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: CatKillerIt's 3 people that have bought games on Steam for themselves, and 2 people that have bought games on Steam for their children (which they think means they aren't themselves subject to the Steam Subscriber Agreement, despite them necessarily checking the box to say that they are). They aren't the sharpest pencils in the box.How disappointing.
Quoting: TheSHEEEPQuoting: F.UltraTook me until I read the actual filing to realise that the 5 plaintiffs where all gamers, I for some reason thought that they where game developers.Are you sure about this? That does make the whole thing indeed sound incredibly weird.
Yes, it's always on the very first page. Those are just five random people. The whole lawsuit is "Epic is better, Steam is bad."
Here's the lawyer that wrote this suit...
https://www.vorys.com/mccormick
Quoting: CatKillerJust to clarify, as explained in the video above, the 2 adults are buying games for their minor children on the accounts of their children. The lawsuit doesn't stipulate the age of the children but Steam does not allow children 13 and under to have an account. That muddies the water a lot.Quoting: TheSHEEEPIt's 3 people that have bought games on Steam for themselves, and 2 people that have bought games on Steam for their children (which they think means they aren't themselves subject to the Steam Subscriber Agreement, despite them necessarily checking the box to say that they are). They aren't the sharpest pencils in the box.Quoting: F.UltraTook me until I read the actual filing to realise that the 5 plaintiffs where all gamers, I for some reason thought that they where game developers.Are you sure about this? That does make the whole thing indeed sound incredibly weird.
Quoting: EagleDeltaAgreed! The video is very much worth a watch if anyone is truly interested in the legalities and details. There is is a strong legal argument for Valve having crossed some legal lines with their market share influence. But as the lawyer in the video explains that area in general is very gray.Quoting: Purple Library GuyHuh. Well, I guess if the allegation is true, that Valve's secret contracts involve making developers not sell their games cheaper anywhere else as a condition of being able to sell on Steam, that's kind of anti-competitive in that it stops other stores from trying to gain market share by underselling Steam. And if you foreclose on the whole concept of competition on price, that's likely to be bad for consumers.
Given the high hurdles in US antitrust law, even if the allegation is true that might well not be enough for Valve to actually lose the lawsuit, as noted by EagleDelta etc. But it's still a practice I'd find somewhat annoying--sure, you can understand why they'd want to do it, but then it's easy to understand why any company would do any anti-competitive practice . . . no company wants to be successfully competed against.
Of course if it ain't true then the filers are just assholes. And whether it's true or not, the filers could have questionable motivations and backing.
If you watch the video I linked, he talks about how MFNs are actually fairly standard across several industries. Additionally, without seeing the contracts, which I might add may require permission from the game developers to show, we only have the SteamWorks docs to go off. The video author noted that the contents there are not written in a way that constitutes an MFN. It's pretty much a "We don't know" right now.
The lawsuit further muddies the issue by naming several game publishers in the lawsuit including CD Projekt, Ubisoft, and several others. They claim these publishers have colluded with Valve while also being the victims of Valve which is an awkward position to sell.
There isn't much evidence actually presented by the case outside of economic theorizing and Tim Sweeney tweets. However the one part of the case, concerning Valve's market share influence, does have some evidence and statements by a Valve employee that support their claim that Valve is misusing its market dominance. Again, the problem being that there are many factors the claimants will need to clarify and solidly support in order for them to win unless they get a very sympathetic judge and jury.
TL;DR - watch the video because it is informative.
Last edited by randyl on 2 February 2021 at 5:24 pm UTC
Imagine for ExamPle If a Competitor make a shady contract with the biggest dev companies, and the next hyped game would cost $40,00 in others stores and $65,00 on steam, where do you think most of the sales would happen?
If I'm not mistake, Valve also have a clause forbidding dlc to not be selling through steam if they're available in other stores , which was one of the reasons that made EA left Steam back then
Quoting: BielFPsPersonally I think Valve does this to prevent companies to sabotage steam by selling their games at higher price on purpose.
You don't even know if Valve is actually doing this.
Quoting: BielFPsIf I'm not mistake, Valve also have a clause forbidding dlc to not be selling through steam if they're available in other stores , which was one of the reasons that made EA left Steam back then
EA sold Mass Effect through Steam, but they wanted to sell their DLC for those games with their own stuff, thus bypassing Steam. That's what Valve is not allowing.
Quoting: BielFPsImagine for ExamPle If a Competitor make a shady contract with the biggest dev companies, and the next hyped game would cost $40,00 in others stores and $65,00 on steam, where do you think most of the sales would happen?
Make it 60$ on other stores and 75$ on Steam and then we have something close to what would actually happen. Once people decided that the game is worth 60$ why would publishers decrease that price? Philantrophy? If anything they will increase it where they want to discourage the sells. In this case people would learn fo the game on Steam, get angry at the price, goodle and then learn that the desired price(sticky price) is available elsewhere.
Quoting: TheSHEEEPI don't see any reason to expect that developers would suddenly raise their prices on one platform because they can lower their prices on another.
<...>
Most likely scenario is no price changes for the most part with a few devs or publishers lowering prices on platforms with a lower cut.
... Don't you see it's the exact same thing :)
- "Hi, I am developer X. My price on my game is $40 plus platform cut."
That means they set a higher price on Steam than those platforms with a lower cut. Whether you call this to raise the price on A or lower the price on B it's the exact same thing. And that is what Steam wants to avoid. They want their users to purchase the games at the same price on their platform as the other platforms, and avoid prices on Steam being higher.
And that may very likely - or at least quite possibly - *benefit* the Steam users.
Last edited by Beamboom on 3 February 2021 at 10:18 am UTC
Mohandevir Feb 3, 2021
Did I get something wrong?
Last edited by Mohandevir on 3 February 2021 at 1:51 pm UTC
Quoting: MalIf anything they will increase it where they want to discourage the sells.
That was my point with my post (I don't know if it was clear)
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