Gabe Newell, the co-founder and president of the gaming company Valve Corp., spent a morning in November 2023 with a handful of lawyers at the Arctic Club Hotel in downtown Seattle, talking in circles. Newell’s company runs Steam, the dominant online store for PC games, and was facing a lawsuit filed by a set of independent game developers who claimed that Steam operated an illegal monopoly in the $40 billion industry. Because developers relied so heavily on Steam, the suit argued, Valve has been able to stymie competition and charge “supracompetitive” fees.
The suit, which is ongoing, ...
