72% of game developers say Steam is effectively a PC gaming monopoly

[Daniel Sims]

The takeaway: Steam's longstanding dominance in the PC gaming market often raises questions about how close it is to exercising monopoly power. Although the storefront does not meet the technical definition of a monopoly, many developers are concerned about their reliance on Valve's platform.

In a survey of over 300 executives from large US and UK game companies, 72% either slightly or strongly agreed that Steam constitutes a monopoly over PC games. Furthermore, 88% said that at least three-quarters of their revenue came from Steam, while 37% reported that the platform accounted for 90% of their total revenue.

Steam is by far the largest PC game distribution service, having recently exceeded 41 million concurrent users. Many customers are so adamant about only purchasing games through Steam that the industry's largest publishers, including EA, Ubisoft, and even Microsoft, have tried – and failed – to withhold their titles from the service.

Still, Steam does not technically control the entire market. The Epic Games Store and the Windows Store are attempting to compete using free game giveaways, Microsoft's Game Pass subscription service, and lower sales commissions, but they remain far less popular than Steam. Meanwhile, alternative storefronts such as GOG and itch.io have carved out a niche by focusing on indie and retro titles. Moreover, some of the most popular PC games, such as Fortnite, Minecraft, League of Legends, and World of Warcraft, are not available on Steam.

Despite these caveats, Steam has previously drawn accusations of using its dominant market position to control pricing – a key sign of monopoly power. Last year, a class-action lawsuit started by Wolfire Games decried the store's standard 30 percent revenue cut and alleged that Steam discouraged companies from lowering prices on stores that took smaller sales commissions.

Atomik Research conducted the recent survey on behalf of Rokky, a company that helps game publishers minimize the impact of grey market key resellers on prices. In addition to opinions on Steam, developers also answered questions about the PC market's biggest challenges.

The increasing popularity of free-to-play games such as Fortnite, DOTA 2, Counter-Strike 2, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Roblox topped the list of concerns for 40% of respondents. Approximately a third mentioned market saturation and discoverability, echoing data that suggests there aren't enough players for the thousands of new titles released on Steam each year. A similar portion of survey respondents also expressed concerns regarding subscription services.

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72% of game developers say Steam is effectively a PC gaming monopoly

 

[oasked]

Can't remember the last time I used Steam, with all the free games on the Epic Games store, and Xbox GamePass I haven't used it in over 6 months.

I don't see how Steam can be a monopoly unless you're running a Steam deck - it's very easy to use one of many alternatives.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Steam is dominant because it solved the patches hassle and then added ease of use features customers like. Epic doesn’t have anything like big screen mode or family sharing to name a few.

 

[TheBigT42]

Simple. Make your game available on steam and host your own digital download servers for your games.

 

[TheBigT42]

Can't remember the last time I used Steam, with all the free games on the Epic Games store, and Xbox GamePass I haven't used it in over 6 months.

I don't see how Steam can be a monopoly unless you're running a Steam deck - it's very easy to use one of many alternatives.

Even if you are running a steam deck....It is just a Linux hand held PC. You can install any platform / game you want from desktop mode. You can even install Windows on it...But I don't know why you would want to.

 

[bviktor]

Can't remember the last time I used Steam, with all the free games on the Epic Games store, and Xbox GamePass I haven't used it in over 6 months.

I don't see how Steam can be a monopoly unless you're running a Steam deck - it's very easy to use one of many alternatives.

Game Pass has a total 37 million subscribers, Steam has 132 million monthly active users. Peak concurrent users 41 million. More people play simultaneously on Steam than the number of Game Pass subscribers MS has *in total*. Go figure.

One is a subscription, the other is a store. Xbox Game Pass is console, the other is PC. How is this even a comparison. Not to mention the fact that this is about PC gaming.

And I don't see how free Epic giveaway garbage is even an alternative to real games. Yes, there are a few diamonds in the rough, but the total number of games I played of from the maybe 200 free games that I own so far: 0.

Maybe you shouldn't think your own example is representative of the whole population. Most games released today go like "available now on PlayStation and Steam" and so. They don't even say PC, just Steam. That's it.

