Not really no, and it’s not monopolistic, especially given steam’s low cut and again no restrictions on being able to sell on any other storefronts.
Other storefronts are just objectively worse. Like if you release a game on EGS, you will make less money per sale than on steam because of how EGS does their free games and sales cuts; and you’ll get lower sales because EGS is fucking awful to use for consumers.
It is monopolistic. If I start a brand new company and try to pull that, nobody will respect my pricing scheme. The only way you can enforce such a pricing scheme (if you don’t have regulatory power) is to be large enough that ignoring you loses more revenue than it gains, whether or not people want you to be in that position of power.
If Steam charges 30%, then just like Amazon, they don’t have to restrict your ability to sell elsewhere for it to be bad for both the studio and the consumer.
If my game is $100, and $30 goes to Valve, and I want to make $100 in profit, I have to raise my game’s price to around $143. Even if another storefront offered 0% fees, I would have to sell there for $143 if I wanted to not be delisted from Steam.
Everyone pays a higher price, even if they don’t use Steam. Either that, or developers make less overall by keeping prices the same and losing Valve’s cut, which means less money for developers, servers, etc.
This is monopolistic because if someone tries to price their game lower elsewhere, making the same profit while paying less fees, and giving their players a cheaper price, instead of that just being regular 'ol competition, Valve gets to remove their main buyer base entirely unless they keep giving Valve a cut of most of their sales.
Other storefronts might not be great, but you don’t even get the ability to make a good storefront if your competition can just say “I already have most of the users, if you try to compete with me on price, I’ll remove all of your games from my platform and take away most of the market.”
Not really no, and it’s not monopolistic, especially given steam’s low cut and again no restrictions on being able to sell on any other storefronts.
Other storefronts are just objectively worse. Like if you release a game on EGS, you will make less money per sale than on steam because of how EGS does their free games and sales cuts; and you’ll get lower sales because EGS is fucking awful to use for consumers.
It is monopolistic. If I start a brand new company and try to pull that, nobody will respect my pricing scheme. The only way you can enforce such a pricing scheme (if you don’t have regulatory power) is to be large enough that ignoring you loses more revenue than it gains, whether or not people want you to be in that position of power.
If Steam charges 30%, then just like Amazon, they don’t have to restrict your ability to sell elsewhere for it to be bad for both the studio and the consumer.
If my game is $100, and $30 goes to Valve, and I want to make $100 in profit, I have to raise my game’s price to around $143. Even if another storefront offered 0% fees, I would have to sell there for $143 if I wanted to not be delisted from Steam.
Everyone pays a higher price, even if they don’t use Steam. Either that, or developers make less overall by keeping prices the same and losing Valve’s cut, which means less money for developers, servers, etc.
This is monopolistic because if someone tries to price their game lower elsewhere, making the same profit while paying less fees, and giving their players a cheaper price, instead of that just being regular 'ol competition, Valve gets to remove their main buyer base entirely unless they keep giving Valve a cut of most of their sales.
Other storefronts might not be great, but you don’t even get the ability to make a good storefront if your competition can just say “I already have most of the users, if you try to compete with me on price, I’ll remove all of your games from my platform and take away most of the market.”
Being “good” doesn’t mean you’re not a monopoly.
See: US Postal Service, most municipal utilities.