I think there is a distinction to be made between being a monopoly and doing anti-competitive behavior.

Steam hasn't done any anti-competitive behavior that I am aware of, but they do have enough market power to be considered a monopoly. Consider how companies like EA and Activision tried to maintain competing platforms but caved because those platforms were not viable compared to Steam. That's monopoly power.

Seriously. Part of the reason they're even so popular is because they aren't actively pursuing profit maxxing/enshittification business practices to corner the market and consolidate market share like every other one of these blood sucking cretins. They really are one of the extremely short list of corporations that ACTUALLY win in the marketplace because their product really is just that good. Running the steam deck with Linux, contributing to the development of Wine/Proton, and telling Microsoft to kick rocks has made me a Gaben fanboy for life. If Steam was the ONLY way you could purchase PC games, I'd honestly be fine with that, as long as Valve remains a private company under the iron fist of Mister Newell.

Words don't matter. Do well and have a platform that most prefer? You're a monopoly. People don't realize that to be a monopoly you must be the only source and actively prevent access to or other sources of the same product. How many of those using the term monopoly regarding Steam have GOG Galaxy, Epic, Battle.net, and etc. installed on their machines, ya think.

Being the best does not a monopoly make!

Edit: Further, and speaking of Epic, I never heard of Steam paying devs to pull their games from other platforms for exclusivity deals.

Il Epic had free cloud saves and more social aspects they would be a much more appealing option, especially because they are much friendlier towards indie devs since they demand a much lower service fee. Steam is just the best for consumers right now

Steam does force the sellers on their platform to not give better discounts elsewhere. So basically if you see a game that’s 20% off on steam and it is ATL, you won’t find it 30% off anywhere else.

Not necessarily a monopoly but definitely not allowing competitive pricing.

Now that I think about it, it’s probably why Epic has to go with the “timed exclusive” approach instead of just giving you a bigger discount.

They have a functional monopoly on game launchers, but it isn’t illegal to have a monopoly — it’s only illegal to use that monopoly for anti-competitive actions.

A monopoly in law doesn’t mean total (100%) market control; it means having the power to control prices or exclude competition. Courts often refer to this as monopoly power.

A monopoly could exist with as little as 50% of the market, or even lower. Steam has around 70–80%, which is easily enough to be considered a monopoly. However, you could argue that despite their large market share, they can’t truly control the market, since it’s their goodwill and consumer-friendly behavior that earned them that share in the first place — and if they ever tried to abuse it, people might go elsewhere.

Personally, I don’t really believe that. Considering your entire library is tied to their platform, they could pull all kinds of shady tactics if they wanted to. But it’s an argument.

As far as I’m concerned, Steam is the least evil of the major corporations. I can overlook the secret gambling ring and possible dark-money smuggling complicity because they seem to be a net benefit to consumers, and the harm mostly falls on those complicit in the scheme — as well as on China and Russia.

Edit, fixed spelling.