Yep, I’ve known specialists that are extremely good at their job but when you hear them talk about other stuff you sometimes wonder how they manage to tie their shoes in the morning.
The only way it will grow? Man, the indie scene was pretty much non existent 20 years ago and now it rivals major studios in number of concurrent players
If you have the power to sway the market in the direction that you want, you’re the only one with that power and you’re the default option for your product then yeah, you very much are a monopoly and that’s the position Steam has in its market.
It’s currently in court for adopting anti competitive policies regarding pricing.
Valve is a multi billion dollars company, it doesn’t need you to defend it bud.
The vast majority of games you pay for on Steam can be taken from you in a couple of clicks from a Valve employee. The second there’s a chance in management everything can go out the window very quickly because their position is ripe for abuse.
There’s a couple of actors in my province that had a hard time finding work after playing a certain role because people were mad at them personally and producers didn’t want to touch them with a 10’ pole!
Dragon Quest 5 came out before Pokemon and had monster joining you to fight by your side, ain’t much they can do about the concept so as you said it’s about the art/monster design.