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72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study (www.gamesindustry.biz)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/steam@lemmy.ml
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[–] 0 points 1 year ago (5 children)

GoG has, like, 1/5th the market share of Steam. It's not nearly big enough to prevent Steam from having monopoly power. If Steam came out with a policy saying that games could not be on both Steam and GoG, the vast majority of devs would release on Steam. That's monopoly power which Steam has, regardless of whether they are currently abusing it or not.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    If they do anti-competitive behaviour then that would make them a monopoly.

    "Steam is so popular because they're good not because they're a monopoly"

    "Oh yeah? Well what if Steam was a monopoly? They would be a monopoly then right!"

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Even if there were literally no other competitors, GOG holding 1/6th of the market share (your words) absolutely precludes Steam from being a monopoly.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    You're using a different definition of monopoly from what I'm using. To quote Wikipedia:

    In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a business entity that has significant market power, that is, the power to charge overly high prices, which is associated with unfair price raises.

    I'm using the latter of those definitions. I don't think it's particularly useful to only consider it a monopoly when there are literally no competitors. I think it is useful to consider it a monopoly when it has dominant market power. Steam's estimated 75-80% market share is dominant market power.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    So how often does steam charge overly high prices, which is associated with unfair price raises?

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    the power to charge overly high prices

    One doesn't have to actually use a power in order to have that power. If I was carrying a loaded shotgun, I would have firepower. I wouldn't have to actually fire the gun to have firepower.

    Also, one could argue (and Epic Games has) that Steam's 30% cut is overly high for digital distribution. I'm not sure whether that's true or not, but that doesn't really matter to the question of whether Steam has dominant market power.

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