Valve facing New Lawsuit over 'Steam' Digital Dominance

[Pozz]

I get that...but they put no work into the games and they're taking almost a 3rd of the profit

They are doing a lot of "free" ad work through the store, through the friend system and through discovers, the games might not have had otherwise.

30% is probably still very steep, but you're acting as if steam is essentially just a shelf you grab a game from, it is not.

[Edge-]

they put all the work to market and deliver your game tho. It's not like steam is a game publisher that takes all the profit from developer

They do not. They can do in-store promotion (co-marketing) and they do that often, but it's only within the store. Any actual broader marketing is handled by the developer/publisher. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all have similar co-marketing/in-store promotions on their platforms.

As for delivery, they sell the game and let folks download it but that's not a huge ask. A 30% cut for a storefront alone is silly, Valve doesn't have the same kinds of costs that console makers do -

Extensive hardware/software R&D
Selling hardware at-cost/a loss so costs are recouped with software
The operating environment for games (don't think there's much use of whatever their Linux thing is)

And publishers don't "take all the profit from developers" either. It depends on if the developer is owned by the publisher or not (if they are like...no duh? It's the publishers money to begin with), and if not they either signed a bad deal because they needed publisher backing or they signed a bad deal because they didn't know what they were doing.

Sweeney may be a shithead about it, but he's absolutely right to push for a lower storefront cut for digital stores on PC.

[Kumorii]

they put all the work to market and deliver your game tho. It's not like steam is a game publisher that takes all the profit from developer

Curious, how much does a regular publish take when it comes to profit? I'm aware it probably differ a lot from publisher to publisher tho.

[Kithelle]

They are doing a lot of "free" ad work through the store, through the friend system and through discovers, the games might not have had otherwise.

30% is probably still very steep, but you're acting as if steam is essentially just a shelf you grab a game from, it is not.

I said they don't do any of the development work...you know, without development there would be no game?

[RobertoCarlos]

I get that...but they put no work into the games and they're taking almost a 3rd of the profit

Distribution isn't nothing

[Zeek Daniels]

The F is this guy talking about. You dont need steam to sell a pc game. We have the internet for a reason. Put that shit up for download and stop letting companies like steam, GoG and epicgames do all your dirty work. Theres plenty of games out there that sell and distribute direct from their web service.

[ketsui]

what are peoples pov's on this? lower the 30% to somehting like 10 to 15%? laugh at the guys making the lawsuit? I'm curious what people believe should be the end result of this

[Glordif]

They do not. They can do in-store promotion (co-marketing) and they do that often, but it's only within the store. Any actual broader marketing is handled by the developer/publisher. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all have similar co-marketing/in-store promotions on their platforms.

As for delivery, they sell the game and let folks download it but that's not a huge ask. A 30% cut for a storefront alone is silly, Valve doesn't have the same kinds of costs that console makers do -

Extensive hardware/software R&D
Selling hardware at-cost/a loss so costs are recouped with software
The operating environment for games (don't think there's much use of whatever their Linux thing is)

And publishers don't "take all the profit from developers" either. It depends on if the developer is owned by the publisher or not (if they are like...no duh? It's the publishers money to begin with), and if not they either signed a bad deal because they needed publisher backing or they signed a bad deal because they didn't know what they were doing.

Sweeney may be a shithead about it, but he's absolutely right to push for a lower storefront cut for digital stores on PC.

Only a lot of what you're saying is irrelevant. If Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft choose to make a loss on console sales, that's on them. Steam only need to point to those 3 markets plus Apple so say they're charging normal market rates.

All the other competitor stores barely do a 10th of what Steam provides to developers. Steam has free API's developers can use to bypass having to write netcode from scratch and use steam for that kind of legwork. We've even seen Epic exclusives use it.
Steam also provides a review and community platform for all games, a feature which again non steam and Epic Store exclusives have tried to capitalise on before.

The reality is, while I'm sure it's not great for developers 30% is the market rate currently. and other platform need to charge less because they just don't provide the features that steam does. If you're a AAA developer, you typically don't need them. Which is why many left the platform, but if you're not with a big publisher, odds are you using some sort of Steam resource.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I get that...but they put no work into the games and they're taking almost a 3rd of the profit

Steam markets distributes and even provides support, they a sourly put in work.

[Darknessvamp]

I can't wait till they bring up the fact they can ask for steam keys to sell through other stores that Steam takes 0% of a cut on and all they ask is that you price match the base price to your steam store price. You kinda get why they ask for 30% cut for new games after you learn about that.

