You get user lock-in as users buy more games, making it so Steam is always a store to buy from. You can’t deplatform from Steam. At that point, you can’t replace Steam with another DRM platform to pay existing games. That creates a large customer base which becomes a must add for vending new games.
It isn’t a hard monopoly, but it helps create a soft monopoly.
It kind of does.
You get user lock-in as users buy more games, making it so Steam is always a store to buy from. You can’t deplatform from Steam. At that point, you can’t replace Steam with another DRM platform to pay existing games. That creates a large customer base which becomes a must add for vending new games.
It isn’t a hard monopoly, but it helps create a soft monopoly.