A monopoly would imply Steam is the only place to get games online, its not at all period. Its a popular service people like, but its not the only one to get games. You can't call something a monopoly because its popular. That's like saying Iphones are monopolies or Youtube is a monopoly. It ruins the word and its meaning.
Soon enough there will be song called Monopolies about things that aren't.
Monopoly does not mean 100% control. Microsoft ran afoul of anti-trust laws even though apple technically still existed. How many digital downloads for games go through something other than steam? How much would it cost for an indie game designer to host their own website for downloads?
I may be recalling incorrectly, but Microsoft ran afoul of anti-trust laws because they were attempting to become a monopoly in the the computer market.
A fair piece different than being the biggest fish in a very large pond.
No, they ran afoul of anti-trust laws because they were a monopoly and were trying to use that position to crush competition in the browser market and become a monopoly there as well. It was exactly about them being by far the biggest but not the only fish in the pond.
The reason the analogy with MS doesn't really work here is because Steam isn't trying to push it's own game in the market at the expense of this game Hatred. Like, if Steam had been refusing to carry this game because it would lead to less HL3 sales or something, then you'd have a comparable case.
When all else fails, we could always use a car analogy, right! This is just like Tesla being shut out of car dealerships, if Tesla somehow was full of racists and made a car that simulates killing people! (This is totally a joke, and not serious... don't want to evoke Poe's Law here).
This information seems to suggest pretty strongly to me that Steam has an effective stranglehold on the PC indie game market, and that the commercial success of most indie developers will be defined by their ability to get on Steam. We can talk about whether that's good or bad, but let's not pretend that it isn't true.
"PC indie game market" is pretty begging the question here. It's not like there was a vibrant PC indie game market and then Steam monopolized it all. There was no PC indie game market. It didn't exist. So now that Steam's actually given indie game developers the ability to "express" themselves, they become the censors when they don't want to give that ability to all developers? How did the organization that first enabled said freedom of expression become the censors?
That wasn't his point though. (and certainly isn't begging the question, which makes no sense in this context) It doesn't really matter if they created the market either. The point is that they monopolize that market.
Whether you feel that entails an obligation on their part (like, say, does that market even represent something extensive enough to matter for regulation about monopolistic control) is a whole different question, but not what Squidget0 is talking about.
59% isn't even close to a monopoly, and it's "monopoly" of an extremely narrowly defined market, a market which isn't directly linked to the expression at hand, a market that was largely created by Steam, and it wouldn't be a monopoly even if it was ~100% since a monopoly is if there's a single seller not if there's a dominant seller, and again, there's no obligation for third-parties to ensure that your expression is profitable.
To expound on this more clearly (tl:dr and all that):
In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a dominant market share, but monopolies are not illegal unless the seller has engaged in monopolistic or anti-competitive practices (or otherwise abused their monopoly). This distinction is important and I think may be leading to some confusion.
If you invent a product or devise some new service, you can be granted a patent on it. In the years of that patent, you have a monopoly on that good/service, yes, but you are not engaging in anti-competitive practices and won't be targeted by antitrust investigations. Simply having a monopoly does not imply that you are engaging in either morally or legally suspect shenanigans.
If McDonald's was the only company that sold hamburgers, they would have a monopoly on hamburgers. As per point 2, if they had invented hamburgers, this monopoly may have arisen naturally and be OK. But say Burger King also sells hamburgers. If, for whatever reason, people only bought McDonald's hamburgers, say because Burger King charged $50 for theirs, that is not a monopoly, as Burger King remains a second seller of hamburgers (in economic terms). McDonald's has not engaged in anti-competitive practices (in legal terms), unless they are colluding with Burger King. This is, again, morally and legally OK, assuming the barrier to hamburger production and vending is relatively low (that is, owning a hamburger restaurant is not a natural monopoly). McDonald's is not responsible for helping Burger King succeed or bailing out any of Burger King's suppliers; they are just responsible for not exploiting their monopoly by pumping up prices or extorting suppliers.
See, this is where a big part of the problem with both your posts is. You've already admitted the point and are trying to argue a different one.
Steam would totally qualify as a monopoly in the indie games market under the law. Whether it would qualify as an illegal one is seriously debatable, but that wasn't what I said anyway, so it's irrelevant.
[*] Expression is not necessarily tied to a single medium. Unless what is being expressed in this case can only, for whatever reason, be expressed through a PC game, the developers are not being censored if that game is prevented from reaching the masses somehow. (This is a little grey though, not knowing what the game is like.)
This point just flat out doesn't make sense. Expression is completely tied to it's medium. If you change the medium you are changing what you are distributing. They could distribute a book, say, with the same ideas in it as the game but those two products would be distinct products. And if the government banned one and not the other, that would still be censorship.
[*] The PC indie game market is not a "market". It is a subset of a subset of the video games market, defined by an arbitrary platform choice and then an arbitrary size choice. Such an argument wouldn't hold any water in court, even assuming US courts were reasonably aware of the tech world. There's not an "indie hamburgers" market; it's just hamburgers, or fast-food really. There's not a "PS4 games market"; it is, at the smallest, a console games market. We might as well say that Steam dominates the "games sold exclusively on Steam" market - hey, that's a monopoly!!!
Yes, I said this in the post you quoted. It's one of the main problems with the argument about legality here. It's unclear if the indie games market on PC constitutes something meaningful enough to be worth regulating at that level.
This information seems to suggest pretty strongly to me that Steam has an effective stranglehold on the PC indie game market, and that the commercial success of most indie developers will be defined by their ability to get on Steam. We can talk about whether that's good or bad, but let's not pretend that it isn't true.
"PC indie game market" is pretty begging the question here. It's not like there was a vibrant PC indie game market and then Steam monopolized it all. There was no PC indie game market. It didn't exist. So now that Steam's actually given indie game developers the ability to "express" themselves, they become the censors when they don't want to give that ability to all developers? How did the organization that first enabled said freedom of expression become the censors?
That wasn't his point though. (and certainly isn't begging the question, which makes no sense in this context) It doesn't really matter if they created the market either. The point is that they monopolize that market.
Whether you feel that entails an obligation on their part (like, say, does that market even represent something extensive enough to matter for regulation about monopolistic control) is a whole different question, but not what Squidget0 is talking about.
59% isn't even close to a monopoly, and it's "monopoly" of an extremely narrowly defined market, a market which isn't directly linked to the expression at hand, a market that was largely created by Steam, and it wouldn't be a monopoly even if it was ~100% since a monopoly is if there's a single seller not if there's a dominant seller, and again, there's no obligation for third-parties to ensure that your expression is profitable.
To expound on this more clearly (tl:dr and all that):
In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a dominant market share, but monopolies are not illegal unless the seller has engaged in monopolistic or anti-competitive practices (or otherwise abused their monopoly). This distinction is important and I think may be leading to some confusion.
If you invent a product or devise some new service, you can be granted a patent on it. In the years of that patent, you have a monopoly on that good/service, yes, but you are not engaging in anti-competitive practices and won't be targeted by antitrust investigations. Simply having a monopoly does not imply that you are engaging in either morally or legally suspect shenanigans.
If McDonald's was the only company that sold hamburgers, they would have a monopoly on hamburgers. As per point 2, if they had invented hamburgers, this monopoly may have arisen naturally and be OK. But say Burger King also sells hamburgers. If, for whatever reason, people only bought McDonald's hamburgers, say because Burger King charged $50 for theirs, that is not a monopoly, as Burger King remains a second seller of hamburgers (in economic terms). McDonald's has not engaged in anti-competitive practices (in legal terms), unless they are colluding with Burger King. This is, again, morally and legally OK, assuming the barrier to hamburger production and vending is relatively low (that is, owning a hamburger restaurant is not a natural monopoly). McDonald's is not responsible for helping Burger King succeed or bailing out any of Burger King's suppliers; they are just responsible for not exploiting their monopoly by pumping up prices or extorting suppliers.
See, this is where a big part of the problem with both your posts is. You've already admitted the point and are trying to argue a different one.
Steam would totally qualify as a monopoly in the indie games market under the law. Whether it would qualify as an illegal one is seriously debatable, but that wasn't what I said anyway, so it's irrelevant.
[*] Expression is not necessarily tied to a single medium. Unless what is being expressed in this case can only, for whatever reason, be expressed through a PC game, the developers are not being censored if that game is prevented from reaching the masses somehow. (This is a little grey though, not knowing what the game is like.)
This point just flat out doesn't make sense. Expression is completely tied to it's medium. If you change the medium you are changing what you are distributing. They could distribute a book, say, with the same ideas in it as the game but those two products would be distinct products. And if the government banned one and not the other, that would still be censorship.
[*] The PC indie game market is not a "market". It is a subset of a subset of the video games market, defined by an arbitrary platform choice and then an arbitrary size choice. Such an argument wouldn't hold any water in court, even assuming US courts were reasonably aware of the tech world. There's not an "indie hamburgers" market; it's just hamburgers, or fast-food really. There's not a "PS4 games market"; it is, at the smallest, a console games market. We might as well say that Steam dominates the "games sold exclusively on Steam" market - hey, that's a monopoly!!!
Yes, I said this in the post you quoted. It's one of the main problems with the argument about legality here. It's unclear if the indie games market on PC constitutes something meaningful enough to be worth regulating at that level.
A) No, Steam wouldn't qualify under as a monopoly in the indie games market, because, as your last point concedes, there is no indie games market. Again, just being a small player doesn't make you a market unto yourself. The "indie games market" might be a useful concept to think of for academic or business purposes, but economically and legally, I cannot accept such a definition of a market, unless we propose that indie games are a good that's an entirely separate class from other video games, that there are individuals who only partake of indie games and not other video games, or that indie game players would consider them a separate class of purchase, s.t. you wouldn't buy Dragon Age even if it was $5 because it's not an indie game. No, 60% market share of this imaginary indie games market still isn't a monopoly. I can't find a better source off-hand, so please accept this low-quality source - http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Sherman+Anti-Trust+Act: "A market share greater than 75 percent indicates monopoly power, a share less than 50 percent does not, and shares between 50 and 75 percent are inconclusive in and of themselves."*
C) You're telling me these guys can't express whatever the hell their message is with a tablet game? Or an XBox game? They're developing it for PC yes, but telling someone they can't express a particular opinion via one particular medium is not necessarily (which is the word you've ignored there) censorship. Are you making the case that the expression, in this case, must be made via a PC game delivered via digital distribution?
* Edit: EU's minimum market share to constitute a monopoly has once been 39.7%, according to Wikipedia, against British Airways.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
I wonder what Steam's market share really is in the video game market, because there's no way steam sells more than all consoles combined.
So their market share is more accurately going to be low double digit percent. Like, 20%, max.
This information seems to suggest pretty strongly to me that Steam has an effective stranglehold on the PC indie game market, and that the commercial success of most indie developers will be defined by their ability to get on Steam. We can talk about whether that's good or bad, but let's not pretend that it isn't true.
"PC indie game market" is pretty begging the question here. It's not like there was a vibrant PC indie game market and then Steam monopolized it all. There was no PC indie game market. It didn't exist. So now that Steam's actually given indie game developers the ability to "express" themselves, they become the censors when they don't want to give that ability to all developers? How did the organization that first enabled said freedom of expression become the censors?
That wasn't his point though. (and certainly isn't begging the question, which makes no sense in this context) It doesn't really matter if they created the market either. The point is that they monopolize that market.
Whether you feel that entails an obligation on their part (like, say, does that market even represent something extensive enough to matter for regulation about monopolistic control) is a whole different question, but not what Squidget0 is talking about.
59% isn't even close to a monopoly, and it's "monopoly" of an extremely narrowly defined market, a market which isn't directly linked to the expression at hand, a market that was largely created by Steam, and it wouldn't be a monopoly even if it was ~100% since a monopoly is if there's a single seller not if there's a dominant seller, and again, there's no obligation for third-parties to ensure that your expression is profitable.
To expound on this more clearly (tl:dr and all that):
In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a dominant market share, but monopolies are not illegal unless the seller has engaged in monopolistic or anti-competitive practices (or otherwise abused their monopoly). This distinction is important and I think may be leading to some confusion.
If you invent a product or devise some new service, you can be granted a patent on it. In the years of that patent, you have a monopoly on that good/service, yes, but you are not engaging in anti-competitive practices and won't be targeted by antitrust investigations. Simply having a monopoly does not imply that you are engaging in either morally or legally suspect shenanigans.
If McDonald's was the only company that sold hamburgers, they would have a monopoly on hamburgers. As per point 2, if they had invented hamburgers, this monopoly may have arisen naturally and be OK. But say Burger King also sells hamburgers. If, for whatever reason, people only bought McDonald's hamburgers, say because Burger King charged $50 for theirs, that is not a monopoly, as Burger King remains a second seller of hamburgers (in economic terms). McDonald's has not engaged in anti-competitive practices (in legal terms), unless they are colluding with Burger King. This is, again, morally and legally OK, assuming the barrier to hamburger production and vending is relatively low (that is, owning a hamburger restaurant is not a natural monopoly). McDonald's is not responsible for helping Burger King succeed or bailing out any of Burger King's suppliers; they are just responsible for not exploiting their monopoly by pumping up prices or extorting suppliers.
See, this is where a big part of the problem with both your posts is. You've already admitted the point and are trying to argue a different one.
Steam would totally qualify as a monopoly in the indie games market under the law. Whether it would qualify as an illegal one is seriously debatable, but that wasn't what I said anyway, so it's irrelevant.
[*] Expression is not necessarily tied to a single medium. Unless what is being expressed in this case can only, for whatever reason, be expressed through a PC game, the developers are not being censored if that game is prevented from reaching the masses somehow. (This is a little grey though, not knowing what the game is like.)
This point just flat out doesn't make sense. Expression is completely tied to it's medium. If you change the medium you are changing what you are distributing. They could distribute a book, say, with the same ideas in it as the game but those two products would be distinct products. And if the government banned one and not the other, that would still be censorship.
[*] The PC indie game market is not a "market". It is a subset of a subset of the video games market, defined by an arbitrary platform choice and then an arbitrary size choice. Such an argument wouldn't hold any water in court, even assuming US courts were reasonably aware of the tech world. There's not an "indie hamburgers" market; it's just hamburgers, or fast-food really. There's not a "PS4 games market"; it is, at the smallest, a console games market. We might as well say that Steam dominates the "games sold exclusively on Steam" market - hey, that's a monopoly!!!
Yes, I said this in the post you quoted. It's one of the main problems with the argument about legality here. It's unclear if the indie games market on PC constitutes something meaningful enough to be worth regulating at that level.
A) No, Steam wouldn't qualify under as a monopoly in the indie games market, because, as your last point concedes, there is no indie games market. Again, just being a small player doesn't make you a market unto yourself. The "indie games market" might be a useful concept to think of for academic or business purposes, but economically and legally, I cannot accept such a definition of a market, unless we propose that indie games are a good that's an entirely separate class from other video games, that there are individuals who only partake of indie games and not other video games, or that indie game players would consider them a separate class of purchase, s.t. you wouldn't buy Dragon Age even if it was $5 because it's not an indie game.
But you are again confusing the point by mashing together many different concepts. My point is not that Steam doesn't have a monopoly on the PC indie game market (as you wrongly suggest) but that said monopoly is too small to be relevant to regulation.
No, 60% market share of this imaginary indie games market still isn't a monopoly. I can't find a better source off-hand, so please accept this low-quality source - http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Sherman+Anti-Trust+Act: "A market share greater than 75 percent indicates monopoly power, a share less than 50 percent does not, and shares between 50 and 75 percent are inconclusive in and of themselves."*
So according to even your source, it could be. So why are you assuming it flat out must not be? Clearly, even a marketshare as low as 51% could qualify.
* Edit: EU's minimum market share to constitute a monopoly has once been 39.7%, according to Wikipedia, against British Airways.
A) No, Steam wouldn't qualify under as a monopoly in the indie games market, because, as your last point concedes, there is no indie games market. Again, just being a small player doesn't make you a market unto yourself. The "indie games market" might be a useful concept to think of for academic or business purposes, but economically and legally, I cannot accept such a definition of a market, unless we propose that indie games are a good that's an entirely separate class from other video games, that there are individuals who only partake of indie games and not other video games, or that indie game players would consider them a separate class of purchase, s.t. you wouldn't buy Dragon Age even if it was $5 because it's not an indie game.
But you are again confusing the point by mashing together many different concepts. My point is not that Steam doesn't have a monopoly on the PC indie game market (as you wrongly suggest) but that said monopoly is too small to be relevant to regulation.
No, 60% market share of this imaginary indie games market still isn't a monopoly. I can't find a better source off-hand, so please accept this low-quality source - http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Sherman+Anti-Trust+Act: "A market share greater than 75 percent indicates monopoly power, a share less than 50 percent does not, and shares between 50 and 75 percent are inconclusive in and of themselves."*
So according to even your source, it could be. So why are you assuming it flat out must not be? Clearly, even a marketshare as low as 51% could qualify.
* Edit: EU's minimum market share to constitute a monopoly has once been 39.7%, according to Wikipedia, against British Airways.
Indeed.
Because the only sensible interpretation I can make of the argument that rejection by a monopoly -> censorship is that said monopoly is an economic monopoly (that is, single seller, near 100% market share) of a broad market that entirely encompasses a means of expression that is critical for the expression of the idea being censored. As it is, Steam is not an economic monopoly, the indie games market isn't a broad market, and I see no evidence that whatever expression is in the game can't be produced via one of many, similar alternative means.
Even if I let the latter two slide, just because Steam accounts for 60% of sales doesn't at all mean that non-Steam platforms only reach 40% of customers, or that only non-Steam platforms can at most reach only 40% of customers, which would still be a very large number of people able to access this supposedly censored expression! (Remember, censorship is about not letting people access an expression, not forcing people to access, or even purchase, an expression.)
If people aren't downloading Origin (or whatever) to play your game, then maybe your game just isn't very good.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
I wonder what Steam's market share really is in the video game market, because there's no way steam sells more than all consoles combined.
So their market share is more accurately going to be low double digit percent. Like, 20%, max.
Why would you compare it to the market as a whole though? Market share can be local.
Steam isn't local. The claim that Steam is a near monopoly on games is spurious at best.
The only distribution platform for XBox is Live. The only distribution platform for Playstation is PSN. The only distribution platform for iOS is the appstore. Nobody is bitching about Hatred not appearing on any of those platforms and if you can claim that a single platform counts as an entire market, then they really are true monopolies.
Steam competes against Origin, GOG, Ubi's online store and whatever other platforms I'm not remembering right now. The PSN doesn't. Live doesn't. The Appstore doesn't.
It is so far from a monopoly under any definition.
I'm not sure what it is about this particular topic that makes people want to really really badly argue definitions instead of actual effects.
Almost every page in this thread is along the lines of "This doesn't meet the definition of <x>." So I can't help but ask, why the insistence on making the discussion about terms rather than a discussion of ideas? Are people finding the ideas that are being expressed to be unclear? The arguments themselves seem fairly clear to me - If I were to express it in a couple of sentences, it might be something like "Cases where a single entity has massive financial control of what expression becomes available to the masses can effectively limit expression to only what is considered acceptable by the gatekeeping entity, even in the absence of physical force. Ideally, there would be a variety of entities available who can act as curators for expression, with no single one of them having sufficient influence to effectively have veto power."
Many people in this thread seem to disagree with this idea, but for some reason the argument seems to be "This idea doesn't meet my personal definition of <x>" rather than "This idea is wrong because <x>." So what's the point of the definition argument? Why does it always come up?
(The unerring focus on defining words is a common warning sign that you are making The Worst Argument In The World, on both sides. Proving that Steam's actions are "censorship", or that it's "the free market at work" is just a way to avoid actually thinking or talking about the nuances of the issues involved in balancing free speech and expression against the choices and rights of individuals. Let's not do that any more than we absolutely have too.)
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
The point is that Steam isn't a gatekeeper like they're suggesting, and the argument is specifically about Steam and specifically about Hatred.
I mean, if I wanted to argue about Obama's dictatorship through executive orders, would you be like "Okay, let's not worry about terms! Proceed!" Or would you argue that presidential discretion regarding executive orders is a far fucking cry from a dictatorship?
Honestly, trying to argue that Steam is immoral through censorship is arguing in bad faith.
I'm not sure what it is about this particular topic that makes people want to really really badly argue definitions instead of actual effects.
Almost every page in this thread is along the lines of "This doesn't meet the definition of <x>." So I can't help but ask, why the insistence on making the discussion about terms rather than a discussion of ideas? Are people finding the ideas that are being expressed to be unclear? The arguments themselves seem fairly clear to me - If I were to express it in a couple of sentences, it might be something like "Cases where a single entity has massive financial control of what expression becomes available to the masses can effectively limit expression to only what is considered acceptable by the gatekeeping entity, even in the absence of physical force. Ideally, there would be a variety of entities available who can act as curators for expression, with no single one of them having sufficient influence to effectively have veto power."
Many people in this thread seem to disagree with this idea, but for some reason the argument seems to be "This idea doesn't meet my personal definition of <x>" rather than "This idea is wrong because <x>." So what's the point of the definition argument? Why does it always come up?
(The unerring focus on defining words is a common warning sign that you are making The Worst Argument In The World, on both sides. Proving that Steam's actions are "censorship", or that it's "the free market at work" is just a way to avoid actually thinking or talking about the nuances of the issues involved in balancing free speech and expression against the choices and rights of individuals. Let's not do that any more than we absolutely have too.)
Because someone's using the definitions as part of their argument incorrectly? So we rebut it by pointing out the errors?
I don't even know what you want here. Am I just supposed to assume that someone made a good argument that I disagree with when it's not the argument they made, and then ... what??? I'm supposed to be talking to ghosts here?
If you want to have a different conversation not using those definitions, then start it. But I'm not going to argue with someone over arguments they didn't make. @emnmnme made this post (http://forums.penny-arcade.com/profile/17381/emnmnme), which basically attracted no attention, so....
It also ignores the fact that there are many other methods of distribution for the product up to and including slaving together several computers to create a distribution server of your own that you can let the tens of people who actually want this piece of crap pay to download it.
I'm not sure what it is about this particular topic that makes people want to really really badly argue definitions instead of actual effects.
Almost every page in this thread is along the lines of "This doesn't meet the definition of <x>." So I can't help but ask, why the insistence on making the discussion about terms rather than a discussion of ideas? Are people finding the ideas that are being expressed to be unclear? The arguments themselves seem fairly clear to me - If I were to express it in a couple of sentences, it might be something like "Cases where a single entity has massive financial control of what expression becomes available to the masses can effectively limit expression to only what is considered acceptable by the gatekeeping entity, even in the absence of physical force. Ideally, there would be a variety of entities available who can act as curators for expression, with no single one of them having sufficient influence to effectively have veto power."
Many people in this thread seem to disagree with this idea, but for some reason the argument seems to be "This idea doesn't meet my personal definition of <x>" rather than "This idea is wrong because <x>." So what's the point of the definition argument? Why does it always come up?
(The unerring focus on defining words is a common warning sign that you are making The Worst Argument In The World, on both sides. Proving that Steam's actions are "censorship", or that it's "the free market at work" is just a way to avoid actually thinking or talking about the nuances of the issues involved in balancing free speech and expression against the choices and rights of individuals. Let's not do that any more than we absolutely have too.)
because words mean things? I mean, if you say that 'steam is a monopoly,' you are making a specific claim that may or may not be true. If you say they are 'censoring' something, likewise.
The reality is that people like to use words like 'monopoly' or 'censorship' because they have acquired negative associations in our culture, and are interested for whatever reason in using those associations to color the argument in a way that doesn't really make sense. Asking whether steam or whoever actually constitute a 'monopoly' or a 'censor' is going to be intrinsic to attacking those arguments.
Is there some wacky, defined-down use of the word 'censorship' that lets you conclude steam is acting as a censor? Sure, I guess. At that point, is censorship actually bad? And if not, what the fuck are you talking about in the first place?
"Cases where a single entity has massive financial control of what expression becomes available to the masses can effectively limit expression to only what is considered acceptable by the gatekeeping entity, even in the absence of physical force. Ideally, there would be a variety of entities available who can act as curators for expression, with no single one of them having sufficient influence to effectively have veto power."
nobody disagrees with this idea; it's just that this idea is already the status quo and steam declining to sell a particular game doesn't change that
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I mean, any distributor of sufficient size will be able to exercise significant control over what products it distributes and how. That's only actually a problem if that distributor is also prohibiting potential competitors from doing the same via anticompetitive practices, participating in a cartel, or distorting the market in some other way.
The old axoim that freedom of the press is actually the freedom to own one is still true today; fortunately for us presses are getting really cheap
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
"Cases where a single entity has massive financial control of what expression becomes available to the masses can effectively limit expression to only what is considered acceptable by the gatekeeping entity, even in the absence of physical force. Ideally, there would be a variety of entities available who can act as curators for expression, with no single one of them having sufficient influence to effectively have veto power."
I agree with this principle.
But it doesn't apply here.
Steam is not a gatekeeper.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
steam is a gatekeeper, certainly. They're just far from the only gatekeeper.
But they are the big one, and have the most power and clout. Network effects do exist.
Is it measurable? Can you say, roughly, the financial or sales penalty a company takes by Steam refusing to distribute their game versus Origin or independant?
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
The point is that Steam isn't a gatekeeper like they're suggesting, and the argument is specifically about Steam and specifically about Hatred.
I mean, if I wanted to argue about Obama's dictatorship through executive orders, would you be like "Okay, let's not worry about terms! Proceed!" Or would you argue that presidential discretion regarding executive orders is a far fucking cry from a dictatorship?
Honestly, trying to argue that Steam is immoral through censorship is arguing in bad faith.
But so far no one in this thread has shown a particular need to call it censorship. It may be that in the thread this discussion was imported from that was the case, but even the original quotes don't mention the word. (I don't know what thread it is from so I can't check.)
And yeah I would probably be like that if you wanted to discuss Obama's dictatorship. Unless the main argument was that it is bad because it is a dictatorship.
Well, the argument is that Steam is bad for not distributing Hatred because it is a monopoly.
When it's not.
Right. Point to where anyone has argued that.
In this thread, I can't. But the original thread was talking about Jerry's newspost, which talks about Steam in this manner:
"Removal from Steam is not removal from Target or K-Mart. I want to make this point very clear: like the metaphor in the introduction, there is only a slight overlap. It reminds me of the thing with Rap Genius, where they were perceived as manipulating traffic and Google essentially kicked them off the fucking Internet. Steam is not “a” store, Steam is “the” store. It cannot be a zone where this kind of prescription and paternalism takes place. When the next war comes, when they hear their own arguments to constrain wild culture thrown back in their face, I trust they will manage it with grace and equanimity."
EDIT: There are multiple ways that you can read the post, and I don't necessarily subscribe to any particular interpretation, but I'm just posting it here for clarity. I realize that this may cause an unwanted explosion, and I apologize.
steam is a gatekeeper, certainly. They're just far from the only gatekeeper.
But they are the big one, and have the most power and clout. Network effects do exist.
Is it measurable? Can you say, roughly, the financial or sales penalty a company takes by Steam refusing to distribute their game versus Origin or independant?
I posted some numbers on the last page, but it's going to depend heavily on the developer and the kind of game they're making. I think not getting on Steam would probably represent only a minor hit for a lot of casual/F2P games or EA's latest triple-A shooter.
In the $10-$30 space though, or for an indie without their own platform and massive marketing department, Steam tends to represent about 60-80% of total sales. The stories on this list are quite informative in this regard, and break down a lot of the specific numbers. The sales also don't tend to appear until the game is actually on Steam, so it's not as if people are simply choosing to buy through Steam instead of another platform - the common refrain in those stories is "My sales were nowhere near enough to support myself, then I got onto Steam and got 5 times my lifetime sales on the very first day." This echoes my own experiences in smaller-scale PC development.
Well, the argument is that Steam is bad for not distributing Hatred because it is a monopoly.
When it's not.
Right. Point to where anyone has argued that.
In this thread, I can't. But the original thread was talking about Jerry's newspost, which talks about Steam in this manner:
"Removal from Steam is not removal from Target or K-Mart. I want to make this point very clear: like the metaphor in the introduction, there is only a slight overlap. It reminds me of the thing with Rap Genius, where they were perceived as manipulating traffic and Google essentially kicked them off the fucking Internet. Steam is not “a” store, Steam is “the” store. It cannot be a zone where this kind of prescription and paternalism takes place. When the next war comes, when they hear their own arguments to constrain wild culture thrown back in their face, I trust they will manage it with grace and equanimity."
EDIT: There are multiple ways that you can read the post, and I don't necessarily subscribe to any particular interpretation, but I'm just posting it here for clarity. I realize that this may cause an unwanted explosion, and I apologize.
Yeah I was gonna say that I wouldn't read it like that but I admit it is a valid reading.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Now that people are turning their attention to massacring the actual meaning of the word "monopoly" after trying to murder censorships meaning, I wonder what is next. This entire discussion is also deeply ironic to me, because I remember when EA had the gall to offend gamers by deciding to withdraw all of their games from steam. They then were like, guess what, we are making our own store called Origin. Does nobody else remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth? The cries of EA being bullshit, unfair and idiots? Not to mention the dramatic predictions of Origins imminent death because Steam controlled the entire market (supposedly).
Yet Origin is still here and growing. GoG is still here and growing. Other digital platforms like Desura are also growing, though I would say Origin is doing better than the others in general (thanks to some of EAs multiplayer games like Battlefield). It is deeply silly for anyone to claim PC games are a monopoly when it's the most open marketplace that exists for games. If Steam is a monopoly for indie games, does that mean Sony is too? Sony has attracted many more indie games now than Microsoft and actively supports them putting games on their platforms (ps3, ps4 and vita). They have begun to outpace MS in this area easily and many PC indie games find their way onto Sony platforms exclusively (due to Sony supporting them). Does this mean Sony is making a monopoly? Nope, because nothing actually stops their competition from doing the same.
Likewise, unlike Microsoft, Sony doesnt even stop those successful indie games porting to whatever other fucking platform they want after that.
Honestly, when you have actual anti-competitive walled gardens to look at and use as examples, complaining that not being on steam is the equivalent of an anti-competitive monopoly instantly makes any argument you make lose all credibility instantly.
Steam isn't a monopoly, but I don't really want them doing too much curating based on highly subjective criteria like "fun" or "political correctness." If a game is broken as hell, or deceptively advertised, or stuff like that, kick them to the curb, but there's a substantial difference between not carrying a coffee maker because it doesn't brew coffee correctly, or because it is blue and you don't believe home appliances should be anything but white/black.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Now that people are turning their attention to massacring the actual meaning of the word "monopoly" after trying to murder censorships meaning, I wonder what is next. This entire discussion is also deeply ironic to me, because I remember when EA had the gall to offend gamers by deciding to withdraw all of their games from steam. They then were like, guess what, we are making our own store called Origin. Does nobody else remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth? The cries of EA being bullshit, unfair and idiots? Not to mention the dramatic predictions of Origins imminent death because Steam controlled the entire market (supposedly).
Yet Origin is still here and growing. GoG is still here and growing. Other digital platforms like Desura are also growing, though I would say Origin is doing better than the others in general (thanks to some of EAs multiplayer games like Battlefield). It is deeply silly for anyone to claim PC games are a monopoly when it's the most open marketplace that exists for games. If Steam is a monopoly for indie games, does that mean Sony is too? Sony has attracted many more indie games now than Microsoft and actively supports them putting games on their platforms (ps3, ps4 and vita). They have begun to outpace MS in this area easily and many PC indie games find their way onto Sony platforms exclusively (due to Sony supporting them). Does this mean Sony is making a monopoly? Nope, because nothing actually stops their competition from doing the same.
Likewise, unlike Microsoft, Sony doesnt even stop those successful indie games porting to whatever other fucking platform they want after that.
Honestly, when you have actual anti-competitive walled gardens to look at and use as examples, complaining that not being on steam is the equivalent of an anti-competitive monopoly instantly makes any argument you make lose all credibility instantly.
I'm going to agree and say that Steam is not "the" store any more than Game stop is.
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Caulk Bite 6One of the multitude of Dans infesting this placeRegistered Userregular
I fully expect steam to distribute this game, because it has proven to have support behind it. First and formemost is whether it looks like they'll get money out of it. Chances are good that's why it was reinstated to greenlight.
Second thing to consider was likely how many sales doing this will cost them. Very little, I surmise, because people such as myself weren't going to buy it anyway and most everything else on steam is enough to distract from this game and bad rats.
What I'm saying is the highminded arguments on both sides are just a bunch of gases passing betwixt butts.
Steam isn't a monopoly, but I don't really want them doing too much curating based on highly subjective criteria like "fun" or "political correctness." If a game is broken as hell, or deceptively advertised, or stuff like that, kick them to the curb, but there's a substantial difference between not carrying a coffee maker because it doesn't brew coffee correctly, or because it is blue and you don't believe home appliances should be anything but white/black.
I agree, this is pretty much the only thing I expect from Steam.
And honestly, all misgivings about one company making the decisions aside, they do a phenomenal job at the moment. If one company is going to run "the" digital distribution platform for PC, I'm happy that it's Valve and not anyone else.
I wonder what Steam's market share really is in the video game market, because there's no way steam sells more than all consoles combined.
So their market share is more accurately going to be low double digit percent. Like, 20%, max.
Why would you compare it to the market as a whole though? Market share can be local.
Steam isn't local. The claim that Steam is a near monopoly on games is spurious at best.
The only distribution platform for XBox is Live. The only distribution platform for Playstation is PSN. The only distribution platform for iOS is the appstore. Nobody is bitching about Hatred not appearing on any of those platforms and if you can claim that a single platform counts as an entire market, then they really are true monopolies.
Steam competes against Origin, GOG, Ubi's online store and whatever other platforms I'm not remembering right now. The PSN doesn't. Live doesn't. The Appstore doesn't.
It is so far from a monopoly under any definition.
You are so completely missing the point. Saying "Steam is only 20% of total video game sales" is comparing it against a market of a size that is irrelevant to the point. One can be less then a percent of the total worldwide cable market and still be a monopoly by having control over a specific market with clearly defined barriers. Location is the obvious one here. Monopolies can be local. Total market share is a terrible metric you should not be using.
You compare Steam's marketshare to PC gaming as a wholef not video gaming as whole. Because that's the market it operates in, with clear and obvious barriers between that market and the rest of the video game market. And because of that their actual relevant market share is quite a bit higher then you are suggesting.
Yeesh.
EDIT:
Also though I'd point out that Steam pricing is totally location based so it's also local in that sense.
A) No, Steam wouldn't qualify under as a monopoly in the indie games market, because, as your last point concedes, there is no indie games market. Again, just being a small player doesn't make you a market unto yourself. The "indie games market" might be a useful concept to think of for academic or business purposes, but economically and legally, I cannot accept such a definition of a market, unless we propose that indie games are a good that's an entirely separate class from other video games, that there are individuals who only partake of indie games and not other video games, or that indie game players would consider them a separate class of purchase, s.t. you wouldn't buy Dragon Age even if it was $5 because it's not an indie game.
But you are again confusing the point by mashing together many different concepts. My point is not that Steam doesn't have a monopoly on the PC indie game market (as you wrongly suggest) but that said monopoly is too small to be relevant to regulation.
No, 60% market share of this imaginary indie games market still isn't a monopoly. I can't find a better source off-hand, so please accept this low-quality source - http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Sherman+Anti-Trust+Act: "A market share greater than 75 percent indicates monopoly power, a share less than 50 percent does not, and shares between 50 and 75 percent are inconclusive in and of themselves."*
So according to even your source, it could be. So why are you assuming it flat out must not be? Clearly, even a marketshare as low as 51% could qualify.
* Edit: EU's minimum market share to constitute a monopoly has once been 39.7%, according to Wikipedia, against British Airways.
Indeed.
Because the only sensible interpretation I can make of the argument that rejection by a monopoly -> censorship is that said monopoly is an economic monopoly (that is, single seller, near 100% market share) of a broad market that entirely encompasses a means of expression that is critical for the expression of the idea being censored. As it is, Steam is not an economic monopoly, the indie games market isn't a broad market, and I see no evidence that whatever expression is in the game can't be produced via one of many, similar alternative means.
Even if I let the latter two slide, just because Steam accounts for 60% of sales doesn't at all mean that non-Steam platforms only reach 40% of customers, or that only non-Steam platforms can at most reach only 40% of customers, which would still be a very large number of people able to access this supposedly censored expression! (Remember, censorship is about not letting people access an expression, not forcing people to access, or even purchase, an expression.)
If people aren't downloading Origin (or whatever) to play your game, then maybe your game just isn't very good.
Then you are not considering some very real possibilities. The MS example is actually kind of illuminating in this case. One does not need to meet the exact 100% marketshare definition of an economic monopoly to exert anti-competitive pressure on other entities. MS didn't need to control every OS ever to crush it's competitors in the browser market. If you control a large enough portion of the market, you can cripple a products ability to exist by limiting it's access to the market. That's why the question is not "Does Steam control a 100% of the video game market?" it's "Does Steam control a large enough portion of the PC gaming market to control the success or failure of another company's product on the PC platform?".
It doesn't necessarily seem like it does and it's not necessarily true that "indie PC gaming market" would even qualify under anti-competition statutes anyway.
PS - I've never said anything about "censorship" so I've no clue why you keep bringing it up.
And pray tell, what anti-competitive practices is Steam engaging in? Are they entering the indie games market themselves? Are they colluding with other digital distribution platforms or indie game developers? MS got into trouble because THEY were the ones who made Internet Explorer, and they were building it into a fundamental component of Windows, their dominant OS. They weren't in trouble for not bundling in Navigator on Windows (though they also weren't preventing people from using Navigator on Windows, admittedly).*
BTW Windows' market share, at the time, was ~90% >>> 50%. Also, operating systems are much more mutually exclusive than digital distribution platforms. Not entirely, because you can dual-boot, but that in and of itself is probably beyond the abilities of most PC-users, especially back in the 2000s.
And censorship is because ... well, it's up there in the thread title. It's where this conversation started. I'm the one who has said things about it, so I've no clue why you keep... taking it down?
* There were also some shenanigans vis a vis the Windows APIs, which was ultimately what the settlement revolved around. Also some stuff with OEMs, vis a vis monopolizing the market for Windows in the first place.
hippofant on
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
And pray tell, what anti-competitive practices is Steam engaging in? Are they entering the indie games market themselves? Are they colluding with other digital distribution platforms or indie game developers? MS got into trouble because THEY were the ones who made Internet Explorer, and they were building it into a fundamental component of Windows, their dominant OS. They weren't in trouble for not bundling in Navigator on Windows (though they also weren't preventing people from using Navigator on Windows, admittedly).*
BTW Windows' market share, at the time, was ~90% >>> 50%. Also, operating systems are much more mutually exclusive than digital distribution platforms. Not entirely, because you can dual-boot, but that in and of itself is probably beyond the abilities of most PC-users, especially back in the 2000s.
And censorship is because ... well, it's up there in the thread title. It's where this conversation started. I'm the one who has said things about it, so I've no clue why you keep... taking it down?
* There were also some shenanigans vis a vis the Windows APIs, which was ultimately what the settlement revolved around. Also some stuff with OEMs, vis a vis monopolizing the market for Windows in the first place.
pfft
Valve would put out like one indie game every five years.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
I wonder what Steam's market share really is in the video game market, because there's no way steam sells more than all consoles combined.
So their market share is more accurately going to be low double digit percent. Like, 20%, max.
Why would you compare it to the market as a whole though? Market share can be local.
Steam isn't local. The claim that Steam is a near monopoly on games is spurious at best.
The only distribution platform for XBox is Live. The only distribution platform for Playstation is PSN. The only distribution platform for iOS is the appstore. Nobody is bitching about Hatred not appearing on any of those platforms and if you can claim that a single platform counts as an entire market, then they really are true monopolies.
Steam competes against Origin, GOG, Ubi's online store and whatever other platforms I'm not remembering right now. The PSN doesn't. Live doesn't. The Appstore doesn't.
It is so far from a monopoly under any definition.
You are so completely missing the point. Saying "Steam is only 20% of total video game sales" is comparing it against a market of a size that is irrelevant to the point. One can be less then a percent of the total worldwide cable market and still be a monopoly by having control over a specific market with clearly defined barriers. Location is the obvious one here. Monopolies can be local. Total market share is a terrible metric you should not be using.
You compare Steam's marketshare to PC gaming as a wholef not video gaming as whole. Because that's the market it operates in, with clear and obvious barriers between that market and the rest of the video game market. And because of that their actual relevant market share is quite a bit higher then you are suggesting.
Yeesh.
EDIT:
Also though I'd point out that Steam pricing is totally location based so it's also local in that sense.
This only works if developers cannot develop on more than one platform. A developer does not get extra special points by just developing on PC and then claiming they're being censored because one retailer for that one platform won't stock their product.
Posts
See, this is where a big part of the problem with both your posts is. You've already admitted the point and are trying to argue a different one.
Steam would totally qualify as a monopoly in the indie games market under the law. Whether it would qualify as an illegal one is seriously debatable, but that wasn't what I said anyway, so it's irrelevant.
This point just flat out doesn't make sense. Expression is completely tied to it's medium. If you change the medium you are changing what you are distributing. They could distribute a book, say, with the same ideas in it as the game but those two products would be distinct products. And if the government banned one and not the other, that would still be censorship.
Yes, I said this in the post you quoted. It's one of the main problems with the argument about legality here. It's unclear if the indie games market on PC constitutes something meaningful enough to be worth regulating at that level.
A) No, Steam wouldn't qualify under as a monopoly in the indie games market, because, as your last point concedes, there is no indie games market. Again, just being a small player doesn't make you a market unto yourself. The "indie games market" might be a useful concept to think of for academic or business purposes, but economically and legally, I cannot accept such a definition of a market, unless we propose that indie games are a good that's an entirely separate class from other video games, that there are individuals who only partake of indie games and not other video games, or that indie game players would consider them a separate class of purchase, s.t. you wouldn't buy Dragon Age even if it was $5 because it's not an indie game.
C) You're telling me these guys can't express whatever the hell their message is with a tablet game? Or an XBox game? They're developing it for PC yes, but telling someone they can't express a particular opinion via one particular medium is not necessarily (which is the word you've ignored there) censorship. Are you making the case that the expression, in this case, must be made via a PC game delivered via digital distribution?
* Edit: EU's minimum market share to constitute a monopoly has once been 39.7%, according to Wikipedia, against British Airways.
So their market share is more accurately going to be low double digit percent. Like, 20%, max.
I did some back of a napkin calculations here: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/31466395/#Comment_31466395 which ends up at 4%, as of 2-3 years ago.
But you are again confusing the point by mashing together many different concepts. My point is not that Steam doesn't have a monopoly on the PC indie game market (as you wrongly suggest) but that said monopoly is too small to be relevant to regulation.
So according to even your source, it could be. So why are you assuming it flat out must not be? Clearly, even a marketshare as low as 51% could qualify.
Indeed.
Why would you compare it to the market as a whole though? Market share can be local.
Because the only sensible interpretation I can make of the argument that rejection by a monopoly -> censorship is that said monopoly is an economic monopoly (that is, single seller, near 100% market share) of a broad market that entirely encompasses a means of expression that is critical for the expression of the idea being censored. As it is, Steam is not an economic monopoly, the indie games market isn't a broad market, and I see no evidence that whatever expression is in the game can't be produced via one of many, similar alternative means.
Even if I let the latter two slide, just because Steam accounts for 60% of sales doesn't at all mean that non-Steam platforms only reach 40% of customers, or that only non-Steam platforms can at most reach only 40% of customers, which would still be a very large number of people able to access this supposedly censored expression! (Remember, censorship is about not letting people access an expression, not forcing people to access, or even purchase, an expression.)
If people aren't downloading Origin (or whatever) to play your game, then maybe your game just isn't very good.
Steam isn't local. The claim that Steam is a near monopoly on games is spurious at best.
The only distribution platform for XBox is Live. The only distribution platform for Playstation is PSN. The only distribution platform for iOS is the appstore. Nobody is bitching about Hatred not appearing on any of those platforms and if you can claim that a single platform counts as an entire market, then they really are true monopolies.
Steam competes against Origin, GOG, Ubi's online store and whatever other platforms I'm not remembering right now. The PSN doesn't. Live doesn't. The Appstore doesn't.
It is so far from a monopoly under any definition.
Almost every page in this thread is along the lines of "This doesn't meet the definition of <x>." So I can't help but ask, why the insistence on making the discussion about terms rather than a discussion of ideas? Are people finding the ideas that are being expressed to be unclear? The arguments themselves seem fairly clear to me - If I were to express it in a couple of sentences, it might be something like "Cases where a single entity has massive financial control of what expression becomes available to the masses can effectively limit expression to only what is considered acceptable by the gatekeeping entity, even in the absence of physical force. Ideally, there would be a variety of entities available who can act as curators for expression, with no single one of them having sufficient influence to effectively have veto power."
Many people in this thread seem to disagree with this idea, but for some reason the argument seems to be "This idea doesn't meet my personal definition of <x>" rather than "This idea is wrong because <x>." So what's the point of the definition argument? Why does it always come up?
(The unerring focus on defining words is a common warning sign that you are making The Worst Argument In The World, on both sides. Proving that Steam's actions are "censorship", or that it's "the free market at work" is just a way to avoid actually thinking or talking about the nuances of the issues involved in balancing free speech and expression against the choices and rights of individuals. Let's not do that any more than we absolutely have too.)
I mean, if I wanted to argue about Obama's dictatorship through executive orders, would you be like "Okay, let's not worry about terms! Proceed!" Or would you argue that presidential discretion regarding executive orders is a far fucking cry from a dictatorship?
Honestly, trying to argue that Steam is immoral through censorship is arguing in bad faith.
Because someone's using the definitions as part of their argument incorrectly? So we rebut it by pointing out the errors?
I don't even know what you want here. Am I just supposed to assume that someone made a good argument that I disagree with when it's not the argument they made, and then ... what??? I'm supposed to be talking to ghosts here?
If you want to have a different conversation not using those definitions, then start it. But I'm not going to argue with someone over arguments they didn't make. @emnmnme made this post (http://forums.penny-arcade.com/profile/17381/emnmnme), which basically attracted no attention, so....
Somehow, somehow, Notch managed to find a way to buy a $70 million mansion this year.
because words mean things? I mean, if you say that 'steam is a monopoly,' you are making a specific claim that may or may not be true. If you say they are 'censoring' something, likewise.
