Its not a force monopoly situation, just grew organically. Also it is an open platform where anyone can have their games or launcher and shop without Steam, and we have them: Epic Games, GOG, itchio in example. Then there are launchers for specific companies and even specific games. The biggest games on PC aren’t even on Steam, showing they don’t need Steam at all: Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, League of Legends and in the past it was more. Steam doesn’t even enforce or do deals to get exclusive contracts.
And that’s not all. You (and I mean by you as if you were the publisher or developer) can sell games on other shops in form of Steam keys, without relying on Steam shop and not even giving money to them (no price cut), but still use the Steam features, client and infrastructure at no cost.
All of these factors show that saying “its a monopoly” is a little bit disingenuous. Market dominance is the right term, not a true monopoly. It doesn’t even come preinstalled on Windows, the most used operating system on PC. Compare this to the monopoly of Play Store on Android, or worse, the Apple Store for iOS. Or any game console! Those are true monopolies.
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Steam is only a monopoly by technicality. It isnt Steam’s fault that all the other competition is literal ttrash compred to Steam. Except maybe GOG, but they don’t typically offer the kinds of games I would buy on Steam. I only buy DRM-free games on GOG, if it has DRM I just buy it on Steam.
Sandwiches would have a food monopoly by technicality if the other options were 3 week old poached eggs and dog feces. That’s not sandwiches fault, and sandwiches shouldn’t be forced to sell less so more people are coerced into eating the other two options that suck.