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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wow everyone here is an expert at games development and marketing!1!Yes, because movie critics are all expert filmmakers.
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wow everyone here is an expert at games development and marketing!1!Yes, because movie critics are all expert filmmakers.
"30% is too much" is not a qualitative assessment but rates a very specific figure. Yet all in this discussion who have stated this failed to come up with the adequate cut Steam deserves.
Anyway, the "discussion" is really getting toxic.
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If it is not a qualitative assessment, how can you say 30% is too much? How can you discuss the price of something you don't qualitatively assess?wow everyone here is an expert at games development and marketing!1!Yes, because movie critics are all expert filmmakers.
"30% is too much" is not a qualitative assessment but rates a very specific figure. Yet all in this discussion who have stated this failed to come up with the adequate cut Steam deserves.
Anyway, the "discussion" is really getting toxic.
The discussion can get very toxic indeed, but I think there are smart people in here who want to discuss the issue at hand in a civilised manner.
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It's not like Valve is making corrupt deals with governements and hardware manufacturers trying its hardest to make their software the only one that runs on machines. (in public and private institutions) Oh hey that's windows!
I don't think this is anything new, they can't expect Steam to be the only vehicle for their games. Some *other* stores push exclusivity and lock-ins way harder. And those are supposed to be better? Come on...
I don't think this is anything new, they can't expect Steam to be the only vehicle for their games. Some *other* stores push exclusivity and lock-ins way harder. And those are supposed to be better? Come on...
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ripper81358 May 3, 2021
From a linuxusers perspective i must say that i am mostly using opensource software. The only exception in my case is gaming where i am in proprietary land. So i choose the store that supports my OS of choice best. And that is without a doubt steam. It might be a good idea to lower the 30% cut at least for indie developers to keep steam attractive for them. I am not a fan of having different gamelaunchers on my system. Even if Epic and others would support linux i would rather stick with steam to keep the gaming stuff all in one place. Having multiple tools to do the same thing is useless from an endusers perspective. In my opinion all "secondary" launchers (Origin,Ubisoft..) should be removed from games distributed over steam.
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Please remain respectful to people. There is no need for name calling. People who don't behave and follow our clear rules will be removed. We do moderate. Remember to hit the little flag on posts that don't follow the rules.
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I personally think a 30 percent cut is high in todays time especially with the budgets, pricing and amount of players/sales generated nowdays.
That said, it's not as if they do not provide a service. It would only be problematic in my eyes if they did actively prevent the developers to distribute on other stores.
If there is no competition with better pricing and a good user base, that's hardly Valves fault. And it's not as if their cut went up, it was always there.
And ... an app like Steam is not tremendously hard to make, especially for big players. That they do not succeed to compete has other reasons. And if the big players wanted they could unite and do a platform, distribute their titles for free there and allow others for a 10 percent cut to distribute on their platform.
Allow steam keys for games to be imported for free, make the pricing better than on steam, there you go, you do have a competitor.
Nobody is willing to do that, everyone who creates stores wants the cash cow business for themselves, sells at the same price as steam or only a little bit below that, and has 25-30 percent cuts on games not from them too, and therefore does not succeed. Since I will not switch either if another platform has no reasonable advantage for me as user, neither will developers.
That said, it's not as if they do not provide a service. It would only be problematic in my eyes if they did actively prevent the developers to distribute on other stores.
If there is no competition with better pricing and a good user base, that's hardly Valves fault. And it's not as if their cut went up, it was always there.
And ... an app like Steam is not tremendously hard to make, especially for big players. That they do not succeed to compete has other reasons. And if the big players wanted they could unite and do a platform, distribute their titles for free there and allow others for a 10 percent cut to distribute on their platform.
Allow steam keys for games to be imported for free, make the pricing better than on steam, there you go, you do have a competitor.
Nobody is willing to do that, everyone who creates stores wants the cash cow business for themselves, sells at the same price as steam or only a little bit below that, and has 25-30 percent cuts on games not from them too, and therefore does not succeed. Since I will not switch either if another platform has no reasonable advantage for me as user, neither will developers.
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PublicNuisance May 4, 2021
The 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.
I feel like you may have missed where I said
"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 don't see being mad at Valve as being productive, i'm simply saying that if one were to want to be mad at someone that being mad at gamers makes as much sense as they are the ones choosing where to shop.
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I feel like you may have missed where I saidStrongly agree.
