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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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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.
I agree that Steam is pretty good as it is, and there are certainly more pressing concerns. However, in an ideal world, what Steam does should probably be handled by the public sector because it's a natural monopoly. People like only having to go to one place to find their games, but that place doesn't have to be controlled by a for-profit corporation.
Videos games aren't like food or housing. If you want to buy a game you can look up all the different sites selling it and buy from which ever one you think is best.
If you're a game developer, then the ability to sell games does buy food and housing, and you sell a lot more games on Steam than anywhere else.
And if you want to sell on a good platform that platform is going to want to take a cut.