Steam Monopoly Debate

Exactly, game developers publish on Steam because they want to be on Steam while the App Store is the only way to publish for iOS and the Play Store is also heavily favored by the Android OS to make other avenues for publishing apps unrealistic. That said, a large value of Steam is the network effect (users wanting to have everything in the same store/launcher, friends on Steam for multiplayer) rather than platform features that others could directly compete with so I don't thin

You are not required to use Steam to buy games on any device (even on the Steam Deck it's trivial to install games from other sources). It has big market power because gamers actually like it and actively choose it over alternatives (often even those that come pre-installed with the platform, the Windows store and the XBox app). It does not prevent devs from selling their games on multiple stores. It's dominant position for sure has market effects, but its a lot harder to argue it has

There is nothing forcing developers to release on steam, they can sell directly through a website. It’s not Valve’s fault no other competitor has gotten close to the quality of Steam. Epic Games could have made a dent, but they decided to try to bribe customers instead of making a functioning store.

Essentially steam has created an almost walled garden. You already have all of your games on the steam client so if a game is sold on another store its inconvenient. Another part is steam has a lot of eyes looking at their store. Everyone checks steam for new games so if you are not on that store then people wont see you.Its an unfortunate system because steam isn't actually providing that much value but they have just managed to centralize everything on their platform.

Neither do I. I thought they were doing good work on UE. I don’t understand the popularity of fortnite but people love it and play it and it earns them a ton of money.But the store seems to exist because they don’t want to use steam or anything else cos they won’t want to lose the 30% cut on game sales or in-game micro transactions.Yet they happily pay Sony and MS…And if they created their store and opened it up to others and says oh yeah our fees are less. It would be fine. Gamers have

Game not being available on steam is a pretty weak excuse for piracy. Epic simply doesn't want to give 30% to a competing store.

Nothing of what Steam provides costs 30%. Discoverability and free marketing only provided to games that are already successful and have hundreds of wishlists. That's only possible to achieve if you game already have it's own following and community.12+ years ago if you released on Steam it was a big deal and platform provided traffic to everyone, but today it's flooded with games so basically you're on your own.The only thing that allow Valve to charge this much is net

I think the best argument you could make to say steam is a monopoly is to say that their plan is roughly:1. Make a platform gamers love to use so much that they will still use it even if other stores are literally giving the games away for free2. Build a brand that your target audience recognizes worldwide and trusts with their entire game collection.3. "Exploit" the fact that your audience loves your product and brand so fanatically that you can charge the same amount on an o

What? What network effects?There are even games you can buy on one service and play multiplayer with people who buy it on steam! I chose to buy MSFS2020 through steam for example because the steam platform is dramatically better than the absurd way the Windows Store does anything, but we fly in the same skies!There's no lock in or exclusivity. You can literally buy the same exact executable from multiple places, and the only change is the feature the store program supports. Buying a g

Nothing "ostensible" about PC being an open platform.Any PC will run any number of game stores. Steam is large despite not being the one owned by the platform maker and installed by default (Microsoft Store and the XBox app).Steam does not prevent publishers from selling in other stores too, nor does it enforce pricing outside its store. (E.g. there are games that are cheaper on other stores, citing Steams larger cut as the reason)It also allows publishers to force users to in