Valve facing New Lawsuit over 'Steam' Digital Dominance

[Edge-]

Seems pointless to talk about how excessive the 30% sounds without knowing how much other distribution platforms charge. /shrug

30% is the standard cut. Some have adjusted in light of EGS - Steam reduces its cut the more units are moved and Microsoft just reduced their Windows Store cut to match EGS. I'm not so sure about some of the smaller/other storefronts like GMG (GoG takes 30% as well last I checked), and all the platform holders take 30% as they are recouping some pretty big costs and making up for selling hardware at a loss.

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Sure but they also provide support on the dev front with things like multiplayer set up for a ton of games downloading different versions of some games incase a patch breaks mods reporting player data through steam charts ect, modding support so you don’t need to use an outside mod tool through the work shop, steam provides a ton of value to both the players and the devs if Mabye not 30% worth.

Absolutely, Valve does a great job of supporting Steam with new features for both developers and players. But that's in part in their own self-interest as well, they want to keep players purely within the Steam ecosystem as much as possible as they've spent years gamifying the entire storefront/purchasing of games (Trading cards, tons of "account cosmetics" etc.)

They're not doing all this to help developers alone, but to drive more sales which they benefit from.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Absolutely, Valve does a great job of supporting Steam with new features for both developers and players. But that's in part in their own self-interest as well, they want to keep players purely within the Steam ecosystem as much as possible as they've spent years gamifying the entire storefront/purchasing of games (Trading cards, tons of "account cosmetics" etc.)

They're not doing all this to help developers alone, but to drive more sales which they benefit from.

does it matter if there doing it out of the goodness of there hearts or for there own benefit? in the end both the dev's and the customers get greater value then they would using other platforms.

[Edge-]

does it matter if there doing it out of the goodness of there hearts or for there own benefit? in the end both the dev's and the customers get greater value then they would using other platforms.

Greater value, absolutely. And it's given Steam a MASSIVE audience that's made them a de-facto monopoly to the point where companies like EA have had to move their releases back to Steam since they weren't willing to invest as much into Origin.

But I don't think it's anywhere near earning the 30% cut that console makers earn. Valve still has a fraction of the overall costs compared to them.

[ONCHEhap]

This is a nonsense lawsuit.
There are two marketplaces worth using (Steam and GOG),and the latter isn't as widespread solely because publishers hate its no-DRM approach.

Everything else is laughably bad. The EGS is well known as a terrible platform, Origin died because it just was never good,and Uplay makes both of the previous ones look good by comparison.

Steam is on top solely because the competitors always half assed their platforms,not because they have such a strong grip over the market.


EDIT : I forgot the Xbox store,which is gaining a lot of traction by the day on PC thanks to the game pass deal,so that also puts a dent into the "monopoly" claims against Steam

[ati87]

Whether that's true or not, I don't think that is anything that should be legislated or 'forced'. Let the market handle it. If someone else wants to build a new Steam with a lower cut, they can go right ahead, imo.

I don't want the government in the middle of it. I don't trust them not to make it far worse.

"let the market handle it" is nonsense because the market can't handle it. Epic is trying right now and they are burning through cash to maybe achieve this.

I'm not arguing the merits of this case however unlike the smartphone market, developers do have a bit more leeway with the PC market . However unless Epic pays you for exclusivity or your a big publisher (Ubisoft, Blizzard) you really need to just suck it up put your game on Steam otherwise you really won't sell that many copies of your game.

Which does come back to is the 30% cut faire? Hard to answer really which is why we have legislation because "the market" really doesn't solve that many problems.

[Endus]

Greater value, absolutely. And it's given Steam a MASSIVE audience that's made them a de-facto monopoly to the point where companies like EA have had to move their releases back to Steam since they weren't willing to invest as much into Origin.

I mean, if it costs you more to distribute your own game on your own system than the 30% cut Steam is asking for, doesn't that solidly argue that Steam's price point is reasonable, all by itself?

But I don't think it's anywhere near earning the 30% cut that console makers earn. Valve still has a fraction of the overall costs compared to them.

Capitalism. Prices aren't predicated on value. They're maximized based on what the market will bear. If you can mark something up 98% and not lose sales, capitalist theory says you should as that's the price it "should" be at.