"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 don't see being mad at Valve as being productive, i'm simply saying that if one were to want to be mad at someone that being mad at gamers makes as much sense as they are the ones choosing where to shop.Customer is always right! period. If they (devs or platform provider or both) are mad at us, screw them! Not my problem.
p/s: But! If they want to lobbying (a.k.a bribery, we should never romanticize corruption) our breucracy, try to monopolize our digital market, try to kill innocence brick-and-mortar shop with so-called loss leader (a.k.a nonsense revenue), using some "V.I.Ps" as "influencers" (which may includes politicians), gaslighting by making dissent of their action as enemy of the nation and many shit-ass stuff; is what I afraid of. The era of buy/sell at gunpoint* is over long time ago! I never ever want it back.
*: Both literally and factually speaking
Last edited by tonR on 4 May 2021 at 1:18 pm UTC
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Maybe they were violating Valve's license agreement? To be honest, I'm not sure if that's true either, but what I meant was that if it is, I'm against that.For what it's worth, the 30% (or any percentage) cut doesn't seem bad to me (even if they didn't "give back" anything to the community, but in our case, they do, and a lot). What does seem bad to me is the "clauses Valve have that prevent developers selling at cheaper prices on other stores" (because that improperly reduces competition among stores, and that likely is the point).
That sounds like a myth honestly. I'm sure I've seen games available elsewhere for less many times.
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I seem to remember from last time there was a piece here about a similar lawsuit, that the agreements in question (probably) were about regular price (or "sales" that went on for so long that they were de facto the regular price). So it didn't stop people from putting their stuff on sale for a week on some other store, but it did stop them from having the price at Itch or Epic be 20% lower on an ongoing basis.Maybe they were violating Valve's license agreement? To be honest, I'm not sure if that's true either, but what I meant was that if it is, I'm against that.For what it's worth, the 30% (or any percentage) cut doesn't seem bad to me (even if they didn't "give back" anything to the community, but in our case, they do, and a lot). What does seem bad to me is the "clauses Valve have that prevent developers selling at cheaper prices on other stores" (because that improperly reduces competition among stores, and that likely is the point).
That sounds like a myth honestly. I'm sure I've seen games available elsewhere for less many times.
This may not be true, though--that info seems to have been based on speculation and perhaps a bit of fact-based gossip, since the agreements themselves are not public and nothing has yet been hashed out in court. So we know the allegations and a bit of "people in the know say" but no solid facts.
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Maybe they were violating Valve's license agreement? To be honest, I'm not sure if that's true either, but what I meant was that if it is, I'm against that.For what it's worth, the 30% (or any percentage) cut doesn't seem bad to me (even if they didn't "give back" anything to the community, but in our case, they do, and a lot). What does seem bad to me is the "clauses Valve have that prevent developers selling at cheaper prices on other stores" (because that improperly reduces competition among stores, and that likely is the point).
That sounds like a myth honestly. I'm sure I've seen games available elsewhere for less many times.
After reading this article i think that limit mostly for stores reselling steam keys and in that case i fully support that limit. It's price which developers pay for nearly unlimited free key generation. Without limit is possible this: You release game on steam for 30USD, you generate 10 000 of steam keys and sell it on humble bundle for 10USD. Everyone download it from steam, but nobody buy it on steam.
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There 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/
It would be nice if Steam actually supported that same stand with other companies but the reality is they don't. Steam/Valve gets really pissed off if you lower your price on every other store to match a sale running on Steam. I have seen this first hand and seen Valve make threats about free steam keys if a developer keeps doing it then no more or limited keys for Steam. Giving away steam keys to developers had ZERO to do with being nice. It was further efforts to lock users in to their store and get people locked in to their store to where it was too big a hassle to have multiple stores and multiple launchers. It worked beautifully for Steam. You see people all the time saying they have too many games on Steam and not enough games on other stores to bother running multiple launchers so they will just wait for it to show up on Steam. Steam has created virtual lock in with gamers. Shit like that should be totally illegal because they did it on purpose to undermine every other store out there any possible competition. They weren't stupid and it was planned.
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That's why these devs, who got thousand plus sales before the algorithm change, suddenly...
That thing Scaine is talking about with the algorithm, that's terrible, and very real
While I agree with you, I think it's worth asking if the algo is really the main issue or is it control they have over a games potential success?
Valve basically can pick the winners and losers by what they decide to put on thier store front. Wether they use an algo or not to make those picks seems secondary. Would you agree that is more the core issue?
