Other developers can just make their own platform or distribute games themselves individually. Nobody wants to do that for obvious reasons.
There's clearly a network effect similar to Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and the likes. But apart from regulating for service interoperability, there's nothing you can do.
It's like claiming that Skype had a monopoly between 2008 and 2014. Just... Install something else then?
Valve is not buying other store makers nor actively sabotaging efforts to do so.
How many people would even bite, given the huge premium?
This is really key, when you see Epic bribing devs to get exclusivity, giving away games for free, they do this and still not succeed because they are actively hostile to their users.
Where is my Big Picture mode?
Where is my support of Linux?
They've been at it for years and yet still don't actually want to provide a service that is desirable to use.
>Where is my Big Picture mode?
>Where is my support of Linux?
Calling the lack of linux and TV support "hostile" is bit of a stretch. The two combined probably makes up 5% of the user base at most, and there are probably workarounds (eg. using wine or the regular interface)
I asked where are these basic features. Two separate parts to my comment.
The user hostile comes from Tim Sweeneys Twitter account where he openly mocks users who ask questions.
link?
Where "nobody" is specifically "no users". Lots of publishers tried doing exactly that, and most eventually gave up because users don't want to deal with extra launchers or platforms. Offering games on your own distribution channel is fine, but not being on Steam is going to hurt your sales a lot. Epic is really the only still-running attempt (except for GOG)
It take more than simply being the best or most successful business in a sector to be a monopoly. Being a monopoly is an active choice you make as a business by intentionally engaging in anticompetitive behaviors.
Valve isn't putting any pressure on anyone in this sector. There is still competition, but Valve has simply been more successful than everyone else. Mainly because the alternatives are so, so much worse like EA and co who are actively malicious and predatory.
Valve hasn't done anything to pass an antitrust sniff test.
Much to my surprise (and granted, I have the means to do so) I will favor steam whenever possible, it’s just significantly better.
Steam just sometimes feels really slow when launching for the first time or when switching tabs/pages (I do also have it just sometimes be just a black windows, but I haven't figured out the cause yet but it is the only window that does it, so...). In comparison B.net just feels decently snappy.
They are both effectively using CEF for their launcher, but since Steam starts so slow for me I always keep it in the background and its WebHelper taking up 414MB (rn, but its always in that ballpark) is not helping its case.
Reminds me of Edge & Chrome.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_...
"Companies providing at least one of the ten core platform services enumerated in the DMA are presumed to be gatekeepers if they meet the criteria listed below. These core platform services are: online intermediation services such as app stores, online search engines, social networking services, certain messaging services, video sharing platform services, virtual assistants, web browsers, cloud computing services, operating systems, online marketplaces, and advertising services. One company can be designated as gatekeeper for several core platform services."
"There are three main quantitative criteria that create the presumption that a company is a gatekeeper as defined in the DMA: (i) when the company achieves a certain annual turnover in the European Economic Area and it provides a core platform service in at least three EU Member States;(ii) when the company provides a core platform service to more than 45 million monthly active end users established or located in the EU and to more than 10,000 yearly active business users established in the EU; and (iii) when the company met the second criterion during the last three years.
The DMA defines a series of specific obligations that gatekeepers will need to respect, including prohibiting them from engaging in certain behaviours in a list of do's and don'ts."
The arguments there match the Steam platform in my opinion, but it is likely Steam already fulfills the existing obligations of the act. Seems a fairly good approach to things, if you are a dominant player you get burdened with extra rules and scrutiny.
By that logic are Amazon and Whatsapp also not "monopolies"? Are they simply just the best e-commerce company and chat app respectively? What competitive behaviors are they employing against their competitors?
Selling at a loss on a cost of goods sold basis, or the entire business as a whole? I'm aware of the latter but not the former. The latter also isn't obvious "abuse", because it would include all sorts of market entrants, including eg. intel trying to enter the GPU space and making a loss because of R&D.
1. Steam isn't bundled with the OS, it must be installed.
2. Steam isn't a gatekeeper to installing software (as the app store is and in a somewhat different way as google has proposed doing with their plans to require app signing).
At least the US, and I assume most legal schemes, require an attempt to monopolize, simply being the best player in town isn't enough. Perhaps if the steam deck, etc. achieved a high level of market dominance you could argue that bundling steam was anticompetitive, but I don't see it yet.
Reading it I learned about the term "monopsony" which is "a market in which goods or services are offered by several sellers but there is only one buyer" which is usually conflated with monopoly.
