Gabe Newell on Steam monopoly accusations: Gamers have 'enormous choice' about where to buy games
15d 18h ago by piefed.ca/u/Sunshine in pcgaming@lemmy.ca from www.pcgamer.com
Newell also said in 2023 testimony that Steam's 'unwritten rule' against charging lower prices on other storefronts does not exist.
Here's the thing. There are other places. Epic, Amazon Gaming, Origin/Battlenet/Ubi, itch, Microsoft store, gog...
Most suck at discoverability or they don't have the variety of Steam. Some are shitty by design (Origin, Ubi, Battlenet) - intended to only get you to play their games. Others like itch aren't built for scaling out to deliver thousands of big games.
This isn't a thing like Apple's walled garden, I feel like this is Steam out performing the competition.
Steam quite literally provides almost everything you could ever need too, it's so much more than a storefront. It's genuinely mind blowing just how many services steam offers, I don't think anybody, including valve employees knows about every function and service it offers tbh.
I would have killed for Steam Input alone back in the day when I was using xpadder to sloppily translate controller inputs to keyboard keys so the game would recognize it
Does steam provide a good service? Sure. Is it worth the 30% cut they take? Absolutely not. Gamers don't realize the amount of money valve is making off them. What we need is a good old fashioned bill at every purchase detailing how much money these rent seeking stores are extracting from you.
I don't want the 90 services and bloated platform steam offers, I want to play my game and pay the developers.
Epic does somewhere around 12% and the end user still pays the same so if you think that extra 18% would come back your way rather then going to a devs pockets? Hoo boy.
Also, Steam charges the industry standard rate iirc, same as google, apple, etc. While we can complain about that rate (last paragraph in mind: To what end?) its not as though Valve is doing anything extra greedy.
Epic does somewhere around 12% and the end user still pays the same so if you think that extra 18% would come back your way rather then going to a devs pockets? Hoo boy.
And most of the time that extra doesn't even go to the devs, the publishers keep it. So you're not even helping the devs for the most part.
Besides, Steam won't even take a single cent from Steam keys sold outside of their storefront. Devs are free to sell their games on stores like Humble or Fanatical at whatever price they deem fit.
If any of those games on Epic are also sold in steam, then the (nonsale) price cannot be lower than the steam price because of steam's TOS.
Also the "industry standard" was arbitrarily chosen to match the cut that brick and mortar stores usually operate at... Despite there being very different costs related.
But yes, steam is being just as greedy as all the other big walled gardens. People complain about that rate across the board, not just about steam.
That's simply not true. They aren't supposed to generate steam keys and then sell them at a lower price at other stores. Which is completely fair, as you can generate keys for free, but the game would still be using steams servers and services. But you can absolutely sell a game for cheaper on other store fronts if it isn't using steams backend.
It IS true. They've threatened to delist developers who wanted to sell on non-steam key sites at lower prices.
There's a ongoing class action lawsuit (which is already 2+ years old), started by Wolfire games, for exactly this scenario.
After looking into that more I've yet to see any hard evidence of valve threatening to delist devs for selling cheaper elsewhere. And presumably, so have the courts, because otherwise that seems like it would be a slam dunk case. I'll believe it when I see it, but just going on word of mouth doesn't convince me.
Despite there being very different costs related.
How different?
How likely is it that it just so happens to exactly match brick and mortar stores?
So you don't know?
We all know it's less. You can stop being smarmy about that.
That's how online stores are destroying retail, despite charging equivalent prices. But I do not have access to a specific private corporation's operating costs, any more than you do.
How much less?
the giant company won't tell us how much they're ripping us off, so that must mean they're not
Is quite possibly the stupidest argument you can be making here.
Nobody made that argument. All that's happened so far is that someone made a strong claim with literally nothing at all to back it up.
Steam charges the industry standard rate... That Steam set originally decades ago.
Steam initally launched in 2003 as a updater/server browser for Valve games like counterstrike, half life, and team fortress classic. Apple music came out earlier that year, which isn't a 1:1 relation but likely influenced things wrt download pricing.
Steam didn't have its first third party game til late 2005 which puts the chance for it to standardize a rate for game downloads right around the timeframe of xbox live and psn launching (late 2005, mid 2006 respectively), so I wouldn't be shocked if word got around the industry about that stuff, though that's just me making reasonable logical deductions (People love opening their big fat mouths, lot of folks in the same circles, etc.) rather then anything solid.
It's absolutely worth the cut they take. Ask every developer and publisher.
It's hard getting recognized outside Steam.
It's hard getting recognized on steam too.
Try going to any other platform and tell me how much better it is.
95% of the players on pc are on steam, if you don't publish your game there you're just shooting yourself in the foot - this has very little to do with the quality of the service valve provides and everything to do about their monopoly on the market. Would devs like to pay a smaller cut to valve? Sure, but it's just the cost of doing business, you go where your customers are.
Customers flock to valve because it's more than a storefront. It eliminates the needs for everything else, no need for discord, forums, lfg pages, recording software, controller mapping software, 3rd party mod hosting, mod managers, etc etc etc. look at how much further Valve has pushed Linux and Linux support in gaming than anyone imagined possible. Look at their return policy, absolutely no other storefront is that consumer friendly.
30% is industry standard, get mad at the storefronts that are just storefronts as well as steam or you're just sounding like Tim Sweeney on another unhinged nepo baby rant.
30% is industry standard
It was an industry standard, that's been changing for a while, just take a look at how much fire google and apple are taking over their stores.
but valve are good and kind and shit rainbows so they deserve money
Valve is a corporation, it might be less bad than the rest, but at the end of the day gabe is still sifting mai thais on his 500 million dollars yacht.
Complaining about a billionaire sipping drinks on a yacht while screaming and crying to defend the billionaire CEOs at the publishing companies that have shit all over every developer and consumer in the industry is certainly an interesting position.
I never mentioned publishers, in fact indies do not even have publishers. Can you stop with this whataboutism ?
Because they provide a lot of value.
It's not like GoG or EGS are better stores that can't get traffic.
In fact, if anyone actually put enough money and created a store with better moderation, people would be more than happy to use it. It's just that there is none. Not because they lack users, but features.
their monopoly on the market
Should Steam be doing something differently in order to not be a monopoly? Their competitors being shit doesn't make Steam a Monopoly.
Then you have the option to buy from epic who take a lower cut. I prefer Steam because of the convenience and features it offers. Until another storefront can supersede steams features then I don't see a reason to switch
30% is industry standard, everybody but Epic charges that and also Steam is not just a flat 30% many devs and pubs pay less.
I agree 30% is high for every storefront besides Steam and and arguably GoG. The sheer range of services and support for both players and devs is exponentially above literally everything else, you are not just paying for a storefront with steam like you are literally everywhere else.
