The problem with judging Steam as a monopolistic platform is whether it uses its market position to maintain its monopoly or not.
Valve doesn’t really engage in vertical integration. There are a few games that Valve makes as a first party exclusive, but nowhere near other competitors like Nintendo or Activision Blizzard. There also isn’t a gaming engine that ties to Steam directly; the closest is Proton but that isn’t required.
Valve doesn’t seem to seem to require onerous requirements on third party game studios to publish on Steam. Outside of banning ad-supported gaming, Valve doesn’t seem to demand preferential treatment.
Valve could easily become a problematic monopoly, but it isn’t there yet.
The word for a market dominated by only a few very large players is oligopoly, not… polyopoly.
Not saying you’re saying that, just saying.
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As to the etymology…
Its derives from Greek.
A monopoly has one (mono) influential seller for many (poly) consumers.
An oligopoly has a few, wealthy (oligo, as in oligarch, oligarchy) sellers for many (poly) consumers.
Importantly, in Greek, poly is closely related to polis, meaning basically ‘all of the people/citizens’.
This is also where English gets ‘Politics’ from.
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Also, I wrote a whole other comment, but the mere existence of any competitors, no matter how small… doesn’t mean you aren’t a monopoly.
Its just means you aren’t a perfect monopoly, which basically never exists in real life, outside of public utilities.
If the rubric for ‘is it a monopoly?’ was ‘do any competitors exist?’, then basically no company that’s ever been broken up or regulated for being a monopoly was actually a monopoly.
A lot of people seem to think that a monopoly has a much, much more direct and literal definition than it actually does.
The definition the FTC uses is:
Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors.
That is how that term is used here: a “monopolist” is a firm with significant and durable market power.
Courts look at the firm’s market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area.
Some courts have required much higher percentages.
(Well, at least untill Elon and Trump put the fucking Shark Tank guy in charge, or something like that.)
Generally speaking, a monopolist is a single entity that has captured a huge chunk of an otherwise varying and well differentiated market, if your market is closer to the theoretical (ie, not real) idea of perfect competition, or if you’re talking about a consolidated market with only a few major players, the monopolist has at least 50% of the market, though, depending on other factors, that line may be drawn at up to 75% ish.
Different specific situations, regions, laws, etc. establish differing specific criteria… but the idea is not that a monopolist is defined by being literally 100% of the market.
That situation would specifically be referred to as a ‘perfect monopoly’, and like ‘perfect competition’, is basically theoretical only, or a situation where you’re looking at something like a local public utility or some kind of government/state entity.
In actual mainstream academic and legal usage though, a monopoly is a single entity in the market has a very outsized market share when compared to any other market participant, such that its actions alone can very significantly affect all other market participants.
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Now… when it comes to Steam… a whole lot of the arguement is ‘what is and is not the market, what constitutes its boundaries?’
If you define it as just ‘PC video games’, then sure Steam likely is an effective monopoly.
But if you define it as ‘all digital games’, then no, not even close, the Google Play Store and Apple Store are responsible for far more digital game downloads than Steam, way waaay more games are mobile games than PC games, if you go by yearly or monthly downloads, or market share.
It gets even more complicated with cross platform games.
Ultimately, it would be up to a lawsuit, lawyers, judges, industry experts, to argue all of the specifics of exactly whether or not its legally valid to formally classify Steam as a monopoly that would need to be broken up or penalized or regulated in some way, and a huge part of that legal battle would be based around differing definitions of what exactly Steam is a monopoly if, and whether those precise definitions are valid.
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‘Other options exist for consumers’ or ‘they don’t have a perfect monopoly’ is not a valid arguement against Steam being a monopoly if Steam facilitates 85% of PC game sales, and the other 15% is split up between 10 or so other digital store fronts.
If that is your rubric for ‘what is the market’, then yeah, Steam is a monopoly.
But, if your rubric is ‘all digital games’, then no, Steam is just a large player in a market with other larger players, other slightly smaller players, and many other very small players.
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Beyond that, a huge part of legally being determined to be a monopoly is unethical/illegal behavior of the ‘monopolist’ being used to obtain or maintain their monopoly.