[1] https://www.versobooks.com/products/3341-enshittification
This is why developers are hopeful for alternative services.
That's Epic using its money from other markets for loss leader schemes in order to grab market share. It's a very classic move (same as free games), and it's always detrimental to the market and customers in the long run.
It's not a good thing, epic games is a garbage company. That they're actively losing money to prop up their store should tell you how bad of a thing it is if it ever succeeds.
If tomorrow Steam decided to charge 30% extra to developers with the stipulation that sticker price must equal that of outside Steam, developers wouldn't have much of a choice but to eat the cost, because PC gamers are extremely reluctant to leave their Steam library and features.
A good example of market power is Apple vs Spotify. When Apple launched Apple Music, they changed Music.app into Apple Music on every iDevice in the world, with a handy subscription pop-up the first time you launched it.
This was massively anti-competitive overreach despite Apple not technically being a monopolist. You can easily install Spotify, and Spotify was much bigger. Without making this move, Apple Music would have crashed and burned, but Apple basically forced themselves into the market, using their marketshare and user migration reluctance as a crowbar.
The fair competition thing to would have been to show a pop-up on first Apple Music app launch, asking "hey, would you like to try one of these streaming services?", and show Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and Deezer in a random order. Just like Microsoft and their browser pop-up.
Then again, aside from a decade of stagnation (2010-2020 Steam saw very few updates, until Valve started working on the Deck), Valve hasn't really abused their position. Gabe Newell famously said that piracy isn't a pricing problem, it's a service problem, and Valve is a private company, so as long as he is at the helm I assume Valve is going to continue delivering good service. After that.. who knows.
Steam doesn't abuse being successful to lock out competitors. You can sell products sold through Steam via other platforms too. You can sell outside of Steam and give your customers Steam keys for the game. You can install Steam on different platforms alongside other stores and programs.
Nothing Steam does makes it harder for consumers to buy games from Valve's competitors. That's what matters, not whether Steam is very successful.
To have the same profit, Spotify has to charge $13/mo when apple music charges $10/mo with all else being the same.
That's very obviously the App Store monopoly being used to give Apple Music a massive unfair advantage that is practically impossible to break through.
Steam does not have anything like that, if someone else decides to make "Epic Game Launcher" tomorrow for PC, that new company doesn't need to distribute it on the "Steam App Store" and pay valve 30% of all sales.
Last I checked as long as an App Store is not handling subscriptions Apple doesn’t take a cut. Did that change?
Until this year, Spotify couldn't even tell you in the iOS app that you could pay for premium: https://newsroom.spotify.com/2025-05-01/following-landmark-c...
This meant in apple music, the user could open the app and it would work including paid features.
In spotify, you could open the app and it would tell you "You can't subscribe here, sorry" and couldn't even link you to a webpage you could subscribe at.
I'm certain a non-zero number of users couldn't understand what to do with that apple-approved error and gave up.
Maybe there's a reason that apple lost in court for that one.
The App Store as a sales channel isn’t a monopoly. The App Store as an installation method is.
It’s an interesting separation, but Apple really didn’t want to make that clear to customers which is probably why they lost.
Monopoly just comes down to marketshare, but it’s perfectly legal in the US to be a monopoly instead it limits what you’re allowed to do. For example a regular company can give a discount if you agree to only sell their goods, obviously that becomes problematic if the company has monopoly power so they are no longer allowed to have such agreements. The boundaries around what is a market trip people up, but it’s around what customers view as substitutes goods. If you don’t have a car then an EV can be a viable substitute, however if you have a gas car then you have some wiggle room on octane ratings etc but an electric car chargers isn’t viable substitute.
“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.[2] Although monopolies may be big businesses, size is not a characteristic of a monopoly. A small business may still have the power to raise prices in a small industry (or market).[2]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
yeah no shit their clients are concerned that Steam is the only storefront that people trust
(1) my games are installable AND playable on _every_ device I use.
(2) I don't have to fight with wine/crossover/etc to get things to work.
(3) It's not hostile to the end user (yet).
I have bought more games since the Steamdeck came out then in the 40'some years before that.
Yes I know that I don't have to use steam, but they make it EASIER.
I am looking forward to Deckard for all of the above reasons and their history with the Index.
Steam makes installing software EASIER then the alternative (regardless of the OS). Auto-patching/updates of installed games.