As for GoG, I'll let them slide on 30% because of how much effort and resources they put into preservation as well as their "customer is the administrator of their purchases" attitude.
Might be unpopular, but I think it's a fair cut. They provide a Plattform to anyone, and indiegames regularly outperform AAA. You don't need huge publishers to succeed if your game is fun. I don't think that would be possible with epic at the top.
Nothing is stopping a dev from putting a game on Steam for the exposure, then putting it for sale DRM free somewhere else so they don't have to pay the 30% cut on those sales (I assume they'd have to at least charge the same as the Steam one, though). I bet the Steam version would make them far more money even with the cut.
When the competition (excluding any stores operating at a loss to build marketshare) is charging both developers and gamers more, they're less bothered about Steam taking 20-30%. Consoles charge 30%, have extra fees, take a cut of third party keys (or restrict them altogether) and require a mandatory subscription for online play/cloud saves, while disallowing third party stores on their hardware.
Is it worth the 30% cut they take? Absolutely not. Gamers don't realize the amount of money valve is making off them.
The same cut that is industry standard and they could ABSOLUTELY jack up by abusing their market position and choose not to? Especially given how much extra infrastructure they supply for that 30% vs literally anyone else?
Is there a better service to use? I'm not saying Steam is a Paragon of virtue, there's is no such thing as an ethical billionaire and there's no reason for someone to own multiple mega yachts, but as a consumer Steam is a much better service than most of the competition out there. Steam isn't a monopoly just because it's the only store not shooting itself in the face.
Epic you get flash banged even when grabbing free games... Their UI is over a decade old. GOG's UI is frustrating to navigate. I love the deals and free promotions on steam, and the UI.
And don't forget GOG fucking still doesn't have a native Linux client.
Because they pretty much said "It isn't worth the effort for just a handful of nerds". They're supposedly on it now, though.
I didn't know that, I am still on Windows 10. Most of my games won't work on linux.
You might be surprised, unless you exclusively play multiplayer games with anti-cheat.
Most of my games won't work on linux.
Unless you have less than 10 games in your library and they're all the main multiplayer games, I highly doubt that.
Please go check out ProtonDB and check your library. Only 2 of the top 10 most popular games are "borked", 7 of the top 100, 21 in the top 1000, and 349 across the entire catalogue.
Most of the games that are borked on Linux (particularly the top 10) are because the devs specifically want it that way
Around 50+ say borked, or no rating. I have over 1000 games.
"No rating" just means it hasn't been tested yet. Most of those should work, you just have to try them out
As the other user said, you may be surprised! I swapped to CachyOS in January and it's been rock solid. I play games like Hitman, Last Epoch, and a bunch of indie games without any issues.
I agree. That's not what this is about though. This is about Valve using their market dominance to force price parity, supposedly to "protect consumers" (which is bullshit and doesn't make sense). Yes, they're the better storefront. I'd be willing to pay a little more to use it.
That's one way the competition can compete though. They can't make as good of a product, but they can make a cheaper one. They should be able to charge less, and make less profit per sale. Valve has ensured no developer can do this though by threatening removal if it's cheaper anywhere else, and you can't afford to not be on Steam. This would be good for consumers as it'd drive Valve to compete, either with an even better product or by lowering prices. There's no way consumers lose, and I don't get why people rush to fight for Valve on this.
So like most stores? What do you think MSRP is? A lot of places will pull their product from stores who undercut pricing outside of occasional sales.
MSRP is manufacturer suggested retail price. It is not an enforced price. For example, stores have started selling physical Nintendo games below MSRP as Nintendo has started selling digital copies at a lower price than physical MSRP. (This is also what would likely happen if games are sold cheaper. They'd compete the price down.)
I don't know if I've ever heard of a case of MSRP being enforced. I don't think it's reasonably possible. It means no sales, for example. A retailer buys a product, and then they stock it at whatever price they decide. The manufacturer doesn't control it at this point.
Edit: Also, MSRP is very different. It's from the manufacturer, not another store. The equivalent is Walmart telling a product creator to enforce an MSRP or they won't carry their product, not a manufacturer enforcing one on their own, assuming that happens.
I have seen it being enforced in several stores in multiple provinces. If you've never worked in purchasing, you've probably just not heard about it since it doesn't typically get mentioned to consumers, it's a backend thing.
Wizards of the Coast, for example, is quite strict about it.
Looked into this, found a source: https://steamyouoweus.co.uk/faqs/points made by @Cethin@lemmy.zip are legit.
I did a quick scroll on that site, but couldn't find any sources or evidence about Valve actually doing this
I don't know why people come here, act like other people are wrong, and haven't done the bare minimum to look into the case. It's literally what this case is about. It's even in the article for this post.
Edit: Why am I being downvoted. Click the link! I'm sorry that it's against the mega-corporation that you like. They make a great product, but stop defending them for literally anything they do. I can't believe people on Lemmy, of all places, still do this shit. Maybe it's astroturfing? That's the only thing that makes sense.
Valve has a monopoly at being the only online gaming storefront that doesn't suck.
Yup, it's why I am willing to argue for them, at least until Gabe dies. He's proven to be far more fair and I know you wouldn't get that deal anywhere else. These days it really does seem like there a coordinated push to attack valve for not being scum like the rest of the industry these last couple of months.
It's because they actively fight for the consumer rather than the publishers.
It's funny though because valve has so much fucking money because they are not chasing next quarters arbitrary gains...
Valve is proof that if you don't try to screw over your customers somehow you end up with profits. Weird how that works, and instead of companies learning something from that we'll... they do what capitalism does....
It does make me nervous though that one player has so much power.
But certainly in the here and now as a consumer, I use steam because it makes life easier. It makes it super easy to join and host multiplayer games, gives me access to convenient game recording stuff without having to have separate software, lets me share games with my found family, and most games have achievements, which my silly achievement-whore brain loves. I'm also grateful because if not for Steam's work developing proton, I doubt my switch to Linux would have been as straightforward as it has been.
I agree that it does seem like a targeted attack on Steam by industry hacks who I trust infinitely less than Steam. Corporations are never our friends, merely our temporary allies. However, the hacks attacking Steam are definitely my enemies, and the enemy of my enemy is my temporary ally
The only one that lets me keep in my library, download and install at any time games that were delisted 10 or 15 years ago by their publishers.
For that reason alone, they deserve my money over any other storefront.
Gog and itch.io are decent. They're different types of stores, but very usable.
Nah I think gog is fine, they're just not the same size (and for linux also not plug & play)
Their games are pretty good - I really like Portal, Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life.