In Steam’s case… I think that would be pretty hard to substantiate, its more so just that Steam had the idea first, expanded upon it quite a lot, and no one really bothered to try to compete with them on the same level untill basically the Epic store, fairly recently.
Ehh. They haven’t really abused their position. They’re popular.
It would be something else if they were buying up competitors like Facebook and Google do. Part of how they maintain their dominance is buying out anyone that competes. Notice how Google kind of sucks nowadays? They’re not really competing on merit anymore.
But at the same time, steam could turn around tomorrow and be like “mandatory $39.99/mo subscription fee” and it would have an outsized impact on the sector.
Availability of Video Games (originally released before 2010) is approximately 13 percent, slightly above pre-World War II audio recordings (10 percent or less) and below the survival rate of American silent films (14 percent).
These are fascinating numbers, do you have a source?
What is worse, is that The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is refusing efforts allow remote access to these old games for research and learning purposes, just like a historian would do research of events by reading and viewing any historic materials, the restrictions to access of different media because of convoluted copyright laws are a real world problem!
You may actually want to research what museum curators and the like actually do (or just communicate with them. I have never found one who didn’t want to chat about their job).
Copyright/Trademark/IP Protection is very much a thing. It is the main reason so many museums have “no pictures” (barring the increasingly rare cases where it is genuine light concerns). And that applies a lot more when it comes to “modern” history, of which video games definitely count. But even for ancient manuscripts, the answer tends to be “if you fill out all this paperwork and can demonstrate a genuine need to our board, you can come by and read that manuscript in a clean room. Or… you can spend 20 bucks on a copy in our gift shop. Hell, if you stop bothering me I’ll spot you ten bucks toward that”
And that is more or less what we see with the video game preservation efforts… that operate more like musems than hoarders with a youtube channel. They have a few actual historians who do outreach. And, in rare cases, people CAN organize visits. But “I want to play Metroid” isn’t really a compelling argument to a board that is risking damage every time that NES is booted up.
That said, I WOULD like to see a bigger emphasis on said curators documenting things themselves. But I am the weirdo who would love to see a deep dive on Star Crusader’s DLC. Whereas most people are just going to say “Ugh, they are so boring” if it isn’t pewdiepie screaming at every jagged polygon.
But yeah. If you actually genuinely care about preservation efforts, rather than just a site to download roms, I STRONGLY encourage getting in touch with your local museums and working with them (and lobbyists) to protect those museums. Because I didn’t even get into the active war on The Internet Archive in the US (and similar efforts in other countries).
Oh yeah. You totally aren’t just an obnoxious jerk with a side hustle.
Still, kudos for actually thinking “TL/DR” is a good response. It saves people who thought you might actually be operating in good faith a lot of time.
Copyright/Trademark/IP Protection is very much a thing. It is the main reason so many museums have “no pictures” (barring the increasingly rare cases where it is genuine light concerns). And that applies a lot more when it comes to “modern” history, of which video games definitely count. But even for ancient manuscripts, the answer tends to be “if you fill out all this paperwork and can demonstrate a genuine need to our board, you can come by and read that manuscript in a clean room. Or… you can spend 20 bucks on a copy in our gift shop. Hell, if you stop bothering me I’ll spot you ten bucks toward that”
This is why I appreciate the Internet. Getting insight on how stuff I do not know about—I’m not a museum curator—works.
I do not know what Star Crusader is but I’m also in the audience for deep dives as opposed to overexaggerated YouTuber-who-wants-you-to-form-a-parasocial-relationship-with-them reactions. When I do drag my butt over to YouTube, I usually find myself watching some long-form informative gaming video. There are some people with a following who get mentioned in the comments of other informative gaming videos (Summoning Salt comes to mind) so you are definitely not alone in wanting deep dives. :)
Not sure where to find deep dive articles, but wish I knew. Someone over at !pokemonprovided one and it’s stoking my appetite for them.
In terms of text articles? Ironically, you want to look at early Polygon and Kotaku. And… absolutely nobody read that and those became the hellscapes they are today. That said, Aftermath occasionally will hang out in the deep end of a hotel pool on a specific game but that is usually in the context of current sociopolitical events or a new release.
