Games aren’t the difference. GOG and Itch are terrible to use. Straight up dumpster fires. That is why no one buys games from them. It’s not complicated.
Epic manages to be an even bigger dumpster fire, who also went out of their way to take away games that had already been advertised, and in a few cases, actually sold for Steam. People actively hate them because they went out of their way to piss in the face of gamers, and also, again, because their platform is dogshit.
Steam’s market share is the best because their platform blows doors off of everything else. You will not make a dent until you actually provide a platform that provides actual function that’s competitive in any way with Steam. Market dominant companies fail all the time, when something better comes along. The competition is shit that’s much, much, much worse.
Being the best product on the market is not what a problematic monopoly is.
A monopoly uses anticompetitive means to suppress competition, then exploits that market share in anti consumer ways. Steam does neither. They’re just better.
A monopoly has the means to engage in anticompetitive practices. Whether or not they do is a separate thing. That’s why you clarified “a problematic monopoly.”
It does matter whether they do. It’s impossible for Epic to have a valid complaint (and the fact that they both throw a tantrum at every company who doesn’t just give them exactly what they want, and actually do behave anticompetitively by using their market position with UE to try to force people onto their fucking disgusting excuse for a store tell you they don’t) unless Steam is abusing their market position to make competition impossible.
“We can’t be bothered competing” is not a valid legal argument.
It’s not the games that makes it better or worse. It’s literally everything else that Steam’s competition refuses to do better at. No one else offers even a fraction of what Steam has. No friends, no community, no sales, no support, no nothing except the most basic-ass online storefront.
GOG at least had a gimmick of providing old games along with patches to make them run on modern systems; but they’re no longer the only one doing that.
I would like for people to stop explaining why their competitors do not matter, as if that’s a counterargument to the claim ‘their competitors do not matter.’
My guy, even the first sentence on Wikipedia specifies “unfair” monopolies.
There’s like five clarifications just in the Background section about how it doesn’t cover businesses which capture the whole market simply by being the better choice. Those are still monopolies. By definition. Mono meaning one and poly meaning how are we still talking about this?
GoG and Itch are full of great games. They just do fuck-all business, relative to Steam.
Epic carries some huge titles like Alan Wake II, and gives away a ton of celebrated games. It does not help.
Games aren’t the difference. GOG and Itch are terrible to use. Straight up dumpster fires. That is why no one buys games from them. It’s not complicated.
Epic manages to be an even bigger dumpster fire, who also went out of their way to take away games that had already been advertised, and in a few cases, actually sold for Steam. People actively hate them because they went out of their way to piss in the face of gamers, and also, again, because their platform is dogshit.
Steam’s market share is the best because their platform blows doors off of everything else. You will not make a dent until you actually provide a platform that provides actual function that’s competitive in any way with Steam. Market dominant companies fail all the time, when something better comes along. The competition is shit that’s much, much, much worse.
Okay.
That’s why Steam has a monopoly.
Steam still has a monopoly.
Being the best product on the market is not what a problematic monopoly is.
A monopoly uses anticompetitive means to suppress competition, then exploits that market share in anti consumer ways. Steam does neither. They’re just better.
A monopoly has the means to engage in anticompetitive practices. Whether or not they do is a separate thing. That’s why you clarified “a problematic monopoly.”
It does matter whether they do. It’s impossible for Epic to have a valid complaint (and the fact that they both throw a tantrum at every company who doesn’t just give them exactly what they want, and actually do behave anticompetitively by using their market position with UE to try to force people onto their fucking disgusting excuse for a store tell you they don’t) unless Steam is abusing their market position to make competition impossible.
“We can’t be bothered competing” is not a valid legal argument.
Having that market position is what defines a monopoly.
Abusing it is a crime that only a monopoly can commit.
Whether they do it or not is not what makes them a monopoly.
It’s not the games that makes it better or worse. It’s literally everything else that Steam’s competition refuses to do better at. No one else offers even a fraction of what Steam has. No friends, no community, no sales, no support, no nothing except the most basic-ass online storefront.
GOG at least had a gimmick of providing old games along with patches to make them run on modern systems; but they’re no longer the only one doing that.
I would like for people to stop explaining why their competitors do not matter, as if that’s a counterargument to the claim ‘their competitors do not matter.’
The nuance that you’re missing is why they don’t matter, not that they don’t.
It’s not Valve’s job to slow down for them.
Who asked them to?
Being a monopoly is not a crime. Not in itself. But it’s still a thing, and it’s not complicated, and Valve has one.
Why Steam’s competitors do not matter… does not matter.
What makes Steam a monopoly is that they don’t matter.
Yes it is, lol.
Read up on The Sherman Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, and the Clayton Antitrust Act.
My guy, even the first sentence on Wikipedia specifies “unfair” monopolies.
There’s like five clarifications just in the Background section about how it doesn’t cover businesses which capture the whole market simply by being the better choice. Those are still monopolies. By definition. Mono meaning one and poly meaning how are we still talking about this?