Games

…no I won’t name the reasons why. Do your research

Oh. Oh no.

I will explain the reasons why, because it’s important to understand this without sounding like the antivax equivalent of a white knight.

First, forget the word monopoly. It’s a red herring. We are going to talk about trusts. A trust is any kind of organizational structure (one or more companies) that control or seek to control a market through centralized leadership. Trusts can lead to monopolies, but they are distinct and do not need to be (and rarely are) monopolies. The key defining feature of a trust is the use of market capture strategies that are unethical, anti-competitive, clandestine, underhanded, etc (“legal” or not).

Valve is neither a monopoly nor a trust, by definition. While they control a huge portion of the PC gaming market, they operate with transparency, do not sabotage competitors, share their technology freely with potential competitors, and do not push any anti-competitive policies (like exclusives, rules preventing offering products cheaper on other outlets, etc).

There is healthy competition in the PC game space, but Valve has held the lead by offering the best, most attractive platform for consumers. From social features and integrations, to regular discounts and sales, to a healthy and robust community review system, to automatically elevating great new content that might otherwise be missed, to enabling new platforms and technologies (VR, Steam Deck, Linux)… they provide things that customers and sellers love.

Compare their competition. GOG is great but their DRM free policies (which are great) limit their use by sellers. Publishers all have their own stores now, but those are unattractive for a wide variety of reasons - splitting your library, using even more proprietary software to access your content (new stores and launchers), and for all that inconvenience you don’t even get a discount when Valve isn’t taking a cut. Finally, there’s Epic. Market share is Epic’s game to lose, and they are losing on their own merits. Their product lacks basic consumer features that Steam users expect (social features, performant storefront, trustworthy reviews, etc) and they have repeatedly engaged in anti-competitive behavior through the use of exclusives. At one point, Stardock’s Impulse platform was well on its way to becoming a legitimate competitor, but then came the fateful decision to sell out to GameStop, who destroyed it.

Steam is no monopoly or trust. They are simply successful because they are well liked and they are well liked because they give customers and sellers what they want. Nobody else is even trying to compete with Steam right now. Epic could, but they aren’t, and only Tim Sweeny could tell you why.

In what way are they not, or what actions should be taken?

Steam allows selling outside the platform.

Apple is insanely restrictive to what you can do outside app store. You can't sell an app key. No signed apps will not work and you can only sideload in EU.

Sony also disallows selling codes outside PSN

Steam is more lax with steam keys.

Most favored customer clauses are not uncommon in the retail world.

Only if you are selling a steam key elsewhere, they ask you to treat them equivalently but that doesn't mean you can't do sales for your products on other platforms.

It's a little weird cause it would be like buying an apple app on android to use on apple but apple doesn't get the 30% anymore so they ask you to at least price it about the same so people don't avoid buying from them completely.

Yes. That is exactly the issue. It's not only Steam Keys either as some of the cultists would have you believe. Valve does require you to offer Steam Keys on other stores at the same price that you offer the game on Steam but that's not all. Now, while they don't specifically forbid you to offer different prices on stores that have nothing to do with Steam, they do reserve the right (do whatever the hell you want with this one simple trick!) to veto pricing on Steam for any reason. This has been historically used by Valve to block games that offer better pricing on competing stores. It goes something like this:

1. I make a game and decide I want to make $7 per sale so I publish it on my site at $7.
2. I want the game to be accessible to a wider audience so I publish it on other stores.
3. Epic takes 12% so I price it at $8 there in order to keep making $7 per sale
4. Steam takes 30% so I price it at $10 there for the same reason.
5. Valve says $10 isn't a fair price and refuses to elaborate why, reminding me that they reserve the right to veto any price on Steam for any reason.
6. I make my game $10 on all other stores
7. Valve magically decides $10 was actually a fair price all along and finally publishes the game on Steam.