I never said it had anything to do with the UK though, legal definition being 25% in the UK, well it is different in the US, it requires alot more control of the markets. The Reason I did not look at the links you provided is I am arguing against considering Steam as a monopoly as it doesn't fall under such a category in the US, not against the service fees should they decide to begin charging them. More towards the point of service fees, though Valve has stated they could impose fees the likely fallout of doing so would do more damage to the company then it would do good. Who knows things may change but it seems like alot of 'woes me' drama put onto Steam that doesn't make sense to me, though I would also wonder what the legal terms would apply to each individual game and if a client could request hard copies shipped to them at no cost as the steam version is legally their's (the person buying) and ths their property not Valves.
You are speaking UK to US, I am telling you there is too much in the US going on with the games industry for Steam to be a monopoly here, maybe they are considered elsewhere but not by US legal standards.
Though I am suprised you did not bring to light that Electric companies are allowed and encouraged by the government to maintain monopolies within their respective counties, such as CELP here in my town.
We're not talking country to country, we're talking globaly.
As already posted by Stargazer:
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.
