve I trust to be a good entity for as long as Gabe leads it. As soon as he's gone, Valve will be taken over by some accountant CEO and will abuse their market position (functional monopoly).

I kinda hope Gabe pulls a Patagonia and leaves Steam to some impenetrable legal entity that runs it for the good of the users.

[yxhuvud]

A third difference is that I've seen no signs of steam actually abusing their standing in the market. If anything they seem to be nicer than they have to be.

[mzhaase]

They absolutely keep a larger cut than others. With Epic the first million you make is free. After much deliberation, steam changed it so that their 30% cut is reduced if you make more than 10M. For a lot of indie devs, its pretty much a death sentence.

[masklinn]

> With Epic the first million you make is free.

That's Epic using its money from other markets for loss leader schemes in order to grab market share. It's a very classic move (same as free games), and it's always detrimental to the market and customers in the long run.

It's not a good thing, epic games is a garbage company. That they're actively losing money to prop up their store should tell you how bad of a thing it is if it ever succeeds.

[yxhuvud]

High prices are a sign of their competitors failing to compete. Are they using their standing to make competing with them harder, somehow? For example, they dont do Amazon style prohibitions of selling the product cheaper elsewhere.

[UtopiaPunk]

I'd love for the cut to be smaller, but it is absolutely not a "death sentence." With traditional consoles (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft consoles, and those before them), the barrier to entry is very high. If you are an indie, it is practically necessary to work with a publisher to get on those platforms. The publishers demand their own cut (in addition to Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft), and as they are running a business, they only take on games that they expect will make a profit. In that environment, weird little developers making weird little games will almost always be shut down before they can even see the light of day. I think it is a little easier in the modern day (you don't need a blessed dev kit to make a console game, for example), but I think the barrier is still not trivial.

The PC games space has always been more open. If you had a weird game you wanted to share, you could share a disc with your friends or make it available on your website. But, again, if you wanted to make some decent money, you probably needed a marketing department and to have a boxed copy on store shelves (which, again, means working with a publisher). With a few exceptions, hardly anyone would ever find your game otherwise.

With modern-day Steam, an indie dev needs only to pay $100 to put a game on Steam (and I believe that $100 is refunded if the game crosses a certain threshold of sales). Discoverability is still a challenge, but just by existing on Steam, an indie game has a chance to make a bit of money. Steam itself has some discoverability features that can boost the visibility of even quirky little titles. The indie dev needs to do their own work, of course, to get visibility, but they don't need to have major resources behind them to get that visibility. They don't necessarily even need to host a website anymore - the game has a page on the Internet through Steam after all. The indie dev can direct anyone who will listen to them to go there.

All that said, I do agree that Steam is practically a monopoly. If Steam decided they hate you for some reason, then that's it. You almost certainly do not have a viable path forward for selling your PC game simply because they have such dominance (see the recent controversy where major payment processors suddenly decided they would not facilitate the sale of lewd games, and Steam reacted by pulling any game that seemed to fall into that category. Although, even in that case, the harmful monopoly tactics are coming from different actors in a different industry). For the time being, I just think they are kind of a benevolent dictator.

[orwin]

Indie games pay for discoverabiliy (don't know if that's a word). To be clear, I mostly use GoG when I can, unless it's a multiplayer game with bad lobby/MP support (Firaxis/paradox basically)

[UtopiaPunk]

In what way do indie devs pay for discoverability? There's a $100 fee to be listed on Steam. Is there something else you are thinking of?

[galagawinkle489]

Indie game development largely owes its existence to Steam. I know I would spend a lot less on indie games if I had to buy them from their own websites or, god forbid, through an awful laggy "app store" run by Ubisoft or Microsoft.

[plumthreads]

If competitors offer passable services for selling indie game developers, then indie game developers would be able to earn more money (due to competition).

This is why developers are hopeful for alternative services.

[milch]

There are competitors like itch.io, which are specifically targeted towards indies

[UtopiaPunk]

Itch.io is great

[Retric]

Your misunderstanding what monopoly means and represents.

Monopoly just comes down to marketshare, but it’s perfectly legal in the US to be a monopoly instead it limits what you’re allowed to do. For example a regular company can give a discount if you agree to only sell their goods, obviously that becomes problematic if the company has monopoly power so they are no longer allowed to have such agreements. The boundaries around what is a market trip people up, but it’s around what customers view as substitutes goods. If you don’t have a car then an EV can be a viable substitute, however if you have a gas car then you have some wiggle room on octane ratings etc but an electric car chargers isn’t viable substitute.

“In law, a monopoly is a business entity that has significant market power, that is, the power to charge overly high prices, which is associated with unfair price raises.[2] Although monopolies may be big businesses, size is not a characteristic of a monopoly. A small business may still have the power to raise prices in a small industry (or market).[2]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly

[teroshan]

I'm still finishing my first read, but I really recommend Cory Doctorow's latest book [1] "Enshittification:Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It" which covers the subject of tech monopolies and much more.

Reading it I learned about the term "monopsony" which is "a market in which goods or services are offered by several sellers but there is only one buyer" which is usually conflated with monopoly.

[1] https://www.versobooks.com/products/3341-enshittification

[plumthreads]

This is really the key here. Many people are commenting their experience as a games buyers, but this article is about the developers. Monopsonies are usually linked to lower wages in labor markets. In this case lower profits for developers from selling their games.

[lawn]

Valve even allows you to install whatever you want on the Steam Deck. Even Windows!

[rererereferred]

Yes, thanks to Heroic Launcher I can even play my games from Gog and Epic on it.