I lean towards ‘no’ because I do not see moves on their part to actively attack other distributors, but I admit I have not done research on this subject.
Based purely on having used many other distribution platforms, I think they (Valve) just legitimately have the best service currently. Everyone else either kinda sucking (GOG, as much as I love them), or really sucking (EGS, Origin, UPlay, etc), and losing to you in the market, doesn’t make you a monopoly.
I think they care about their customers just about as much as they care about making money, and aside from GOG, the competition simply does not. It’s a pretty good demonstration to how capitalism has failed us, to be honest, because any of those competitors would have been able to compete if they hadn’t treated their customers like shit.
I lean towards ‘no’ because I do not see moves on their part to actively attack other distributors
That doesn’t matter. There’s a difference between having a monopoly and abusing it to distort the market. It’s the abuse that’s illegal, not the monopoly in itself.
There’s a difference between having a monopoly and abusing it
Sure, but whether Valve fits the definition is debatable. Being highly dominant does not automatically make something a monopoly. At best you could call it an imperfect monopoly/ imperfect competition, because substitutes absolutely do exist, but they’re not mostly close enough to be truly competitive. It’s also important to factor in that 4/5 of the largest games on PC are not even on Steam at all: Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, and League of Legends. PUBG is the only one of the top-5 that’s on Steam.
It might be. It hasn’t been tested in court.
I lean towards ‘no’ because I do not see moves on their part to actively attack other distributors, but I admit I have not done research on this subject.
Based purely on having used many other distribution platforms, I think they (Valve) just legitimately have the best service currently. Everyone else either kinda sucking (GOG, as much as I love them), or really sucking (EGS, Origin, UPlay, etc), and losing to you in the market, doesn’t make you a monopoly.
I think they care about their customers just about as much as they care about making money, and aside from GOG, the competition simply does not. It’s a pretty good demonstration to how capitalism has failed us, to be honest, because any of those competitors would have been able to compete if they hadn’t treated their customers like shit.
That doesn’t matter. There’s a difference between having a monopoly and abusing it to distort the market. It’s the abuse that’s illegal, not the monopoly in itself.
Under US law, yes it does matter, that’s what makes something a monopoly under US law, otherwise it’s just a dominant market position.
Sure, but whether Valve fits the definition is debatable. Being highly dominant does not automatically make something a monopoly. At best you could call it an imperfect monopoly/ imperfect competition, because substitutes absolutely do exist, but they’re not mostly close enough to be truly competitive. It’s also important to factor in that 4/5 of the largest games on PC are not even on Steam at all: Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, and League of Legends. PUBG is the only one of the top-5 that’s on Steam.