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.
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
All posts need to follow our rules. For users logged in: please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Guest readers can email us for any issues.
Really 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.
How is this en ethical problem? They don't dictate prices.
1 Likes, Who?
Who is doing what for the customers? Selling on Steam? Not selling on Steam?Really 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.
Either way, of course not!
You don't develop games "for the customers", you do it either for yourself and/or because you want to make a profit with it - that's just a necessity of living in a world that requires money.
Some are nice enough to put extra effort in "for the customers" or because they feel like it's the right thing to do and those are generally favored by customers.
But when you get the option to earn 20% more just by selling somewhere else, on top of a fixed pile of cash by Epic (if this is what that was about) - you take it if you can. After all, you'll still be able to sell on Steam later. It's just a sound business decision. Wouldn't blame anyone for it, except if they promised not to beforehand.
1 Likes, Who?
That part: "keep the price of their games the same on Steam as other platforms" can be understood in two different manners.
1. Valve doesn't want the game to be available cheaper elsewhere.
2. Valve doesn't want the devs to take advantage of Steam's popularity and price the games higher on that platform.
If there was no such clause, who wants to bet if the games would be cheaper on other stores or just more expensive on Steam?
Last edited by pb on 1 February 2021 at 2:16 pm UTC
1. Valve doesn't want the game to be available cheaper elsewhere.
2. Valve doesn't want the devs to take advantage of Steam's popularity and price the games higher on that platform.
If there was no such clause, who wants to bet if the games would be cheaper on other stores or just more expensive on Steam?
Last edited by pb on 1 February 2021 at 2:16 pm UTC
3 Likes, Who?
Mohandevir Feb 1, 2021
Also the EPIC has it's own flaws
You said it. Instead of working on a better store, let's bring down the dominent platform? Maybe if Epic wanted to offer a better service, they would realize that the 12% cut is unsustainable too?
9 Likes, Who?
Really 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.
How is this en ethical problem? They don't dictate prices.
They are saying that you can't have different prices on different platforms. So they actually dictate the price you need to have elsewhere. So if you have a game on Steam and GOG and there is GOG sale going on, you need to lower price on Steam too.
0 Likes
Who is doing what for the customers? Selling on Steam? Not selling on Steam?
Either way, of course not!
You don't develop games "for the customers", you do it either for yourself and/or because you want to make a profit with it - that's just a necessity of living in a world that requires money.
Some are nice enough to put extra effort in "for the customers" or because they feel like it's the right thing to do and those are generally favored by customers.
But when you get the option to earn 20% more just by selling somewhere else, on top of a fixed pile of cash by Epic (if this is what that was about) - you take it if you can. After all, you'll still be able to sell on Steam later. It's just a sound business decision. Wouldn't blame anyone for it, except if they promised not to beforehand.
I don't get your point. You seem to minimize other practices because "business" but also get mad at Steam with this practice because affects customers (which is debatable as there are examples of lower prices in other platforms).
1 Likes, Who?
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.The lawsuit does not only link to that, as is made clear from the article it is talking about the Steam agreement. The Tweet was just mentioned as an example of it.
0 Likes
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.The lawsuit does not only link to that, as is made clear from the article it is talking about the Steam agreement. The Tweet was just mentioned as an example of it.
Without citing the contract and while making other false claims. So much of the lawsuit is about the 30% share and how Epic is so much better - which is not the point of the lawsuit at all.
3 Likes, Who?
Really 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.
How is this en ethical problem? They don't dictate prices.
They are saying that you can't have different prices on different platforms. So they actually dictate the price you need to have elsewhere. So if you have a game on Steam and GOG and there is GOG sale going on, you need to lower price on Steam too.
There is no evidence that this is true. That's the problem.
3 Likes, Who?
You're making a bunch of baseless claims. The lawsuit clearly talks about the Steam agreement and MFN, as quoted in the article. They can't link directly to the agreement, as Valve (like most companies) keep their actual agreements private. This is basic business stuff.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.The lawsuit does not only link to that, as is made clear from the article it is talking about the Steam agreement. The Tweet was just mentioned as an example of it.
Without citing the contract and while making other false claims. So much of the lawsuit is about the 30% share and how Epic is so much better - which is not the point of the lawsuit at all.
