Valve is a billion dollar company that is dominant over the video game market as they hold about 75% of the distribution market via their client, Steam. Although they hold this near-monopolistic position, people welcome this monopoly as their company makes good decisions for consumers, especially compared to the other companies such as Electronic Arts and Ubisoft. To consumers, Valve is well known for ‘do nothing win, do something and win more’ because Valve was never involved in any major scandals and kept succeeding.

Back in 2022, Valve was sued by Leigh M. Rothschild for violating pact and Washington’s Patent Troll Prevention Act. Even though they allowed Valve to use their technology through an agreement with patent, they still managed to bring Valve into a lawsuit. However, Valve ended up winning this lawsuit because the court viewed Rothchilds’s act as a patent trolling, so Valve sued Rothschild back and won the lawsuit. Essentially, Valve won just because someone was picking fight on them.

Now, in January, Valve was sued again in the United Kingdoms by Vicky Shotbolt, a leading campaigner for children’s digital rights. This 900 million dollar lawsuit states that Valve abuses its market dominance to overcharge consumers with 30% commission fees on their platform. Shotbolt stated that Valve was controlling the market with their current monopoly of 75% dominance.

Elie Mung, an avid gamer, says, “They’re really suing Steam for just being too good and I don’t understand because other competitors literally shot themselves in the foot when Steam was doing nothing and they sue Steam for monopoly now?”

Mung showed his frustration of current state of the market and how Steam was the only one he actually liked.

Taylor Wong, student who plays video games frequently, says, “It sounds stupid to me that they’re suing for having a skill issue themselves.”

Wong claimed that other companies just need to do better if they were being defeated by other company due to their mistake.

It seems quite ironic that a simple video game distribution company is being loved by the consumers but hated by other companies, especially competitors.