Which speaks to games media as a whole being fundamentally broken in favor of the screaming jackasses who market gambling to children (see: xqc).
That said, a few of the longer form youtubers have worked with various preservation efforts in the past. I don’t think Jacob Gellar has (outside of his work on MinnMax which is more just podcasting and interviewing) but I want to say Displaced Gamers reached out to one of the orgs to get a dump of a rare edition of a cartridge once? Although, people like Illusory Wall very much rely heavily on The Internet Archive when they are researching what the deal with the Dark Souls 1 DLC was. Which gets into the other side of “what actually IS games preservation?” that makes people just shut down and start screaming that they want ROMs.
But the big issue? If you are doing a video that can justify flying out to a bunker in Texas or whatever? It is going to be about a game people know about or are interested in. Which means it is likely already available online. MAYBE you get a “deep cut” like CyClones but the vast majority of creators can’t risk a complete dud of a video for that month or even quarter
Its also why the popular history youtubers tend to have a day job as a dealer (Matt Easton) or are running not so subtle ads for auction houses (Forgotten Weapons). And there are a LOT of mixed feelings about them (especially Ian) because of how much they profit off of museum collections.
Although, people like Illusory Wall very much rely heavily on The Internet Archive when they are researching what the deal with the Dark Souls 1 DLC was. Which gets into the other side of “what actually IS games preservation?”
Based off this I’d imagine it might involve backing up the game’s release announcement and some sale pages with its description online, proof the game existed, before the page gets changed because the game is no longer the hottest and newest thing or stores are no longer selling the game?
I get the feeling you know more about this topic than I do and probably have strong opinions about it.
Thanks for the namedrops of where to find articles, and what I assume are people who make long-form videos on video games!
Actually, Illusory Wall’s “How was the Dark Souls DLC Discovered?” video is probably the best example of what preservation of games actually IS and why “I can’t play that SNES” has little to do with it.
At a high level: Dark Souls 1 was notorious for how incredibly convoluted and stupid the path to the DLC is. It involves killing a boss, reloading the area, talking to an NPC at the back of a cave you might not even see, reloading, killing a DIFFERENT enemy in a completely unrelated spot in the world, reloading, and then going back to that original spot.
And there is over a decae of discussion on how people even found that and lots of nonsense theories. And IW actually searched through a mixture of blog posts, press releases, youtube videos, and even message boards to paint a picture of what actually happened. And… it is very very different.
A friend (who actually IS a curator) watched that and immediately compared it to the idea that guns are why the concept of an armored knight went away. At a very high level… it isn’t wrong. But people assume it has to do with penetration and ignore that we were sending folk into battle in what was basically plate armor all the way up to WW1 (and there are very good arguments that a modern plate carrier isn’t that far off from what a conquistador would wear).
And there is over a decae of discussion on how people even found that and lots of nonsense theories. And IW actually searched through a mixture of blog posts, press releases, youtube videos, and even message boards to paint a picture of what actually happened. And… it is very very different.
What is the “what actually happened” that is different? You do not need to explain the entire story to me, what I mean is what is this “what actually happened” concerning? Is it about how people found how to unlock the DLC? Were you commenting a commonly-believed DLC unlock path in your second paragraph but it is actually something different?
And for how this ties back to game preservation… would this be preservation of video game history?
I used to fill surveys on r/samplesize for fun, it was a mild positive of my day to come across one on Lemmy!
I do have some issues with some of the questions, spoiled for those who have not taken the survey yet.
Issues with survey questionsFor “Do modern video games have too many micro transactions today?” giving our opinion and saying “I never paid a microtransaction” was mutually exclusive. It is possible to notice the amount of microtransactions in video games, and to have an opinion on whether that is a good or bad amount, without ever buying one yourself. Folks who never bought microtransactions might not choose “I never paid a microtransaction” because it is either that, or say if you think there are too many microtransactions. For “There is a possibility that access to your games could be revoked, as stated in the TOS,” I wasn’t sure what to put. I strongly agree that that possibility exists, so I was considering putting Strongly Agree. But I do not agree with that practice, so I also considered putting Strongly Disagree. I wasn’t sure what I was being asked to agree or disagree with here. Similarly, for “Prices of old video games may lower when a modern release of the same game is available to purchase,” I wasn’t sure if we were being asked if we agree that is a phenomenon that happens, or if we think that should be a thing that happens. Luckily I both agree that is a phenomenon that happens and that it should happen. For “Companies should make single player video games be released for a limited time, regardless if its physical or digital” I had no idea what was being asked at all so I just put Neutral.