3 Likes, Who?
Mohandevir Feb 1, 2021
They are saying that you can't have different prices on different platforms. So they actually dictate the price you need to have elsewhere. So if you have a game on Steam and GOG and there is GOG sale going on, you need to lower price on Steam too.
I got many examples of that being false, but who knows, maybe there were "rogue sales" going on? Because that's my first reflex: when I see a sale on other stores, on a game in my wishlist, I check Steam if the sale is on Steam too and I can say that in many cases, there are no sales or the prices are different (higher by a couple of $ on Steam). What's the explanation? I don't know...
Edit: Just to be clear, regularly I find exactly the same sale on both stores.
Last edited by Mohandevir on 1 February 2021 at 2:47 pm UTC
0 Likes
You're making a bunch of baseless claims. The lawsuit clearly talks about the Steam agreement and MFN, as quoted in the article. They can't link directly to the agreement, as Valve (like most companies) keep their actual agreements private. This is basic business stuff.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.The lawsuit does not only link to that, as is made clear from the article it is talking about the Steam agreement. The Tweet was just mentioned as an example of it.
Without citing the contract and while making other false claims. So much of the lawsuit is about the 30% share and how Epic is so much better - which is not the point of the lawsuit at all.
How is my claim baseless? People jump on Valve here and judge them without knowing if this is even true! That's baseless.
3 Likes, Who?
Whats the fuss about? Steam is giving out free keys to the devs with the only catch that they may not sell them lower than they do on steam (with details on sales etc) - while steam still has the same infrastructure-costs for those keys.
I really wouldn't be surprised if Sweeny "motivated" those 5 guys to initiate such a dumb lawsuit that costs us taxpayers unnecessary money -.-
I really wouldn't be surprised if Sweeny "motivated" those 5 guys to initiate such a dumb lawsuit that costs us taxpayers unnecessary money -.-
10 Likes, Who?
They are saying that you can't have different prices on different platforms. So they actually dictate the price you need to have elsewhere. So if you have a game on Steam and GOG and there is GOG sale going on, you need to lower price on Steam too.
I got many examples of that being false, but who knows, maybe there were "rogue sales" going on? Because that's my first reflex: when I see a sale on other stores, on a game in my wishlist, I check Steam if the sale is on Steam too and I can say that in many cases, there are no sales on Steam or the prices are different on Steam (higher by a couple of $). What's the explanation? I don't know...
For what it's worth, I checked a few sales on the GOG front page just now and I found several that were significantly more expensive on Steam, due to not being on sale there. So maybe this is only about base prices or something?
3 Likes, Who?
They are saying that you can't have different prices on different platforms. So they actually dictate the price you need to have elsewhere. So if you have a game on Steam and GOG and there is GOG sale going on, you need to lower price on Steam too.
They don't.
A game dev can sell their game anywhere, at any price they want. No skin off Valve's nose.
If a game dev sells Steam keys (which Valve generates for free, just for the asking) through a store that isn't Steam, at a lower price than they sell them on Steam, then they also need to sell them on Steam at that price at some point. So, as an example, a lot of the games sold in the recent Humble sale were distributed as Steam keys at a lower price than they were going for on Steam; those prices then got lowered on Steam itself once Humble's sale was over.
15 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje Feb 1, 2021
How is this any different than commercial stores doing price matching?
Way I read it is that Steam says if a publisher wishes to sell their game on Steam, it needs to match the same price as eslewhere, right?
So say Cyberpunk 2077 is sold on GOG (owned by the same company) and they choose to sell it for 10 bucks less there. I mean they get all the money from those sales anyhow. But some people want all their games on Steam (for Proton, or achievements or whatever added value there) so they have to pay extra? Why does that also seem fair to everyone?
If you go to Target or Walmart they will likely price match each other as well...
Way I read it is that Steam says if a publisher wishes to sell their game on Steam, it needs to match the same price as eslewhere, right?
So say Cyberpunk 2077 is sold on GOG (owned by the same company) and they choose to sell it for 10 bucks less there. I mean they get all the money from those sales anyhow. But some people want all their games on Steam (for Proton, or achievements or whatever added value there) so they have to pay extra? Why does that also seem fair to everyone?