I'm a bit surprised that someone hadn't already posted this
GOG sails past the bottom of the screen on a skateboard sipping a juicebox with a straw
Gog doesn't have regional pricing where as steam and even epic does. If a Game on steam will cost me 700rs the GOG will charge me 1400rs and since I am poor I just pirate the game. I ain't paying 700rs for that.
Cheers mate, still not a monopoly
They used to have it but it cost them too much IIRC.
There was a funnier one with GOG enjoying itself in the corner and the complaining party being Epic lol
would be more fitting if epic was creepy guy trying to lure people in a van with candy
Close, but also include the accusation coming from the ones on the left!
Damn that's a good point. I don't hear a single consumer talk about it being a monopoly. Isn't that who would decide such a thing?
Accurate
The lawyer should just be able to give this meme to the judge and have the case closed.
Valve is one of the less evil ones. But GOG didn't need to be forced by court to have a no-questions-asked 30 days return policy.
The courts are going to force Valve to enshittify, because consumers arent allowed to have good options. That's unfair competition, think of all the poor megacorps. How can they sell their garbage when you offer an actually good competitor
I hate to agree with a billionaire, but he's right. Currently steam is not a monopoly at all, and hasn't yet gotten so dominant that it amounts to one.
But they are the single most dominant outlet, and are in the first stages of having an ability to control the entire market in unfair ways to the point of crushing competition. It won't be long before they do have that ability completely. And we can't just trust the billionaire because he's shown an unusual degree of user focused choices overall. Even if he's perfect, he ain't immortal, and as soon as he's not in control, there will be fuckery
as soon as he’s not in control, there will be fuckery
This is what I don't think a lot of people will be prepared for ...
I dread if there's gonna some useless MBA coming around afterwards and saying some shit like: "why don't we charge steam users $9.99 to play their games per month?" and start cutting projects that benefit gamers to "save money" -- who needs Proton? who needs to invest in things like couch co-op? Then give themselves a shitload of money in exchange for all the goodwill that Valve have built up over the years.
But Valve is not a public company, so you don't get randos. Gabe is very aware of this fact himself.
Yeah, since Valve is not public the odds of the next head being an outside hire or some loud tech exec are extremely low.
GabeN is most likely to pick someone who's been around with the company since the early days, like Erik Johnson or Scott Lynch.
If he wants it to stay in the family, his own son Gray could take over, he's also a game dev.
Gabe has often expressed distrust of publicly traded markets, a plausible outcome is that his ownership gets converted into an employee-owned trust or a collective buyback, this would effectively permanently lock Valve into its current profile, distributing profils back into salaries and bonuses for the staff.
a plausible outcome is that his ownership gets converted into an employee-owned trust
That would be absolutely amazing if it happened. Plus, Valve would be able to hire damn near anyone they want due to the dividends the employees would get each year
Yes but it's not a certenty
How would you want it to be certain?
Yep. This is how it goes downhill.
Some business analyst will make a pretty chart showing a massive revenue increase Vs some minor player attrition caused by the monthly subscription model, and the board will salivate at all those billions they're gonna get.
Is that revenue necessary? Not at all. But capitalism says you must maximise profits regardless for the sake of it, and without an all powerful overlord to say otherwise, it will be a tragic downfall.
I really hope Linux will get a bigger market share, thanks to Steam devices, before Steam has to change CEOs and starts the inevitable enshitification.
Because for Linux gaming, Steam's support for Proton is pretty much a monopol.
Most of 3rd party launchers for other stores also rely on Proton under the hood, IIRC.
Nobody stops EGS to implement Proton. Neither ActiBlizz, Ubisoft or EAs Origin.
The "monopoly" in this case is again just other stores not wanting to do what gamers want. Proton is FOSS and anyone can use it.
I'm ready for it, I "backed up" my steam library because of it. The whole movement these last few months against steam make me think the industry is coordinating against it because steam won't play ball.
Oh no. Most of us are pretty much expecting the apocalypse whenever Gaben is gone.
One, it's kind of silly to just ask someone accused of doing something bad/illegal and then take their word for it. What's Gabe going to say? "Oh, yep, we are a monopoly, you're right."
Two, Valve makes some damn good software. Steam is really slick, has generally only improved over time, and has worked pretty flawlessly on every platform I've used it on. They also provide a great storefront experience, game managing experience, and have contributed to some awesome open source projects.
Three, I have zero doubt that Gabe and Valve in general has done some shady shit such as but not limited to the alleged unspoken policy mentioned in the article. No one becomes a billionaire ethically.
No one becomes a billionaire ethically
Agreed... but when you're a great, customer centric service in a wildly underserviced market, it's basically a license to print money. Gaben is unethical in the fact that he's hoarding wealth, and I can't speak to speculation on shady practices with circumstantial hearsay as evidence... but Valve, by virtue of not repeatedly Cobain'ing their dick on a regular basis is in a prime position to make substantial amounts of money...
All that being said, someone tell me what I'm missing.
This is your weekly reminder at this point that Valve is a corporation and that corporations are not your friends nor your allies.
Once Gaben dies, hell breaks loose.
He is a billionaire and just like all billionaire he can rot. He's not your friend.
Oh yeah, sure.
But if I were to have a death note I'd only be able to use on the very wealthy, I don't think he'd be any of the first names I thought about.
lol ok Mao calm down now, just a fyi, don't cast such a broad stroke when counting your adversaries in life, even the best waste a lot of time living like that.
It’s true though. Even the most well-intentioned billionaire is merely the central point of a massive ball of capital, full of accountants, lawyers, shell companies, VCs, lobbyists and sycophants and sucking more and more wealth and power into itself like Daniel Plainview’s giant straw through sheer fucking gravity. It can’t help its nature, it is the scorpion.
No, what I mean is once he dies Valve has a very good chance of going pure profit mode. Good or bad for society, gaming is often too focused upon while things doing objective harm are neglected.
Billionaires shouldn't exist.
Honest question, is there any other store that directly supports seamlessly running games on Linux? Even games that do not natively build for Linux?
Edit: Because in that case, Steam does have a monopol on Linux, since it's the only store that can seamlessly/without 3rd party tools run most games.
running gog games through heroic is pretty much as seamless as steam
It's good that the community stepped up when CD Projekt didn't.
I use Lutris myself to run GOG games and have the same experience.
Mind you, sometimes I do have problems and have to tweak things to get them to run (usually switching the runner to wine-ge instead of wine-staging).
It's very rare to be totally unable to run a GOG game in Linux with Lutris.
I would say that my rate of success with Steam is roughly the same.
That said, in Lutris I can run my games sandboxed with networking disabled, which I cannot in Steam (even if I started Steam itself sandboxed with networking disabled, Steam itself needs Internet access).
