• obsoleteacct@lemmy.zipEnglish
    16·
    17 hours ago

    I’m rabidly pro-consumer about most things but I struggle with how we define a market when we talk about steam. In order for steam to be a monopoly you have to drill down through super categories of software sales and then video game sales, to the platform level.

    If you look at all digital delivery video game sales they still don’t have a monopoly. You don’t have to deal with steam to play a video game. It’s only PC video game sales where they are close to a controlling market share.

    But Steam has far less power over PC gaming than Apple, Sony, or Nintendo do over their respective platforms. Gamers and Devs basically HAVE to deal with those companies to have access to their markets.

    • Lfrith@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      1 hour ago

      Yeah, and if Microsoft suddenly decides they want to shut Steam out then there’s not much Steam can do other than take them to court. And even if Steam exited Windows there’s still lot of popular publishers putting out Windows only games like Valorant, Battlefield 6, Fortnite, Genshin Impact, and popular software like Adobe that would lead to losing a significant chunk of the userbase that would not move to Linux due to games and software they use not being on Windows.

      Another launcher whether it is Microsoft or Epic or whatever would just fill the void for third party titles and probably be glad that the main competition is banished.

      So this market share situation is not quite like Sony, Nintendo, iOS, or Google who not only run a locked down OS but also are the monopoly and sometimes only storefront.

      Google recently shifted to wanting to gatekeep what can be installed and wanting verification from even devs that don’t want to release on the play store, which threatens viability of alternative app repositories like F-droid. Which is what could happen to Steam if Windows suddenly decided to change their minds about how open they’ve been in allowing program installations.

      So Steam situation despite their popularity is still reliant on Microsoft not turning into a bad actor. They are more Netflix. The go to choice in their segment, but can be replaced.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      8 hours ago

      And even then, most games are available on multiple platforms, for similar prices. So you can get the same game from Steam, GOG, or EGS in many cases, plus all of the stores that sell Steam keys (and Steam probably doesn’t get a cut of those sales).