Prices are set to maximize profits to shareholders, not to maximize consumption by consumers, or to maximize cooperation with other companies. Not unless those are also contributors to maximizing shareholder profits.

Note that this is all presuming a capitalist model, and you know me; I'm a socialist. I'm not arguing this is right, I'm saying this is capitalism, and capitalism is the "villain" here, not Steam for acting within that framework.

[Gorsameth]

"let the market handle it" is nonsense because the market can't handle it. Epic is trying right now and they are burning through cash to maybe achieve this.

I'm not arguing the merits of this case however unlike the smartphone market, developers do have a bit more leeway with the PC market . However unless Epic pays you for exclusivity or your a big publisher (Ubisoft, Blizzard) you really need to just suck it up put your game on Steam otherwise you really won't sell that many copies of your game.

Which does come back to is the 30% cut faire? Hard to answer really which is why we have legislation because "the market" really doesn't solve that many problems.

Epic is burning through cash because they are trying to buy market share without offering a good product.

Burning through cash is a choice they made instead of making a better quality store.

[Endus]

"let the market handle it" is nonsense because the market can't handle it. Epic is trying right now and they are burning through cash to maybe achieve this.

That is the market "handling it". If one company provides a better service than competitors, it will often naturally develop a majority share of the market, because that's how free markets work. It isn't an aberration, it's entirely expected action. And trying to work against that is anti-consumer in nature, not pro-consumer; consumers already made their statement of preference, and you're trying to force them to use a lesser (in their estimation) option.

If there were a big demand for what Epic's offering, as opposed to what Steam is, Epic wouldn't be struggling; everyone would be shifting to Epic.

If I had to lay a finger, Epic's losing out for a few big reasons;
1> Steam focused on user experience, Epic focused on developer relations, meaning users had little reason to want to switch to Epic in the first place.
2> Trying to force users' hands by locking in exclusives just wielded a system that users have long detested, against user interests, and that ruffled a lot of feathers the wrong way among users.
3> Offering free games just gets people to log in to snag the free game, and then log out. It likely doesn't drive sales.

I've got active Steam and Epic accounts. Unless I'm getting a unique deal on Epic, I buy through Steam. There's greater user support, there, and I have a lot more investment. Epic's given me precisely no reasons to want to switch to them as my main point of purchase.

[ati87]

I mean, if it costs you more to distribute your own game on your own system than the 30% cut Steam is asking for, doesn't that solidly argue that Steam's price point is reasonable, all by itself?

Not really, sure if you did it yourself (printing out discs and sell them) the cost of distributing a game takes allot more effort but that does not mean that Valve isn't misusing there strong position when they demand 30%.

Apple doesn't really do much for there 30% cut when they take that from companies like Netflix, Spotify and Epic. Large companies already have there own payment system in place and don't really need any assistance from Apple but do need Apple devices or risk losing a large segment of there customers.
Valve is kind of in the same position with Steam.

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That is the market "handling it". If one company provides a better service than competitors, it will often naturally develop a majority share of the market, because that's how free markets work. It isn't an aberration, it's entirely expected action. And trying to work against that is anti-consumer in nature, not pro-consumer; consumers already made their statement of preference, and you're trying to force them to use a lesser (in their estimation) option.

If there were a big demand for what Epic's offering, as opposed to what Steam is, Epic wouldn't be struggling; everyone would be shifting to Epic.

If I had to lay a finger, Epic's losing out for a few big reasons;
1> Steam focused on user experience, Epic focused on developer relations, meaning users had little reason to want to switch to Epic in the first place.
2> Trying to force users' hands by locking in exclusives just wielded a system that users have long detested, against user interests, and that ruffled a lot of feathers the wrong way among users.
3> Offering free games just gets people to log in to snag the free game, and then log out. It likely doesn't drive sales.

I've got active Steam and Epic accounts. Unless I'm getting a unique deal on Epic, I buy through Steam. There's greater user support, there, and I have a lot more investment. Epic's given me precisely no reasons to want to switch to them as my main point of purchase.

What Epic is doing right now is "borderline stupid" and they can only do this because of the money machine that's called Fortnite and because they are private company that really doesn't need outside investment to keep the company going.

Epic Store could be better then Steam and it wouldn't really matter because people would still prefer Steam over any other store because "I own most of my games on Steam".