Maybe Steam is a little more seamless for non-technically adept users (of which there are more and more running Linux nowadays), but at least Lutris (and, I expect, Heroic) are way much more configurable and hence give a lot more possibilities for power users to do things like sandboxing or even to solve problems with running some more obscure or AAA games from a certain DRM-heavy era (for example, there's a game which no matter what I couldn't get to run in Steam, but with a bit of tweaking I could get a pirate copy to run in Wine under Lutris - still now that game is listed in ProtonDB as not running in Linux)
I was just curious whether technically Steam is a monopol for Linux, as in being the only store where you can run games without using 3rd party tools.
Not that I mind, running games on Linux is super easy nowadays (My favorite is Faugus launcher), but technically it can be another hurdle for some people.
But when I need to play some Epic free game, Heroic is awesome.
I mean, they develop and maintain Proton yet they don't even prohibit you from using it on other things. If literally any company did that, their shareholders would riot...
...so I don't think it technically qualifies as a monopoly, but they probably could have had a legal monopoly using an exclusivity patent on the tech (although they technically can't patent the whole thing because it's based on Wine, but they could have done this in a way that they could have).
That is a fair point. I'm also not trying to discredit Steam, I don't really think there's any kind of a problem as of now (well, apart from the fact that it could go downhill very fast once Steam changes hands), and the services they provide are reasonable and for me worth the 30% cut, especially their Proton work.
If literally any company did that, their shareholders would riot...
If Valve were a publicly traded company, their shareholders would have rioted over it
Well, things like Lutris do the same automated configuring of the underlying tools to run Windows games under Linux and putting it all under a "press button to play" interface as Steam as well as letting you manage your collection.
Lutris (and I believe Heroic too) even integrated with game stores and will list your games there and download them directly from there to install them.
What they don't have is the store part - you can't actually BUY games from those tools.
People using for example Lutris to play GOG games in Linux, have pretty much the same experience as using Steam from a browser to buy the games and then Steam app to manage your games collection and launch the games.
Having both Steam and Lutris, I personally prefer the latter because it seamlessly integrates with multiple stores and even works fine with games from other sources (such as games I bought in physical format way back in the day or games I bought directly from the developer).
Sure, the open source apps doesn't include a store, but as I see it that's actually a good thing since I'm not interested in getting the sales push to buy more games everytime I want to play a game, same as I'm not interested in seeing ads when I'm browsing the web.
What they don’t have is the store part - you can’t actually BUY games from those tools.
Heroic does let you buy games through the app, but it seems like it's just a browser that gives heroic an affiliate link when you make the purchase.
Faugus Launcher works too
Sorry but I have to disagree.
Holy failed updates batman. After I update some games, I have to fully restart heroic or it is an endless loop of "installing update" -> "Update available, click to install"
'pretty much' is doing heavy lifting
idk about that problem but some games just fuck. sometimes the instructions from others in "check compatibility" help
Given that Proton is open source, provides plenty of instructions and permits reproduction and distribution (BSD-3-Clause-Open-MPI), any other store could likewise include it or a fork of it. They may have a factual monopoly, but it's not enforced legally in any way.
It's just that nobody seems to compete meaningfully. Steam has a vested interest in being independent from Microsoft, maintaining their own SteamOS and making games run on it. Other companies just might not have the same commercial drive. And if there are easy to use 3rd party tools that people are content with, why would they bother investing in their own solution? They're accessible to the Linux market through no work of their own.
Of course, there are some companies actively not wanting to work with Linux. Some just don't trust the platform. Some require particular technology that might not work on Linux. For example, things like kernel-level-anticheat being confined to the wine environment defeats the point of spying on the whole OS. And some would require additional work to make it run smoothly, which obviously is an investment into a market they may feel doesn't promise enough profit.
I was going to point out how heroic launcher is fine, but that's not a store.
That's not really Valve's fault that all the other storefronts don't care to support Linux, though.
No. You can use Lutris although it appears to be unmaintained. Native GOG games work fine. Even better than the Windows versions do on windows because you don't need Admim privileges to install for whatever fucking reason
Oh, I know how to run my games, my point was more that in that case, Steam does have a literal monopol on being the only store that can run most games on Linux without using any 3rd party tools.
Not that I mind at all, and it's not a real problem, but I was just wondering if that's technically the case.
There are plenty of frontend alternatives out there that work fairly seamlessly and, at this point, I don't think work on compatibility tools like Proton would be too affected even if Valve decided to stop working on it tomorrow.
Has he inherited the David Jones curse? Is there any photo from him in the last 10 years that is not on a yatch?
His hobby is yachts, which tells you how well Steam is doing for him.
His hobby is marine biology, which in turn necessitates yachts.
He's actually made quite a few discoveries working with his team.
I thought that was James Cameron?
...Yknow, now that you mention him, I wonder if Zuckerberg would become less... Zuckerberg, if we somehow got him into marine biology.
Nuance doesnt exists in the minds of the dim
Dude likes his yachts so much that he literally bought the company.
Fuck billionaires. Yes, even this guy.
"Buy" games on Steam? Sure wish they let you own them.
God forbid people want to own their shit.
Some are DRM free and can be backed up at your leisure. I'm pretty sure that's up to the developer to implement or not.
It would be neat if steam let you sell a game back, but I'm not sure how to square that with "you have a drm free copy that's trivial to copy"
Buying on steam has allowed me to play the same game for a decade on three platforms.
An earned monopoly is still a monopoly. Anyone who feels that the power that Steam wields in the gaming market is not an issue, I urge you to think or learn about why monopolies are harmful -- not in relation to steam. Think about a manufacturer of gizmos completely cornering the gizmo market and what that would mean for the people wanting to buy gizmos, as time passes. Don't think in terms of the laws or definitions of some specific country, just think about the effect it would have on society. Worst case scenario you lose some time and gain some insight on monopolies
Of course it's bad. For decades Valve has shown others why gamers value their game store yet most game stores still do stupid shit that drives gamers away.
The only one making an honest attempt is GOG. And their only issue is low purchasing volume which means they are slow to develop and improve their platform.
And a launcher that makes epic look good.
Think about a manufacturer of gizmos completely cornering the gizmo market
If your monopoly in the Gizmo market is because you've actively fought other companies, lobbied governments, filed frivilous patent suits, etc... in order to KEEP people from competing with you, than you're a piece of shit.
If your monopoly in the Gizmo market is because despite there being no hinderance to them doing so, no competitor has been able to match your quality, than kudos.
In your example, you're effectively saying that governments should force people to use shittier services just to avoid a monopoly, even if that monopoly is earned.
