72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study
59 comments
·November 5, 2025svpk
jorvi
Valve has market power though, which is a key part of a monopoly.
If tomorrow Steam decided to charge 30% extra to developers with the stipulation that sticker price must equal that of outside Steam, developers wouldn't have much of a choice but to eat the cost, because PC gamers are extremely reluctant to leave their Steam library and features.
A good example of market power is Apple vs Spotify. When Apple launched Apple Music, they changed Music.app into Apple Music on every iDevice in the world, with a handy subscription pop-up the first time you launched it.
This was massively anti-competitive overreach despite Apple not technically being a monopolist. You can easily install Spotify, and Spotify was much bigger. Without making this move, Apple Music would have crashed and burned, but Apple basically forced themselves into the market, using their marketshare and user migration reluctance as a crowbar.
The fair competition thing to would have been to show a pop-up on first Apple Music app launch, asking "hey, would you like to try one of these streaming services?", and show Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and Deezer in a random order. Just like Microsoft and their browser pop-up.
Then again, aside from a decade of stagnation (2010-2020 Steam saw very few updates, until Valve started working on the Deck), Valve hasn't really abused their position. Gabe Newell famously said that piracy isn't a pricing problem, it's a service problem, and Valve is a private company, so as long as he is at the helm I assume Valve is going to continue delivering good service. After that.. who knows.
TheDong
The even more anti-competitive thing Apple does vs Spotify and all competitors is avoiding app store fees, while forcing all competitors to pay them.
To have the same profit, Spotify has to charge $13/mo when apple music charges $10/mo with all else being the same.
That's very obviously the App Store monopoly being used to give Apple Music a massive unfair advantage that is practically impossible to break through.
Steam does not have anything like that, if someone else decides to make "Epic Game Launcher" tomorrow for PC, that new company doesn't need to distribute it on the "Steam App Store" and pay valve 30% of all sales.
Retric
> To have the same profit, Spotify has to charge $13/mo when apple music charges $10/mo
Last I checked as long as an App Store is not handling subscriptions Apple doesn’t take a cut. Did that change?
galagawinkle489
"Monopoly" is a distraction. The issue is abuse of market power. Having market power is fine. You can't punish people for being successful.
Steam doesn't abuse being successful to lock out competitors. You can sell products sold through Steam via other platforms too. You can sell outside of Steam and give your customers Steam keys for the game. You can install Steam on different platforms alongside other stores and programs.
Nothing Steam does makes it harder for consumers to buy games from Valve's competitors. That's what matters, not whether Steam is very successful.
jorvi
To be clear, I don't think Valve has abused their position at all. I was merely musing on how they could. Which would operate on a similar concept as Apple did: "my users will stay in my ecosystem almost regardless of what I do."
yxhuvud
A third difference is that I've seen no signs of steam actually abusing their standing in the market. If anything they seem to be nicer than they have to be.
mzhaase
They absolutely keep a larger cut than others. With Epic the first million you make is free. After much deliberation, steam changed it so that their 30% cut is reduced if you make more than 10M. For a lot of indie devs, its pretty much a death sentence.
masklinn
> With Epic the first million you make is free.
That's Epic using its money from other markets for loss leader schemes in order to grab market share. It's a very classic move (same as free games), and it's always detrimental to the market and customers in the long run.
It's not a good thing, epic games is a garbage company. That they're actively losing money to prop up their store should tell you how bad of a thing it is if it ever succeeds.
orwin
Indie games pay for discoverabiliy (don't know if that's a word). To be clear, I mostly use GoG when I can, unless it's a multiplayer game with bad lobby/MP support (Firaxis/paradox basically)
yxhuvud
High prices are a sign of their competitors failing to compete. Are they using their standing to make competing with them harder, somehow? For example, they dont do Amazon style prohibitions of selling the product cheaper elsewhere.
galagawinkle489
Indie game development largely owes its existence to Steam. I know I would spend a lot less on indie games if I had to buy them from their own websites or, god forbid, through an awful laggy "app store" run by Ubisoft or Microsoft.
Retric
Your misunderstanding what monopoly means and represents.