Edit: As for the case about being contacted regarding price matching for other stores, you have to agreed to those rules when you publish that product on the Steam store but I'm guessing it'll be regarding the 'level of control' it gives Steam... which he will have to somehow argue how actions on Steam affects other stores and their sales (as in they don't). Like how does breaking your agreement with Steam and getting removed will affect sales on other platforms if you were planning to undersell the Steam store over there in the first place.

[Edge-]

Only a lot of what you're saying is irrelevant. If Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft choose to make a loss on console sales, that's on them. Steam only need to point to those 3 markets plus Apple so say they're charging normal market rates.

Except that's grossly incorrect. All those platforms are closed, with the platform maker doing everything from hardware R&D to manufacturing, to creating the software environment, to approving everything that goes on those respective platforms.

There is no equivilent for Steam except the digital storefront. Steam has a Linus OS fork or something, but nobody uses it. The overwhelming majority of the games run on Windows, an open platform. They don't do hardware really - Steam Machines was a third party deal and died quickly, the Link is dead, the Index is purely for VR, the controller is dead.

They're doing a fraction of what those other platforms are doing, and consequently don't earn that full standard 30% cut.

All the other competitor stores barely do a 10th of what Steam provides to developers. Steam has free API's developers can use to bypass having to write netcode from scratch and use steam for that kind of legwork. We've even seen Epic exclusives use it.
Steam also provides a review and community platform for all games, a feature which again non steam and Epic Store exclusives have tried to capitalise on before.

Multiplayer is a big plus for sure, but that's hardly enough to justify the full cost. Things like community reviews are not really a "benefit", they're an optional feature and Valve is still figuring out ways to make it more useful and less subject to abuse/manipulation like we've seen with people review bombing games because they're mad at a developer for other reasons.

If you're a AAA developer, you typically don't need them. Which is why many left the platform, but if you're not with a big publisher, odds are you using some sort of Steam resource.

Kinda sorta? Ubi games aren't exclusive and never really have been. EA ended Origin exclusivity. Only a few remain actually exclusive to anything like the Battle.net launcher, and the exclusives on EGS were because Epic bought them. You still "need" Steam as a AAA developer because like it or not, it's kinda one of the "de-facto" monopolies.

THAT BEING SAID, I think this lawsuit is silly as hell. And Steams dedication to the 30% cut is stupid, as was their update which gives a bigger cut the more sales a game has, which only benefits AAA games that sell high volumes and do little to nothing for smaller releases that would actually benefit the developers more.

- - - Updated - - -

Steam markets distributes and even provides support, they a sourly put in work.

Support for the storefronts, not the games themselves. If you have technical problems with a game, Steam can't do anything about it.

[Santti]

Steam telling developers, that they have to raise prices on the other stores, to match what they are in Steam? No idea about the legality of it, but that does seem kind of a dick move.

I'm not sure I agree with the message, that Steam is the reason for high pricing on games. I remember there being some corporate whine from some other platform (might have been EA), about the Steam sales hurting the industry. Can't remember the asinine reasoning, but EA didn't want to do sales. Surely enough, EA has been doing sales for a long time now.

While I don't disagree with the spirit of the message, the person conveying it made me laugh. He had a game on Steam for about 5 years making money off of something little more than a tech demo, where else would he been able to do that?

Oh yeah, that weird rabbit game. I remember seeing it ages a go, it being very bare-bones. Looking at recent Steam reviews, it still doesn't look like much at all.

[Acidbaron]

30% cut is only for a first n-units sold.
You don't just pay that for it being sold there, Steam is a marketing tool and gives you access to a large potential customer base if not the largest.
It's feature rich and that's why people keep using it, features that you can further use to promote your new IP/product.


Nobody is forcing them to sell there, lawsuit won't go anywhere.

The US needs a change of rules regarding losing law suits, where the legal cost of the defender has to be paid by the accuser. This would solve a lot of these frivolous law suits merely there to make money, it would also stop a lot of "patent trolling law suits"

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Support for the storefronts, not the games themselves. If you have technical problems with a game, Steam can't do anything about it.

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.

[dlld]

I don't think it's uncommon for stores to have agreements that you have to sell something at no lower price then X or they will no longer get stock from that manufacturer. at-least for some certain amount of time. Just in this case it's other way around, the store telling the maker of a product they can't sell it cheaper anywhere else or they will drop it.