If people want to buy Gizmos, and that first company is losing their trust, another company will come in and compete successfully because that first company isn't preventing them from doing so. If that second company does it better, great.
An earned monopoly and a forced monopoly are not nearly the same thing, precisely because an earned monopoly is on the whim of the consumers. If your product turns to shit, a replacement will make itself known. Whereas a forced monopoly is on the whim of the government and lobbyists.
But other stores exist, they just don't offer what steam does (which includes Play on Linux).
It like if you bought an amazing vacuum that does everything (hardwood, carpet, car attachments, air filtration), and the competitor offers a vacuum that only does carpeted floors...its not a true monopoly, its the competitor not understanding what sells
This gizmo maker is making the best gizmo that everyone loves, best delivery and best support for people that buys the gizmo. Why would you fault that company for delivering what majority of people wanted. They didn’t corner the gizmo market by buying out smaller gizmo makers, they didn’t block smaller gizmo maker by undercutting them, they didn’t even advertise to cut into other’s profit share. They win the capitalist market by making the best gizmo plus the best experience of buying and owning the gizmo.
Oh no. They've made gaming accessible on Linux, games still run you purchased 20 years ago on the latest hardware and they're not a bloated pile of garbage
If anything, they've actually made things better for everyone
In contrast, if you purchased wii u games, you need to re buy for switch. Ps5, wii u and Xbox all basically are limited to what publishers can sell
I'd even argue they're not a real monopoly because they Don't control the hardware, and there are other platforms
Somebody needs to make a better gizmo than I guess 😉. Americans seem to love capitalism....so than, capitalize.
It's so clear that so many people here DIDN'T read the article, which is further compounded by the author not understanding the meaning of monopoly vs anti-competitive practices. Just so we are all on the same page:
This isn't about steam being a better service, (even though it IS a better service,) or being a monopoly, (it isn't.) The lawsuit is about anti-competitive practices.
The lawsuit pertains to steam allegedly disallowing devs to price games lower on other platforms. If this is true, it's a move that prevents competition. Maybe other digital storefronts are shittier, but they might make up for it by taking a smaller cut from game devs, which allows them to sell at a lower price on GOG, or EPIC. If Steam is forcing devs to charge the same price on all platforms, or preventing them from offering discounts on those other platforms when they aren't offered on Steam, then it doesn't matter where I buy the game. This is a form of price fixing, except it isn't an agreement being done between digital storefronts behind closed doors, the price fixing is allegedly happening by steam leveraging the developers
Imagine you are going to buy Tide laundry detergent. You can go to Walmart, Target, or your local grocery store. They all carry the same exact same 125 fl oz bottle. Walmart has it for the lowest price, Target is the next highest, and the local grocer has the highest price for the item. Does my local grocery store get to force Walmart to raise their prices to match their own?
My local grocery store might charge a little bit more, but I prefer to shop there because it's closer to me, and the stores are better organized making it easier for me to find what I want. Personally I LOATHE shopping at Walmart. I happen to be willing to pay more for a better experience when buying the same product. Other people might not give a shit about the shopping experience and just want the lowest price, so they go to Walmart.
I refuse to touch EPIC game store. I think it's a subpar product. But if my buddy is telling me about a game he got for free through their storefront and raves about what a good game it is, I'm gonna buy it off of steam, instead of getting it for free, because steam is a digital storefront I trust, and provides a good customer experience.
I realize laundry detergent isn't the same as video game software, but I think my example demonstrates how competition can work and how fucked up it would be if the allegations against steam are true.
To be clear, the only time Valve requires prices match what's on Steam is if you're selling Steam keys. Games are sometimes cheaper on GOG and EA and Ubisoft regularly price their games a dollar or two cheaper on their own stores.
This makes perfect sense.
I remember I got Baldur's Gate 3 (early access) cheaper on GoG than on steam ($40 on GoG and I think it was $50 on Steam, or maybe even full-price (60), but can't be sure).
https://www.wolfire.com/blog/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-class-action/
This developer says that Valve threatened to remove their game because they were selling the game for cheaper on a non steam platform with non steam games. (This is the same company mentioned in the article)
It seems that most everyone would be fine with what you said as the steam agreement, but it seems like they are in fact acting monopolistically by requiring even non-steam DRM to have price parity. This is the only thing that needs to change, imo. I think this lawsuit is about showing that the “unwritten rule” actually does exist, and they are in fact being anti-competitive.
I swear I've bought things on sale on GOG that were cheaper on there than on steam on more than one occasion.
I am starting to believe that the whole accusation of valve threatening to remove a game from steam about price differences likely has to do with if steam keys are generated for games purchased through other vendors. That's like the only scenario where it would be appropriate.
Does anyone have a link to the "internal communications" mentioned in the article showing Valve employees enforcing the unwritten rule? Seems foundational to the whole issue, I'd like to read them for myself.
Also:
... but a big challenge Epic Games faces is simply that an awful lot of gamers don't seem to want an effective Steam competitor: Steam rules the roost, and they like it that way.
The article mentions that the Epic Games GUI isn't great, and I think Steam's monopoly (It is, for sure, a monopoly) is backed up in part by the fact that they've had the time required to develop a decent interface that at this point, not many people are too itching to leave. With software everywhere enshittifying Steam keeps looking better in comparison, and I think that challengers need to at least focus on building out a comfortable trustworthy GUI before there's a serious argument for dethroning Steam.
GUI is definitely a big reason, but features as well. Epic could make their store snappy as hell and their GUI easier to use, but that doesn't give us controller remapping, game recording, an overlay with a web browser, per game notes, per game news, community guides, baked in mod support, performance data overlay, controller centric mode (big screen mode), and god knows theres more I'm missing.
Personally, I'd put my money on GOG becoming the real competitor over time. GoG Galaxy feels absolutely better than Epic does, and the fact it integrates other storefronts is such a major benefit that it makes it at least capable of competing with steam in the long haul. If GoG Galaxy gained all the features Playnite has, it would easily be able to compete with Steam.
Steam's "monopoly" is purely because none of their competitors bother with pro consumer updates.
Part of Epic's problem is also their leadership pretty publicly showing they hate their potential customers on a regular and ongoing basis. If someone keeps screaming at me to eat shit and die, I'm not going to be particularly motivated to buy anything from them.
As far as GoG, they are actually my preferred storefront. I look at GoG for games before Steam, and am even willing to pay a slight premium to get them on GoG. Their DRM free stuff is a big thing for me. Being able to archive my games has value to me.
How many years did it take for Epic to implement a shopping cart in their store?
