Valve CEO Gabe Newell doesn’t think Steam has a monopoly on PC games

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Gabe Newell, the head of Valve, doesn’t believe Steam controls the PC gaming market. He argues that gamers have many different places to purchase games.

A recent Bloomberg report shared testimony from Gabe Newell, Valve’s president, given in 2023 during the antitrust case brought by Wolfire Games. Wolfire Games claimed that, starting in 2021, Valve penalized developers who offered their games at lower prices on other online stores.

In court, Newell was questioned about Steam’s role in the gaming industry and whether it dominates the PC game market.

Valve CEO says fans have “enormous choice” on where to buy games

He pointed out that gamers have a lot of places to buy games, with many different options available. However, recent data from 2025 shows that Steam dominates the US PC gaming market, controlling 75% of digital sales. Epic Games Store, its closest competitor, only has a 10% share.

As a gamer, it’s awesome to hear that Valve’s co-founder believes it’s totally up to us where we get our games! He basically said we can choose whatever platform we want – Xbox, Steam, the Epic Games Store, or even directly from the developers themselves. It’s great that they respect our choice!

The report also showed that Newell claimed there wasn’t a policy to stop developers from offering lower prices on platforms other than Steam, even though evidence of such a policy was presented to him.

Valve doesn’t control the prices that other software developers set for their products on platforms outside of Steam. They believe most of their partners and customers are satisfied with the services they offer.

Valve is facing another lawsuit concerning the loot boxes in Counter-Strike 2. In court, Valve argued that these loot boxes are similar to the toys found in McDonald’s Happy Meals.

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2026-06-02 13:18