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: scaineI follow a lot of indies on Twitter who genuinely despise Steam. Not just for taking a 30% cut, but for taking that cut and giving almost nothing back. They argue that the lure of the biggest audience for gaming is useless when Steam's algorithms are geared to only highlight AAA or "popular" content.
The same argument and frustration is often voiced around Play and Apple's store - they take their 30% cut but unless you magically put out the next minecraft, factorio or limbo, you're gonna languish with pitiful sales until you go out of business.
If you don't sell anything, you won't pay. And if you have to rely on the additional few percent per sale you can get on alternative stores you have been doomed from the get go.
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Quoting: GuestAre you trying to say that one company to rule them all is....good? If you honestly can't think of why that situation is harmful, then I suggest you do a bit of digging around on what happens when there isn't competition. From what I hear, Internet connectivity options in the USA is a good example to start with.
He said the situation at the moment is bad. No company at the moment is the one that rules everything.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: TuxeeIf you don't sell anything, you won't pay. And if you have to rely on the additional few percent per sale you can get on alternative stores you have been doomed from the get go.Obviously, but if you think in the low-margin world of indie development a difference of 10-15% in income cannot make the difference between "can live from it" and "nope!", then you are sorely mistaken.
3 Likes, Who?
Quoting: PublicNuisanceThe reality is that gamers are as much to blame as Valve. Take Wolfire for instance, they sell their games on Steam but also Itch.io and Humble Store. If a gamer wanted to give them maximum profit Itch.io would probably be the best bet as Itch.io allows developers to set what revenue goes to Itch and what they keep. The option is there but the issue is that most gamers prefer to buy from Steam to keep their games in one library. In other words they should be as mad at gamers as they are at Valve as gamers choose where to buy their games. Of course getting mad at your customer and suing them doesn't play so well from a PR standpoint. Just to make clear, i'm not saying they should sue gamers or even be mad at them but it makes as much sense (or as little) as being mad at Valve. I for one try to buy from Itch.io and GOG as I prefer to support those businesses that give me a DRM free product and support open source (in Itch's case not GOG). I'm the minority though, most gamers don't care. They just want their games and don't care about ideology or business practices. As long as that is true then Valve will remain king and no lawsuit will change that.Totally disagree with your statement that I bolded.
Here the thing. Why most gamers especially in developing/emerging countries (which includes me) choose Steam because of one thing: Convenience
I can buy Steam wallet code anywhere! 7-Eleven, Tesco (now called Lotus as Thai company bought it), some mom-and-pop shops, telcos and even a bank! (Maybank Malaysia link). Some country such as India also have Cash on Delivery option.
So, Why should we get blame for choosing a company that offers better service to us. The one who willingly takes extra mile to reach us the gamers, as their customers. Don't mad at us for exercising our consumerism.
Without extra mile that Valve took, piracy will be rampaging again. Just like the old times. As Gaben said:
Piracy is an issue of service, not price
Apologies. Just share our sentiment (and some facts) here. And I do bought some games on itch.io if possible too.
5 Likes, Who?
Quoting: scaineThe point is how they get popular. If the algorithm was fairer for new titles, then indies would have a better chance at leveraging Steam and becoming the next big thing. But since it doesn't, they never hit the front-page and the same tired (but popular) games are constantly regurgitated on the carousel and in the discovery queues.
My carousel:
Total War: Rome - Ark - Rimworld - Under Leaves - Last Epoch - Poly Bridge - Rain on Your Parade - Space Haven - 7 Days to Die - Universim - Project Hospital
Quite a mixture I'd say...
Discovery New Releases:
Battle in the City - ADD - Lair Hockey - Neon Nights (Boooobs!) - Creatura - ....
An endless stretch of indie titles. And in all honesty: neither do I pay attention the carousel (never) nor do I care about the queues. Must have been the first time that I clicked through the first couple of entries.
Interestingly 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.
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orochi_kyo Apr 30, 2021
I just realized something.
If you hate the 30% and you hate Steam because of that...
You hate Open Source.
You hate Linux Gaming.
You hate people being well paid for their hard work and for having 48 hours a week jobs.
When I see posts from Pierre Louis Griffais, when I see Steam doing pushes in Open Source API, libraries, and projects, when I see new features and fixes for Proton, when I read development was halted because an employee got sick or got pregnant, when I see new features on the Steam store, like Play Together, Steam Labs and Streaming, when I see Steam offering keys for crowdfunding campaigns...
There I know that 30% cut is not going straight to Gabe Newell's Belly.
Lowering the cut could mean Steam should cut staff including those ones who made possible Gaming in Linux being as easy as pressing a button, I mean any game!!
From Sonic ASRT to The Witcher 3 I have enjoyed playing these games on Steam every single second in my Ubuntu installation, I have the convenience and the freedom.
You are free to support the 11% cut of EPIC and their up to 100 hours a week jobs and their ZERO collaborations to the Open Source community.
Keep hating and feel free to flag this commentary. Happy hating.
If you hate the 30% and you hate Steam because of that...
You hate Open Source.
You hate Linux Gaming.
You hate people being well paid for their hard work and for having 48 hours a week jobs.
When I see posts from Pierre Louis Griffais, when I see Steam doing pushes in Open Source API, libraries, and projects, when I see new features and fixes for Proton, when I read development was halted because an employee got sick or got pregnant, when I see new features on the Steam store, like Play Together, Steam Labs and Streaming, when I see Steam offering keys for crowdfunding campaigns...
There I know that 30% cut is not going straight to Gabe Newell's Belly.
Lowering the cut could mean Steam should cut staff including those ones who made possible Gaming in Linux being as easy as pressing a button, I mean any game!!
