Gabe Newell hits back at claims that Steam has a monopoly on the PC marketplace

Testimony from Valve President and Co-Founder Gabe Newell, first given in 2023, has emerged, revealing that the platform's head honcho hit back at the allegation that his Steam platform had created a monopoly in the landscape of PC gaming, claiming that the company holds no monopoly and consumers have plenty of options as to where they make their purchases.

Valve is currently facing two antitrust lawsuits on either side of the Atlantic Ocean, with legal fights on both sides of the pond alleging that Valve is locking publishers into "Platform Parity Obligations," which prohibit publishers from selling their games at lower prices on other platforms. Valve has, so far, failed to shut down litigation in the UK, and as part of the ongoing legal battle in the United States, Newell was forced to give testimony in 2023 regarding the lawsuit and the company's processes.

The action was brought by Wolfire Games in 2021, accusing Valve of using Steam's dominance in the PC marketplace to suppress competition, and alleging that founder David Rosen was told its game Overgrowth would be removed from Steam if it was sold at a lower price anywhere else.

In his testimony, released by Bloomberg, Newell dismissed the idea that Steam held a monopoly, saying: "Customers have enormous choice," and that they can decide to purchase products on platforms like Xbox, the Epic Games Store, or directly from the developers. This lines up with Valve's consistent stance throughout the suits, which claims that Steam continues to outperform rivals not because of a perceived monopoly in the market, but rather due to constant innovation.

As for the claims regarding the Platform Parity Obligations, Newell denied that Valve enforced this, stating that the company "does not have a policy or practice of dictating prices to third-party software developers on other platforms." When asked how the company would react if it learned employees had been doing this, he stated that "many of our partners and customers are quite happy with the service that we're providing."

While Valve and Newell claim Steam doesn't have a monopoly over PC gaming, it is certainly the dominant force in the space. Steam holds a 75% market share, dwarfing its nearest competitor, the Epic Games Store, which holds between 8% to 10% of the market. It's only getting bigger too, as back in January 2026, the platform hit a record for concurrent users with an eyewatering 41.81 million, and recorded $16.2 billion in annual revenue in 2025.

The antitrust suits aren't the only legal battles Valve is facing, either, as it is currently trying to get a case dismissed regarding cases in Counter-Strike 2. The Attorney General of New York has accused Valve of engaging in illegal gambling, claiming that many of its users, who are teenagers or younger, engage in gambling "in the hopes of winning expensive virtual items that they can cash in on."