Steam

Steam has so many features built-in like steam input, remote play [together], the forums with guides and stuff while most other platfors are relatively barebones, I'm not sure all stores have regional pricing either, they say Steam is a monopoly but they have done a lot to gain their market share for better or for worse

Came here to rant similarly. Just because they're the biggest in the market does not mean they have a monopoly. There are plenty of options available, no one is locked into using or selling on steam.

Yeah other than gog and itch every other platform is terrible. Epic gives a bigger share to devs and gives away a lot of free games, but they're a publicly traded company trying to buy their way into the market so they can enshittify.

Basically, there isn't a moat around pc game stores, but competitors aren't even trying to be as nice as steam, and many publishers don't publish to the best alternative because they want you use DRM (gog)

I buy games on GOG when they're available, but it seems like their market share is getting smaller as time goes on.

That said, the barrier to entry for a Steam competitor is non-existent, so they may never really be able to have a true monopoly. They can still have problematic levels of influence, though. I'm sincerely worried about what direction Valve will take after Gaben retires or dies.

Who said anything resembling “they’re not a monopoly because they’re ethical and I like Steam.”?

The difference is that Steam is not a public company. While they have done some problematic things, everything they have done has been to benefit the customers.

Plenty of stores dictate the price on other stores. The idea is just to keep pricing consistent across the board. Why would one store list a product and help advertise it when they know they aren't going to sell much of because it's cheaper elsewhere.

Physical items have some leeway in that as stores can mark things down, but digital items are the same regardless of where you get it from, and when it comes to steam if a store is selling a steam key Valve does not take the 30%, meaning they get nothing out of a key sold elsewhere and will sell less copies themselves if the other keys are cheaper.

On that 30%, I remember articles coming out when steam was gaining traction that showed how little it was compared to physical stores. When you combined creating the physical game, shipping, and store cut developers were lucky to get 50% of the game cost. And that didn't count GameStop pushing preowned for $2 less that the dev didn't get any cut of.

They have reversed a lot of things that the customers pushed back on as well.

As long as GabeN is in charge I don't think they will go public and become shit. Apparently his son is poised to take over when he retires or passes and is in the same mindset of this father, but time will tell.

Valve got to where it is specifically by playing the long game and looking forward while putting the customer first. The efforts they made for VR and the Steam Deck would not have happened in any other company.

They aren't buying small studios to crush them like all the rest are.

I don't know what you're expecting. Publishers don't put every game on GoG and all the publisher run stores are very anti consumer, or they're EGS which will definitely turn anti consumer the second they think they've got the market share. Where are you wanting people to buy their games?

As far as I am aware, they only dictate the pricing of Steam keys on other stores. That seems fair to me, because they are doing the distribution in that case. Games that are on Steam can be cheaper elsewhere if they're distributed separately.

That being said, I totally agree that they're a monopoly based on their market power.

This!

I think it qualifies as a monopoly because of the network effect of having so many users and so many games on it. Especially on the developer side, it's basically mandatory to release your game on Steam because the number of users you can reach is so much higher than any other platform.

That being said, it's not a monopoly that most people have a problem with because they generally continue to serve users well even though they have enough market power that they could enshittify things. If they were a public company they almost certainly would have done that by now.

Seriously. Part of the reason they're even so popular is because they aren't actively pursuing profit maxxing/underhanded business practices to corner the market and consolidate market share like every other one of these blood sucking cretins. They really are one of the extremely short list of corporations that ACTUALLY win in the marketplace because their product really is just that good. Running the steam deck with Linux, contributing to the development of Wine/Proton, and telling Microsoft to kick rocks has made me a Gaben fanboy for life. If Steam was the ONLY way you could purchase PC games, I'd honestly be fine with that, as long as Valve remains a private company under the iron fist of Mister Newell.

I think there is a distinction to be made between being a monopoly and doing anti-competitive behavior.

Steam hasn't done any anti-competitive behavior that I am aware of, but they do have enough market power to be considered a monopoly. Consider how companies like EA and Activision tried to maintain competing platforms but caved because those platforms were not viable compared to Steam. That's monopoly power.

Steam does force the sellers on their platform to not give better discounts elsewhere. So basically if you see a game that’s 20% off on steam and it is ATL, you won’t find it 30% off anywhere else.

Not necessarily a monopoly but definitely not allowing competitive pricing.

Now that I think about it, it’s probably why Epic has to go with the “timed exclusive” approach instead of just giving you a bigger discount.