this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
144 points (96.2% liked)

Games

45101 readers
764 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform

By type

By games

Language specific

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

To add to what you have said:

Valve is an effective monopoly.

A lot of people seem to think 'monopoly' means 'literally 0 alternatives for the consumer', but this is not the case in either actual economic jargon/theory nor in basically any legal definition of it I am aware of.

To be a monopoly you basically just need to be the clear dominant actor in some market. Not the only one, just the main one, such that you can make pricing decisions in a way that other actors in the same market can't, basically.

Its... very rare for a 'true' or 'perfect' monopoly to ever exist for basically anything other than a public utility/service. It almost never happens.

This is the kind of pedantry that is annoying but unfortunately important, similar to how 'Impeachment' by the House on its own is actually pointless beyond a mark of shame unless it is also followed by a 'conviction' by the Senate.

You are correct that in US law, a major factor that is considered is whether or not the company did abusive, deceptive, underhanded stuff to achieve its monopopy status.

But UK law appears to be different:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c5b1e681-5fb5-4161-bebf-823034fab751

You could be doing 'abuse of dominance' whether or not you achieved that dominance by underhanded means.

So... while I am not a lawyer, I would be genuinely surprised if Valve was found in serious violation of existing US monopoly laws, but I would be less surprised if they were found to be in violation of existing UK monopoly laws.

[–] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

Game prices are set by their publisher, and prices are consistent across various platforms, regardless of market presence. So, Steam is the same price but a better service generally.

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

Isnt a natural monolpoly something like YKK who just have the economics and processes in place to capture the market?

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Just the first lines of the linked article says what I said, having a monopoly isn't illegal on itself. Only abusing the dominance is.

Which paragraph or lines do you specifically speaking of? Its a long text, so quoting or pointing the part you refer to would be good.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

I'm not really trying to critique you, I just know that a ton of people only read the headline or don't read things thoroughly, or don't even click into the actual article at all.

I am just adding my 2 cents as someone with a degree in economics, so I'm not citing the article, I'm citing my years of education in economics and years of work that made use of it.

The article does not really go into the difference between US and UK law around monopolies, so I wanted to explore that a bit myself.

Also, when you say 'the first lines of the linked article says what I said'... do you mean the OP linked article, or the lexology link that I provided?

Because the IGN article says nothing about whether simply being a monopoly is illegal, that's why I provided the lexology link, to clarify that.

Sorry if I am not quite understanding what you are saying.

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 4 points 20 hours ago

I am not talking about the IGN article, but about the link you gave me.