It’s almost as if the real money is where the customers are at, and not in little Timmy’s wallet.

    • Chocrates@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      28 days ago

      That’s fair. I am probably parroting stuff I hear about the play store or the apple store. Before epic I don’t know many big players steam had to compete with. How much revenue does Gog make compared to valve for instance?

      • AwesomeLowlander@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        28 days ago

        How much revenue does Gog make compared to valve for instance?

        I don’t know. That’s not relevant to the definition of a monopoly. To be a monopoly you need to be the only supplier of a product or service. If there’s competition, but you have the majority of market share, then you’re merely dominating the market, which is not illegal (or even necessarily a bad thing, as evidenced by Steam).

        Google Play and Apple store are monopolies because they are not competitors to each other, if you own a phone you’re stuck with one or the other with no choices. They also take steps to prevent competition, which is highly illegal.

    • Lizardqueen@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      28 days ago

      Steam is pretty much a monopoly because I expect something like 90% of pc game sales go through them. The thing is that being a monopoly is not necessarily bad, or illegal. It is abusing your monopolistic power to exploit consumers that is. Steam doesn’t generally seem to do that

        • Lizardqueen@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          28 days ago

          Oh yes I see it now. You posted it right after my response. And I do agree with what you say there. I however do believe that the destinction between a true monopoly and a dominant market position such as steam has is essentially irrelevant in this context. In a market economy you would expect very few (or even no ? ) true monopolies except those run by the state. And not being a true monopoly doesn’t stop dominant firms from being able exploit monopolistic powers.

          However my point is that steam doesn’t exploit it’s market position while it could definitely choose to. On that we seem to agree I think