If you go to Target or Walmart they will likely price match each other as well...
0 Likes
The lawsuit is talking about the main Steam distribution agreement though, not the Steamworks Steam Keys agreement. They're two different things. As far as I can tell, the Distribution Agreement is confidential and so we cannot see it. This is where the MFN clause is contained.They are saying that you can't have different prices on different platforms. So they actually dictate the price you need to have elsewhere. So if you have a game on Steam and GOG and there is GOG sale going on, you need to lower price on Steam too.
They don't.
A game dev can sell their game anywhere, at any price they want. No skin off Valve's nose.
If a game dev sells Steam keys (which Valve generates for free, just for the asking) through a store that isn't Steam, at a lower price than they sell them on Steam, then they also need to sell them on Steam at that price at some point. So, as an example, a lot of the games sold in the recent Humble sale were distributed as Steam keys at a lower price than they were going for on Steam; those prices then got lowered on Steam itself once Humble's sale was over.
0 Likes
They are saying that you can't have different prices on different platforms. So they actually dictate the price you need to have elsewhere. So if you have a game on Steam and GOG and there is GOG sale going on, you need to lower price on Steam too.
They don't.
A game dev can sell their game anywhere, at any price they want. No skin off Valve's nose.
If a game dev sells Steam keys (which Valve generates for free, just for the asking) through a store that isn't Steam, at a lower price than they sell them on Steam, then they also need to sell them on Steam at that price at some point. So, as an example, a lot of the games sold in the recent Humble sale were distributed as Steam keys at a lower price than they were going for on Steam; those prices then got lowered on Steam itself once Humble's sale was over.
It's not even really dependent on sales. If you have that Humble subscription, you always get 20% off. Beat Saber has never been on sale on Steam. They only increased the price when they left Early Access. It's $30. On the Humble Store it's being sold for $24, undermining the Steam price.
So Valve doesn't even enforce that.
3 Likes, Who?
I don't see how I minimize other practices. I just explained how as a developer, you do what you have to in order to stay afloat.Who is doing what for the customers? Selling on Steam? Not selling on Steam?
Either way, of course not!
You don't develop games "for the customers", you do it either for yourself and/or because you want to make a profit with it - that's just a necessity of living in a world that requires money.
Some are nice enough to put extra effort in "for the customers" or because they feel like it's the right thing to do and those are generally favored by customers.
But when you get the option to earn 20% more just by selling somewhere else, on top of a fixed pile of cash by Epic (if this is what that was about) - you take it if you can. After all, you'll still be able to sell on Steam later. It's just a sound business decision. Wouldn't blame anyone for it, except if they promised not to beforehand.
I don't get your point. You seem to minimize other practices because "business" but also get mad at Steam with this practice because affects customers (which is debatable as there are examples of lower prices in other platforms).
The practice of Steam of not allowing lower prices on other stores, if true, is what I criticize.
What examples of lower prices are you talking about?
If it is about Steam keys, those are excempt from the contract if I understood that correctly.
If there are more than those, then it is quite possible Steam didn't "catch" those (not all contractually "illegal" things are brought to court, after all) or the claim is indeed baseless - which I still think is unlikely because why make an entirely baseless claim to waste your time and money (lawyers, etc.) with?
0 Likes
Mohandevir Feb 1, 2021
The lawsuit is talking about the main Steam distribution agreement though, not the Steamworks Steam Keys agreement. They're two different things. As far as I can tell, the Distribution Agreement is confidential and so we cannot see it. This is where the MFN clause is contained.They are saying that you can't have different prices on different platforms. So they actually dictate the price you need to have elsewhere. So if you have a game on Steam and GOG and there is GOG sale going on, you need to lower price on Steam too.
They don't.
A game dev can sell their game anywhere, at any price they want. No skin off Valve's nose.
If a game dev sells Steam keys (which Valve generates for free, just for the asking) through a store that isn't Steam, at a lower price than they sell them on Steam, then they also need to sell them on Steam at that price at some point. So, as an example, a lot of the games sold in the recent Humble sale were distributed as Steam keys at a lower price than they were going for on Steam; those prices then got lowered on Steam itself once Humble's sale was over.
Are you saying that there are workarounds for the MFN?
0 Likes
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me