Valve abusing the market power of Steam on game pricing according to a lawsuit

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: randyl

Quoting: Mohandevir

Quoting: randylThe contract between Valve and the publishers/developers may have clauses or stipulations which give an "MFN" status and that has to be determined during the hearing.

Aaaah! MFN is a term used to qualify a situation... They want to convince the court that some part of Valve's contract acts like a MFN. Is that so?

Edit: For the record... Don't know why I haven't tought about that in the first place:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_favoured_nation

This seems to be so and more so that if their contract has an MFN clause that it harms both consumers and developers. If you have the time to listen to the YouTube video that was posted earlier the lawyer explains what this is and how it could apply to Valve. He goes over the highlights of the law suit and explains what it means legally and what it might mean for Valve or the plaintiff.

I think it's probably worth a watch, and I actually started . . . but it's a frigging hour, man!

It is very long. It went by pretty quick as he kept on point. I put it on while I ran queries and did some extraction work.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPYou come off like a very aggressive fanboy here.

If that is true you come off like a very aggressive Steam hater, not the first time you show you think Steam is something despicable.

But once facts are presented people just stop replying...

And the first fact you or anyone else in this forum can not deny is that "lower cuts generate lower prices, which is good for customers" is a lie.

Exclusive EPIC games are still costing 60$, still cost the same as if it was on Steam.

The second fact is that EPIC is not investing the same it is own Store infrastructure which explains why they don't need a higher cut. Now, this does not affect you or many people around here who like in UK, EU or the USA which are being well-served not only by EPIC but other stores as PSN and XBOX LIVE with servers near to you and local prices but the damn rest of the world, countries that are not blessed of being inside the EURO protection or near the USA. You get your damn prices in Ponds or Euros, I get those prices in DOLLARS, while Steam use my local coin.

Now the lawsuit is not going anywhere, because part of the concept comes from a mutual agreement, and happens on every single aspect of a free market, as a DEV I am not forced to sell my game on STEAM, neither Steam is forced to accept my game, it is a mutual agreement and both parts should agree. EPIC has been denying to add games from devs that did not accept the Epic exclusivity agreement.

Just forget for a moment is Steam, that store some people hate that much, there are many supermarkets competing with each other and suddenly this product manufacturer does not like the agreement they have with one of these, you think the manufacturer with waste thousands of dollars on lawsuits? No, they just simply take the product off.

Big companies have been mentioned in the lawsuit but none of them as joining the legal action, because it is so obviously someone is pulling the strings, this is part of the lawsuit "acts as an artificial barrier to entry by potential rival platforms and as higher prices lead to less sales of PC Games"
Rival platforms, you mean EPIC, STADIA? If this is true this practice has been for years, why now?

BTW Games on Stadia also cost 60$, lol.

Quoting: randylhas an MFN clause that it harms both consumers and developers.

This is getting old somehow, not only in video games but every other product in the market, from matches to luxury cars I always heard taxes and other rates imposed by countries harms manufacturers and consumers.

In my country happened that it was said that customs duties on foreign products were harming manufacturers and consumers at the same time. These duties were supported by local manufactures that can not compete with cheap labor. Once these duties were abolished, guess what happened? Prices stay the same, we lost jobs and we are paying the same.
Now, these importers are asking for tax relief over their products, this relief is not covering local manufacturers. Don't you think that these local manufacturers have the same rights as the importers?
That is pretty much what Valve does, do not put the price lower in other places because that would be unfair, it is an obvious corporative decision every one of us would make if we were the CEO of Valve.

In the end is the developer who decides if to put the game on Steam, decides the product, and I think this lawsuit is pretty much BULLSHIT, you know why? because Samurai Shodown Collection was free on EPIC on release while on Valve was on 30$ and even then people were flooding the Steam Game hub telling buyers on Steam that they were suckers for buying the game with links to the Epic store where you can get the game for free and none of these threads were censored or deleted.

So please, please, cut the crap with the "consumer being harmed" thing, this is devs wanting a bigger cut, this is a bunch of devs getting money from only God knows to lawsuit Steam, while Epic is handpicking games for stores as they accept their exclusivity agreement.

In the end, as a dev you can choose whenever you want to put a game, this is not consoles, Steam is not a monopoly and has plenty of competition.

Quoting: orochi_kyo

Quoting: TheSHEEEPYou come off like a very aggressive fanboy here.

If that is true you come off like a very aggressive Steam hater, not the first time you show you think Steam is something despicable.

But once facts are presented people just stop replying...

And the first fact you or anyone else in this forum can not deny is that "lower cuts generate lower prices, which is good for customers" is a lie.

Exclusive EPIC games are still costing 60$, still cost the same as if it was on Steam.

