23 hours
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6 hoursWhen the 30% fee gets lowered prices won’t come down. The market has already shown that consumers are willing to pay for the games at the current price level. Publishers will just pocket the increased revenue, instead of passing it on to the consumer.
- 11 minutes
It means more money going to indie devs instead of Gabe’s greedy pocket.
- PieMePlenty@lemmy.worldEnglish10 hours
I don’t want to be a steam shill, but does the prevention of selling games cheaper (if this is true or effectively enforced) even do any good? I have over a thousand games on Steam, but I doubt I bought 10% of the games from them. Heck, the latest game I remember buying at release was Oblivion Remaster, and I got it from GMG because it was 17% cheaper on release day then on steam. This happens constantly.
If we are to objectively look at the problem, why would lifting this rule automatically mean games would be cheaper elsewhere? One of the biggest slogans in favor of Brexit was something along the lines: “of EU membership costing 350m pounds per week, we could spend it on the NHS instead”.
We are paying $70 for games because of Steam, we could be buying them for $55! That **could **there is holding the whole thing up. And its not even real. Its a word on paper. Effectively today; cheaper games than on steam are available, where steam gets a 0% cut and it stuck with the bill of hosting and delivering the game for free. This is the reality. Consumers arent the ones crying here.If there is a fight worth fighting, it is the one to be able to transfer digital ownership of game licenses. This is a fight we can take to everyone including Steam. This would be an actual win for consumers. Not bickering about something that in the end wont effect any consumer anywhere. The above is a fight between publishers and distributors…
- Nugscree@lemmy.worldEnglish12 hours
It’s not the gamers, it’s a commission and there is a lot of misinformation on their website (it can be viewed in English). https://gameclaim.consumercompetitionclaims.com/
Also tweakers.net a Dutch tech enthusiast website had a good post about it, most of the commenters do not agree with this as well https://tweakers.net/nieuws/249010/steam-laat-klanten-te-veel-betalen-voor-games-volgens-nederlandse-massaclaim.html (Dutch only so you’ll have to use a translator if you want to read it)
People keep forgetting that in the olden days, the left over cut for the publisher was about 40% of the game value, the rest went to warehouse, shipping, and the retailer all got something. The rough estimate left over cut for the developer was 10~15%.
Now a days as a developer you can sell directly to the customer through Steam, and you don’t need a publisher or a network if you only sell on Steam. So that 10~15% cut went to 70% (till x amount of revenue and then it gets lower).
Next to Steam not being a monopoly and Valve providing all the other companies the blueprint for a success in the PC market, none of the competitors follows it, or compare to the customer service of Steam. And it seems that none of those other billion dollar competitors (Microsoft, Amazon and Epic) wants to invest in a solid platform to stand up to Steam.
- a4ng3l@lemmy.worldEnglish9 hours
Not even a commission (which would be governmental), it’s purely litigational… See my other comment on who is behind it…
- AngryRobot@lemmy.worldEnglish4 hours
Do these people think that packaging costs plus retail markup were under 30% of a game’s cost when we bought physical PC games?
- Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish10 hours
Why not go for a bigger company first?
Apple does the same thing with ebooks. When I put my book up for sale with Apple, the terms stated that I could not list it for a lower price at another store. So no, that is not a new form of price fixing.
Also interested to hear what other digital goods stores charge less than 30%, aside from Epic who definitely wouldn’t maintain that if they had the monopoly position.
- a4ng3l@lemmy.worldEnglish16 hours
I’m curious who’s bankrolling them for this one.
They are not the same as Noyb who actually are very transparent and actually « believe » in something : these dudes are closer to insurance claims chasers from what I read about them.
Also I love their Q&A that states that they don’t get money from this
No. The Consumenten Competition Claims Foundation is a non-profit foundation.
Someone is absolutely paying them for the action it’s literally 5 questions above and is Winward NL. And they go back to my ambulance chaser parallel since it’s just a company doing litigation finance.
There’s nothing showing links from those guys to broader financial interests but that would not be out of the possibilities.
- 14 hours
A different FAQ item mentions Winward NL Limited is in the Cayman Islands, which is a really nice place if you would want to hide such links. But yeah, could also be a bunch of individuals just looking for some extra yachts (bonus irony if they buy them from Gaben’s yacht company).
- a4ng3l@lemmy.worldEnglish13 hours
Indeed.