Asked about this rule, Newell repeatedly denied it exists, even when shown internal communications seemingly showing Valve employees enforcing it: "Valve does not have a policy or practice of dictating prices to third-party software developers on other platforms." When asked how Valve would react if it ever happened, Newell initially said he was confused by the question and then added, "Many of our partners and many of our customers are quite happy with the service that we're providing."
It would be interesting to see what happens if some of the larger publishers did this.
Someone few weeks ago posted a link where there were few emails that were exchanged with Valve and puglishers(?) with redacted pieces here and there. Their point was that Valve tells devs/publishers to match prices of their games on their own stores to prices on Steam.
I may be not a great english speaker, but in reality it did read that if a company wants to make discount somewhere else, they need to match the exact same discount on Steam. Point of that was that Valve doesn't want customers to think that Steam is an expensive option when shopping for games.
I think that this is a common misconception and Gabe was annoyed that interviewer had not double checked information regarding Valve policies.
This has been re-hashed over and over. The terms are that if they want to discount steam provided keys on another platform they have to match that price on Steam. Steam keys are free to generate for them. They are free to distribute them on any platform. But the deal they make when they generate the steam keys is that they will adhere to the pricing rule.
If they want to discount keys generated on Epic's store, then they can generate and sell them at any price they want.
I believe there is an exception for bundles like the humble bundle.
This is becoming hair splitting, it's clear they don't want publishers give out keys on steams dime, that might change with charity bundle but the general rule stays the same.
I get it but its not like they are buying up competition or doing bad practices to win unless doing what your customers want is being unfare. In this case I blame the competition.
Around the 2010's, both MS and Google were seen as "noble monopolies". Even if Steam is the better video game distributors, always stand on more than one leg when it comes to buying games.
MS was anything but lol, they had a swarm of lawsuit dramas over by then. Only Apple glazed MS because they quite literally saved them from bankruptcy which they only did as insurance against a proper antitrust case.
Google was newer but they also weren't a private company, they were riding silicon valley money to the moon.
Regardless, Steam is a monopoly but their immediate competitors are the only ones chucking anti competitve measures around like crappy DRM and price lockins.
Other gaming platforms are fully capable of competing with Steam. It's only real edge is that it treats game developers better than any other platform.
And at least both gog and itchdotio are the better ones. If only Epic got its shit together...
It's only real edge is that it treats game developers better than any other platform.
I think you meant customers
Steam is the superior platform and you they can't compete with a company that gives consumers so much value, so they're gonna claim monopoly, which is ironic because they don't breakup actual monopolies, so why should they fuck over something that isn't a monopoly? Oh right, because antitrust is a tool for companies to attack competition, not to avoid the consumer hellscape of monopolies.
Offer more value to gain market share. If you can't, I guess your business model is worse than Yoru competitors, isn't it?
My wonder is who is this benefiting? Is this a bid to get gaming under stricter control by destroying its main outlet for many?
Given video games place in the PC realm and the aggressive push for AI powered cloud compute, it they fuck up steam to disincentivize personal PCs, I wouldn't be surprised. Been a few propaganda prices about Gabe/steam in the last couple weeks. Something is up.
Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Epic, and Apple stand to benefit.
Valve is pushing to bring Linux gaming (and open source in general) into the mainstream, which endangers Microsoft and Apple via their operating systems.
Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft all directly compete for console sales, and with PC having the largest game catelogue and Valve pushing for open hardware, their console sales are endangered.
And Epic stands to benefit because they want to be the dominant player in the PC marketplace via EGS and Fortnite. But Tim Swiney is a dumbass that's unwilling to invest in the storefront, so their only option is to tear down the competition
Realistically, Steam is a monopoly.
That's not illegal. In fact, it's not even (necessarily) a problem.
If they misuse their monopoly position, then it becomes a problem.
Absolutely. If steam was pulling 1/10th of the stuff Google and Apple does on their marketplaces, that would be a problem.
The reason Steam is dominant is its better than the others. So long as publishers are unwilling to pass the lower cost of the platform into consumers, there is no incentive to change.
Also, Steam is the only platform that gives regional discounts in many regions. Its the main reason I don't use GOG as much as I would like to.
Yeah. GoG used to have regional pricing, but they weren't able to keep up with the costs of it and had to stop or go under.
My understanding is that it is still the publishers decision like with Steam. But I get the Idea, that Steam strongly encourages it.
A very easy solution would be for Steam to transition to the GOG approach optionally: Preserve games without any sort of DRM or online-only feature. Releases past a set amount of time could drop DRM (they already have this option AFAIK) and they would also need to have a sort of non-steam-services connected variant.
Combine this with completely FOSS SteamOS/Steam Client, and Valve would do everything right.
The legality is not very interesting imo. Monopoly law has been absolutely gutted by Reagan, and weakened by every single (yes, every single) administration since.
The question of whether having a monopoly position and not abusing it is something we as a society should do something about is, to me, equivalent to the following. If someone owns an automatic rifle, but isn't shooting or threatening anyone yet (i.e., using it to harm society), should we do something about it? What about a bazooka? More abstractly: should society aim to prevent harm when reasonably possible, or only punish it after the harm is already done?
I think the issue is, realistically, what CAN we do about it. They didn't come by their position through shady or abusive practices, but by simply making the best platform. Customers feel Steam treats them well. Even if you tried to break it up, customers would just glomp onto one of the shards and we'd be right back here again. Would be like taking the rifle away, but society just being like "No, we WANT them to have a rifle" and giving them another one every time you take it away.
I guess he’s not wrong. You can buy them on Steam, or you can buy them on your other account on Steam, or you can have a friend buy them on Steam and gift them to you, etc.
Sometimes, I don’t even buy them…
Yes, but before Valve you had a lot more choice, because you could buy things in actual shops. I didn't have to wait until the handful of predetermined "sale weeks" a year to actually get games at budget prices.
And it's not just Valve, but if they ever go public or bust, you'll all wonder how you were ever fooled for so long.
they aren't going public or bust. there is no incentive for them to go public and they are sitting on a dragon hoard of cash with relatively few employees who are all multi millionaires. they're the most successful private company there is, so there's no reason why anyone there would want to change things just to get shareholder money. they don't need shareholder money.
You mean to tell me that Gabe Newell wasn’t magically the only “good” billionaire? Color me shocked.
Start with SpaceX
The Epic store sucks ass, the EA store sucks ass, Nintendo hates it's fans more than Trump hates women.
As a counter example, Mincraft is a stand alone game, it came out long after Steam was established and it runs on Linux as well at it does on Windows.
If independent games came with a launcher/update experience as good as Minecraft I would have no problem buying outside of the Steam ecosystem.
He’s not wrong. But the price fixing has to go. I shouldn’t have to pay physical prices for a digital product.