The second fact is that EPIC is not investing the same it is own Store infrastructure which explains why they don't need a higher cut. Now, this does not affect you or many people around here who like in UK, EU or the USA which are being well-served not only by EPIC but other stores as PSN and XBOX LIVE with servers near to you and local prices but the damn rest of the world, countries that are not blessed of being inside the EURO protection or near the USA. You get your damn prices in Ponds or Euros, I get those prices in DOLLARS, while Steam use my local coin.

Now the lawsuit is not going anywhere, because part of the concept comes from a mutual agreement, and happens on every single aspect of a free market, as a DEV I am not forced to sell my game on STEAM, neither Steam is forced to accept my game, it is a mutual agreement and both parts should agree. EPIC has been denying to add games from devs that did not accept the Epic exclusivity agreement.

Just forget for a moment is Steam, that store some people hate that much, there are many supermarkets competing with each other and suddenly this product manufacturer does not like the agreement they have with one of these, you think the manufacturer with waste thousands of dollars on lawsuits? No, they just simply take the product off.

Big companies have been mentioned in the lawsuit but none of them as joining the legal action, because it is so obviously someone is pulling the strings, this is part of the lawsuit "acts as an artificial barrier to entry by potential rival platforms and as higher prices lead to less sales of PC Games"
Rival platforms, you mean EPIC, STADIA? If this is true this practice has been for years, why now?

BTW Games on Stadia also cost 60$, lol.

WTF? Games on Stadia are still the same price even though you literally never 'own' it?

You know what I find amusing? I can understand why people can be fans of a platform, piece of software, etc. Fine, makes sense, some people get used to a thing, and they like it for whatever reason. I can even understand if there is some friendly rivalry between platforms, software, etc. Hell, I know I have gotten into many Atari / Amiga / DOS fights in the past.

What I don't understand is the anger some people feel about something that isn't competing with their own use, and have to just constantly badger people that happened to buy a product (for whatever reasons that may have been). I have a large Steam library, but I also apparently have 400+ games on GOG. I refuse to buy anything from Epic because of their exclusivity deals are preventing me from playing some games on Linux. I have a perfectly valid reason to hate on EPIC. And the fact that they say they take a smaller cut than the competition, yet still charge the same amount just confirms what I always say, NO DEALS between publisher and developer will ever actually benefit the customers. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just being naive.

Dealing with a couple of bitter asshats about the AtariVCS lately, where they don't own the machine, don't plan on owning the machine, and were hardcore saying it was a scam, and everyone who backed it was a fool, and it'll never see the light of day! Like the fact that a crowdfunding campaign existed at all, and that the Atari name belongs to a company now (no matter how inept their management may be, it's not like the old holders of the Atari name were geniuses) just gets sand in their vagina. They legit keep arguing that even if the physical system is made, people who bought it are enjoying it, people are learning things by hacking it in a similar way to how people are learning and doing all sorts of things with the Raspberry Pi (someone even connected a GTX 1060 via the mini-PCIe slot to it), that it'll never succeed, and people will never pay XX for it, because you can get some mini-PC with he same specs, and blah blah blah...

Anyhow, back on topic. Let's look at 'abuse of power'
Valve: they have Steam, which is the first online game store that was really successful, and they had years of zero competition, but finally others started to pop up. Due to this they also started to make great improvements to Steam. It was kind of crap there for a long time. Accused of price fixing somehow...
Microsoft: Literally strong armed OEMs into not selling BeOS, have lobbied for multiple laws to be passed, including one that requires every computer sold by a company has to have an operating system included. (Some would include FreeDOS to get around it).
Apple: Requiring every app to use their payment method, giving them a slice of every transaction. Not allowing any alternative stores, nor sideloading.

So I'm curious; how the hell is valve abusing any power? There are other stores, Literally people are not 100% to use it, unlike what happened with Windows, or with the Apple App store.

Quoting: orochi_kyoIf that is true you come off like a very aggressive Steam hater, not the first time you show you think Steam is something despicable.

That's because I call shitty things out when I see them, independent of the good stuff the same entity (Valve in this case) does.

I am neutral.
Of course, to the mind of a rabid fanboy, calling things out like a way too big cut or a refusal to have regional pricing within the same currency zone immediately makes you a hater.

In this case, it turned out the whole thing of the article was a lot of smoke about nothing and it will most certainly go nowhere. I initially assumed there was actually some point to the lawsuit - as in, Valve actually does what the lawsuit claims it does. And of course argued based on that assumption.
But apparently that doesn't seem to be the case. Making it all just very weird.

Quoting: orochi_kyoAnd the first fact you or anyone else in this forum can not deny is that "lower cuts generate lower prices, which is good for customers" is a lie.

I don't know who said that, but I sure didn't. A few devs may choose to lower the price due to a lower cut, but most won't.
A lower cut is good for developers and neutral for customers.