From their page (https://www.winward.uk/about) they are funded by Rocade Capital. Rocade Capital itself links to EJF Capital and Barings.
It all could be unethical gambling based on the last Epics shenanigans… Maybe the chances to get a jugement favouring them is now statistically higher than against them.
- 7 hours
You can like Valve but you cannot deny it’s dominant position in the market. It is a monopoly. It’s a fact.
- godsammitdam@lemmy.zipEnglish4 hours
It’s dominant because of…consumer choice? Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?
Why is it a monopoly? Epic, Xbox, Amazon, and more exist…they just don’t follow the steam template nor invest in their platform as much as steam does. 🤷♂️ how is Valve acting in an anti-competitive way?
- ski11erboi@lemmy.worldEnglish22 hours
Is there any actual proof of valve taking actions to limit competition or are they just popular because they have a good business model?
- 22 hours
They don’t limit competition, but it’s a more open question whether they are engaging in a form of price fixing.
- Holytimes@sh.itjust.worksEnglish21 hours
The problem is if valve is price fixing then it would mean any company that limits the use of their service to others via fixed pricing agreements would also be price fixing.
If a company is no longer allowed to have control over their own service when used by others then functionally you cant have second or third parties anymore. It would basically break the very concept.
Cause yes valve does prevent you from selling your game on other platforms at a cheaper rate, so long as you are doing so via steam key or when valve servers will be the source of distribution. This keeps coming up over and over and its wild that people seem to think that valve should not be allowed to limit the abuse of their own servers.
The only example ever floated of them doing this with out steam keys or them being the distribution source was a single email from steam support to a developer. That has been proven over and over to have been a miscommunication and not actually an enforced policy.
Theres a lot of questions on how healthy it is for valve to be so dominate in the market and to have such a wide reach. But the fact is that other companies keep leaning on valve for distribution or build their entire company around it either legitly or though majority theft cough g2g cough.
Everyone else MADE valve into the market dominator either willing or via ignorance and bad business. It valve ever does turn fully evil we are fucked yes. But no one ever seems to want to actually try to fix the problem of everyone else being stupid as fuck. Instead just trying to legal valve into oblivion.
- 21 hours
I agree with you that anything using Steam’s services should be subject to their terms. I don’t think a lot of people are arguing to the contrary about that. I have heard others accuse, though I don’t know with how much basis, that they apply the same control to games not using their infra.
The only example ever floated of them doing this with out steam keys or them being the distribution source was a single email from steam support to a developer. That has been proven over and over to have been a miscommunication and not actually an enforced policy.
If this is true, I definitely agree that they have done nothing wrong. Problem is with the many conflicting stories online and lack of solid info.
- qarbone@lemmy.worldEnglish20 hours
If this is true, I definitely agree that they have done nothing wrong. Problem is with the many conflicting stories online and lack of solid info.
Which will hopefully come to light through discovery or a case.
Cause yes valve does prevent you from selling your game on other platforms at a cheaper rate, so long as you are doing so via steam key or when valve servers will be the source of distribution.
This is false. Even if I put the game up on my own server, letting you download a zip directly from there, cutting valve fully out of the picture service-wise too, I am still not allowed to sell it cheaper on my site then on steam.
- 10 hours
- barryamelton@lemmy.worldEnglish15 hours
That’s quite demonstrably false. There’s so many games that do this, and are and have been part of steam for decades. i can think of is IL-2 sturmovik Battle of X series. They have sales almost every month on il2sturmovik.com and the account there is linked to the steam one. Same for other sims like Microsoft etc, selling through the Microsoft store…
- 15 hours
It’s not about sales, it’s about base price. And yes, Steam does consider “perpetual sales” a base price. They nearly kicked Ubisoft off Steam for that trick.
- barryamelton@lemmy.worldEnglish12 hours
and yet, these games have a monthly sale. If that’s not perpetual sales, I don’t know what it is. And some are just linked to the Steam account, not just a separate competing store. Basically you buy the game cheaper in a different place, and then play on steam.
- THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.worldEnglish22 hours
Seems to me the only fixing they’re doing is fixing the prices lower than other clients.
Rather than what you usually hear with price fixing, where prices go up. Like Amazon with Levi jeans.
Well, no, it’s the opposite. The accusation goes that Steam strong-arms people into keeping prices on Steam the lowest (or tied for lowest) available if they’re selling the same game on another storefront. For example, Ubisoft cannot sell a game on their own platform for cheaper than they will also sell it on Steam. This is not good for consumers.