Monopoly just comes down to marketshare, but it’s perfectly legal in the US to be a monopoly instead it limits what you’re allowed to do. For example a regular company can give a discount if you agree to only sell their goods, obviously that becomes problematic if the company has monopoly power so they are no longer allowed to have such agreements. The boundaries around what is a market trip people up, but it’s around what customers view as substitutes goods. If you don’t have a car then an EV can be a viable substitute, however if you have a gas car then you have some wiggle room on octane ratings etc but an electric car chargers isn’t viable substitute.
“In law, a monopoly is a business entity that has significant market power, that is, the power to charge overly high prices, which is associated with unfair price raises.[2] Although monopolies may be big businesses, size is not a characteristic of a monopoly. A small business may still have the power to raise prices in a small industry (or market).[2]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
teroshan
I'm still finishing my first read, but I really recommend Cory Doctorow's latest book [1] "Enshittification:Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It" which covers the subject of tech monopolies and much more.
Reading it I learned about the term "monopsony" which is "a market in which goods or services are offered by several sellers but there is only one buyer" which is usually conflated with monopoly.
[1] https://www.versobooks.com/products/3341-enshittification
plumthreads
This is really the key here. Many people are commenting their experience as a games buyers, but this article is about the developers. Monopsonies are usually linked to lower wages in labor markets. In this case lower profits for developers from selling their games.
lawn
Valve even allows you to install whatever you want on the Steam Deck. Even Windows!
rererereferred
Yes, thanks to Heroic Launcher I can even play my games from Gog and Epic on it.
estimator7292
Dominant and successful, yes. Monopoly, no.
It take more than simply being the best or most successful business in a sector to be a monopoly. Being a monopoly is an active choice you make as a business by intentionally engaging in anticompetitive behaviors.
Valve isn't putting any pressure on anyone in this sector. There is still competition, but Valve has simply been more successful than everyone else. Mainly because the alternatives are so, so much worse like EA and co who are actively malicious and predatory.
Valve hasn't done anything to pass an antitrust sniff test.
DanielHB
The EU has this concept of gate-keeper platforms which seems more appropriate
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_...
"Companies providing at least one of the ten core platform services enumerated in the DMA are presumed to be gatekeepers if they meet the criteria listed below. These core platform services are: online intermediation services such as app stores, online search engines, social networking services, certain messaging services, video sharing platform services, virtual assistants, web browsers, cloud computing services, operating systems, online marketplaces, and advertising services. One company can be designated as gatekeeper for several core platform services."
"There are three main quantitative criteria that create the presumption that a company is a gatekeeper as defined in the DMA: (i) when the company achieves a certain annual turnover in the European Economic Area and it provides a core platform service in at least three EU Member States;(ii) when the company provides a core platform service to more than 45 million monthly active end users established or located in the EU and to more than 10,000 yearly active business users established in the EU; and (iii) when the company met the second criterion during the last three years.
The DMA defines a series of specific obligations that gatekeepers will need to respect, including prohibiting them from engaging in certain behaviours in a list of do's and don'ts."
The arguments there match the Steam platform in my opinion, but it is likely Steam already fulfills the existing obligations of the act. Seems a fairly good approach to things, if you are a dominant player you get burdened with extra rules and scrutiny.
ido
I think what you’re saying is that they are a natural monopoly, which isn’t nefarious or illegal. But is still a monopoly.
galagawinkle489
Steam is not a natural monopoly.
tyleo
Amazingly Windows even has a store built in. Yet the Windows store is so bad it’s losing despite its considerable advantage as a default.
Reminds me of Edge & Chrome.
DanielHB
Edge market share has grown a lot in the past few years.
gruez
>It take more than simply being the best or most successful business in a sector to be a monopoly. Being a monopoly is an active choice you make as a business by intentionally engaging in anticompetitive behaviors.
By that logic are Amazon and Whatsapp also not "monopolies"? Are they simply just the best e-commerce company and chat app respectively? What competitive behaviors are they employing against their competitors?
cpburns2009
Amazon may be dominant in a couple markets but it is far from a monopoly in them. For online retail you have Walmart, Target, eBay, Newegg, and 100s of other well known retailers with third-party sellers trying to compete. On the data center side you have large players such as Microsoft Azure and Google GCP, and small ones like Digital Ocean, Hertzner, OVH, Vultr, and many others.
galagawinkle489
Amazon sold products at a loss for years in order to capture market share, then raised prices. That is blatant abuse of market power
gruez
>Amazon sold products at a loss for years in order to capture market share
Selling at a loss on a cost of goods sold basis, or the entire business as a whole? I'm aware of the latter but not the former. The latter also isn't obvious "abuse", because it would include all sorts of market entrants, including eg. intel trying to enter the GPU space and making a loss because of R&D.