 

[Vanderkaum037]

I'm a GOG man myself.

 

[m4a4]

...Did they make sure these people actually knew what a monopoly was before asking the question?

Going off of this:

(an organization or group that has) complete control of something, especially an area of business, so that others have no share

Steam does not have complete control of the PC market, nor do they really do anything that would consolidate control over it.
They're just a rare market that the majority of PC consumers choose to use because of pro-consumer features and usability. No other PC games store comes close; not because Steam controls the market to reduce competition, but because they set the bar high.

Which just tells me that the majority of big dev higher ups that answered this don't know what they're talking about, making this survey pretty laughable. This isn't Ticketmaster that we're talking about lol

 

[mountains]

While I agree that Steam is far from perfect, and I would like to see them lower the fee they charge developers, many of these "alternative" stores/services are... not great citizens themselves.

GOG is cool, though. If I am considering getting a game on Steam, I also check GOG. GOG often mirrors Steam sale prices. If it is a single player game, I would rather get it from GOG. Multiplayer I still have to strongly consider Steam as not everyone is on GOG. I think that is beginning to change though.

Also, GOG is slowly getting more top titles. Don't forget to check over there. They still don't have near everything, but they do seem to be getting (a little) better. Support good actors!

 

[NumberNine]

I tolerate Steam for now. It's been with me and my friends through a lot. If it bites me though... I'm more than willing to put it down.

 

[umeng2002]

All they had to do was literally just copy what Steam does. Have forums, user reviews on the store page, and work. After 20 years of Steam, no MEGA-corporation could pull it off. It's incompetence on their part, not Steam being a monopoly. Even Epic sucks still; slow loading library thumbnails. No user forums. No real user reviews.

Look at who was interviewed in this survey. Gaming executives. The last thing they want are independent reviews on the store page. The last thing they want are forums in the store freely talking about their games. Steam is in the position they are because it's pretty independent of any single publisher or developer.

 

[JMGuy]

...Did they make sure these people actually knew what a monopoly was before asking the question?

Most people these days can’t be bothered to understand the basics of word definitions (or history, politics, economics, etc.). Instead, they think <insert random feeling> is relevant to <insert random topic> regardless of reality. We’re experiencing the, “I feel it’s true therefore I’m smrt” generation in full effect.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

...Did they make sure these people actually knew what a monopoly was before asking the question?

Going off of this:

Steam does not have complete control of the PC market, nor do they really do anything that would consolidate control over it.
They're just a rare market that the majority of PC consumers choose to use because of pro-consumer features and usability. No other PC games store comes close; not because Steam controls the market to reduce competition, but because they set the bar high.

Which just tells me that the majority of big dev higher ups that answered this don't know what they're talking about, making this survey pretty laughable. This isn't Ticketmaster that we're talking about lol

No, they don’t.

They’re running on the nu world definition of “monopoly” being “abnormally successful in the field”. Under equality of outcome, this is a major no no, and Steam must be punished for doing well.

 

[passwordistaco]

Steam maintains it's dominant position by being competitive, not anti-competitive.

For example, I bought The Witcher 3 from GOG and Cyberpunk 2077 from Steam.

GOG cut their cloud storage to a measly 200MB. On my current playthrough of TW3, I get a cloud sync failure about twice a week and have to delete saves locally to get under 200MB.

On Steam, I completed CP2077 saving to my heart's content and never had any issue with cloud capacity.

GOG made a business decision to be worse than Steam.

Steam has developed their own VR ecosystem. Steam has developed Linux compatibility for the Steam Deck and made huge advances for Linux gaming in general. Steam has remote play to let you use the power of your main desktop while playing on a device like the Steam Deck.

Even if we characterize Steam as a "monopoly", it gained and maintained dominance by giving gamers what they want, sometimes before gamers even knew they wanted it.

 

[vicsrealms]

Steam has its issues, but they are by far one of the best stores for digital gaming purchases. They give their customers what they want, and are working to improve the customers experience. Can't say that about the Epic Sh*t Show, with free games or no I removed from my system a while ago. Did they ever add a shopping cart?

