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this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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When people say Valve doesn't have a monopoly, they usually mean they don't engage in anti-competitive practices (like making exclusivity a condition for publishing on their store, cough cough).
Actually, Valve's recent moves represent what free market capitalism should be about - when competing stores started to appear, they instead made massive contributions to Linux gaming and appealed to right-to-repair advocates with the Steam Deck. Now both of those demographics are suckling on Gaben's teats, myself included.
I hate DRM but really like Steam, they put in a shit ton of work to achive that! It's certainly a monopoly but I think one of the biggest differences is that it's not a publically tradet company so they don't have to chase that infinite growth many very influencial idiots don't see any issue with and there for aren't willing to destroy everything for short term gains.
Despite not having pressure from shareholders Valve pioneered or at least popularized and normalized many of the worst practices in videogame industry designed to milk players dry: microtransactions, battle passe, loot boxes, real money gambling, you name it, Valve has it
True, their games have quite a few very questionable mechanics!
Valve releasing a video on how to break down the Steam Deck was one of the best things I've seen from a large company in a long time.
I still love that video, 'Don't do this becouse it could be dangerous, but it's your device, so here's how'
That may be so, but that's not the way that the initial tweet is using the term, and not the commonly understood definition.
I'm not denying that Valve as a whole have been a force for good in the PC gaming market, but it's pointless to argue semantics and make up definitions to better suit personal bias instead of debating the actual point that's being made.
But they do. They forbid devs to sell their games cheaper on other storefronts (outside of timed sales). Basically they enforce anti-competitive pricing on products in a way that makes it impossible for the devs to move the platform costs into consumer prices.
Devs could sell the product on Epic for example for $49 and make the same amount of profit as they do on Steam when priced $59 due to lower cut, but they can't do it because Valve forbids it. It anti-competitively protects Valve and their 30% cut against competitors who would take lesser cuts, at the expense of end customers.