The Grip of Definitions: Horses and Monopolies

Beyond censorship: how Steam's algorithms influence the independent market.

by Marco Cella

22 December 2025 09:58

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«We are not a monopoly; there are alternatives». According to the traditional economic and legal definition, a monopoly implies exclusive control of a market, the ability to set prices, access, and contractual conditions with significant barriers to entry for new operators. Valve's statement is correct, but substantially misleading: platforms like Epic Games Store, GOG, itch.io, Humble, Microsoft Store, and other marketplaces exist, but none have the same user base, symbolic weight, or popular legitimacy as Steam. Without much sophistry, in 2026, not being on Steam means not existing in the PC market.

Valve reports over 132 million monthly active users and 41.66 million concurrent online users. Tracing the origin of the platform's strength is a complex sum of merits and exquisitely contemporary trends: network effect, habit, implicit standard, visibility asymmetry, market access, and at least a dozen other macro-economic technicalities that grate the further one moves from textbooks. This constitutes a de facto monopoly, where real dominance is not formally certifiable by antitrust authorities but produces concrete effects, especially upstream in the supply chain, on developers' economic and even creative choices.

The Grip of Definitions: Horses and Monopolies

The Horses Case: Why the Steam and Epic Games Store Ban Is Controversial

Steam's dominant position is neither accidental nor temporary, and it does not require direct coercion to be exercised. Valve does not have to explain why it removes a game, is not required to provide verifiable criteria, and does not suffer significant reputational damage in doing so. The platform operates in a structural condition of power that makes abuse invisible: many software houses report deriving over 75% of their PC revenue from the platform, while independent surveys indicate that more than 70% of developers consider Steam the only significant player in the digital market. Without a presence on Steam, the visibility and sales necessary to sustain a studio become impossible, making dependence on the platform a structural condition, not an accident. Legally, however, Steam's position is secure.

The U.S. class action lawsuit Elliott et al. v. Valve, initiated in 2021, accused Valve of exercising a dominant position in the PC digital distribution market through exclusionary practices: standard 30% commissions, parity pricing clauses, and an ecosystem that would make it economically disadvantageous for developers to sell elsewhere. Over the 2024–25 biennium, the proceedings underwent a progressive downsizing. Several charges were dismissed or weakened: the court narrowed the definition of “relevant market,” ruling that Steam does not control the entire digital video game market (which includes consoles, mobile, and other PC stores), and found insufficient evidence of direct and measurable harm to consumers.

Valve, moreover, successfully argued that the absence of formal exclusivity obligations and the presence of alternative stores prevent the configuration of a monopoly in the technical sense. The result is a lawsuit that, while not completely dismissed, now appears stripped of its systemic scope: an outcome that reinforces the crucial distinction between legal monopoly and de facto monopoly without, however, indicating any way to untangle a knot far removed from lawyers and judges. Steam is not, according to the courts, a monopolist in the strict sense, but this legal acquittal does not address the central issue raised by cases like Horses: the structural power of a platform that, without formally violating antitrust law, can still determine market access, cultural visibility, and the economic sustainability of an entire industry.

This defensive reading rests on a fragile premise: the formal equivalence between the existence of alternatives and their real economic and cultural viability. The existence of other PC stores does not imply that these constitute a substitutable market for those who develop or publish games. Other services cover marginal shares of traffic, visibility, and sales, and often require radically different contractual models, promotional investments, or target audiences. In simple terms, the absence of exclusivity does not coincide with the absence of dependence. It is here that the traditional antitrust framework shows its limits: the harm is not so much for the end consumer, free to buy elsewhere, but for producers, forced to go through Steam to access an audience that, in everyday life, coincides with the market itself.