If I was more social I'd probably use those features more. If they ever charge a monthly fee, I'll stop using it.
cyberjunkie•3h ago
Gambling / trading aside, they're doing a pretty fine so far.
mrzool•3h ago
Edit: that said, the 30% fee is pretty greedy (Apple-level greedy) and they could be doing better at least in that regard.
carlos_rpn•3h ago
Would people feel better with a lower fee, but no distribution network, for example?
dominicrose•3h ago
So yes, 30% is high and unjust to the games creators who are doing the 2025 work.
edelbitter•2h ago
Of course, that would need to have a wildly different fee schedule than when they carry major legal & reputational risks plus more significant customer support volume.
InterlooperX•2h ago
To put into perspective, when Epic only takes 15%. They themselves admitted that is not a sustainable thing. EGS is constantly losing money. So now I invite everyone to gauge just how "big" the EGS is. How many "features" they offer etc. This platform in so much smaller than Steam and even they state that a 15% cut is not sustainable to keep the light on.
Judging just how big the Steam platform is, do people honestly think Valve could be forced into reducing their cut to this proposed 15%? When this little hobbyshop that is EGS cannot make it work. Why would it work for a much much larger and therefore more expensive platform?
I am furthermore given to understand when you distribute on Steam you are free to run your own store front. You are free to create your own Steam keys for your games and sell them in your shop which is supposedly have a 0% cut for Valve. Of course then you would have to run your own store with all the effort and cost that go along with it. Or you simply put it on Steam. A storefront visited by millions of paying customers. Which handles everything. From purchase/refund/CDN for Downloading and updating the game binaries/communityhub to directly engage with the customers if you wish
In the end, the only way they are forced to use steam is because that is where the customers are. and since there are alternatives around, these customers could very well shop some place else. but they dont. they shop where they get the best experience. and if that is on steam, thats where they go.
If "developers" were really honest they would all disclose just how much they sold on Steam vs any other digital store front in case they distribute their offerings to any store that will let them. Just because you get 4 sales on Epic vs 4 million sales on Steam does mean Steam is a monopoly. It just means Epic is a steaming pile and given the chance the customer goes to the better option.
kakacik•2h ago
No its not fine, its a cash cow milking customers. Valve may be better than their competition but they are not saints (same company basically inventing addictive lootboxes mechanism, albeit not in its worst possible form), its a for-profit company that has tons of profit. I am not saying 15% is OK or X% is OK, but 30% is too much in 2025.
Maybe they should have tiers ie 0-10% for first 5k sales, 20% above 100k etc. There are many options to be nicer to customers & developers.
galagawinkle489•1h ago
PCs are an open platform. It is very different.
>its a for-profit company that has tons of profit. I am not saying 15% is OK or X% is OK, but 30% is too much in 2025.
And you base this on what? Nothing. It is a privately held company and you don't have access to its books.
msabalau•1h ago
On the other hand, that Steam taking as big a cut as Apple can claim because of their unfortunate practices isn't great.
Generally, the smallest indie creators, who aren't really likely to benefit from organic discovery on Steam, seem to priority selling on itch, which, by default, only takes a 10%, despite doing all the work you mention.
That Steam seems to have a marketplace monopoly based on network effects, and this allows them to claw money from all but the largest and smallest game developers is not something they have a strong right to claim to morally, and something society would benefit from doing away with. It appears that 72% of game devs feel that way too.
So, to answer your question, for me, two thirds of Steam's revenue seem unfair.
tencentshill•48m ago
fakedang•3h ago
Steam is the most dominant because of their extremely customer friendly policies, their insane price crashes and the ease of publishing and installing games from the platform. If other platforms are able to provide all of that, with a commission below 30%, I'm sure they could easily take over.
But turns out, neither Epic nor EA are interested in serving the customer.
gruez•1h ago
Are steam deals really better than on other platforms? They might have better deals compared to brick and mortar retailers but publishers generally have price parity across various digital storefronts (eg. epic vs steam), so attributing low prices to steam doesn't really make much sense. If anything steam is actually more expensive if you factor in authorized keystores (eg. greenmangaming), which are occasionally cheaper.
mrzool•20m ago
A 15–20% fee would be much fairer in my opinion. They’d still be making plenty of money while letting developers keep more of what they earn through their hard work. At the very least, they should differentiate between big players and smaller indie developers.
happymellon•2h ago
You are free to install an alternative store, that probably has all the games that you are buying from Steam.
I can't do that with my iPhone.
They charge it because people use it voluntarily for the better customer and user experience. If Apple didn't provide their store installed by default, allowed alternative stores without manipulating their content and yet people still used it, it would be a closer analogy.