Here we go again, yet another lawsuit has been filed against Steam developer Valve Software over an alleged abuse of their market position with their 30% cut. This time around it's a noted developer, Wolfire Games (Overgrowth, Receiver), along with two individuals William Herbert and Daniel Escobar "on behalf of all others similarly situated".
According to the documents, the argument is similar to one we've heard before. They're claiming that of the huge market that PC gaming is, "75% flow through the online storefront of a single company, Valve" and that "Valve uses that dominance to take an extraordinarily high cut from nearly every sale that passes through its store—30%" which results in "higher prices and less innovation" and that Valve can do this because of their market position so developers "have no choice but to sell most of their games through the Steam Store, where they are subject to Valve’s 30% toll".
One of the cited people is former Valve developer Richard Geldreich, who famously tweeted:
Steam was killing PC gaming. It was a 30% tax on an entire industry. It was unsustainable. You have no idea how profitable Steam was for Valve. It was a virtual printing press. It distorted the entire company. Epic is fixing this for all gamers.
The suit also mentions clauses Valve have that prevent developers selling at cheaper prices on other stores, "Valve blocks pro-competitive price competition through two main provisions—the Steam Key Price Parity Provision and the Price Veto Provision".
It goes even further to mention the likes of Microsoft, EA and more companies that tried and "failed to develop a robust commercial strategy away from the Steam Gaming Platform" arguing that it shows how vital Steam is and so the behaviour is anticompetitive. On top of that it even pulls in the Steam Workshop and the Steam Market, to claim this keeps developers even more tied to Valve and Steam and that Valve takes a big cut.
What are they hoping to achieve with this lawsuit? On top of damages and the usual, they want "injunctive relief removing Valve’s anticompetitive provisions" to "bring competition to the market and benefit the public as a whole".
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: kuhpunktWhat happened after? You mean the Covid-19 pandemic? Lots of things happened after, are any of them relevant?Quoting: scaineQuoting: kuhpunktQuoting: scaineQuoting: omer666Quoting: Liam DaweRosen and Graham have been CEO and COO of Humble Bundle up until 2019, and are still in the company today as "advisors" after stepping down. SourceQuoting: toorI feel now that my money should rather go to Valve than to them for sure.They haven't been a part of Humble Bundle for years.
I think the confusion is that Wolfire sold Humble Bundle to IGN in 2017, even though the CEO's of Wolfire stayed on the Humble board as advisors, while also being CEO of Wolfire. A bizarre arrangement.
Quoting: scaineThese aren't popular games, but they're solid games that used to get exposure. Now they don't. So the 30% cut by Valve, for these devs, is particularly insulting, because Valve is adding precisely no value. Indeed, many of these indies saw (for the first time, ever, over years) greater sales via Itch, than on Steam.The algorithm is a real problem indeed, but it doesn't mean the cut is unfair. People these days want to get everything for free and they realise later on why it was so cheap. Steam does take 30% but they inject it back in functionality, infrastructure and (sometimes open source) development.
Epic spend most of their money into buying exclusives, which are AAA games. In the end both consumers and indie developers get screwed but no one seems to care.
I'm tired of arguing this on behalf of the various indies I follow on Twitter, but I'll say it one more time - these Indies used to (past tense) get great value from Valve, by way of large customer base and a tiny bit of exposure to engage that customer base. As of the 2018 change, that is no longer the case.
There's simply no point in justifying a 30% cut by promoting services that will never be used... because no-one knows these games exist, since the algorithm doesn't give any exposure. It used to be a tiny sliver. Now it's not even that.
Personally, I suspect that Valve realised that a non-curated store was a terrible mistake - it led to uninteresting, fringe and plain "bad" titles being surfaced on its front page. Therefore this is simply a way to push those titles to the bottom of pile without actually taking the bad press that shutting them out would generate.
Just a shame it pole-axed the indies at the same time.
Andyou still speak in past terms, still referencing the 2018 stuff.
And now you talk abot the non-curated store that led to "uninteresting, fringe and plain "bad" titles being surfaced on its front page" - what? How many of those unsatisfied devs are actually the ones that people complain about?
What's your point. What are you asking me? I'll do my best to answer on behalf of the devs I'm now apparently defending.
You continue bringing up the 2018 incident and not what happened after. That seems disingenous.
Some "things that happened after" may even have been changes to the Steam store, but all in a sort of edge-tinkering sort of way as far as I can tell. I haven't seen any plausible argument or evidence that they would have nearly as big an impact as many people's documented experience of the algorithm change's impact.
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They are very welcomed to go back to the time before steam and get 80%-90% taken away by publishers and retailers...
The fact alone that they state the (free!) key provisions as a tool to suppress cheaper stores is laughable.
I really hope this will be rejected by court...
The fact alone that they state the (free!) key provisions as a tool to suppress cheaper stores is laughable.
I really hope this will be rejected by court...
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Quoting: scaineI'm making this argument (on behalf of the Indies I follow) on multiple threads, so I might have lost track of who I was quoting. Sorry. But in any case, my point is that a 30% cut is only justified if Valve add value. They used to, but with the algo changes, they now see no value at all. Honestly, I'm losing track of the various attacks on this position, so genuinely, apologies if I've misread what you're saying.No harm taken. We can all see why this issue is sensible for Linux gamers, torn between their inclination towards indie devs and the massive impact Steam has had on Linux gaming. And I don't have a clear answer either, it's just that we must keep in mind that there is more than meets the eye.
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuoting: kuhpunktYou continue bringing up the 2018 incident and not what happened after. That seems disingenous.What happened after? You mean the Covid-19 pandemic? Lots of things happened after, are any of them relevant?