The Grip of Definitions: Horses and Monopolies

Beyond Gameplay: When a Video Game Becomes "Too Much" for Algorithms

Freedom of choice is asymmetrical: Steam can afford to reject, remove, or penalize content; developers, in most cases, cannot afford to ignore Steam. Valve's position is thus normalized as simple “competitive success,” when it operates as a privatized cultural infrastructure, capable of exercising regulatory power without the responsibilities typical of a public entity or a recognized monopolist. It is this gap between legality and real impact that makes cases like Horses fundamental to understanding the real functioning of the platform economy.

This condition of power is reinforced by the cultural narrative surrounding Steam. The platform enjoys enormous symbolic capital, built over time through practices perceived as “virtuous”: a revolutionary refund policy, an ironic and memetic communication language, a historically pro-PC gaming positioning. Gabe Newell has long been portrayed as a humane and benevolent CEO, while Steam became, in the collective imagination, the anti-corporation platform par excellence. This mythology has produced genuine affective protection: a significant portion of the public tends to minimize predatory behaviors, arbitrary regulations, or structural opacities, while strongly denouncing other IT giants like Apple or Google. In a landscape populated by “villains,” Valve continues to sit smiling on a reputational pedestal that, until a few years ago, it shared, among others, with CD Projekt RED.

Phrases like «no one forces you to use Steam» or «it's a private company, it can do what it wants» reveal a deep cognitive dissonance: Steam is not perceived as an infrastructure of power, but as a cultural ally to whom everything is permitted. And it is precisely this perception that allows it to maintain a dominant position without the need for real public justification when the stick is used instead of the carrot. Horses, an Italian horror game developed by Santa Ragione, forcefully brings the issue of monopoly exercised by dominant platforms back to the center of the debate. Although the developers have clarified that the game does not contain explicit sexual scenes, Steam has rejected it multiple times for alleged “non-compliant elements,” without providing clear criteria or transparent motivations. Epic Games Store had initially shown openness to distribution, only to backtrack later. GOG, however, supported the publication of the title without particular reservations, where you can still purchase it today.

The Grip of Definitions: Horses and Monopolies

Defining the Video Game: Who Decides What Can Stay on Digital Shelves?

This asymmetry highlights how control is not just economic: it determines who can exist in the market and in what form content can be made legible to users. The Horses case is emblematic because it cracks Steam's narrative as a permissive platform, often labeled as “free.” The game does not propose explicit pornography but works on ambiguity, discomfort, and symbolic violence: elements difficult to classify according to rigid compartments. It is a problematic game to confine within opaque and unformalized moderation criteria. In contrast, extreme erotic or thematically questionable content is often accepted without friction because it falls into culturally codified categories that are recognizable and manageable from an infrastructural risk perspective. For years, the platform hosted a large quantity of 18+ titles, only to introduce more restrictive guidelines following external pressure, particularly from payment circuits.

The result was a massive and often sudden removal of adult games, without explicit criteria and without real dialogue with the developers involved. Steam, in this sense, does not moderate content but governs its cultural legibility by selecting what is considered acceptable based on balances that have little to do with user protection and much with ecosystem stability. Horses has become a discussion expedient: it demonstrates that Steam is not an absolute sovereign in form, but exercises sufficient economic, cultural, and symbolic power to determine who can exist in the PC market and under what conditions. It is the same type of control that the game thematizes on a narrative level: a power that does not manifest as direct imposition, but as an invisible, internalized, secularized, and hardly contestable normative system. Imagine thinking of dismantling it from below.

Bibliography

The Grip of Definitions: Horses and Monopolies

Beyond censorship: how Steam's algorithms influence the independent market.

The Horses Case: Why the Steam and Epic Games Store Ban Is Controversial

Beyond Gameplay: When a Video Game Becomes "Too Much" for Algorithms

Defining the Video Game: Who Decides What Can Stay on Digital Shelves?

Horses: New Friction Between Santa Ragione and Epic Games

War Machine – The Success and Expansion of the Story

World of Warcraft Midnight: The Eclipse of Quel'Thalas and the Awakening of the Renilash - Special

Song of the Samurai: HBO Max and the Myth of Feudal Japan