A “de-facto” monopoly is not a monopoly. Competitors basically refused to innovate their stores beyond the MVP despite users pointing out the missing features. Epic pissed away a lot of money to buy traffic and then never did anything to keep it.
A “de facto” monopoly (whatever that is) has all the drawbacks of a “real” monopoly (whatever that is): reduced incentive for innovation, possibility for price fixing, means for anticompetitive practices, and so on. The distinction is entirely meaningless when you look at the actual impact an <adjective> monopoly has on society.
Epic, GOG, Fanatical, Itch, Humble all exist and compete with with Steam with varying levels of success. And those are just the ones I can name off the top of my head. Does Gumroad do games?
There is no lack of competition. They are just bad in obvious ways. I’m not saying it’s easy to take on a giant like Steam, but Epic for example is exactly the kind of company and amount of money that could. They didn’t, and it’s not because of the library effect. They simply went with the seemingly easiest way: pissing money on the problem (securing timed exclusives and free games). There is so much they could do to make the client and their service better, but they don’t. So no, it’s not a monopoly.
A “de-facto” monopoly is not a monopoly. Competitors basically refused to innovate their stores beyond the MVP despite users pointing out the missing features. Epic pissed away a lot of money to buy traffic and then never did anything to keep it.
For all the things I enjoy about GOG, I really wish they added an “ignore” button to games. Steam has had it for 10+ years now.
Another thing I really wish they added is negative filters to the store search/list, “hide games with the tags”. It’s shopping UX 101
A “de facto” monopoly (whatever that is) has all the drawbacks of a “real” monopoly (whatever that is): reduced incentive for innovation, possibility for price fixing, means for anticompetitive practices, and so on. The distinction is entirely meaningless when you look at the actual impact an <adjective> monopoly has on society.
Generally it would be true but Valve seems like an exception. Steam is still like 10 years ahead of every other shop front or console.
Epic, GOG, Fanatical, Itch, Humble all exist and compete with with Steam with varying levels of success. And those are just the ones I can name off the top of my head. Does Gumroad do games?
There is no lack of competition. They are just bad in obvious ways. I’m not saying it’s easy to take on a giant like Steam, but Epic for example is exactly the kind of company and amount of money that could. They didn’t, and it’s not because of the library effect. They simply went with the seemingly easiest way: pissing money on the problem (securing timed exclusives and free games). There is so much they could do to make the client and their service better, but they don’t. So no, it’s not a monopoly.