[keldarepewpew]

Apples trial has show almost all platforms charge similar amounts. As a user im very happy with steam and how it works. If a dev wants to reach me i guess he will have to pay for that exposure.

[ati87]

Epic is burning through cash because they are trying to buy market share without offering a good product.

Burning through cash is a choice they made instead of making a better quality store.

Most people just press a button to play a game.
Not everybody is "going to forums" or whatever thing that Steam does that is special.

[Rennadrel]

Greater value, absolutely. And it's given Steam a MASSIVE audience that's made them a de-facto monopoly to the point where companies like EA have had to move their releases back to Steam since they weren't willing to invest as much into Origin.

But I don't think it's anywhere near earning the 30% cut that console makers earn. Valve still has a fraction of the overall costs compared to them.

Remember that Origin was created because EA had a hissy fit over the percentage of sales that Valve was taking. And yet in the end, people didn't want to use their service because it was inferior to Steam. For myself personally, EA hasn't seen a dime since they yanked all of their games off Steam however long ago that was, 8 years ago? Frankly, exclusivity sucks and I won't support any company that chooses to partake in forcing exclusivity onto their platforms and considering EA still forces you to have an Origin account to play games through Steam, they won't be seeing a penny further until that whole platform is yeeted out of existence or they stop forcing it on players who don't want it.

[aceperson]

The "amount of losses" is mainly them buying game releases to force people unto their inferior platform, instead of actually creating a platform people wants to use.

"I keep spending money and it costs me money" is hardly an example of steam being a monopoly

that's why i don't think the monopoly portion of the lawsuit will work. it's the bit about trying to stifle competition that i think has a chance to make something happen.

[Rennadrel]

Most people just press a button to play a game.
Not everybody is "going to forums" or whatever thing that Steam does that is special.

Those features are there because there was obviously a demand for them. Obviously they are not as prominent of features as say having a shopping cart and ease of obtaining DLC or having mod support for games, but they are still useful parts of the user experience in the event that someone is having issues or wants to be informed about a game. God knows that with how terrible games journalists have become at informing players on game quality these days, user reviews at least can be a more reliable way of gathering information before making a purchase. There's also a lot of tutorials on getting older games running on newer Windows machines for certain games, which is a big deal.

[Selastan]

Unless Gabe hires Pinkertons to bust my kneecaps for starting my own service, it isn't a monopoly.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Whether that's true or not, I don't think that is anything that should be legislated or 'forced'. Let the market handle it. If someone else wants to build a new Steam with a lower cut, they can go right ahead, imo.

I don't want the government in the middle of it. I don't trust them not to make it far worse.

The market can't handle it, it doesn't self regulate at all, the game industry itself couldn't regulate its own buttcheeks if it tried.

[Kuntantee]

I have my doubts that game prices would go down if steam cut less. If Steam did that, the difference would go directly into developer. I am not saying this is a bad thing, but it's hard for me to buy

gamers and game developers are being harmed by Valve's conduct

[Hellobolis]

bit stupid for a small fry dev to sue steam. cause if he wins the realistic outcome is that steam will just split the store cut and the steamworks cut. and then only the big devs win and small fries like him still end up paying just as much.

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Unless Gabe hires Pinkertons to bust my kneecaps for starting my own service, it isn't a monopoly.

Barrier of entry to start your own service is pretty high though, which is usually a consideration. Historically the way steam deals with competition is just to do nothing until they run out of money all on their own. Epic store is pretty much the only one that managed to get a foothold in the last decade and they had to throw billions at it.

[Vampyrr]

Not sure I believe the line of if you try to sell it elsewhere for less we will kick you off Steam. I see games on Steam and Epic all the times that are different prices.

[ati87]

I have my doubts that game prices would go down if steam cut less. If Steam did that, the difference would go directly into developer. I am not saying this is a bad thing, but it's hard for me to buy

It won't go down because the current prices is what people are willing to pay.
But from a developer pov the 30% cut regardless of what Valve does for you is kind of a hard pill the swallow.

CD Project Red for example absolutely did not need any assistance from Valve promoting and distributing Cyberpunk (ignoring what you feel about the game) and the developer in question released the game on Steam (and on Gog, EPIC) because missing out the sales probably hurt them more then the 30% fee.

It should be clear to everybody that Valve is a dominate force in the PC gaming market and because Valve is dominate force in the PC gaming distribution market regulators should be looking at the practices.