Same thing really in my eyes but maybe not the law.

[Acidbaron]

They do not. They can do in-store promotion (co-marketing) and they do that often, but it's only within the store. Any actual broader marketing is handled by the developer/publisher. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all have similar co-marketing/in-store promotions on their platforms.

As for delivery, they sell the game and let folks download it but that's not a huge ask. A 30% cut for a storefront alone is silly, Valve doesn't have the same kinds of costs that console makers do -

Extensive hardware/software R&D
Selling hardware at-cost/a loss so costs are recouped with software
The operating environment for games (don't think there's much use of whatever their Linux thing is)

And publishers don't "take all the profit from developers" either. It depends on if the developer is owned by the publisher or not (if they are like...no duh? It's the publishers money to begin with), and if not they either signed a bad deal because they needed publisher backing or they signed a bad deal because they didn't know what they were doing.

Sweeney may be a shithead about it, but he's absolutely right to push for a lower storefront cut for digital stores on PC.

He will be right about lowering the cut when his storefront offers the same level of marketing, tools and features. Until that time he has no legit claim, the man throws away buckets of money on exclusives and in fact does bully smaller developers to either play ball with him or not be able to sell on his platform at all and puts development of the store on the backburner.

I personally find with all the support and features the client has received over the years it is earned. Big picture with extensive controller support that is still being build on and allows us to use a PS5 controller even and create multiple layouts, Steam link that allows you again to broadcast it to elsewhere and it comes with other useful things that seem minor, like an option to move the mouse cursor of screen.

There's them having a whole network laid out for getting indie developers to self publish. There is steam workshop for artists to create things on, there are things like community for people to self promote streams and what not.

I see people harping on about the 30% as if that makes or breaks it all, looking at that 30% with blinders on just feels dumb to me.

[Endus]

This isn't a monopoly; literally anyone could create a new digital storefront and start competing with Steam. If you assume you can make a profit taking a 15% cut off the price, and attract more developers to sell through you that way, you'd provide a solid alternative. That's literally what Epic Games did, with their store, taking a 12% cut. A bit better since they can bundle Unreal 4 licensing in with that 12%, really. And that attracted a lot of developers, providing Epic with either straight exclusivity or a year of exclusivity before going to Steam as well. That's literally competition.

Epic is feature-light compared to Steam, sure. It had a lot of growing pains, like no way to throttle download speeds at launch. But between their better rates for developers and their free games for customers, they've built a client base. And then you've got GOG and Uplay and EA's Origins or whatever it's called. There are competitors. People still opt for Steam because it provides them the best marketplace, in terms of total sales; offering 30% of a million units sold is probably still way more money for the dev team than offering 12% on 150,000 units sold through Epic (just making up numbers).

Don't like Steam's practices? Use one of their competitors. Steam has no monopoly.

[Azerate]

There are plenty of games that have non-steam versions that you can buy and the prices are often different so I'm not sure what that claim is all about. Should the cut be lower? Maybe, but probably devs make more money by being on steam with that cut than not being on it without it, so in some twisted way it's a win-win situation for both parties. Law-wise the lawsuit has no ground obviously and will go nowhere, regardless of the morality of it.

[exochaft]

30% cut is only for a first n-units sold.
You don't just pay that for it being sold there, Steam is a marketing tool and gives you access to a large potential customer base if not the largest.
It's feature rich and that's why people keep using it, features that you can further use to promote your new IP/product.


Nobody is forcing them to sell there, lawsuit won't go anywhere.

The US needs a change of rules regarding losing law suits, where the legal cost of the defender has to be paid by the accuser. This would solve a lot of these frivolous law suits merely there to make money, it would also stop a lot of "patent trolling law suits"

Honestly, 30% isn't that bad for the first n-units sold, as it's pretty similar to the standard retail markup of products anyways. I think most people just view Steam as a UI that organizes their games, but it's more than that. Steam is at the minimum a cloud service and a store, requiring staff and infrastructure that isn't free. If you view it like a brick-and-mortar store (like a grocery store), the stores do mark up the prices so they can run and operate (i.e. retail markup), which can run around 20-30% increase in prices. The problem is most people have zero idea what goes on behind the scenes between the stores they shop and the suppliers, as what Steam does is actually pretty commonplace.

I also wouldn't mind some anti-frivolous lawsuit legislation at some point, it'd just have to be careful when applied to the US government (since they can basically throw more money at frivolity than any private individual/company ever could, just to harass someone).

[s_bushido]

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