thingsiplay comments on Can anyone overthrow Steam on PC? "As long as Valve is independent and not a publicly traded company," analyst says it looks impossible

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago* (9 children)

I don't think that the Oil situation is comparable to the Open Standard PC. Everyone can decide to buy the next game on a different platform. You are not really locked to the Steam eco system. If your nation is based on Oil, then you are screwed. That is hugely different situation.

No, Steam is not a real monopoly. Steam also does not abuse the monopoly like Google does with their positioning and control of Android. That's a real monopoly. And Nintendo is a monopoly too, regardless how you frame it.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Steam does not abuse their what?

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 point 1 week ago (7 children)

I don't understand the question.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 week ago (6 children)

You went straight from 'they don't have a monopoly' to 'they don't abuse their monopoly' in literally the next sentence. This topic is bewildering to discuss, because everyone not simply acknowledging 'yes of course the one store with like ninety percent of sales is a monopoly' is trying to juggle several conversations they'd rather be having. I often come to regret mentioning Epic or consoles because people pivot into criticism like I offered any form of defense.

Look: I have an NES homebrew that opens with the Yuzu logo and the words "never give Nintendo money." I've been yelling about Apple's enforced censorship since 2007. I've called for Google to be broken up for at least ten years. You do not need to tell me what an abusive monopoly looks like, in this thread where I am explicitly making the distinction between abusive monopolies and just plain having a monopoly.

There's other subthreads saying Valve succeeds "despite capitalism." People get so fucking weird about this company, because they refuse to believe that a corporation can do normal business and still be fine.

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago (5 children)

To quote myself:

Semi-monopoly, not a true one like Apples store on the iPhone.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 week ago (4 children)

And yet, plainly capable of abusing their near total dominance of an open platform. Hence the concern about Gabe specifically. They have this power, but choose not to be dicks about it.

They still have this power. That's what the word means.

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Valve does not abuse their market leader position. Being a market leader and a monopoly is a total different position.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 week ago* (2 children)

Market share is the only thing defining a monopoly.

Absolute monopolies basically do not exist, except as subcategories of de facto monopolies. Even Apple obviously does not monopolize smartphones.

What would anti-competitive practices even mean, if there were no competitors?

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago (1 child)

There is no marketshare PC game launchers. What even does that mean? The most successfull games are not even on Steam, most played games are LoL, Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft and besides that, there are plenty of alternative shops every user can freely choose from. Nobody is forced to use Steam, its an open platform. Every single game they buy can be purchased on any of these platforms. You don't even need to buy games on Steam, to buy Steam game keys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly:

A monopoly (from Greek μόνος, mónos, 'single, alone' and πωλεῖν, pōleîn, 'to sell') is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service.[1] A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce a particular thing, a lack of viable substitute goods, and the possibility of a high monopoly price well above the seller's marginal cost that leads to a high monopoly profit.

Therefore Steam is not a true monopoly. They just have a huge market leader position.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 week ago

... of fucking course there's a marketshare, for the sales of games on the PC market. Most sales are through Steam. Be serious.

The only games that don't live or die by being on Steam are wildly exceptional cases that would have succeeded even if you still had to drive to a store to get them.

In a legal context, the term monopoly is also used to describe a variety of market conditions that are not monopolies in the truest sense. [...] In essence, the term monopoly may be used any time that a market for a good is controlled by a limited number of actors.

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