this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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You make a good argument. Antitrust laws aren't solely about stopping a business that has become a monopoly but preventing monopolistic behavior in the first place. For example, buying out competitors and new comers to limit consumer choice. You have a point that there is a ton of choice in the gaming industry.
Let's also look at it this way: Microsoft also owns Xbox. And according to Axios, they manage 23 game studios. They might not be exhibiting anticompetitive behavior yet, but buying up publishers and studios allows them to control larger and larger portions of the market. That can affect anything from the cost of games to consumers to the amount developers can get paid. It can also affect publishers' access to Xbox as a platform.
Microsoft doesn't seem to be doing those things right now, but the whole point of anti trust laws is to prevent businesses from getting to the size that they are capable of exerting that kind of force in the overall market.