this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2026
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Why is Valve being sued for almost $900 million, but Epic Games wasn't sued when they bought Rocket League and Fall Guys to remove them from steam? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 day ago by FirmDistribution@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world
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Seems like buying games to remove them from your competitor is a scummier thing to do.

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[โ€“] squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

You have to differentiate between a monopoly in economics and a monopoly in law.

In economics a monopoly is the only seller of a good with no other competition. If I am the only one who owns apple trees, I got a monopoly on apples.

In law a monopoly is someone who owns so much of the market that they can charge unfair prices. If I am the only one who owns large orchards full of the best kind of apple trees, it doesn't really matter to me that someone else has a couple mediocre trees in their backyard. I am not a economics-monopoly, since someone else is also selling apples, but I hold enough of the market that I can set the price to whatever I want.

(Ok, the analogy isn't perfect, but you get it, I hope. Basically the "excess market power" thing you talked about is the legal definition of a monopoly.)

Customers don't necessarily need to be end customers. If steam is charging their business customers too much, that counts too. (It also affects the end customers too, btw.)

So the question is: If I don't release a game on steam, will that cause it to underperform significantly? If so, does steam charge a lot above market price? If both of these questions are answered with yes, a lawsuit could be successful.

[โ€“] bryndos@fedia.io 3 points 9 hours ago

UK law basically doesn't use the term.

My point was that proving dominance and abuse is rarely objective fact. It sure isn't showing market share and that some games companies go out of business. They have to show the things that valve does to restrict competition - being popular isn't enough alone.

Your last question is quite a good example of how hard it is to prove because it includes counterfactual comparisons.

This might be why it seems (if the journo is to be believed) that they're going down the tie-ins angle for the DLC, not necessarily headline pricing. Thou the latter would probably a worse outcome for valve if guilty.