Publishers set the price on Steam. Steam doesn't control pricing.
https://www.eurogamer.net/valve-antitrust-lawsuits-ubisoft-warner-bros-report This is the behavior I am referring to.
Of course he's not going to come out and say it, why even ask him?
Yeah, sure.
Developers don't, though. If you don't release your game on Steam, you might as well not release it. They could have ended up with a lot worse than Steam though, so at least there's that.
Plenty of indie developers on itch.io
I would like to see their income breakdown between Steam and other platforms.
Difficult to measure. A lot, and I do mean a lot, of indie devs on itch.io will likely get the biggest sum of their income from Patreon subscriptions.
From what I've heard speaking to some of them, when it comes to succesful Patreons, even a Steam release is peanuts compared to how much money was made through Patreon.
Oh interesting. I hadn't really fought of patreon as a source for indie game developers. I think the only one I know of is chinchillas art.
But how exactly is that steams fault? What should they do to remedy that?
I'm not assigning blame on them, and it doesn't make sense that they would voluntarily do something to compromise their own business model, unless they fear regulatory oversight or serious competition (which, let's be honest, aren't happening) and decide to self-regulate instead.
Regardless, any change would come from outside factors.
They don't have to push Steam DRM on devs. They could just leave stuff open like on GOG... They could use a scaling model of fees based on the popularity one's games receive, since people have said the current levels are prohibitive for micro indie devs...
they don't push steam DRM...devs choose whether they want it or not
I know devs can choose; I didn't say "force," after all. But the fact that so very few games are DRM-free bugs me...
That not steams fault so why bring it up?
They encourage it, I'm sure.
So a hunch is all you got....
If you want to sell your product in a store, your product has to abide the stores rules. This is nothing new. You don't get to whine about how you can't sell enough anywhere else because customers prefer buying from the store, that's asinine.
What is their fault is using their monopoly status to charge 30% of sales for an online storefront. For many games, Steam's cut is the single largest expense.
If you're a developer of a game being sold on Steam, Gabe Newell's personal cut on the game that wasn't produced, published, or marketed by him or any company he owns is more than yours because he charges an unconscionable toll for the storefront.
If Steam charged 5% instead of 30% they'd still be making a killing, but since they have an an effective monopoly it doesn't matter.
30% is the standard cut for game sales across the industry. Epic has a smaller cut, but customers don't want to use it. As someone offering a product, you have to sell where your customers are. Steam COULD abuse their position by taking a higher than standard cut, but they choose not to. Steam isn't a bad guy here. They made a good platform that customers prefer, and have made no attempts to stop competitors from competing and despite having the market position to abuse it, still only charge the industry standard for selling on their platform. If anybody would bother actually trying to compete with them, then you might see the cut come down, but all their competition seems content to just whine instead of actually making a platform worth using.
It's the industry standard for online PC game sales because of them. They established that number when they were the first major player to the market. They don't get to blame the industry for a pricing scheme they invented.
This is the company that didn't offer refunds until they had to. They're the company that used to make indie developers get permission to launch games through them with exclusivity agreements (Steam Greenlight program). They cry foul when devs put in loot boxes, gacha mechanics, and other live service bullshit when they don't get a 30% cut.
They've been exactly as shitty as they can get away with. The only things that have allowed them to be less shitty are that they were first to the game and that they're privately-owned l, meaning they do what's in Gabe's long-term interest instead of having to drive the stock price up every quarter until they collapse or allergens with someone else.
When Steam launched, gamers were very upset because they didn't want to have to log into an online marketplace to play Half-Life 2. And now people get pissy when the games they want dont require you to give data and money to a billionaire who long ago stopped giving a fuck about gamers as anything other than a means to buy more yachts.
Industry standard for ALL game sales, not just PC. Steam did not invent this. PlayStation charges this. Xbox charges this. Retail in general charged this before Steam even existed.
But you're clearly unwilling to see anything but "Steam bad! RAH RAH RAH!" So I'm just gonna block your dumbass self now.
Xbox and Playstation developed the platforms the games are on and sold the consoles at a loss.
Retailers have physical overhead that gar exceeds Steam's cost per sale.
Steam doesn't have those reasons. They just wanted a bigger cut without incurring the expenses.
Steam maintains:
- Server costs for the storefront, fast game file distribution and the variety of other services they offer to developers (eg the friends system, game invites, the Workshop, the marketplace, cloud saves, etc...).
- Steam handles payments for you, worldwide. This alone is already a pretty huge undertaking that many underestimate.
- Steam does a ton of analytics for devs.
- DRM.
- Support staff for handling customer complaints, refund requests, etc...
- Sets up seasonal sales and handles promotion for devs willing to participate.
- Steam allows you to resell Steam keys on other platforms, which forgoes the 30% cut entirely (creating new keys is free), as long as you won't resell the keys cheaper than the game's price on the Steam storefront itself.
- At high enough sales, Steam cuts back on the part they take.
All of this stuff is free and bonus for devs. You pay a one-time fee to set up, which you get back if your game sells enough copies (it's a really low bar, unless the game is total gunk you're going to reach that threshold). Not to mention the costs involved in bringing your game to other devices it wasn't originally built for, allowing you to gain access to a larger share of the market (again, for free. It's even available to users using a competitor).
Steam provides not only a storefront with lots of features that devs can use, they also provide servers, backend support through different APIs and not to mention the insane amount of data users need each day. (Around 275 PETABYTES a day, or 100 exabytes a year) That kind of infrastructure is not cheap, and seeing as that was the industry standard (it's still what Google and apple get from their storefronts) I'd say that's pretty reasonable.
Also the 30% cut goes down to 25% after the first $10 million in revenue, then down to 20% after you reach $50 million. I do think they should put in a lower cut for independent developers who are releasing small games, until a certain revenue threshold is reached, but overall I would say it seems reasonable to me.
That 30% is industry standard, steam didn't even set it. You people are morons
Steam was the first major online games distribution platform. Who else would have set the standard?
That is also something that would allow a competitor to come in to outseat their dominance. In fact, charging 5% instead of 30% would make it much more difficult for competition to develop because it would be next to impossible for somebody to penetrate into the market by offering a lower rate that's only viable with huge volumes of sales. Usually, offering unsustainable prices is a way that a dominant player achieves a monopoly. If they have big cash reserves, they can run at a loss until their competition dies out.
Not true at all starsector is one of my favs and so is vintage story and before that Minecraft in its early days. Your just straight up wrong.
Yeah, but how did you learn about those games?
not through steam, whats your point relating to this question?
You did not answer the question. Developers that self publish are repying purely on word of mouth marketing. Its rarely successful. Minecraft is very rare exception.
No they're not, they're good games and didn't need steam to get recog ised by the comunity, Im failing to see your point.
