I never hurled any insults, I am stating from my point of view that it is not a monopoly, and can never be one. Should Valve decide to try and turn it into one, well the US government steps in and forces them to break it up. Its an old law that still comes into affect alot, there was (though for the life of me I can't remember) a case recently where a company had a perceived monopoly here in the States and so the government forced them to split into 3 companies or shut down operations.

As long as Valve is within the US they can't go for, or try to become a monopoly as it would end up cutting them apart in the process, and then there would be all the angered customers who having bought products from Steam would be at the new companies throats in order to get money back or a hard copy product shipped to them at no charge.

Now, the reason I say it is not a monopoly is that no one forces anyone to buy from Steam, it is a choice. There is no developer that is told by Valve, you must have Steam for this game, it is a choice made by each studio. Valve does not own the rights to all distribution (Which in itself disqualifies it as a monopoly anyways) with competitors like impulse, D2D, etc Valve can never have a monopoly unless they buy out every single one of their distribution competitors which won't happen.

A true monopoly is a 100% control of a select good with no competition to worry about, which as stated Valve has competitors. You must also have 100% control of the ingredients needed to make the product you have complete control over, which Valve being one game studio compared to all the game studios that make a choice to put their games on Steam, as well as/or in other distribution means disqualifies this. For Valve to gain a monopoly they need to shut down all other online distributors, then they need to close out all the stores that sell games without the use of Steam, and then they would need to get control of every game studio to force Steam to be the only choice.

TL,DR

It will never happen, Valve is not, nor will it ever be a monopoly as they don't have the necessary control to be one.

Last edited by Setch Dreskar; 11/12/10 02:02 AM.