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72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study
(www.gamesindustry.biz)
this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
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There's a difference between being feature-rich and popular and being a monopoly.
Call me when Steam is buying competing stores to shut them down.
Now, in terms of PC gaming monopolies, let me introduce you to "Microsoft".
I think there is a distinction to be made between being a monopoly and doing anti-competitive behavior.
Steam hasn't done any anti-competitive behavior that I am aware of, but they do have enough market power to be considered a monopoly. Consider how companies like EA and Activision tried to maintain competing platforms but caved because those platforms were not viable compared to Steam. That's monopoly power.
theres basically one anti conpetitive measure they hold primarily, and its the one that states the listing price of a game must be the same on all platforms policy. stops devs from having a lower listing price on other platforms.
other than that its usually other platforms shooting their selves.
I'm pretty sure that that only applies to steam keys being sold on other sites. If it's being distributed in some other form, it can be cheaper.
Failing to make a product that doesn't suck shit does not make a monopoly for your competitor.
In fact, Steam is de facto not a monopoly because of the very existence of GOG. EA and Activision tried to break in to this arena but failed to provide a product that actually switched people off of steam, because they failed to provide a comparable experience to steam. GOG did, and they're doing fine.
By this logic Google isn’t a search monopoly because DuckDuckGo exists, despite Google buying default placement in Safari, Firefox, Chrome, etc to make sure no other search provider can compete, with their bribe to Apple alone totaling $20 billion a year to maintain their search dominance. What do you think monopoly power is if not that?
Can you describe where Steam has done anything even approaching that, ever?
EA and Activision stores didn't fail because Steam bought them out and bullied them out of the market, they failed because they were trash products. Steam doesn't buy "default placement" in anything. They just have a good product that people want to use over alternatives.
Point out a situation in which Steam has acted anti-competitive and I might agree that you have a point, but I can't think of any situations to call out here.
Whether something is a monopoly or not is independent of anti-competitive practices. It's about market power.
If there's a genuinely good product that's popular because it's good. There's no need to step in and give shittier products more share in the market.
The point in breaking up monopolies is to be more fair for consumers. If you want to say they're technically a monopoly because they have a large share of the market then fine. But I don't see that as a bad thing until it starts abusing its power.
yes, it is "is independent of anti-competitive practices", a monopoly is when there is only one company providing a product or service
Bullshit. Being the most popular platform does not automatically make a monopoly, this is armchair lawyer nonsense.
It's true that I am not a lawyer, so feel free to not take what I say as what the law says. I think that the law certainly should consider Steam to be a monopoly with its level of market power, even if it doesn't currently.
From what I have heard from actual lawyers, monopolies are not currently illegal under US law anyways. They're only illegal when combined with anticompetitive practices. That's my best understanding as a non-lawyer, anyways.
I think they were viable but nobody trusts EA and Activision with keeping the game they buy.
Seriously. Part of the reason they're even so popular is because they aren't actively pursuing profit maxxing/enshittification business practices to corner the market and consolidate market share like every other one of these blood sucking cretins. They really are one of the extremely short list of corporations that ACTUALLY win in the marketplace because their product really is just that good. Running the steam deck with Linux, contributing to the development of Wine/Proton, and telling Microsoft to kick rocks has made me a Gaben fanboy for life. If Steam was the ONLY way you could purchase PC games, I'd honestly be fine with that, as long as Valve remains a private company under the iron fist of Mister Newell.
Remaining a privately held company is really the only protection from enshittification. Not a guarantee, mind you.
Gabe Newell is a man with a red button on his desk that, if pressed, will immediately grant him 11 figures to distribute as he pleases. It's labeled "sell Valve to Microsoft/go public". Newell hasn't pressed the button. Newell and his employees are satisfied with "making shitloads of money" and don't need to "make more shitloads than last year, forever".
I can reasonably say that Newell probably won't press that button during his lifetime. Similarly, I'd trust anyone with that button to hold onto it no matter what, because "if it's getting pressed, it should be me pressing it."
Once Newell dies, many bets are off. That's a really, really tempting button to press. There are very few humans likely to not press it.
Yep, exactly.
They don't have a board of investors demanding LINE GO UP FASTER, the way that say, MSFT did, demanding their games division hit a 30% profit margin for the last 5 years, and then I guess being surprised that that level of short term thinking blew it all up.
But, on the flip side... who the fuck knows what's gonna happen when Gabe either passes the torch or quits.
Hooray capitalism, lol.
Well they are certainly the exception, not the rule. I'll take it, but we definitely got cosmically lucky to have steam exist in this timeline the way it does. 99/100 times it's a soulless shit factory that's entirely reflective of the AAA industry as a whole.
Words don't matter. Do well and have a platform that most prefer? You're a monopoly. People don't realize that to be a monopoly you must be the only source and actively prevent access to or other sources of the same product. How many of those using the term monopoly regarding Steam have GOG Galaxy, Epic, Battle.net, and etc. installed on their machines, ya think.
Being the best does not a monopoly make!
Edit: Further, and speaking of Epic, I never heard of Steam paying devs to pull their games from other platforms for exclusivity deals.
Steam does force the sellers on their platform to not give better discounts elsewhere. So basically if you see a game that’s 20% off on steam and it is ATL, you won’t find it 30% off anywhere else.
Not necessarily a monopoly but definitely not allowing competitive pricing.
Now that I think about it, it’s probably why Epic has to go with the “timed exclusive” approach instead of just giving you a bigger discount.
Not actually true. They only require price parity for steam keys. Basically don't sell steam copies anywhere cheaper than on steam. Any other copy you can sell for whatever price.
Not true. I just checked the first game currently discounted I know on GOG's front page: Ghost Runner. It's at -75% (7.49€) on GOG but full price (29.99€) on Steam.
Isthereanydeals. Frequently see steam keys available for cheaper than it is on Steam.
Recommend using it as a resource before buying games since it tracks prices, so no need to spend more than necessary.
Example is recently released ARC Raiders where you can save a few bucks. Current best is 15% off for a Steam key.
https://isthereanydeal.com/game/arc-raiders/info/
I've often wondered who is paying full price buying from Steam at launch over sometimes buying a Steam key from another storefront for 10-20% less. Guess its people who think games aren't sold cheaper than on Steam.
They have a functional monopoly on game launchers, but it isn’t illegal to have a monopoly — it’s only illegal to use that monopoly for anti-competitive actions.
A monopoly in law doesn’t mean total (100%) market control; it means having the power to control prices or exclude competition. Courts often refer to this as monopoly power.
A monopoly could exist with as little as 50% of the market, or even lower. Steam has around 70–80%, which is easily enough to be considered a monopoly. However, you could argue that despite their large market share, they can’t truly control the market, since it’s their goodwill and consumer-friendly behavior that earned them that share in the first place — and if they ever tried to abuse it, people might go elsewhere.
Personally, I don’t really believe that. Considering your entire library is tied to their platform, they could pull all kinds of shady tactics if they wanted to. But it’s an argument.
As far as I’m concerned, Steam is the least evil of the major corporations. I can overlook the secret gambling ring and possible dark-money smuggling complicity because they seem to be a net benefit to consumers, and the harm mostly falls on those complicit in the scheme — as well as on China and Russia.
Edit, fixed spelling.