• Paradoxvoid@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    People saying Steam doesn’t have a monopoly because other stores exist, is the same as saying Microsoft doesn’t have a monopoly on PC Gaming because Mac and Linux exist. Technically true, but ultimately meaningless because its their market power that determines a monopoly, not whether there are other niche players.

    While Valve and Steam have generally been a good player, and currently do offer the best product, they still wield an ungodly amount of influence over the PC gaming market space.

    Epic is chasing that because they really want what Valve has, though no doubt they plan to speedrun the enshittification process as soon as they think it safe.

    • rtxn@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • HidingCat@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Capitalism and a free economy are good when it’s serving customers by making the best product or service possible, while balancing that with paying labour to make that happen.

        The problem is that nowadays, there’s a third party to this for the megacorps: Shareholders, which is where the enshittification begins.

        Valve is a private company, so it is not beholden to any external shareholders, which is why it’s been able to chart its own course. Still, I do worry what will happen when Gabe steps down.

        • Poob@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Even when capitalism serves customers well, it still takes the work of people who make things, and gives it to people who own things

                  • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
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                    1 year ago

                    I just don’t think that’s the case with Valve, they work on steam and add new features consistently, it’s not like they’re providing no value for the cut they take.

                    I get where you’re coming from though and way too many companies get away with that kind of situation. Just what capitalism often gives us :/

      • Gamey@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • rena_ch@lemmy.zip
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          1 year ago

          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

      • dan1101@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • asexualchangeling@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          I still love that video, ‘Don’t do this becouse it could be dangerous, but it’s your device, so here’s how’

      • Paradoxvoid@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        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.

      • FreeFacts@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        they usually mean they don’t engage in anti-competitive practices.

        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.

    • SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      Steam is a natural monopoly, which although still not entirely good but are a wholly different beast from monopolies made by exploiting flaws in the system

      • nora@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        What’s a natural monopoly? Valve currently has the freedom to implement anything they want within an extent because they’re so popular. If they decided they wanted to charge devs 35% would people stop using it? Probably not. Steam’s monopoly is as bad as any other for the same reason any other monopoly is bad.

        • coltorl@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          A natural monopoly is when an industry is difficult to break into, making competition difficult or impossible. This favors incumbents, in fact, a lot of industries are natural monopolies (pharma, aerospace, chip production).

          The difficulty of breaking into an industry may be because:

          • new players cannot compete with established scale
          • start up costs require a nearly all-or-nothing approach, high risk
          • regulations tie the hand of new innovators
        • SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net
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          1 year ago

          Look it up? It’s an actual term, not something I made up for whatever reason you assumed to argue against something I didn’t even say. I already said it’s still not a good thing, it just would have happened regardless of whoever that was able to do it on scale first.

        • stillwater@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          You may want to read up on Ma Bell or Microsoft’s legal issues with Internet Explorer in the 90s to see what specifically was so bad about monopolies like those, and then revisit this idea.

    • Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      A prerequisite for enshittification is to have a non-shit product, so Epic are actually a safe bet against enshittification.

    • GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Epic is chasing that because they really want what Valve has, though no doubt they plan to speedrun the enshittification process as soon as they think it safe.

      Like what Steam did with Greenlight and the plague of early access asset flips that clogged its home page for years?

      • stillwater@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Greenlight had nothing to do with selling out the end user experience to cash out on providing value and leaving the service near unusable, unless you have some kind of compulsion where you have to buy everything on Steam.

        • GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The trading card feature created an ecosystem allowing cheap asset flips to quickly make the threshold. And make their money back, creating a positive feedback loop.

          Steam allowed its store to be flooded with these games at the expense of its customers because it got it’s cut.

          • pkpenguin@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I’ve never understood this complaint because it takes no effort at all to just ignore these games

          • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Do you think they wanted it to be abused? It’s pretty obvious they didn’t like the way it went which is why they got rid of it…