The last page of this survey is heavy handed and full of leading questions. It feels like you’re less trying to gather research data and more trying to push an agenda; it would not pass scientific review. The fact that I agree with the agenda being pushed doesn’t change my feelings on that.
A better method would have been to ask the question in a neutral way (e.g. ‘Do you believe that storing game cartridges qualifies as preservation?’ or even better, ‘Storing game cartridges qualifies as preservation’ as a statement, with a Strongly Disagree - Strongly Agree scale), then at the end of the survey provide the information you’re providing in the links below each question.
I played a bit of Granblue Fantasy Relink, I’m at the last chapter of the story. I still haven’t finished it, the story itself wasn’t particularly memorable, but the environments were gorgeous and the gameplay is fun. For the gameplay tho, I’m a bit worried about the endgame/postgame, as there wasn’t much variety in fights.
I’m still playing Fire Emblem Engage. The gameplay is overall really good, but I’m a bit confused that new units are much better than most of the previous ones. From the initial party I think I’ve kept using only Chloé and Jean, while the others had better replacements every few chapters. It’s not exactly a complaint but it feels a bit weird.
I would have tried continuing FFVII Rebirth, but I remembered I bought FFIX last sales and played that nonstop during the weekend.
I too am in the mood for Wolfenstein, I’m thinking of playing the second one.
I was one of the beta testers and back then it was severely lacking. Right now D4 is at its best and I can see that it will only get better. This season is tied for one of the best seasons so far. I’ll be playing it for several hours today.
I definitely feel like I got an absolute steal of a deal. No idea when the sale ends, but I got all 3 games in the BioShock series, with DLC, and the 2 remasters for a little over $11USD before tax this weekend. I just finished my first time playing any of the games on PC. Had to install the original on my desktop with win10 because I couldn’t get the resolution right or brightness slider working on my steam deck when docked. Definitely prefer console controls because I was having a lot of trouble with mouse and keyboard controls, so I’m gonna have to switch to controller.
Other than that, I started playing Stellar Initiative this weekend as well and it’s was pretty difficult on the easiest difficulty while I was learning how to play and what works well with which enemies.
Don’t know what’s going on at 2K, but I gladly took the offer and even got the bundle for a Steam friend I haven’t talked to for years.
Absolutely wild and I thought it was some sort of error at first considering right below it they were advertising just BioShock Infinite and their DLC pass thing for more than the whole bundle by a little less than $2.
The original is one of my favourite games of all time. I love everything about it. The setting is phenomenal. The mix of plasmids and gunplay. 2 is also really good and being able to use gun and plasmid simultaneously was a great quality of life improvement.
2 is a very solid game and well worth playing, but it doesn’t have anything on the original in terms of story execution in my opinion. But that’s a tall order since Bioshock 1 is one of the best games of all time.
I’ve still yet to play Infinite, but it’s on my list for this year.
Actively, I’m on my second Baldur’s Gate 3 run. Recently made it to act 3 and I couldn’t be more excited about rearranging Gortash bones with my monk.
Also playing Disco Elysium and enjoying it so much. However, I feel it requires dedication or else you lose track of what you’ve got to do, which is a struggle for me.
Got two more games on the “paused” pile, but I won’t say which ones to avoid awakening the shame neurone because the pause has lasted a whole year.
Disco is easily one of my favourite gaming experiences. But I agree, it does require your attention. I’d say, give it the time you can, let it consume you and enjoy the ride
The best way to play Disco is to just approach it as a good book. Explore as much as you can, exhaust dialogue options and submerge yourself in the world. Don’t be afraid to fail checks, don’t be afraid to pick wacky dialogue options.
The game is pure art and it’s the most meaningful, thought provoking and emotional experience I’ve had while playing any video game. Granted the themes really resonated with me personally.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne