A UK tribunal has given the go-ahead to a £656 million ($901 million) collective action lawsuit targeting Valve over alleged anti-competitive practices on PC storefront Steam.
Having a “Monopoly” that occurred naturally isn’t illegal. Misusing the position and eliminating any competition is illegal. Besides that, the monopoly situation is open and there is competition. They just suck. Imagine filing Nintendo a lawsuit for having a monopoly in handheld consoles…
A lot of people seem to think ‘monopoly’ means ‘literally 0 alternatives for the consumer’, but this is not the case in either actual economic jargon/theory nor in basically any legal definition of it I am aware of.
To be a monopoly you basically just need to be the clear dominant actor in some market. Not the only one, just the main one, such that you can make pricing decisions in a way that other actors in the same market can’t, basically.
Its… very rare for a ‘true’ or ‘perfect’ monopoly to ever exist for basically anything other than a public utility/service. It almost never happens.
This is the kind of pedantry that is annoying but unfortunately important, similar to how ‘Impeachment’ by the House on its own is actually pointless beyond a mark of shame unless it is also followed by a ‘conviction’ by the Senate.
You are correct that in US law, a major factor that is considered is whether or not the company did abusive, deceptive, underhanded stuff to achieve its monopopy status.
You could be doing ‘abuse of dominance’ whether or not you achieved that dominance by underhanded means.
So… while I am not a lawyer, I would be genuinely surprised if Valve was found in serious violation of existing US monopoly laws, but I would be less surprised if they were found to be in violation of existing UK monopoly laws.
Game prices are set by their publisher, and prices are consistent across various platforms, regardless of market presence. So, Steam is the same price but a better service generally.
I’m not really trying to critique you, I just know that a ton of people only read the headline or don’t read things thoroughly, or don’t even click into the actual article at all.
I am just adding my 2 cents as someone with a degree in economics, so I’m not citing the article, I’m citing my years of education in economics and years of work that made use of it.
The article does not really go into the difference between US and UK law around monopolies, so I wanted to explore that a bit myself.
Also, when you say ‘the first lines of the linked article says what I said’… do you mean the OP linked article, or the lexology link that I provided?
Because the IGN article says nothing about whether simply being a monopoly is illegal, that’s why I provided the lexology link, to clarify that.
Sorry if I am not quite understanding what you are saying.
That isn’t necessarily true, companies with SMP have additional regulations. Steam having terms in their contracts preventing sale for cheaper elsewhere would be abuse of their SMP.
Except that’s not what their terms say. Their terms prohibit you from selling a steam key cheaper than on Steam, they don’t regulate your game price on a different store if you’re not offering a steam key together.
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Having a “Monopoly” that occurred naturally isn’t illegal. Misusing the position and eliminating any competition is illegal. Besides that, the monopoly situation is open and there is competition. They just suck. Imagine filing Nintendo a lawsuit for having a monopoly in handheld consoles…
Yeah this is so stupid, just sounds like a baseless money grab.
To add to what you have said:
Valve is an effective monopoly.
A lot of people seem to think ‘monopoly’ means ‘literally 0 alternatives for the consumer’, but this is not the case in either actual economic jargon/theory nor in basically any legal definition of it I am aware of.
To be a monopoly you basically just need to be the clear dominant actor in some market. Not the only one, just the main one, such that you can make pricing decisions in a way that other actors in the same market can’t, basically.
Its… very rare for a ‘true’ or ‘perfect’ monopoly to ever exist for basically anything other than a public utility/service. It almost never happens.
This is the kind of pedantry that is annoying but unfortunately important, similar to how ‘Impeachment’ by the House on its own is actually pointless beyond a mark of shame unless it is also followed by a ‘conviction’ by the Senate.
You are correct that in US law, a major factor that is considered is whether or not the company did abusive, deceptive, underhanded stuff to achieve its monopopy status.
But UK law appears to be different:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c5b1e681-5fb5-4161-bebf-823034fab751
You could be doing ‘abuse of dominance’ whether or not you achieved that dominance by underhanded means.
So… while I am not a lawyer, I would be genuinely surprised if Valve was found in serious violation of existing US monopoly laws, but I would be less surprised if they were found to be in violation of existing UK monopoly laws.
Game prices are set by their publisher, and prices are consistent across various platforms, regardless of market presence. So, Steam is the same price but a better service generally.
Just the first lines of the linked article says what I said, having a monopoly isn’t illegal on itself. Only abusing the dominance is.
Which paragraph or lines do you specifically speaking of? Its a long text, so quoting or pointing the part you refer to would be good.
I’m not really trying to critique you, I just know that a ton of people only read the headline or don’t read things thoroughly, or don’t even click into the actual article at all.
I am just adding my 2 cents as someone with a degree in economics, so I’m not citing the article, I’m citing my years of education in economics and years of work that made use of it.
The article does not really go into the difference between US and UK law around monopolies, so I wanted to explore that a bit myself.
Also, when you say ‘the first lines of the linked article says what I said’… do you mean the OP linked article, or the lexology link that I provided?
Because the IGN article says nothing about whether simply being a monopoly is illegal, that’s why I provided the lexology link, to clarify that.
Sorry if I am not quite understanding what you are saying.
I am not talking about the IGN article, but about the link you gave me.
Isnt a natural monolpoly something like YKK who just have the economics and processes in place to capture the market?
That isn’t necessarily true, companies with SMP have additional regulations. Steam having terms in their contracts preventing sale for cheaper elsewhere would be abuse of their SMP.
Except that’s not what their terms say. Their terms prohibit you from selling a steam key cheaper than on Steam, they don’t regulate your game price on a different store if you’re not offering a steam key together.
“would be”, its an eample of abuse of the SMP
What?
I wasnt saying that the terms said that just that them aaying it would be an example of my point.
Also monopolies are cool now, just as Google.