Again, allegedly.
- CommanderCloon@lemmy.mlEnglish9 hours
The thing is that this is in Steam’s TOS when it comes to steam keys. You can sell steam keys but not at a lower price than on Steam. Which is extremely fair – selling a steam key still means you’re using Steam’s infrastructure, you don’t have to manage the downloads & updates. It does not apply in a situation where you manage your own store with its own infrastructure
But that’s the crux. The accusation is that Steam has an unwritten policy that applies to non steam key sales, and uses their near monopoly to enforce it.
- CommanderCloon@lemmy.mlEnglish9 hours
I’ve read about that, afaik we don’t know how much of a policy it is vs. some random employee going rogue. Hopefully it all comes to light with these lawsuits
- qarbone@lemmy.worldEnglish21 hours
Of all the accusations against Steam, I’m most amenable to that one. I think devs should be able to sell on their personal storefronts for cheaper, if they’re going to the effort of setting up a storefront at all.
Selling on GOG or Epic for less does feel some type of way too, but I can’t say I’d block devs from doing that either.
- 21 hours
I think that only applies to selling Steam keys on other platforms. They’re free to price the games however they want, but they can’t sell keys cheaper somewhere else.
- imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish11 hours
That is what everyone takes wrong about the case. Two points I want to mention
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allegedly, they force other storefronts to match the price on steam or their storefront regardless of what type of key it is (Valve claims it is only for Steam keys)
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Nobody stops Ubisoft or EGS or whatever to sell their games on their storefront. OR even 3rd party publishers can avoid selling on Steam (look up EGS and Borderlands 4/Metro Exodus case). Literally nobody says they should sell on Steam.
What annoys me that everyone took “they force them even with own keys to match the price” as a factual truth just because of EGS, Ubi and some other company claimed so. The case is not closed yet. There is no verdict. Nothing is ruled out. And somehow tons of people are angry at Valve?!
Who do we trust more out of the box? Valve or EGS/Ubi? Sharpen your pitchforks only after the fact are known, people…
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- Cyv_@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish20 hours
That’s basically the crux of the accusations. Valve says it’s only for steam keys, other devs say they’ve been told not to sell their game for less elsewhere, even if they don’t include a steam key. I guess we’ll see as the case continues.
- qarbone@lemmy.worldEnglish20 hours
If it were only about Steam keys, I think I would agree with Steam. Selling Steam keys elsewhere is still making full use of Steam to fulfill distribution of their game.
It’d probably just lead to Steam not allowing devs to get free keys of their games. You lock into Steam and, if you want a Steam version of the game, you have to buy one.
- Bratosch@lemmy.worldEnglish21 hours
But wouldn’t that be malicious from the dev side? “Hey, don’t bother with Steam because it’s more expensive. Come buy it here instead”. Just don’t sell on Steam if it’s an issue, but we all know they want to piggyback on the exposure/trust associated with Steam.
- qarbone@lemmy.worldEnglish20 hours
I’m seeing it as “pay the Steam price for Steam integrations like achievements, if you care about that” and “pay the cheaper price for just the game.” People could “abuse” it for free marketing but I don’t think most people would do that.
And you just gotta eat those costs; sorta like how there will be some level of public aid fraud, but that doesn’t mean you cancel food stamps.
- HailSeitan@lemmy.worldEnglish20 hours
How is competition that benefits consumers in the form of lower prices “malicious”?
It’s not going to result in lower prices for consumers. It’s going to result in higher prices on Steam.
It’s also going to fragment the game market on PC. That may or may not be a good thing depending on who you ask, but personally, I like not having to hunt around for the best store to purchase my game in. I go to Steam and I know I’m not getting completely shafted. This is essentially going to allow scummy corps like Ubisoft and EA to implement a “Steam tax” because I don’t want to use their shitty, bloated, spyware riddled miserable excuse for a storefront.
I know from experience valve coerces developers into participating in their sale events, basically saying there game won’t get promoted on the store or in searches unless they agree to sales.
Which considering they already take a massive 30% cut of developers earnings, is very scummy. Lots of indie Devs that already struggle to make money and already sell their games for super cheap are basically forced to cut their profits even further just to get some visibility on the platform.
- 6 hours
basically saying there game won’t get promoted on the store or in searches unless they agree to sales.