 

[dangh]

Steam is a defacto monopoly. There are only a few publishers which can survive ignoring Steam releases, and no small dev can do it. It is like a app store - you need to be there, allowing Apple robbing you, if you want to have any chance at all.

So, I went fully team GoG. No internet required, all installers are on my NAS, I can do with my games whatever I want. It is my first go to, and I'm happy waiting to get a game there (last one was delayed Kingdom Come 2).

 

[dangh]

GOG made a business decision to be worse than Steam.

GOG have maybe 5% market of Steam, this is not a 'business decision', this is simply lack of funds. Which went to a monopoly. As they usually do.

Steam has developed Linux compatibility for the Steam Deck and made huge advances for Linux gaming in general.

Steam had advanced a bit Linux gaming, but they didn't develop linux compatibility system. WINE was there ages ago. What Valve did, was to introduce proton. Which they didn't develop either, but hired the company behind wine to do that for them. And proton is kinda polished wine, which is fine, and in the end not Steam limited (because it is still a wine at heart anyway).

Steam is fine, if you're ok with a large DRM machine, no option to share games with family (I know they trying to manage that a bit but it works badly), and you are ok going through a weird stuff if you want to play games offline. I'm on linux and I use Heroic / Luttris as often as possible.

 

[Burty117]

Steam is a defacto monopoly. There are only a few publishers which can survive ignoring Steam releases, and no small dev can do it. It is like a app store - you need to be there, allowing Apple robbing you, if you want to have any chance at all.

What are you on about? It's nothing like Apple and the App store, Apple do not allow any other stores on their OS, so it is a defacto monopoly.

Steam is a separate store that runs on Windows, Linux or MacOS, Anyone else can compete with Steam, nobody is stopping you from installing competing stores.

Everybody uses Steam because (apart from GoG somewhat) all the competition sucks, EGS, EA, Ubi, Bliz, MS, none of them could create a store that had the basics... reviews, a shopping cart, forums. Let alone the more premium stuff Steam does like Mod support, big screen mode, remote play etc... Even a friends list was difficult for these guys...

 

[Theinsanegamer]

GOG have maybe 5% market of Steam, this is not a 'business decision', this is simply lack of funds. Which went to a monopoly. As they usually do.

What? did you just completely ignore the context of the comment you quoted?

GoG choosing to cut down on cloud storage is a business decision they made.

Steam had advanced a bit Linux gaming, but they didn't develop linux compatibility system. WINE was there ages ago. What Valve did, was to introduce proton. Which they didn't develop either, but hired the company behind wine to do that for them. And proton is kinda polished wine, which is fine, and in the end not Steam limited (because it is still a wine at heart anyway).

This is not only completely ignorant of the work Valve did to make gaming on linux possible, the sheer amount of code they have contributed to fixing AMD's drivers as an example, but its also just flat out wrong. Valve is working with Crossover on Proton, and has contributed significant code. This is all open source, you can just go read the commits and see how much is coming from Valve.

Steam is fine, if you're ok with a large DRM machine, no option to share games with family (I know they trying to manage that a bit but it works badly), and you are ok going through a weird stuff if you want to play games offline. I'm on linux and I use Heroic / Luttris as often as possible.

Going through a weird stuff? No option to share games with family?

This tells me you've never actually tried to use Steam for anything, to be this ignorant.

Steam is a defacto monopoly. There are only a few publishers which can survive ignoring Steam releases, and no small dev can do it. It is like a app store - you need to be there, allowing Apple robbing you, if you want to have any chance at all.

So, I went fully team GoG. No internet required, all installers are on my NAS, I can do with my games whatever I want. It is my first go to, and I'm happy waiting to get a game there (last one was delayed Kingdom Come 2).

I guess this ignores the small devs that can do it?

they are not a defacto monopoly. No company that has 4+ competitors, funded by billion dollar corporations, has a monopoly. That's like saying Wal Mart has a monopoly on all retail.

It's also NOTHING like the App store, because windows allows you to install any store you want.