Agingcoder
Yes - I tried the other platforms.
Much to my surprise (and granted, I have the means to do so) I will favor steam whenever possible, it’s just significantly better.
Pooge
I've never understood this point.
Other developers can just make their own platform or distribute games themselves individually. Nobody wants to do that for obvious reasons.
There's clearly a network effect similar to Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and the likes. But apart from regulating for service interoperability, there's nothing you can do.
It's like claiming that Skype had a monopoly between 2008 and 2014. Just... Install something else then?
Valve is not buying other store makers nor actively sabotaging efforts to do so.
happymellon
> Valve is not buying other store makers nor actively sabotaging efforts to do so.
This is really key, when you see Epic bribing devs to get exclusivity, giving away games for free, they do this and still not succeed because they are actively hostile to their users.
Where is my Big Picture mode?
Where is my support of Linux?
They've been at it for years and yet still don't actually want to provide a service that is desirable to use.
izacus
I'd be happy if Epic Store wouldn't log me out on every attempt to play anything there.
gruez
>because they are actively hostile to their users.
>Where is my Big Picture mode?
>Where is my support of Linux?
Calling the lack of linux and TV support "hostile" is bit of a stretch. The two combined probably makes up 5% of the user base at most, and there are probably workarounds (eg. using wine or the regular interface)
happymellon
I didn't.
I asked where are these basic features. Two separate parts to my comment.
The user hostile comes from Tim Sweeneys Twitter account where he openly mocks users who ask questions.
ChickeNES
I'm literally waiting for Satisfactory to go on Steam sale so I can buy it again and not have to deal with the Epic launcher for one game I bought on sale when the store launched. :)
RealStickman_
You're even allowed to sell your game cheaper on other platforms (not Steam keys, separate keys for those platforms) so by all means charge the 30% more on Steam if you need to.
gruez
>You're even allowed to sell your game cheaper on other platforms (not Steam keys, separate keys for those platforms) so by all means charge the 30% more on Steam if you need to.
How many people would even bite, given the huge premium?
ExpertAdvisor01
you are not allowed to sell cd keys cheaper than on steam
wongarsu
> Other developers can just make their own platform or distribute games themselves individually. Nobody wants to do that for obvious reasons
Where "nobody" is specifically "no users". Lots of publishers tried doing exactly that, and most eventually gave up because users don't want to deal with extra launchers or platforms. Offering games on your own distribution channel is fine, but not being on Steam is going to hurt your sales a lot. Epic is really the only still-running attempt (except for GOG)
everdrive
And PC gaming would be much, much worse without Steam. It would go to some publicly traded company. They would gain a monopoly anyhow, and then slowly start making every single part of the service worse and worse to increase shareholder profits.
glimshe
GOG proves you can still have a solid business in the space. Steam is dominant but not necessarily a monopoly. For all of its faults, Steam is still better than most competitors.
cyberjunkie
Better Valve/Steam than Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, Epic or the rest.
Gambling / trading aside, they're doing a pretty fine so far.
mrzool
No question about it!
Edit: that said, the 30% fee is pretty greedy (Apple-level greedy) and they could be doing better at least in that regard.
carlos_rpn
Anytime I see the complaint about the 30% fee, I wonder what people feel would be fair for the service, because it also includes storage, distribution for new instalations and patching for older ones, along with generating keys to be sold at other stores.
Would people feel better with a lower fee, but no distribution network, for example?
InterlooperX
Agreed. The Steam platform has so much value for developers and yet they still complain about the 30%.
To put into perspective, when Epic only takes 15%. They themselves admitted that is not a sustainable thing. EGS is constantly losing money. So now I invite everyone to gauge just how "big" the EGS is. How many "features" they offer etc. This platform in so much smaller than Steam and even they state that a 15% cut is not sustainable to keep the light on.
Judging just how big the Steam platform is, do people honestly think Valve could be forced into reducing their cut to this proposed 15%? When this little hobbyshop that is EGS cannot make it work. Why would it work for a much much larger and therefore more expensive platform?
