True. What do you think the Machine will cost?

True, but I'm sure valve is well aware of that based on their past experience. Valve is a rare company that learns from their mistakes for the most part IMO

It all depends on the price.

Steam Brick

Windows is too... inefficient.

I know, it was a joke... or I hope at least... Considering that in japan you can patent game mechanics, I wouldn't be surprised of this.

You can't patent the shape of an object.

Objects can be trademarked, but generic shapes can't be.

Hmmm... that SteamCube looks suspicious. I wonder if Nintendo will have a patent to troll there too, given their last developments...

I dislike the bottom cutoff of the background. Besides that it's alright I guess. Zooming out to 90% gets it more condensed like it was.

Are they? Seems the same to me

Dunno how they do it but it's just poking out the sides of my monitor now.

I would say that while it is a monopoly, it monopolizes something which doesn't make much sense to be decentralized. Having multiple launchers for games, and making some games exclusive to some launchers but not others etc. is annoying as hell and is only a good thing for the executives and investors behind these companies at the expense of everyone consuming the product.

Having one corporation be in control of the distribution platform for most if not all games is also very troubling, but until it's possible to have a democratically owned open source distribution platform, there's no other good way.

I'm not your squire. If you have a counterargument, go find proof yourself.

You didn't really answer the question. How does Humble get around that?

The case was actually won against Valve. What is your argument? "They did one shitty thing, they probably won't do / aren't doing another" ?

The person you responded to said that a majority preferring one option out of many was not monopolistic behaviour.

Here's that person's comment again:

I didn’t realize that people choosing 1 option out of several is what defined a monopoly. I’m pretty sure it’s when there is no other choice but to use that 1 thing.

First of all, your paraphrasing doesn't make sense because it sounds like you're saying consumers can engage in monopolistic behavior via their shopping choices. I'll assume you were just being lazy with the wording, and interpret it as you agreeing with the statement that "a monopoly is when consumers only have one choice".

I explained in my comment above that this is not true, and I even linked to a Wikipedia article written by people who know more about this than you or I. If you haven't read it, please do. It's not even that long. The sidebar has links to relevant topics that go into more detail about competition law, which I highly recommend exploring.

You're choosing to remain ignorant. I want to know, what's in it for you? What do you gain from doing this? It can't just be the dopamine from seeing number go up, because that has to get old after a while.

My motivation in threads like these is to help share the limited knowledge I have with other people, because the world works better when people know how it works. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm an antitrust nerd as it's a pretty massive issue in the industry where I work (tech), and my experience is that there are a ton of people like you two with an incorrect understanding of how the law actually works. This is counter productive to solving the antitrust issue because misinformed people end up voting for the wrong things (and/or influencing policy in other ways).

Hilarious. With confidence, I will let people read both our posts and draw their own conclusions.

“Putting words in my mouth. I didn't say monopolies are illegal, you just made that up to be snarky.”

The person you responded to said that a majority preferring one option out of many was not monopolistic behaviour. Your “snarky” answer was “you’re wrong”. (Spoiler: he wasn’t). That you want to go from that to whining about me is cute.

For the benefit of any thinking people reading this far, antitrust laws make the abusive application of market power an illegal behaviour. They do not outlaw market success. Being unpopular with @entwine is not illegal either.

This is not true anymore. How do you think humble bundle works?

What is it about reddit-style social media that brings out the obnoxious le redditeur archetypes? You're just talking out of your ass and being snarky about it. Peak redditing.

Pot calling the kettle black. 🙄

This headline needs to stop being posted as if it is fact. A company that offers to push game sales through channels other than steam polled business managers at their customers to ask if Steam is a monopoly. That isn't 72% of all game devs (or even all game dev companies). It is specifically the customers of a platform aimed at selling away from Steam.

This is like polling c-suite members of car manufacturing companies to see if we should all drive more.

What is it about reddit-style social media that brings out the obnoxious le redditeur archetypes? You're just talking out of your ass and being snarky about it. Peak redditing.

Let’s start with a baseline: monopolies are not illegal. Let’s say that again: monopolies are not illegal. If that is your point, “you’re wrong”.

Putting words in my mouth. I didn't say monopolies are illegal, you just made that up to be snarky. The rest of your comment is just you pulling stuff out of your ass with no kind of citation whatsoever.

When the government tries to pursue a case to try and break up a monopoly, they're not trying to prove that the company fits some textbook definition of the word "monopoly". That'd be stupid, and lawyers may be a lot of things, but "stupid" generally isn't one of them.

They start by defining a specific market or markets that the company participates in, showing consumer harms (aka the consumer welfare standard, which actually sucks and the Biden admin was trying to correct, but whatever) by the company's business practices/structure, and recommending remedies, like a break up. So it technically doesn't even have to do with the size of a company or their market share (although that's usually a major component).

So, before we even begin, we can see that this does not really apply to Valve. Valve has competition

Again, this conclusion is based on your incorrect understanding of how antitrust regulation works. So there's no point in me correcting the rest of your post. Instead, I'll summarize and translate it into what I think you actually wanted to say:

"I like Valve and you're a meanie for implying they're doing something bad"

If you are going to invoke “antitrust laws” to whip out “you’re wrong”, you should make sure you know what you are talking about.

First, let’s assume we are taking about the USA to make this manageable.

Let’s start with a baseline: monopolies are not illegal. Let’s say that again: monopolies are not illegal. If that is your point, “you’re wrong”.

There are many legal monopolies. The government even runs or “licenses” some of them. The US postal service comes to mind.

Second, let’s define monopoly. The word literally means “single seller”. It is only accurate to use it when consumers only have a single choice or where their choices are so constrained that (as a grouo) they effectively have only one viable choice.

Legally, a monopoly is not really an expression of market share but of market power. When we are effectively forced to buy from “one seller”, there is an illegal monopoly.

So, before go further, let’s acknowledge that Valve has competition. Consumers are not “forced” to buy from Valve. They “choose” to buy from Valve as a “preference”. Very, very different.

Now to antitrust laws. Antitrust means anticompetitive practice. This is what the law actually cares about. These laws are intended to prevent “abuse of power” that protects a monopoly from completion. That is what makes a monopoly (legal by default) an “illegal monopoly”.

In fact, the law does not define “monopoly” at all but rather “monopolization”. Monopolization exists when an entity acts to ensure that there are no viable substitutes available that the consumer can choose instead.

If you want to invoke “antitrust laws”, you have to expose the anticompetitive practice and illegal “monopolization” activity. You have not done that. The fact that Valve is winning in the market is not enough for you to dismiss everybody else as wrong.

I am “pretty sure” that the “pretty sure” guy is correct. What does that make you?

Market dominance is a bad thing. No question.

That said, there is a very big difference between a company illegally creating or protecting a monopoly and a company naturally dominating an industry through consumer preference.

I do not use Chrome because I agrees with your thoughts on market dominance. And, despite recent legal opinions, Google does abuse their position somewhat with search deals and the like. But, at its heart, the issue is that the vast majority of people prefer Chrome and choose it for that reason.

If consumers create (and maintain) a monopoly through preference, it is not up to the government to fix it. There are many viable browser choices that are all able to effectively get to market. People choose Chrome. I do not like it but I do not blame Google for making a browser people like.

Steam is in much the same boat. As a consumer, I have many choices. Most consumers choose Valve. Again, I cannot really be mad at them for being better.

Sometimes, it is up to us.

They are not saying you cannot list elsewhere. They are just saying they have to get your best price.

If Walmart says you can only sell pickles on their shelves if you sell them pickles at your best price, is that anti-competitive?