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Steam keeps on winning
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this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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It is technically a monopoly, you don't need 100% market share to be considered one otherwise Google wouldn't be considered a monopoly but it is.
In the Epic trial, Google made some of the same arguments as those used to defend Steam, like the presence of competing stores or the claim that it wins people over by the quality of the product.
Epic's expert made these relevant points:
And we know who won in the antitrust case. Let's see what happens in Wolfire et al v. Valve.
Wowww this is crazy misleading.
The difference is that Google's software is forced onto OEMs without them having any real choice. That Google makes them sign contracts forbidding other default app stores. That Google has secret back room deals with some app developers and not others waiving the store fee, giving them an unfair advantage.
Valve does none of that. Can you point me to valve forcing, say, Dell or HP to pre-install Steam and no other game stores? Or them not taking a cut for some games?
Valve's actions do not have to copy those of Google for it to engage in anti-competitive behavior. Focus on the Steam-specific arguments deemed reasonable enough for the judge to allow the trial to go through, like those on the MFN, high profit margin related to the 30% fee, user reviews manipulation, and so forth.
I said pointing to the Google antitrust case and equating them is misleading, not that it's impossible for Valve to engage in any anti-competitive behaviour.
And the reason why I said that is because they're completely different and not even in the same stratosphere in terms of shady ongoings. Nor are they doing the same thing. The Google case has zero bearing on this one.
As for the 30% cut, that's been deemed fine. See the Apple case and the Google case. Even in Google's case, where Google lost, it wasn't down to pricing.
And Valve would have an easier time justifying it too. They could point to their service being much more bandwidth intensive, and including things like friend systems, a messenger, voice chat, streaming, cloud saves, Linux compatibility layers, compatibility for controllers that the OS doesn't natively support, matchmaking APIs, Steam overlay, custom control options for when the game doesn't officially support it, etc.