From Sonic ASRT to The Witcher 3 I have enjoyed playing these games on Steam every single second in my Ubuntu installation, I have the convenience and the freedom.
You are free to support the 11% cut of EPIC and their up to 100 hours a week jobs and their ZERO collaborations to the Open Source community.
Keep hating and feel free to flag this commentary. Happy hating.
2 Likes, Who?
Quoting: GuestQuoting: kuhpunktQuoting: GuestAre you trying to say that one company to rule them all is....good? If you honestly can't think of why that situation is harmful, then I suggest you do a bit of digging around on what happens when there isn't competition. From what I hear, Internet connectivity options in the USA is a good example to start with.
He said the situation at the moment is bad. No company at the moment is the one that rules everything.
Sidestepping the issue there. Valve have far too much control over gaming. Any one company with the amount of control that they have, is bad. It doesn't matter if Valve themselves aren't trying to abuse the situation (and they most certainly are not altruistic with their intentions either of course), the situation is not good.
--edit:
I think this is relevant, but do look up the requirements for PAX Online 2020. It was a requirement for indie games to be on Steam. As in you could not even put a submission to the event if the game wasn't on Steam. That's....not good.
I'm not sidestepping in the slightest. I don't see that issue at the moment. Gaming makes billions. Everybody can develop and publish games now without any hurdle. It's never been better.
0 Likes
Quoting: TheSHEEEPThe very article you link to also has Epic stating that 12% is enough to cover their running cost. Yes, no profit from that alone. So increase it to 15%. Now you've got profit (3% is a very good profit margin as every trader on this planet will tell you) and still only take half of what Valve takes.
Hell, take 20%. Now your profit margin is in the "investors' wet dream" area and STILL 1/3rd less than Valve's...
Weird how that goes, huh?
Please, take a look on the numbers. They're leveraging their store with Fortnite, the profit they get from selling third party games is nowhere near to cover their store expenses.
Quoting: TheSHEEEPNot anymore, though. So the same cut you imply was not enough now suddenly is.
Seems to me they just didn't know how to run a business in their field and then wisened up a bit, cutting costs.
Besides, don't forget that Valve also gets their share of MTX from games, which is a large amount. GOG doesn't, afaik.
Also don't forget about DLCs, which often enough mean practically 0 additional cost for the storefront (DLCs tend to be tiny and they share the same infrastructure as the main game).
And finally, GOG is simply MUCH smaller than Steam.
Costs scale inversely to size - probably in all fields, but especially when it comes to IT infrastructure. Based on that alone, Steam could affort a smaller cut than GOG.
As far I know, GOG cut is still the same. It's fun to see that GOG store can ask for more as they are small but, at the same time, 12%, 15% or 20% should be the gold number to follow (with 20% being actually a possible cut for Steam as well) as it should cover all the expenses.
I think that making every complain so focused in this 30% cut number is what definitely makes all this discussion just a mere mirror of Epic BS. There is only one job that Epic has to do in order to be a better store than Steam, and it's just to make a better platform that Steam. The problem is that they don't want to, they just want to have a guerrilla war with Steam, not giving any benefit to us, the users.
3 Likes, Who?
Quoting: orochi_kyoI just realized something.By the same logic you hate open source if you don't support Epic because Epic throws money at FOSS projects like Blender and Godot Engine. So maybe the issue is a bit more complex than this, and your comment doesn't really make a good argument?
If you hate the 30% and you hate Steam because of that...
You hate Open Source.
You hate Linux Gaming.
You hate people being well paid for their hard work and for having 48 hours a week jobs.
When I see posts from Pierre Louis Griffais, when I see Steam doing pushes in Open Source API, libraries, and projects, when I see new features and fixes for Proton, when I read development was halted because an employee got sick or got pregnant, when I see new features on the Steam store, like Play Together, Steam Labs and Streaming, when I see Steam offering keys for crowdfunding campaigns...
There I know that 30% cut is not going straight to Gabe Newell's Belly.
Lowering the cut could mean Steam should cut staff including those ones who made possible Gaming in Linux being as easy as pressing a button, I mean any game!!
From Sonic ASRT to The Witcher 3 I have enjoyed playing these games on Steam every single second in my Ubuntu installation, I have the convenience and the freedom.
You are free to support the 11% cut of EPIC and their up to 100 hours a week jobs and their ZERO collaborations to the Open Source community.
Keep hating and feel free to flag this commentary. Happy hating.
4 Likes, Who?
Quoting: GuestQuoting: kuhpunktQuoting: GuestQuoting: kuhpunktQuoting: GuestAre you trying to say that one company to rule them all is....good? If you honestly can't think of why that situation is harmful, then I suggest you do a bit of digging around on what happens when there isn't competition. From what I hear, Internet connectivity options in the USA is a good example to start with.
He said the situation at the moment is bad. No company at the moment is the one that rules everything.
Sidestepping the issue there. Valve have far too much control over gaming. Any one company with the amount of control that they have, is bad. It doesn't matter if Valve themselves aren't trying to abuse the situation (and they most certainly are not altruistic with their intentions either of course), the situation is not good.
--edit:
I think this is relevant, but do look up the requirements for PAX Online 2020. It was a requirement for indie games to be on Steam. As in you could not even put a submission to the event if the game wasn't on Steam. That's....not good.
I'm not sidestepping in the slightest. I don't see that issue at the moment. Gaming makes billions. Everybody can develop and publish games now without any hurdle. It's never been better.
Never been better doesn't mean it's as good as it should be.
What should it be like then? And if it's as terrible as he said, what was it like 20 or 30 years ago?
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