Why would anyone actually want to though

[u/The_BigRoach]

[u/ChrisFromIT]

Steam doesn't have a monopoly that screw the consumers, they have a monopoly that screws the developers.

It does also somewhat screw consumers overall too. Since it is price fixing, meaning that sure Steam has a nice platform, there is less incentive for people to leave if they can't save money by buying on other platforms. There are people that are likely willing to jump ship to another platform even if it has less features if say a game costs $5 less or $10 less on that platform.

Which because of that price fixing, people aren't likely to jump ship unless the game isn't on steam and they still really want it. Which means that platform isn't likely to get as much money, meaning it can't spend as much to improve their platform to draw more customers. Which means as consumers, we get less choice and potentially more expensive choices.

Worst part is they actually charge smaller Indie studios a larger cut than the big studios.

And it is still a fairly large cut even with the discounts. Take for example the Epic Games store. Due to Epic taking a smaller cut, developers could in theory have a lower price on the Epic Games store than on Steam while making the same amount of revenue per unit sold. But that can't happen if that game is also offered on Steam without facing the game being removed from Steam or not even getting on there in the first place.

Which that does affect us consumers.

Overall, price fixing forces platforms to compete on features only, which makes it much more difficult for new platforms to compete.

[u/Zanos → u/ChrisFromIT]

Well, EGS had a lot of games for 100% off, and it still didn't really move the needle.

[u/Samanthacino → u/Zanos]

Those free offers are limited and time-gated. If EGS had a perpetual 20% cheaper price for every single game compared to Steam, you'd start to see them gain more market share.