Originally Posted by Setch Dreskar
...I am stating from my point of view that it is not a monopoly, and can never be one...Now, the reason I say it is not a monopoly is that no one forces anyone to buy from Steam, it is a choice.
Originally Posted by DeTard
...they are not a monopoly, do not have the control needed to form one, nor the leverage to convince publishers to allow them to become one.
Originally Posted by eisberg
You don't know what a monopoly is.
For an informal, but detailed, description of a monopoly, please review Wikipedia: Monopoly and take particular note of the following sentence:

...a monopoly...exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.

Valve/Steam has exclusive control of access to any Steamworks game (you cannot use it without creating a Steam account and agreeing to the Steam Subscriber Agreement) so this should be a no-brainer.

In legal terms, definitions may vary - under UK law a monopoly is defined under section 6 of the Fair Trade Act 1973, to quote:

(1) For the purposes of this Act a monopoly situation shall be taken to exist in relation to the supply of goods of any description in the following cases, that is to say, if—

(a) at least one-quarter of all the goods of that description which are supplied in the United Kingdom are supplied by one and the same person, or are supplied to one and the same person, or

(b) at least one-quarter of all the goods of that description which are supplied in the United Kingdom are supplied by members of one and the same group of interconnected bodies corporate, or are supplied to members of one and the same group of interconnected bodies corporate, or

(c) at least one-quarter of all the goods of that description which are supplied in the United Kingdom are supplied by members of one and the same group consisting of two or more such persons as are mentioned in subsection (2) of this section, or are supplied to members of one and the same group consisting of two or more such persons, or

(d) one or more agreements are in operation, the result or collective result of which is that goods of that description are not supplied in the United Kingdom at all.

Since Steam was estimated to have 70% of the digital distribution market share in November 2009, this should constitute a clear monopoly of the digital distribution market under UK law. If you include retail (which was estimated as only slightly ahead of digital in July 2010) then that still gives Steam a 30-35% market share, again qualifying for monopoly status.
Originally Posted by eisberg
So Securom, Starforce, Tages, Games for Windows Live, all must be monopolies.
None of these are distribution channels (with the possible exception of GFWL) so your argument has no merit.
Originally Posted by eisberg
At least in the US, Bait and Switch litigation would happen, and the plaintiffs would win.
"Bait-and-switch" involves false advertising - in contrast Valve have been upfront on a subscription fee since the EULA you agreed to (the Steam Subscriber Agreement) includes the following in section 4B:

Valve reserves the right to change our fees or billing methods at any time and Valve will provide notice of any such change at least thirty (30) days advance...Your non-cancellation of your Account or an affected Subscription thirty (30) days after posting of the changes on Steam means that you accept such changes.

So if Valve bring in a regular fee, you can opt-out by closing your account. Bit of a pity that it entails losing access to your entire Steam collection though.
Originally Posted by eisberg
EULAs/Service agreements like those are legal gray area, and have been thrown out of court as being invalid agreements.
EULA provisions have been ruled enforceable by the Ninth Circuit's ruling in Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc. in September 2010 (specifically overruling the First Sale Doctrine). With this, any breach of an EULA could result in the customer being sued for copyright infringement (see the EFF's analysis).
Originally Posted by Knight Flyer
Its nice to see that someone else can also take a clinical view of Valves actions and see the possible future outcomes of millions of gamers blindly agreeing to an SSA that they can't be bothered to read or simply don't understand.
I'm in full agreement with you there Knight Flyer.

The vast majority of users do ignore EULAs due to their length and complexity which is understandable - especially since with "normal" software there is little real possibility of the software publisher being able to enforce every aspect of them.

However DRM systems like Steam change the rules - enforcement (by blocking access) is trivial and can (and has, in Valve's case) been done arbitrarily and in ways that damage consumer rights.

It seems highly likely that Valve's past and possible future actions could be judged illegal under UK or European law, but since Valve has no UK/EU presence, legal sanctions cannot be enforced (the EU Competition Commission acknowledge this in their response (PDF) to a complaint about Valve's European pricing). Redress would have to be sought via the US legal system which, as noted above, now has a strong precedent supporting EULA terms and conditions.