I learn about vintage story from a very obscure video on youtube a few years ago. I never see any media talking about it. Lemmy is the only place i see people occasionally talking about it.
Idk what to tell you I found videos about it on YouTube and Iv found plenty.
Was that before or after you filled the algo with VS videos?
I found it via YouTube, steam had nothing to do with it. Your not making a point here and I'm not going to keep it up.
A great example is when Factorio was released onto steam.
Again youtube, I leaned about it from nerd cubed. I spend a lot of time on YouTube over the years and I find out about most off-steam games from there. Dwarf fortress is another that comes to mind.
Arent you special? But you dont represent the majority.
See, there it is. You just wanted to make an argument for the sake of it. Later trash.
My point is steam is a massive marketing platform. You finding it on youtube was luck.
YouTube is also a platform for marketing, it's where people hear about most trends nowadays, there and at other social medias
Neither of those games have released and at least one of them is planning a Steam release
Of course counterexamples exist (Fortnite probably being the biggest one), but it's true for the vast majority of releases
"Customers have enormous choice" about where they purchase their games, Newell testified, including "whether they buy the game on an Xbox, whether they buy it on Steam, whether they buy it on Epic Games Store or whether they buy it directly from software developers."
Last I checked, Steam only sells PC games, it does not sell Xbox games. No one cares about Epic cause it sucks. I don't know how many devs directly sell their games to the public. Itch.Io is extremely niche. That leaves GOG which does not have anywhere the market share that Steam has.
At the same time, Steam is, if not a monopoly, awfully close to one: It is so deeply entrenched that Epic Games has spent years literally giving away its games, and has barely made a dent—in fact, New Blood boss Dave Oshry said earlier this year that Epic freebies were great for sales on Steam. The Epic launcher is admittedly not an optimal experience, but a big challenge Epic Games faces is simply that an awful lot of gamers don't seem to want an effective Steam competitor: Steam rules the roost, and they like it that way. A big majority of game developers, meanwhile, reckons that Steam really does hold a monopoly on the PC games market.
Gabe Newell, the co-founder and president of the gaming company Valve Corp., spent a morning in November 2023 with a handful of lawyers at the Arctic Club Hotel in downtown Seattle, talking in circles. Newell’s company runs Steam, the dominant online store for PC games, and was facing a lawsuit filed by a set of independent game developers who claimed that Steam operated an illegal monopoly in the $40 billion industry. Because developers relied so heavily on Steam, the suit argued, Valve has been able to stymie competition and charge “supracompetitive” fees.
The suit, which is ongoing, centers on what the developers alleged was a tacit company policy designed to punish them for offering discounts at competing online stores. But instead of defending the purported rule, Newell just denied it existed. “Valve does not have a policy or practice of dictating prices to third-party software developers on other platforms,” he said, according to a previously unreported transcript of his deposition. Presented with internal communications in which Valve employees appeared to be enforcing the rule, Newell repeated his denial, at times verbatim, again and again. When an attorney pressed him on how Valve would react if a developer did charge less money for a game on a competing store, Newell demurred. “I’m confused by your question,” he said, before later adding, “Many of our partners and many of our customers are quite happy with the service that we’re providing.”
But not all of Valve’s partners are thrilled with its influence over the market. In addition to the indie developers claiming to be burdened, court filings in the antitrust case contain email correspondence in which leaders from large corporations including Ubisoft Entertainment SA and Warner Bros. appear to be scrambling to do anything they can to avoid running afoul of Valve. The fear among some developers is that doing so can lead to penalties or even expulsion from Steam — a potentially devastating outcome for their game sales.
The US lawsuit Newell was deposed in, which has been certified as a class action, alleges that it “is not economically feasible” for game makers to leave Steam in favor of a rival store and that they are effectively “forced to comply” with Valve’s rules and high fees. A UK case echoes those claims, alleging Valve is “locking in” its users to Steam and earning “excessive” commissions.
Gamers can buy wherever they want. But game devs either sell on Steam or they basically don't sell at all.
It's not a full monopoly. He just has a quasi monopoly. And there are rumors that devs who sell cheaper on other platforms risk not being shown to buyers on Steam...
With great power comes great opportunity for abusing that power to take more middle man tax.
I'm eager yo use GOG in Linux. Meanwhile, Steam is fine.
Lately steam sales have sucked; paying 40+ bucks for 2-5 year old games feels silly. So yeah, I'm with Gabe on this one. There are choices.
Enormous choice? Lol, sure. Think of all the individual studios 20 years ago making games. You could buy them at multiple stores, on CD or DVD, maybe even download a patch or two from the developer online.
Today most of those individual studios have disappeared, many bought up and dismantled by the industry, and every single one of those industry titans is trying to corral you into their system via downloader or subscription, and the majority make sure you don’t actually own the game you bought. Steam is just the least evil among them, and there’s plenty of apologists that say Steam makes it possible for indy developers to get exposure. But at what price?
What's stopping indie developers from hosting their downloads on their own site? Sure, offering all the other features Steam does would be hugely expensive, but that's why consumers prefer it. Those features aren't necessary though and people would forgo them for a good game. Advertising would be more difficult but they could get popular streamers to play it or do Reddit or twitter posts to get exposure.
Doing all those things themselves are riskier than using Steam but there's nothing actually stopping them from trying. Steam takes a big cut but a big cut is still preferable to a smaller total amount they would likely get by not using Steam. It's not Steam's fault no other platform has gotten their shit together in decades.
We HAD a lot of choices. Because there were lots of digital distribution platforms back in the 2000s.
Until that libertarian bastard paid publishers to use Steam for DRM on physical releases.
Used its Most Favoured Nation clause to prevent other services from charging less.
And whoops. They all go out of business.
Generations of G*mers have grown up only knowing the Steam monopoly. That'll they create any old excuse to try and defend it.
Until that libertarian bastard paid publishers to use Steam for DRM on physical releases.
Source on that?
You won't get one, unless they decide to post a pic of their asshole.
It's all to common nowadays that PC gaming for a lot of people (and especially people new to the platform) is essentially "Steam" gaming...
There's still choices, you can buy from the Microsoft store, or publisher stores like origin or Uplay. Epic is a direct competitor, GOG is in a subset of the market like itch.io. Amazon sells PC games. There's several streaming options as well.
PC gaming is a far more competitive market than your grocery store.
And G*mers throw a pissy fit anytime you suggest using them.
Also Steam leverages it's monopoly to prevent games being sold cheaper on other services.
Gamers complain all the time. I also don't really have sympathy for billionaire publishers complaining about the one company not actively fucking consumers.
Valve is actively fucking consumers by preventing games being sold cheaper elsewhere.