Nu English at work again. Just because Valve is successful does not mean they have a monopoly, and people who abuse language like this deserve lashing. Stop it.

 

[BuckarooBonzaii]

As someone has said, if you can't compete, complain then regulate.

 

[brucek]

This is an interesting one because the "problem" for developers is less Steam being able to block them and more consumers, who already do have real choices, preferring to have Steam.

It is not that is literally not possible to sell a title without Steam. In fact there are many other storefronts, and no storefront at all is required in the first place. If a consumer wanted to buy a game direct from the developer there is nothing Valve/Steam could do to stop them. (Unlike the situation on say a console or mobile device.)

The issue game developers are running into is that the value Steam provides to consumers is real, and consumers keep expressing that value with their purchase dollars. So any attempt to hurt Steam is less about helping consumers than it is about thwarting a choice that already existed and was already made.

 

[user556]

GOG cut their cloud storage to a measly 200MB. On my current playthrough of TW3, I get a cloud sync failure about twice a week and have to delete saves locally to get under 200MB.

Why would a save game be in the cloud? And deleting locally sounds an awful lot like they aren't in the cloud.

 

[Axiarus]

Steam maintains it's dominant position by being competitive, not anti-competitive.

For example, I bought The Witcher 3 from GOG and Cyberpunk 2077 from Steam.

GOG cut their cloud storage to a measly 200MB. On my current playthrough of TW3, I get a cloud sync failure about twice a week and have to delete saves locally to get under 200MB.

On Steam, I completed CP2077 saving to my heart's content and never had any issue with cloud capacity.

GOG made a business decision to be worse than Steam.

Steam has developed their own VR ecosystem. Steam has developed Linux compatibility for the Steam Deck and made huge advances for Linux gaming in general. Steam has remote play to let you use the power of your main desktop while playing on a device like the Steam Deck.

Even if we characterize Steam as a "monopoly", it gained and maintained dominance by giving gamers what they want, sometimes before gamers even knew they wanted it.

GOG makes its business by offering DRM free games. The game is YOURS once you buy it.

 

[GoldenGoat]

I buy one new game a month and I use to buy from every different platform, but I’ve bought every game this year from steam. The reason is steam deck. I’m not buying anything that doesn’t support steam deck. I think you can play Epic through the heroic launcher, but I don’t know if I trust that just yet. If other stores want my business then they need to support the devices I choose.

 

[Burty117]

This is an interesting one because the "problem" for developers is less Steam being able to block them and more consumers, who already do have real choices, preferring to have Steam.

It is not that is literally not possible to sell a title without Steam. In fact there are many other storefronts, and no storefront at all is required in the first place. If a consumer wanted to buy a game direct from the developer there is nothing Valve/Steam could do to stop them. (Unlike the situation on say a console or mobile device.)

The issue game developers are running into is that the value Steam provides to consumers is real, and consumers keep expressing that value with their purchase dollars. So any attempt to hurt Steam is less about helping consumers than it is about thwarting a choice that already existed and was already made.

If we're being honest, the real problem developers have, they don't make many good games anymore, let alone outstanding games.

If Cyberpunk 2077 was as good as it is today, but at launch, and they sold it exclusively on GoG, GoG would be a much bigger competitor to Steam today.

However, the above assumes the money GoG made on selling the game, went into continued development of the platform, adding mod support, big screen mode, and generally actually competing with Steam.

When you look at what Bliz, Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft and Epic did, none of them bothered actually competing, no continued development, just a barely functioning DRM launcher for years, maybe a friends list, but reviews? Mods? Big Screen modes? Forums? Linux support? Remote play? None of them bothered competing with Steam.

They all got some traction because they once produced good games, almost none of them do now, hence why they've all collectively come back to Steam.

If they want to compete with Steam they have two options, the more consumer friendly way of just actually competing, match Steam for features, useability, compatibility etc...
Or the less consumer friendly way, actually create some good games that would entice gamers to their store.

Borderlands 3 being exclusive to EGS for a year I'm pretty certain did more damage than it made either company any money, why? Because it wasn't a very good game, nobody is flocking to a worse store for a very medicore game.