I am furthermore given to understand when you distribute on Steam you are free to run your own store front. You are free to create your own Steam keys for your games and sell them in your shop which is supposedly have a 0% cut for Valve. Of course then you would have to run your own store with all the effort and cost that go along with it. Or you simply put it on Steam. A storefront visited by millions of paying customers. Which handles everything. From purchase/refund/CDN for Downloading and updating the game binaries/communityhub to directly engage with the customers if you wish
In the end, the only way they are forced to use steam is because that is where the customers are. and since there are alternatives around, these customers could very well shop some place else. but they dont. they shop where they get the best experience. and if that is on steam, thats where they go.
If "developers" were really honest they would all disclose just how much they sold on Steam vs any other digital store front in case they distribute their offerings to any store that will let them. Just because you get 4 sales on Epic vs 4 million sales on Steam does mean Steam is a monopoly. It just means Epic is a steaming pile and given the chance the customer goes to the better option.
msabalau
Steam getting a 30% cut is certainly less objectional that Apple getting 30% because they've locked other people out of selling on iPhones.
On the other hand, that Steam taking as big a cut as Apple can claim because of their unfortunate practices isn't great.
Generally, the smallest indie creators, who aren't really likely to benefit from organic discovery on Steam, seem to priority selling on itch, which, by default, only takes a 10%, despite doing all the work you mention.
That Steam seems to have a marketplace monopoly based on network effects, and this allows them to claw money from all but the largest and smallest game developers is not something they have a strong right to claim to morally, and something society would benefit from doing away with. It appears that 72% of game devs feel that way too.
So, to answer your question, for me, two thirds of Steam's revenue seem unfair.
dominicrose
Maybe Steam and Apple deserved to obtain a partial monopoly but now they can just sit and relax and take 30% to copy/paste games/apps to each user that wants them.
So yes, 30% is high and unjust to the games creators who are doing the 2025 work.
edelbitter
I would love for steam to offer even the complement: Only distribution & SSO services, so I can have fast downloads and quick non-replayable-auth for games I buy/subscribe elsewhere (not subject to steam peculiarities about squeezing out maximum price for each region by purchasing power).
Of course, that would need to have a wildly different fee schedule than when they carry major legal & reputational risks plus more significant customer support volume.
happymellon
> Apple-level greedy
You are free to install an alternative store, that probably has all the games that you are buying from Steam.
I can't do that with my iPhone.
They charge it because people use it voluntarily for the better customer and user experience. If Apple didn't provide their store installed by default, allowed alternative stores without manipulating their content and yet people still used it, it would be a closer analogy.
fakedang
How much do you think they should take?
Steam is the most dominant because of their extremely customer friendly policies, their insane price crashes and the ease of publishing and installing games from the platform. If other platforms are able to provide all of that, with a commission below 30%, I'm sure they could easily take over.
But turns out, neither Epic nor EA are interested in serving the customer.
gruez
>Steam is the most dominant because of their ... insane price crashes
Are steam deals really better than on other platforms? They might have better deals compared to brick and mortar retailers but publishers generally have price parity across various digital storefronts (eg. epic vs steam), so attributing low prices to steam doesn't really make much sense. If anything steam is actually more expensive if you factor in authorized keystores (eg. greenmangaming), which are occasionally cheaper.
nyadesu
It doesn't feel that way to me, I know I could probably buy a game through another digital distribution service, maybe for a bit cheaper, but it's just not worth the hassle of installing another program, signing up, and configuring things
null
systematizeD
I was curious who exactly would commission and/or publish said study - turns out it’s a grey market key reseller
yeah no shit their clients are concerned that Steam is the only storefront that people trust
Key distinctions between Steam and similar contenders in other spaces (google play store, the apple app store) are that:
1. Steam isn't bundled with the OS, it must be installed.
2. Steam isn't a gatekeeper to installing software (as the app store is and in a somewhat different way as google has proposed doing with their plans to require app signing).
At least the US, and I assume most legal schemes, require an attempt to monopolize, simply being the best player in town isn't enough. Perhaps if the steam deck, etc. achieved a high level of market dominance you could argue that bundling steam was anticompetitive, but I don't see it yet.