Recently we wrote about how Wolfire Games (Lugaru, Overgrowth, Receiver) engaged in a legal battle with Steam owner Valve in regards to alleged anti-competitive behaviour.
Wolfire's David Rosen has now written up a blog post to explain their feelings on why. It's worth noting that Rosen was one of the original founders of the Humble Indie Bundle, later spun off into its own Humble Bundle company and then sold to IGN. Rosen then, you would think, has a reasonably good grasp on how all this works on the business side. It's somewhat amusing that the blog post starts with "Dear gamers", which probably isn't going to do them any favours in such a legal battle.
Rosen mentions how they felt they had "no choice" as they believe "gamers and game developers are being harmed by Valve's conduct" and they're not doing it for personal gain. Rosen said after wanting to have Overgrowth listed at a lower price on a newer store, they "personally experienced the conduct described in the complaint". Speaking to Valve, Rosen said "they replied that they would remove Overgrowth from Steam if I allowed it to be sold at a lower price anywhere, even from my own website without Steam keys and without Steam’s DRM" and so that "would make it impossible for me, or any game developer, to determine whether or not Steam is earning their commission".
So the problem here isn't specifically the 30% cut Valve take but rather Valve forcing price parity, or developers face being removed from Steam.
Rosen believes that Valve are "taking away gamers' freedom to choose how much extra they are willing to pay to use their platform" and that it's believed "this is part of why all competing stores have failed".
We did reach out to Valve yesterday for a statement to no reply.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: orochi_kyoSo a bunch of options.Hahaha! Sure they will.
If you want to keep selling your tomatoes in the big one but lower the price, lower it everywhere, the small and your farm included.
If you want to lower the price in the small supermarket just take it out from the big. If your tomatoes are good enough people will driving to the small supermarket or even your farm
Mohandevir May 11, 2021
Quoting: NezchanQuoting: F.UltraQuoting: GuestQuoting: kuhpunktQuoting: GuestQuoting: kuhpunktQuoting: GuestQuoting: kuhpunktQuoting: GuestQuoting: kuhpunktQuoting: GuestAgree or not with Valve's price parity clause (disclaimer: I don't agree with that) but at least look at it on its own merits.
If there even is one...
Have you read the lawsuit?
And this topic is about a blog post of someone who is in a position to know if there is this clause or not. He's seen the clauses.
Unless you're calling him a liar. In which case I'd say that David Rosen has far more credibility than you do.
And I have quoted Chet Faliszek (ex-Valve employee), who said that such a clause doesn't exist.
Great. Show me the quote.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/05/david-rosen-of-wolfire-games-explains-why-theyre-taking-on-valve-in-a-lawsuit/comment_id=202951
Yeah....that doesn't say what you think it says. Someone is asking explicitly about price parity and there is, at the time of writing, no response to that.
If that's not the main point, what is?
Welcome to the world of manipulative language.
Most of the lawsuit is, in my opinion, full of it. But the price parity for places where there are no steam keys involved, is possibly quite serious, so it pays to be extra explicit about it.
Agreed that it would be quite serious, but I have one major problem here and that is that this whole affair sounds and looks like a Rudy Giuliani lawsuit where they say one thing out of court and one thing in court. What I mean by that is that on this blog Wolfire claim that they have personal experience with Valve threatening to withdraw their games if they sold it cheaper elsewhere even if no Steam keys where involved but in the actual paper that they filed with the court they only mention that a 3d party got that exact threat from Valve when Steam keys where involved.
So why not include their own experience of which they would have good evidence of unless this is just smoke and mirrors.
I think that's exactly the idea here. It's not a lawsuit anyone intends to win. The intent is to send a message, and lodge in the public's mind that Steam is doing this shady thing that they may or may not be actually doing. Rudy Giuliani is an apt comparison, since his suits aren't about legally actionable claims, but about undermining trust and giving supporters of his "side" (in this case "crusading storefronts" like Epic) something to latch on to, claiming Steam must be bad, look at all the lawsuits filed against them!
If that is the case, I just hope that Valve are thinking about taking steps to sue these liars (because that's what they are) and send another message: "You can't damage a reputation on false claims whitout consequences."
Quoting: Mohandevir...no quality control on the store, etc...
I hate to pick on a particular point / do the partial quote thing myself, but can you imagine the shit storm if they DID start enforcing some sort of quality control beyond what they already do (they do, it's just only rather extreme examples that ever get pulled). I think most people would love it, but talk about asking for it. The persecution-complex-social-media-campaigns would go through the roof and nobody would ever be allowed to hear the end of it.
Unless you mean like, "does this windows game actually work on windows 10"... then yeah, that could do with some love. None of the stores really do that, but being the biggest-store-in-the-room the problem shows the most there. That's a pretty common issue w/ like GOG too, and I believe uPlay has some questionable compat issues as well. No clue about the rest.
Quoting: Guestrefunds can only go to your steam wallet tooI'll stay out of the bigger discussion, but I'd like to point out that this part isn't actually true. You can choose to get the refund to your Steam wallet or the original payment method (credit card / Paypal). I think this is required by law in at least my part of the EU. I don't know if this applies to partial refunds or complete transactions only.
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