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72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study
(www.gamesindustry.biz)
this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
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Valve: Has reasonably priced games on sale frequently
Makes the Steam Deck
Actively supports Linux, both for VR and regular gaming
Has the best customer service out of any competitor
Has the best store experience out of any competitor
I mean.....it's not surprising that they're a monopoly, but that doesn't make them a bad one.
I fear for the day GabeN has to pass on the torch ๐
Which one of his 3 mega yachts do you think he'll pop his clogs on?
Benevolent Dictatorship?
More of an elected monarchy really..
All hail king Gabe!
Not really. You can choose to go somewhere else at any time. Even the Steam Deck is open to installing a different OS that doesn't even include the Steam store.
I like that their services are so good they don't even need to make any restrictions to get you into using them. If I installed another OS on my steam deck, I would still install the Steam store...
Who makes the games? ๐ค
Valve has made games. Damn good ones at that.
You know HALF-LIFE Counter Strike Portal Team Fortress 2
and are the makers of the source engine powering Titanfall 1, 2, Apex and a lot more
Oh yeah when did those come out and how much of Valve's revenue do they account for lol?
If you count only Valve's own games' sales, those earned nowhere as much as the steam market trade of TF2 hats and CS skins
Exactly, Valve's success has been defined by the extent to which they have financialized their few games, stretched their IP, and used that as a games publisher. It's because they're a rentier with no games of their own any more that they are a virtual economy monopoly...
Why isn't their cut mentioned? This seems like the most important information.
The owner of the marketplace has the right to charge merchants who sell their goods in a safe place provided by the owner, especially when the market itself is delivering and garunteeing the product works.
So yeah, Valve takes more than other companies, but unlike say Epic Games valve is actually making sure the devs deliver a working product.
... Am I still on lemmy?
The whole thread is a corporate talk and ~~Apple~~ Steam fan mix. Your first paragraph...
We're discussing a monopoly, and all I am reading is how good a product they're making.
Shouldn't the discussion also be about their costs, margins?
Is the market difficult to enter by its nature? How much would the users and developers benefit from more competition?
And I still dont know their cut.
Steam isn't blocking anyone from competing as far as I'm aware. It's just that most customers don't to switch to a new platform because none of the competition is better than they are and we don't want to have to juggle multiple launchers. If Steam started being assholes to the customers or developers stopped putting games on there we'd look at other options.
Supposing Steam is a monopoly what remedy do propose that wouldn't make the user experience worse for their customers?