I’m very skeptical of that. The Factorio devs famously refuse to ever put the game on sale, and has even increased the price over time to account for inflation. Yet they’re one of the most popular games on Steam
Yeah they are the notable exception. 99% of I die devs aren’t that lucky.
- Datz@szmer.infoEnglish8 hours
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I believe you, but they were asking for proof. Sources.
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If 30% is massive, what do you propose the cut be? Epic said their 12% cut was unsustainable already.
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- ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zipEnglish9 hours
Yes, but all the valve fanboys will argue anyone who mentions the multiple price fixing lawsuits (which are not related to using steam key sellers, but they’ll endlessly post that TOS clause anyway) against Valve into oblivion.
- 6 hours
A pending lawsuit is a merely a claim, not a proven fact or hard evidence. Swamping an entity with lawsuits doesn’t mean the defendent is guilty, because you can sue for anything.
We’ve already seen this happen with Monsanto, Disney, Nintendo, etc. where they go after smaller entities by smothering them in lawsuits to drain their coffers. It doesn’t matter if some lawsuits get thrown out or whether they’re valid, they just need to squash the competition.
And Microsoft, Apple, Nintendo, Sony, Epic, Ubisoft, EA, etc. all have financial reason to see Valve fall. Linux adoption is a threat to Microsoft and Apple, the PC market is a threat to console manufacturers, and having a pro-consumer store as the dominant player in the market limits what anti-consumer practices other storefronts can do.
Don’t just blindly trust claims and speculation, especially when there’s a lot of finilancial incentive to lie. Wait for lawsuits to actually get resolved.
The man children who think Gabe Newell is their best friend are going to be very mad about this.
- 11 hours
People in the comments are vehemently supporting a monopolist because the monopolist is currently good. No wonder people are so easy to control. If you keep them distracted for long enough, you can take everything they own and they’ll only notice once the lights go off and the chair stolen from underneath their fat asses.
We deserve Trump and every single politician we get because we’re such a bunch of idiots.
- reksas@sopuli.xyzEnglish10 hours
First we take down valves “monopoly”, then we yell hurray and watch all the other companies suddenly turn good?
What do you propose should be done?
- ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zipEnglish9 hours
First, Stopping a monopoly from doing monopolistic things isn’t the same as breaking up the monopoly…
Holding the biggest player accountable for shitty behavior sets a precedent that you’ll keep the rest from doing it, too.
Arguing that any other business would do the same thing in defense of this shitty action, doesn’t help anyone.
- ski11erboi@lemmy.worldEnglish5 hours
Agreed but the issue here is what are the monopolistic things things valve is doing. What’s the shitty behavior we’re trying to hold them accountable for?
Because if we break up a company for good behavior then we’re setting a precedent that other companies with good practices will be broken up too.
- ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zipEnglish4 hours
Literally no one but you has talked about breaking up/destroying the company.
Price fixing is what these lawsuits are all about. 4 of them now, that I’m aware of.
That’s the behavior being pushed against here. You’d have known that of you read the article. Or any of the others in the past few months as these come out. You should be against that. But your playing the ignorant just asking questions game as interference for the perpetrator instead.
- 9 hours
No need to put monopoly in quotes. Owning 85% of the market is a monopoly. Do you want them to reach 100% for you to go “yep, now it’s a monopoly, now we should do something”?
A monopoly doesn’t need monopolistic behaviour to be a monopoly. The monopolistic behaviour Steam has is what’s being targeted. If Steam were impeding competition in other ways, those would have to be dealt with too.
Just because you have a favourite friend, doesn’t mean they can’t do wrong.
- reksas@sopuli.xyzEnglish9 hours
well, i guess if they stop them from being monopoly it lowers the risk of valve going bad. if they went bad it would be a nightmare scenario for games. At the very least for me since proton is only way i can even play stuff easily on linux.
- 8 hours
Again, stopping them from being a monopoly isn’t the goal here. If it were, I don’t even know how they would approach it, because from what I can tell, Valve owns the market so much because it simply is good.
But yeah, Valve going bad would be a catastrophe for gaming.
But yeah, Valve going bad would be a catastrophe for gaming.
And no one will do anything to stop it—just hoping and praying that Gabe doesn’t die or turns ‘evil’ to them.
