Valve are in the legal spotlight again following the EU Commission Fine with a few more Steam troubles, as a new lawsuit has emerged with a claim about an "abuse" of their market power.
First picked up by the Hollywood Reporter, which has the full document showing the lawsuit was filed on January 28, was filed by 5 people together and doesn't appear to have any major companies backing it. The suit mentions how Valve require developers to sign an agreement that contains a "Most Favored Nations" provision to have developers keep the price of their games the same on Steam as other platforms. To be clear, they're talking about the Steam Distribution Agreement which isn't public and not what we can all see in the Steamworks documentation which talks about keys.
This means (if the claim is actually true) that developers cannot have their game on itch, GOG, Humble or anywhere else at a lower price, and so the lawsuit claims that other platforms are unable to compete on pricing "thereby insulating the Steam platform from competition" and that it "acts as an artificial barrier to entry by potential rival platforms and as higher prices lead to less sales of PC Games".
As part of the lawsuit it also names CD Projekt, Ubisoft, Devolver Digital and others.
It argues that if developers could legitimately set their own prices across different stores, they could lower their prices on stores that take a lower cut and "generate the same or even greater revenue per game as a result of the lower commissions, while lowering prices to consumers". They even directly bring up posts on Twitter from the Epic Games CEO, Tim Sweeney, like this one from 2019:
Steam has veto power over prices, so if a multi-store developer wishes to sell their game for a lower price on the Epic Games store than Steam, then: 1) Valve can simply say “no” 2) Pricing disparity would likely anger Steam users, leading to review bombing, etc
What are your thoughts on this? Should Valve be forced to allow developers to set their own prices, and not require their price to be the same as other stores?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: MohandevirReally not sure about this one... Nothing forces them to sell on Steam, anyway.This is not how the PC gaming industry works, unfortunately.
You either sell on Steam or you can't sell your game because you don't got a large enough audience anywhere else.
It's either that or hoping for some kind of deal with Epic, Stadia, etc.
Sure, there are a handful of devs who managed to make some small profit without Steam, but those are so few and far between, they can be considered the exception that proves the rule.
EA tried to do that - as everyone knows, they failed and came crawling back to Steam.
Epic Store: RS145.79
Steam : RS143.91
So much for that "12% only" Epic Store cut...
Quoting: kuhpunktAnd you really think the lawsuit would never have happened? Do you know how many dumb lawsuits are filed all the time?Well, I'm not going to dig through a 27-page long lawsuit to see if their claim is really based on only a tweet.
Liam linked the Tweet from Sweeney (which is what the lawsuit refers to, not the contract!) and people called him out already back in 2019.
That would be totally dumb indeed - so dumb that I simply refuse to believe someone wasted lawyer time on this.
Quoting: kuhpunktEpic said: lowers shares will lead to lower prices! Still costs $60.That was a pretty silly claim on Epic's part.
I could see a few devs lowering their prices somewhat over at Epic, but certainly not all.
The lower shares are a very much required boon for small devs, though - AAA devs are fine anyway, as they usually get a better share on Steam as well and even if they didn't get a better cut, the sheer number of sales is generally enough.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 1 February 2021 at 1:57 pm UTC
QuoteThe suit mentions how Valve require developers to sign an agreement that contains a "Most Favored Nations" provision to have developers keep the price of their games the same on Steam as other platforms.could probably circumvent that using permanent sales(a lot of games do that) or platforms that sell(legal) keys like fanatical.
a lot of games are just cheaper on fanatical though permanent sales
Take for example P4G which was always 16€ when the steam release was always at 20€
right now its 13€
There is a high possibility that instead of these third parties having to put a X%"tax" they just pay a price to get a bunch of keys straight from the OEM and then sell them.
Mohandevir Feb 1, 2021
Quoting: TheSHEEEPQuoting: MohandevirReally not sure about this one... Nothing forces them to sell on Steam, anyway.This is not how the PC gaming industry works, unfortunately.
You either sell on Steam or you can't sell your game because you don't got a large enough audience anywhere else.
It's either that or hoping for some kind of deal with Epic, Stadia, etc.
Sure, there are a handful of devs who managed to make some small profit without Steam, but those are so few and far between, they can be considered the exception that proves the rule.
EA tried to do that - as everyone knows, they failed and came crawling back to Steam.
Maybe, but my main point is that they are not doing this for the customers. This is just a false excuse. This one makes me really cynical.
This said... Blizzard is not on Steam, as far as I know? Overwatch? COD Warzone? WoW? Anybody?
Xbox, Playstation or Switch markets are not dictated by Steam either. Many developers are not publishing their games on PC at all.
Last edited by Mohandevir on 1 February 2021 at 2:03 pm UTC
It would be nice to also see some action against Epic exclusives practices as many indie devs mentioned how they had coercive requirements in order to publish a game in their store.
Quoting: TheSHEEEPQuoting: kuhpunktAnd you really think the lawsuit would never have happened? Do you know how many dumb lawsuits are filed all the time?Well, I'm not going to dig through a 27-page long lawsuit to see if their claim is really based on only a tweet.
Liam linked the Tweet from Sweeney (which is what the lawsuit refers to, not the contract!) and people called him out already back in 2019.
That would be totally dumb indeed - so dumb that I simply refuse to believe someone wasted lawyer time on this.
Well, the burden of proof is not on me. They claim that this is in some "confidential contract" without citing it. That's a very weak argument.
They even claim (page 13) that the share on the Microsoft store has 95/5 for games! That's not true. Microsoft changed the share for apps, not games.
https://9to5mac.com/2019/03/06/microsoft-store-revenue-share/
They can't even get this right. Utter nonsense.
Last edited by sudoer on 1 February 2021 at 2:10 pm UTC
Quoting: Potatoman24QuoteThe suit mentions how Valve require developers to sign an agreement that contains a "Most Favored Nations" provision to have developers keep the price of their games the same on Steam as other platforms.could probably circumvent that using permanent sales(a lot of games do that) or platforms that sell(legal) keys like fanatical.
a lot of games are just cheaper on fanatical though permanent sales
Take for example P4G which was always 16€ when the steam release was always at 20€
right now its 13€
There is a high possibility that instead of these third parties having to put a X%"tax" they just pay a price to get a bunch of keys straight from the OEM and then sell them.
Fanatical is not part of the discussion, because they sell keys. That's different from selling games on other platforms.
Quoting: MohandevirReally not sure about this one... Nothing forces them to sell on Steam, anyway.
I disagree with this. If you want to hit a bigger audience you need to be on Steam, because it's a #1 platform for most of PC gamers.
Also the EPIC has it's own flaws, like exclusive titles or forcing the devs to drop Linux support for the games if they want to publish on EPIC. (Phoenix Point as an example or their own Unreal Tournament)
I'm using Steam because of what is Valve doing for the Linux community, but there are plenty of things I don't like about the Steam, like vendor lock-in or some of the ethical problems like this one. Next time I will look for something, I will first check the GOG, with minigalaxy it's really easy to manage your games now.
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