Some "things that happened after" may even have been changes to the Steam store, but all in a sort of edge-tinkering sort of way as far as I can tell. I haven't seen any plausible argument or evidence that they would have nearly as big an impact as many people's documented experience of the algorithm change's impact.
He brings up the 2018 incident again and again, where some devs complained about the algorithm. I can't make a judgment how justified this was.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-12-05-valve-offers-explanation-for-october-drop-in-steam-traffic
In 2019 they made big changes again...
QuoteValve also points out that it got feedback that the old algorithms felt too biased towards the store's most popular games, and really didn't feel very personalized as a result.
https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/steam-store-discover-update-features/
He doesn't bring that up and behaves like the 2018 thing is still the status quo. Why?
They made further changes down the line
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110/view/1714119088658959583
And they just released the latest store change a few weeks ago.
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TheRiddick May 1, 2021
Yeah %30 is pretty high for a DIGITAL GOODs based store. Who knows if Valve will change this policy. It does hurt indie devs the most who can't achieve high sales numbers to get discounted 'valve tax rate'. And those restrictions suck...
The real issue is Valve/Steams market share putting them in a position of great power. If only more people used GOG.
I would support Epic a little more if they released a Linux EGS client and had a Linux supported platform, but they don't. Also being tied to Tencent is no doubt going to become a problem down the line.
GOG support Linux packaging system, and categories. Its only their Galaxy Client that's not supported yet, but open-source has helped that along a little bit.
Last edited by TheRiddick on 1 May 2021 at 8:55 am UTC
The real issue is Valve/Steams market share putting them in a position of great power. If only more people used GOG.
I would support Epic a little more if they released a Linux EGS client and had a Linux supported platform, but they don't. Also being tied to Tencent is no doubt going to become a problem down the line.
Quoting: RoosterGOG dont heve linux build of their own Galaxy!
GOG support Linux packaging system, and categories. Its only their Galaxy Client that's not supported yet, but open-source has helped that along a little bit.
Last edited by TheRiddick on 1 May 2021 at 8:55 am UTC
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Quoting: TheRiddickYeah %30 is pretty high for a DIGITAL GOODs based store. Who knows if Valve will change this policy. It does hurt indie devs the most who can't achieve high sales numbers to get discounted 'valve tax rate'.
Why is it always "this is against Indies"? Valheim is a small indie title and sold bonkers numbers. Avengers is a AAA blockbuster with a HUGE name behind it (the biggest running movie franchise!) and it bombed hard.
Valve wants to sell games. Why should they make a difference between AAA and Indie? Money is money.
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Quoting: scaineQuoting: TuxeeInterestingly are all those successful indie titles not only successful but also f*cking good. Hundreds of them: Dead Cells, Everspace, Limbo, Factorio, Mindustry, Opus Magnum, Stardew Valley, Terraria, Among Us...
One could say: That's the reason. And not because they got a popular spot on the carousel.
Ah! That's the reason ! That's why these devs, who got thousand plus sales before the algorithm change, suddenly experience less than a hundred sales afterwards? Good to know. Quality of games. Quality... that... suddenly, within weeks... deteriorated exponentially...?
Okay.
Yes, I am still convinced that that is the reason (plus something like "serving a popular genre" and it doesn't imply that every "good" game will be successful). Can you back up your claims (or rather the indie developers you follow on Twitter) with some hard data? Or at least name some of those titles? How can this ominous "algorithm change" explain that certain indie developers are still going strong (Mimimi Games or Motion Twin)?
This feels more like these statements that the Linux market share is "skewed" because the the survey "doesn't show up", "shows up on Windows more often", "shows up only after re-installs (which happen on Windows often, on Linux never)", etc.
Second edit:
To clarify I am aware of the buzz the algorithm change caused in 2018(?) which was allegedly fixed soon after that.
Last edited by Tuxee on 1 May 2021 at 9:30 am UTC
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Quoting: TheRiddickQuoting: RoosterGOG dont heve linux build of their own Galaxy!
Arten wrote that, not me.
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Quoting: TheRiddickQuoting: RoosterGOG dont heve linux build of their own Galaxy!
GOG support Linux packaging system, and categories. Its only their Galaxy Client that's not supported yet, but open-source has helped that along a little bit.
Client is part of bare minimum. If you developing game with use of GOG Galaxy API for somethink, you are discouraged from release linux build because you can release only crippled version of game.
To be honest, i buy on gog some realy old games which i played as young. But for something newer i want atleast client. But preferably also proton integration. Valve has done most of the work for them and may as well start contributing to it themselves.
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Quoting: denyasisQuoting: ArtenThere is one more think. 30% is a misleading. Valve has their cut only if they sell it. But if developer generate key and sell it elsewhere (humble bundle,...) key is free, game has full support of steam store but valve has 0 money from it. So in 30% is also calculated usage of infrastructure for "black passenger" whom did not payed it. Devs did note use this? How it is Valve fault? Devs have this option!
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/why-valve-actually-gets-less-than-30-percent-of-steam-game-sales/
I think that's really interesting. Thank you for sharing. I did not know that. Great engagement tool. I assume the idea is to re-capture the consumer once they get back to Steam for the next and subsequent purchases?
I assume it's a great lock-in tool on the sales side too since a key seller doesn't need thier own infastructure, there's no point in investing in a full store/client/distribution system. Hence no full on competition to Steam since they need Steam for thier store?
Edit. Sorry for the double post. Im honestly not sure what I did.
Probably. Or they just want expand comunity. Or Gaben see it as moral thing to do, Valve is not public traded company, so they can do what they want, even if that is clear loss for them, because the did not have shareholders from whole world who want only money (I don't think it is this case, but it is possibility)
Last edited by Arten on 1 May 2021 at 10:05 am UTC
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