this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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185
Gabe Newell on Steam monopoly accusations: Gamers have 'enormous choice' about where to buy games (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 1 day ago by sanitation@lemmy.radio to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] T156@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But developers are also customers of valve. And this is arguably where valve makes their money. They take a cut from the developers sales. Devs cannot just use a different platform without cutting out a huge userbase. This gives valve a real monopolistic control over developers.

Can they not? I was under the understanding that developers aren't limited to steam. They can use any other platform in addition to it, the main restriction being that they can't sell the game for cheaper on platforms other than Steam.

[–] nous@programming.dev 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sorry badly worded on my part. They can use other platforms alongside steam. I really meant they cannot use them instead of steam without losing a massive audience. And likely making their game unprofitable. At least if they are not a very large game studio already.

And then if steam is pushing restrictions on what they can do on other stores then that is edging into the relms of abusing their monopoly.

[–] kurcatovium@piefed.social 3 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

But looking at it from Steam's side: why should they list a game, promote it through their recommendation algorithms, forums, friend lists, reviews, workshop, etc. when the developers can use it just as free advertisement and sell it in their store for half the price? What is in it for me? Servers and traffic are not free after all, quite the opposite thanks to today's AI craziness.