The reality is that people like to use words like 'monopoly' or 'censorship' because they have acquired negative associations in our culture, and are interested for whatever reason in using those associations to color the argument in a way that doesn't really make sense. Asking whether steam or whoever actually constitute a 'monopoly' or a 'censor' is going to be intrinsic to attacking those arguments.
Is there some wacky, defined-down use of the word 'censorship' that lets you conclude steam is acting as a censor? Sure, I guess. At that point, is censorship actually bad? And if not, what the fuck are you talking about in the first place?
nobody disagrees with this idea; it's just that this idea is already the status quo and steam declining to sell a particular game doesn't change that
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The old axoim that freedom of the press is actually the freedom to own one is still true today; fortunately for us presses are getting really cheap
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I agree with this principle.
But it doesn't apply here.
Steam is not a gatekeeper.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Considering that mansion, that means even people who make dumb decisions can be successful making an indie game on PC without Steam.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
But they are the big one, and have the most power and clout. Network effects do exist.
Is it measurable? Can you say, roughly, the financial or sales penalty a company takes by Steam refusing to distribute their game versus Origin or independant?
But so far no one in this thread has shown a particular need to call it censorship. It may be that in the thread this discussion was imported from that was the case, but even the original quotes don't mention the word. (I don't know what thread it is from so I can't check.)
And yeah I would probably be like that if you wanted to discuss Obama's dictatorship. Unless the main argument was that it is bad because it is a dictatorship.
Right. A better way for me to have phrased it would be, "Steam does not have sufficient influence to effectively have veto power.."
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Right. Point to where anyone has argued that.
"Removal from Steam is not removal from Target or K-Mart. I want to make this point very clear: like the metaphor in the introduction, there is only a slight overlap. It reminds me of the thing with Rap Genius, where they were perceived as manipulating traffic and Google essentially kicked them off the fucking Internet. Steam is not “a” store, Steam is “the” store. It cannot be a zone where this kind of prescription and paternalism takes place. When the next war comes, when they hear their own arguments to constrain wild culture thrown back in their face, I trust they will manage it with grace and equanimity."
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/12/17/southron-swords-part-two
EDIT: There are multiple ways that you can read the post, and I don't necessarily subscribe to any particular interpretation, but I'm just posting it here for clarity. I realize that this may cause an unwanted explosion, and I apologize.
I posted some numbers on the last page, but it's going to depend heavily on the developer and the kind of game they're making. I think not getting on Steam would probably represent only a minor hit for a lot of casual/F2P games or EA's latest triple-A shooter.
In the $10-$30 space though, or for an indie without their own platform and massive marketing department, Steam tends to represent about 60-80% of total sales. The stories on this list are quite informative in this regard, and break down a lot of the specific numbers. The sales also don't tend to appear until the game is actually on Steam, so it's not as if people are simply choosing to buy through Steam instead of another platform - the common refrain in those stories is "My sales were nowhere near enough to support myself, then I got onto Steam and got 5 times my lifetime sales on the very first day." This echoes my own experiences in smaller-scale PC development.
Yeah I was gonna say that I wouldn't read it like that but I admit it is a valid reading.
Yet Origin is still here and growing. GoG is still here and growing. Other digital platforms like Desura are also growing, though I would say Origin is doing better than the others in general (thanks to some of EAs multiplayer games like Battlefield). It is deeply silly for anyone to claim PC games are a monopoly when it's the most open marketplace that exists for games. If Steam is a monopoly for indie games, does that mean Sony is too? Sony has attracted many more indie games now than Microsoft and actively supports them putting games on their platforms (ps3, ps4 and vita). They have begun to outpace MS in this area easily and many PC indie games find their way onto Sony platforms exclusively (due to Sony supporting them). Does this mean Sony is making a monopoly? Nope, because nothing actually stops their competition from doing the same.
Likewise, unlike Microsoft, Sony doesnt even stop those successful indie games porting to whatever other fucking platform they want after that.
Honestly, when you have actual anti-competitive walled gardens to look at and use as examples, complaining that not being on steam is the equivalent of an anti-competitive monopoly instantly makes any argument you make lose all credibility instantly.
I'm going to agree and say that Steam is not "the" store any more than Game stop is.
Second thing to consider was likely how many sales doing this will cost them. Very little, I surmise, because people such as myself weren't going to buy it anyway and most everything else on steam is enough to distract from this game and bad rats.
What I'm saying is the highminded arguments on both sides are just a bunch of gases passing betwixt butts.
I agree, this is pretty much the only thing I expect from Steam.
And honestly, all misgivings about one company making the decisions aside, they do a phenomenal job at the moment. If one company is going to run "the" digital distribution platform for PC, I'm happy that it's Valve and not anyone else.
You are so completely missing the point. Saying "Steam is only 20% of total video game sales" is comparing it against a market of a size that is irrelevant to the point. One can be less then a percent of the total worldwide cable market and still be a monopoly by having control over a specific market with clearly defined barriers. Location is the obvious one here. Monopolies can be local. Total market share is a terrible metric you should not be using.
You compare Steam's marketshare to PC gaming as a wholef not video gaming as whole. Because that's the market it operates in, with clear and obvious barriers between that market and the rest of the video game market. And because of that their actual relevant market share is quite a bit higher then you are suggesting.
Yeesh.
EDIT:
Also though I'd point out that Steam pricing is totally location based so it's also local in that sense.
Then you are not considering some very real possibilities. The MS example is actually kind of illuminating in this case. One does not need to meet the exact 100% marketshare definition of an economic monopoly to exert anti-competitive pressure on other entities. MS didn't need to control every OS ever to crush it's competitors in the browser market. If you control a large enough portion of the market, you can cripple a products ability to exist by limiting it's access to the market. That's why the question is not "Does Steam control a 100% of the video game market?" it's "Does Steam control a large enough portion of the PC gaming market to control the success or failure of another company's product on the PC platform?".
It doesn't necessarily seem like it does and it's not necessarily true that "indie PC gaming market" would even qualify under anti-competition statutes anyway.
PS - I've never said anything about "censorship" so I've no clue why you keep bringing it up.
BTW Windows' market share, at the time, was ~90% >>> 50%. Also, operating systems are much more mutually exclusive than digital distribution platforms. Not entirely, because you can dual-boot, but that in and of itself is probably beyond the abilities of most PC-users, especially back in the 2000s.
And censorship is because ... well, it's up there in the thread title. It's where this conversation started. I'm the one who has said things about it, so I've no clue why you keep... taking it down?
* There were also some shenanigans vis a vis the Windows APIs, which was ultimately what the settlement revolved around. Also some stuff with OEMs, vis a vis monopolizing the market for Windows in the first place.
pfft
Valve would put out like one indie game every five years.
This only works if developers cannot develop on more than one platform. A developer does not get extra special points by just developing on PC and then claiming they're being censored because one retailer for that one platform won't stock their product.