Valve sometimes uses an algo to put games on the store front. From what I can see they also handpick things as well (thier self promotion is pretty obvious to me). I'm curious how much active manipulation they do to the results beyond thier self promotion. I'm also curious how much extra a publisher or dev has to pay for that service. I'd expect it's the type of service that's only offered to certain clients.
I worked in the business and I can absolutely tell you that Steam sold ads on their home page because I have had developers tell me they did and ask if the gaming store I worked for did the same and we did not. Steam pulled underhanded shit all the time and absolutely picks the winners and losers on their store. Five Nights at Fredy's was not on Steam and Steam wanted nothing to do with them until they started to take off on other stores and then Steam allowed them on the system. That is just one example of many out there. I worked with devlopers and had deal with Steam and I know what they did. Steam/Valve are not angels. They screw developers they don't like all the time.
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For what it's worth, the 30% (or any percentage) cut doesn't seem bad to me (even if they didn't "give back" anything to the community, but in our case, they do, and a lot). What does seem bad to me is the "clauses Valve have that prevent developers selling at cheaper prices on other stores" (because that improperly reduces competition among stores, and that likely is the point).
That sounds like a myth honestly. I'm sure I've seen games available elsewhere for less many times.
That is absolutely not a myth. I have seen the contract that you must sign with Valve to be on Steam. It is ABSOLUTELY part of the agreement and Valve is selective about enforcing it. But it not a myth. I have also talked with many developers who can attest to that.
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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'.
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.
That is a bullshit argument and absolutely does not look at the sales that Avengers still made given it's massive marketing and budget. It made 100x what most indie games will ever hope to achieve. Avengers failed based on the expected goals and what they spent on development and promotion, but it still made a ton of cash regardless. It just didn't make what everyone expected.
Last edited by Protektor on 6 May 2021 at 2:25 am UTC
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I find it hilarious people are comparing digital copies of games to physical goods in the retail markets like its Apples to Apples comparison. Its just not, too many people clueless about software development and cost/time associated.
I find it hilarious that you think just because something is digital that is somehow special and different and shouldn't be treated exact the same as physical goods for consumer rights and protects and cost regulation. Hell we don't even enforce fitness of service and use like we do for everything else that is sold to the public. Imagine if you sold every car with a license and contract and made the buyer sign a contract that said...well this is suppose to be a car but it might not work, it might blow up, in fact we can't even really guarantee that it's a car that runs, but you must agree to this and hold us totally immune and no liability if it blows up or breaks don't work or anything else including killing you. No one would put up with it, so why do should we put up with it for digital goods?
Last edited by Protektor on 6 May 2021 at 2:26 am UTC
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The 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.
I feel like you may have missed where I said
"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 don't see being mad at Valve as being productive, i'm simply saying that if one were to want to be mad at someone that being mad at gamers makes as much sense as they are the ones choosing where to shop.
If you are manipulating the market to force lock-in to your store like Valve has done for years then yes they need to be taken down and forced to play by different rules than everyone else because they intentionally manipulated the market. They didn't make a better product to take the market they manipulated to take over. Giving a way keys was exactly a way to lock up the market. A new store just getting started can't give away keys because they don't have the size and scale to absorb the loses like Valve has done. Valve knew this and this is exactly why they did it. It was a cheap way to lock users in to their store and it worked once they were large enough to absorb the losses. Valve did NOT do this in the beginning. It wasn't until they got very large that they started doing this as a way to shut out other stores, lock users in to their store, and cheap way to capture new customers. If you can capture a new customer for $5-10 worth of bandwidth and storage then that is way the hell cheaper than advertising to capture new customers. Ask yourself why Valve has never advertised their store and how they built up their user based to this large. It wasn't because they were first. It was the choices they made to capture new users cheaply.
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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'.
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.
That is a bullshit argument and absolutely does not look at the sales that Avengers still made given it's massive marketing and budget. It made 100x what most indie games will ever hope to achieve. Avengers failed based on the expected goals and what they spent on development and promotion, but it still made a ton of cash regardless. It just didn't make what everyone expected.
https://www.pcgamer.com/square-enix-reports-losses-following-release-of-underperforming-marvels-avengers/
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I find it hilarious that you think just because something is digital that is somehow special and differentBut it is. The cost of a copy approaching zero makes a fundamental difference. When it comes to physical goods, scarcity is real and costs are based (more or less) on cost of production. When it comes to digital goods, costs are arbitrary and scarcity is entirely a social construct which we have created because we don't understand how to do any other models and anyway we fear trying other models would undermine the status quo.
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