this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2023
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I personally don't like Epic for paying developers for exclusivity deals, keeping games off other PC platforms for a year or more. Artificial scarcity is bad for consumers.
Even worse is that they do this while trying to paint themselves as the underdog against the Steam monopoly. It's not only hypocritical, but also deceitful. A new monopoly is not a solution to an existing monopoly, but a solution to investments paying off.
Don't forget them being hypocritical again for suing google/apple for being monopolistic because they don't want to have to go through them for payment.
You guys don't understand what a monopoly is...
I do know what it is, and I don't actually think Steam is one. They have a considerable market share, but they are by no means the only way to get games on PC, nor do they exercise their dominance in a way that stifles competition.
I'm pretty sure Tim Sweeny knows this as well, but he still calls it a "monopoly" whenever he has the chance.
They were sued in the EU for violating anti trust laws, lost and decided not to cooperate.
They're currently getting sued for forcing devs to not sell their games at a lower price on other platforms.
Their marketshare is more than enough to consider them a monopoly, you don't need 100% of the market to be one, you just need to be so implanted that you become the default solution. Google doesn't have 100% of the market, it still is considered a monopoly for search engines