A new Dutch class action has been filed against Valve Corporation, the company behind Steam. The case is brought by the Stichting Consumenten Competition Claims (CCC), which has launched the proceedings under the name GameClaim. The foundation acts on behalf of all Dutch PC gamers who have purchased games through Steam or other PC distribution platforms since 2013, IGN Benelux reports.
You can like Valve but you cannot deny it’s dominant position in the market. It is a monopoly. It’s a fact.
Explain
That not a fact at all. That’s not what a monopoly is.
Steam is absolutely a monopoly. It’s as clear as day you just don’t want to admit it.
Even at its height, Standard Oil never controlled 100% of the market either.
People genuinely choosing a certain option en masse doesn’t mean they have a monopoly, it means the competition are doing a fucking shit job.
A monopoly is where there isn’t a choice, like water and sewerage companies, for example. This isn’t like that at all, and is therefore not a monopoly.
The only thing that’s clear here is that you have no idea what you’re talking about
I’m free to buy my PC games lots of places. Sometimes I go through GOG or itch.io. But I’ve uninstalled the Epic launcher and whatever Ubisoft calls theirs because they’re a worse experience than Steam in every way. It’s not a monopoly just because there’s a clear best option.
It’s dominant because of…consumer choice? Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?
Why is it a monopoly? Epic, Xbox, Amazon, and more exist…they just don’t follow the steam template nor invest in their platform as much as steam does. 🤷♂️ how is Valve acting in an anti-competitive way?
Good lord valve fanboys are insufferable. If any other company controlled 80%-90% of sales in one sector of the economy you wouldn’t hesitate to call it what it is, a monopoly.
As if you aren’t aware that tons of AAA only launch on steam.
No-one is forcing certain titles to only release on Steam, that is the developer/publisher’s choice, to make their own lives less complicated. Perhaps they’ve run the numbers and reckon that Steam’s cut is cheaper than doing all the infrastructure (and everything else steam does) themselves?
Your argument essentially boils down to; You’re angry that Etsy is a “monopoly” because the guy who sells particular shirts you like only sells via an Etsy storefront thing to make his own life simpler.
Oh. PlayStation, Xbox and switch don’t exist?
Games are also sold on apples App store
Fairly sure at least 3 of these stores are bigger. Most people don’t even know what steam is
Maybe those who don’t own a PC but only ever knew consoles. Everyone else sure does know steam.
Consoles are PC’s. They’re just locked down. They even use the same processors.
I dated a few women who played games regularly. It was always on consoles and I had to explain what steam was.
You can’t narrow a definition to a limited subsection of what a PC is, simply because (ironically), some of them are locked down to block competiton
If you ask gamers unprompted what the biggest gaming stores are, I guarantee that Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo’s stores will be mentioned
Consoles are PCs, but that is totally irrelevant as they’re walled gardens with just a super-tiny fraction of all games there are.
Of course one could. If you say “I’m PC-gamer” everyone knows you’re not on PlayStation or a smartphone. Despite them all, including wearables and my toaster, are kinda PCs.
Mentioned of course. On top? I doubt it, but also lack data to prove it. Or the opposite. I know those stores too, despite only having had a console in the 80s (the Atari 2600) and a gameboy for a week.
Xbox might be a bit different, as to my knowledge, as you can also game their stuff on PC too with the same license.
Forced at gunpoint to get a console, it surely be steam deck. And I don’t even like steam. But it’s A) more than just a store. It’s a gargantuan gaming a community around a store. B) it made gaming on Linux totally viable
How are PS and and Switch an agent against a monopoly on PC game sales? This is quite a reach
Interesting wordsmithing. Why did you ignore Xbox?
Oh yeah, Xbox client ships with windows lol . And Apple has made it increasingly difficult to install apps outside of their store.
Furthermore, you’ve narrowed down gaming to a very narrow definition. Nobody is stopping PlayStation or Nintendo selling games on PC. Whether or not you like it though, they are selling games, and they do compete with steam. And, they likely sell more than steam too
Or are you genuinely arguing that Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo aren’t competing for gamers?
Again, I’m pretty sure that at least part of being a monopoly is that most gamers know who you are, and that doesn’t seem to be the case when I speak to people