So in total, a positive thing.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 7 February 2021 at 10:02 am UTC

Quoting: TheSHEEEPA lower cut is good for developers and neutral for customers.

So in total, a positive thing.

I guess this could hypothetically be a bad thing for customers if it means the store owner (Valve in this case) decides to cut spending on platform development and upkeep due to smaller profit margins. Personally I'm not a big fan of Steam's business model or most of its features, but I do like their contributions to Linux as a gaming platform.

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: TheSHEEEPA lower cut is good for developers and neutral for customers.

So in total, a positive thing.

I guess this could hypothetically be a bad thing for customers if it means the store owner (Valve in this case) decides to cut spending on platform development and upkeep due to smaller profit margins.

Eh, their profit margins are so large, they can - and do - already offer lower cuts to large publishers / developers.
And those deals are outside of the automatic lowering of the cut to 20% after - IIRC - selling 50 million $ worth of game.

Funny enough, large publishers wouldn't even need all those cuts to begin with due to the sheer number of their sales (not that they don't welcome them, mind you).
Adding to all of that, large game releases are what earns Steam the most money - yet they are willing to take a lower cut there - but nowhere else. Hmmmm.

Meanwhile, indie devs get no such treatment - despite Valve being more than capable of granting them a lower cut as well.
And this is mostly about indie/small devs for me, as that is where the best games and most of the passion are at. For them, the 30% cut is more than just a small problem. E.g. the difference between having to sell 1000 games a month to make a living or having to sell 1150 is significant.
For big publishers, the difference is merely one of making a bit more or a bit less profit (but it is profit, either way).

tl;dr: Steam does already grant lower cuts, so it's not like they couldn't afford it - but not to those who'd need it.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 7 February 2021 at 11:21 am UTC

Quoting: TheSHEEEPEh, their profit margins are so large, they can - and do - already offer lower cuts to large publishers / developers.

Valve isn't a public company so there is no way to know the profit. You're speculating here.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPAnd those deals are outside of the automatic lowering of the cut to 20% after - IIRC - selling 50 million $ worth of game.

Funny enough, large publishers wouldn't even need all those cuts to begin with due to the sheer number of their sales (not that they don't welcome them, mind you).
Adding to all of that, large game releases are what earns Steam the most money - yet they are willing to take a lower cut there - but nowhere else. Hmmmm.

Meanwhile, indie devs get no such treatment - despite Valve being more than capable of granting them a lower cut as well.
And this is mostly about indie/small devs for me, as that is where the best games and most of the passion are at. For them, the 30% cut is more than just a small problem. E.g. the difference between having to sell 1000 games a month to make a living or having to sell 1150 is significant.
For big publishers, the difference is merely one of making a bit more or a bit less profit (but it is profit, either way).

tl;dr: Steam does already grant lower cuts, so it's not like they couldn't afford it - but not to those who'd need it.

Other stores takes the exact same cut but it seems that Steam is always the one that get all the FUD.

Quoting: x_wingValve isn't a public company so there is no way to know the profit. You're speculating here.

Hardly.
I can't know the exact numbers, obviously, but you can do a rather well educated guess based on the public numbers Valve does release, the prices, what you know about hosting / infrastructure costs, the relatively low number of employees, etc.
Hint: You won't end up at 30% as the required number for a tidy profit.

Quoting: x_wingOther stores takes the exact same cut but it seems that Steam is always the one that get all the FUD.

Valve is just a topic here more often due to most other stores barely being relevant to this site. Obviously the same cut isn't really justified anywhere.
But in contrast to e.g. the PlayStation Store, developers on PC have a choice of where to publish if they want a lower cut. At least in theory. That choice simply doesn't exist on consoles, or on IOS/Android.

Critizing Valve, in contrast e.g. to criticizing Sony, might actually lead to a result that is beneficial to developers. Especially since EGS showed up.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPI can't know the exact numbers, obviously, but you can do a rather well educated guess based on the public numbers Valve does release, the prices, what you know about hosting / infrastructure costs, the relatively low number of employees, etc.
Hint: You won't end up at 30% as the required number for a tidy profit.

I can also do a rather well educated guess of Steam infrastructure and I can tell you that it isn't cheap. But mostly, I can see that Valve invest their profit in the gaming market so is kinda difficult to me to say that I don't think that they deserve that cut.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPCritizing Valve, in contrast e.g. to criticizing Sony, might actually lead to a result that is beneficial to developers. Especially since EGS showed up.

But the discussion is always focused on what EGS "criticize". Everyone talks about the 30% cut but never talks about the cut that devs get when items of his game are sold in the market, the tools that Steam provides in order to simplify the release/development process for their games or the access that devs have to activation keys in order do a retail sale wherever they want. Let's be honest, this is not about developers this is just about the FUD that Epic created against Valve.


Last edited by x_wing on 7 February 2021 at 3:51 pm UTC