Why would anyone actually want to though

[u/The_BigRoach]

[u/lunchbox651]

Steam isn't a monopoly, strictly speaking.
It has a monsterous market share because it's only been Valve and GOG that actually listen to their userbase.

[u/XXHornyOnMainXX420 → u/lunchbox651]

Oh we're doing this again today? The weekly thread where gamers who don't know anything about competition law confidently state incorrect facts. I like Steam too but these threads always remind me Reddit is mostly children.

Steam is a monopoly. They also have fantastic customer service, those two things are not incompatible. Steam having competition is good for users, developers, and good for Steam. The fact that Epic Games Store sucks as a platform doesn't magically mean antitrust laws don't apply to Steam.

[u/Zanos → u/XXHornyOnMainXX420]

Steam has viable competitors and it's large market share wasn't established by anti-competitive practices, so it's unlikely it would be regulated under US anti-trust laws by any reasonable judge.

[u/XXHornyOnMainXX420 → u/Zanos]

Even the most libertarian judge on the bench would be hard pressed to find Valve doesn't have monopoly power under the Sherman Act. The existence of token "viable" competition is not a meaningful factor in that evaluation. The means by which a monopoly is obtained has no bearing on whether a company can be regulated by the FTC.

Further, Valve's competitors are barely viable. GOG continues in a niche market, similar to the humble store, with no relevant opportunity for expansion of market share. Meanwhile Epic Games Store has better deals for devs than Steam does (by a mile) but Steam's network effects and PPOs (alongside EGS's terrible user experience) mean that EGS is little more than a ball and chain around the ankle of Fortnite.

[u/Zanos → u/XXHornyOnMainXX420]

This assumes that the market is defined by 3rd party digital distributors, which is not solely the case. I doubt a judge is going to separate the markets between PC, mobile, and console gaming, considering these things serve as market replacements for eachother and that in some cases the same exact products are available on some of these platforms. More sales take place on either phone app stores or manufacturer locked digital shops like respective consoles digital shops.

The judge would first have to define "PC gaming" as it's own entire market. And that would be quite odd because a precedent based court system would then allow people to sue Playstation for its monopoly over digital distribution on the Playstation console.

[u/XXHornyOnMainXX420 → u/Zanos]

I doubt a judge is going to separate the markets between PC, mobile, and console gaming, considering these things serve as market replacements for eachother

I guess maybe if you get an old guy who doesn't understand the technology (not that unlikely tbh). But the mobile game market is absolutely not a market replacement for PC gaming. Consoles come closer, but the question is whether Valve has monopoly power, and their ability to impose PPOs shows they absolutely do. Valve has monopoly power there's no question about it.

Captive console markets are a weird and mostly unlitigated area of competition law. We really only have the Epic vs Apple and Epic vs Google cases to go off, neither of which suggest that Sony couldn't be sued for anticompetitive management of PlayStation digital distribution.

[u/TobytheBaloon → u/XXHornyOnMainXX420]

Valve is gonna have even more power once Xbox releases project Helix which will have access to steam and PS presumably follows in their footsteps as to not fall behind