- reksas@sopuli.xyzEnglish8 hours
only way to stop them from being monopoly would require anti-consumer actions, penalizing them for providing better service than others (which is what i assume is the goal of the “competitors” such as epic so they dont have to provide good service to compete).
Imo, these things should always be done user interests first, companies will manage always anyway. In the worst case the ceo can buy few yacts less.
- piyuv@lemmy.worldEnglish12 hours
I love valve as much as any other gamer but I’m with Dutchies on this one. Valve has monopolistic policies
- 11 hours
Maybe if you read the goddamn article you’d know of one?
The foundation claims that Valve holds a dominant position in the market, estimated at around 85%, and is breaching competition law through so-called Most-Favoured Nation clauses. According to the complaint, these terms prevent developers from selling games more cheaply on rival platforms like the Epic Games Store than on Steam. This, they argue, keeps prices across the PC gaming market artificially elevated.
- lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish10 hours
But if you go on isthereanydeal.com you will see a whole bunch of online stores that offer sales on games. They offer Steam codes too but are not limited to Steam, they cover many other platforms (including Epic).
(Those btw are all legit sites showing only sales endorsed by the game publishers themselves, they all sell new game codes. ITAD has a standing policy to only source from that kind of sales, strictly no key resale sites.)
So if you can get Steam games cheaper than are currently listed on Steam, and many games are also available on GOG which is DRM free… not entirely sure what this lawsuit is about.
- 9 hours
Could you share an example of a deal that is less than on Steam? I couldn’t find one.
- lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish8 hours
It can import your Steam wishlist and give you tons of examples. 😊
Here’s some: Civ 5, Disco Elysium, Yakuza 6, Borderlands GOTY, Outer Wilds, Doom Eternal.
You can also make filters that limit the suggestions to a certain sale percentage (eg. 50%+ off), or to a max price (eg. $10).
- 8 hours
I looked at the examples you gave and in all of them, Steam has the lowest price . I added an example of Doom Eternal
- lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish7 hours
Civ 5 is 30€ on Steam and 2-3€ on other Stores.
Outer Wilds is 23€ on Steam and 16€ elsewhere.
There may be regional differences for either of us.
- ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zipEnglish9 hours
Limited time sales is not what’s being talked about. Those are allowed.
It’s the regular pricing. A game listed on steam needs to make up for their 30% cut. Some other sites take a smaller cut. But multiple game companies have found that trying to list their games on non-steam key selling websites, for less money (because they don’t have to make up for as big a cut) are getting threatened to have their games removed from Steam for doing so. This is well outside any clause in Steam TOS, and would be illegal even if it was covered.
- imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish9 hours
But multiple game companies have found that trying to list their games on non-steam key selling websites, for less money (because they don’t have to make up for as big a cut) are getting threatened to have their games removed from Steam for doing so.
Has any of these claims been proven yet?
- ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zipEnglish9 hours
They’re still working their way through the courts.
One of them is over two years old, though, so it’s not just a clout chaser blowing hot air based on absolutely nothing.
- imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish9 hours
One of them is over two years old
Which only proves my point. They allegedly do, and we yet to discover if they actually do it or Epic, Ubisoft and whatever another publisher are lying. 2 years to prove if Valve was abusing the system and still nothing out there to confirm this suspicion.
I suspect that is really tough to prove and that is why eventually case will be dropped due to lack of evidence.
- Nugscree@lemmy.worldEnglish10 hours
I though that Steam required content parity e.g. you cannot create a cheaper bundle for your own storefront and not sell that exact bundle on Steam. But they have no issue with you generating keys on their platform and either sell those off for cheaper yourself (Humble bundle) or give them away.
- ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zipEnglish9 hours
Their TOS require non sale price parity with other stores that sell steam keys.
Nothing else. They’ll still threaten to delist your game for seeking it cheaper on sites outside that scenario, hence the multitude of lawsuits.
- 1 hour
They’ll still threaten to delist your game for seeking it cheaper on sites outside that scenario
Do you have evidence?
- ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zipEnglish9 hours
They won’t. They’re here to blindly defend a multi billion dollar company despite it actively costing them more money.
- 1 hour
You know perfectly well what I meant. Do you have proof that prices on Steam were actually artificially inflated?
Also, claiming I’m blindly defending them? I’m asking for hard evidence and telling people to not blindly believe claims and speculation until proven in court. How is waiting for verified evidence “blind”?
Pure hypocrisy on your end
