You do know that there are quite a few successful antitrust cases? Utilities, sugar, oil, telecommunications, Microsoft Windows, Kodak, etc. Those suits were successful brought because they were able to show inadequate demand-side substitution.
Of course, you can argue that Dominion can't be substituted because other games don't provide the same feel (e.g., compare to sports like NFL, which can't be substituted with MLB). This is what antitrust lawyers are paid to do, to try to define the relevant market. But the fact that other deckbuilders exist probably undercuts this argument.
Right, and in those cases, there's obviously things that can be substituted for the product, so "there isn't any substitute" isn't necessary for something to be a monopoly, which was my point in the first place, I think? Just because you can not use the product and use something else instead doesn't mean that there's no such thing as a monopoly over the product...
Anyway, context matters. I think it's obvious that in the context of Dominion, Goko has a monopoly on making online dominion at the moment, as they're the only ones that can do it. In the context of board games as a whole, obviously nobody has a monopoly on making online games! When talking to a bunch of people on a dominion board, the "relevant market" is, well, playing Dominion, when talking to antitrust lawyers and/or filing a lawsuit, the relevant market is whatever the law says it is, I assume, I don't know antitrust law.
Though I'm surprised that there's even an argument there. Isn't the whole point of intellectual property basically to give somebody a monopoly over the thing they design? Of course inventing Dominion gives DXV has a monopoly on making Dominion (which he can then sell/license/whatever to RGG, who can then do the same for Goko). That's the whole point, isn't it?
But we're all agreed Monoploy is shit right though?
Stupid game
Agreed.