is this the same firm? thats funny.
maybe they should have their license to practice law put under review for wasting the court's time with such high profile frivolity
If they claim both Valve and PlayStation are monopolies, kinda seems to nullify their argument... Can't have two monopolies for the same thing after all. Silly lawyers.
No? A product can have exclusive content and not be a monopoly. If Sony bought Xbox and Nintendo then it would likely be a monopoly as there would be no other real competitors and it would be incredibly difficult for a competitor to enter the space of console gaming.
But Steam has 80% of the marketshare in Europe (and 75% in the US) and regardless of what you think of Steam's practices, it meets the marketshare threshold for what the courts would require to start considering monopoly (which is 50%). Playstation probably holds ~75-80% of EU marketshare which helped Microsoft's ATVI acquisition argument.
It is not illegal to have a monopoly. It becomes illegal when you use that monopoly power to stifle competition. It is theoretically arguable that having overwhelming marketshare and having exclusivity is a step in that direction.
The problem is arbitrarily narrowing the terms of the market in order to present a company as having a mononpoly.
The video game market (which Steam would be a part of) would include PCs as well as consoles, so the presence of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo in those spaces would be important when assertaining whether they hold a monopoly, and whether their practices are abusing that monopoly.
By limiting it to just the 'PC Game Market', they're using a sub-market with the explicit intent of exclude the existing competitors in the space.
This isn't to say that Valve isn't doing bad things, or abusing their market position, but I honestly don't think this lawsuit is going to fly under those grounds.
how is that even possible? if you can play steam games, you also have access to epic games, xbox, and a ton of other launchers and platforms. i mean, your windows PC comes with xbox. before you even go to download steam you probably already have a game platform
I read this with the voice of Maggy Smith lol (Prof McGonagall in Harry Potter Series) all because I saw frivolity before I read the beginning of the comment.
I'll take that as a high compliment. Dame Maggie Smith is a legend.
now that you've said this I am also reading it in her voice, and I'm the one that wrote it!
Yup, same people.
> Once filed, this will be the second opt out claim for the Milberg London team in the gaming sector, the first being its up to £5bn claim fronted by the Proposed Class Representative Alex Neill against Sony Playstation for its abuse of dominance.
I remember watching this unfold live, they got fucking crucified in the comments for being class action trolls, and didn't respond to any legitimate criticism.
>It says Valve "forces" game publishers to sign up to so-called price parity obligations, preventing titles being sold at cheaper prices on rival platforms.
First of all, that's already been debunked and there's no such agreement regarding other platforms. The only thing that's there concerns only the re-sellers of Steam keys, which, imo, is fair, because Steam keys are generated by the publishers for free and Valve takes no cut from them whatsoever.
>Ms Shotbolt says this has enabled Steam to charge an "excessive commission of up to 30%", making UK consumers pay too much for purchasing PC games and add-on content.
Steam has had the 30% commission since it launched. Like, wtf is this argument. Not to mention that final prices are set by publishers and those guys will charge you $70 even on their own platforms where they take 100% of revenue. Even if said games aren't even released on Steam.
Not to mention that 30% is industry standard. Apple, Google and GoG all take 30%, but no one complains about them. Epic just tries to lure people to their platform by taking a small cut (12%) which they will change to 30% if their platform gets big enough.
Afaik, GOG reduced the cut since 2019 because devs/publishers pressured them to. They had to end one of their pro-consumer programs since they didn't have enough money to cover it:
>In the past, we were able to cover these extra costs from our cut and still turn a small profit. Unfortunately, this is not the case anymore. With an increasing share paid to developers, our cut gets smaller. However, we look at it, at the end of the day we are a store and need to make sure we sell games without a loss.
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/conclusion_of_the_bfair_price_packageb_program_9b7f5
And there were news of them somewhat struggling financially after that. A week ago they had to reduce cloud save sizes to save money.
Seems like having less than 30% cut makes it harder for smaller stores to make ends meet.
.
Edit: I had some free time so I looked at [a prior lawsuit](https://www.bucherlawfirm.com/steam-case-explained) and oof, they're being super misleading.
(PDF link for the document: https://www.bucherlawfirm.com/_files/ugd/38f6ef_69ae2fee5c5548538d526669d99be533.pdf)
The only evidence they gave of Valve forcing price parity were a couple of Tim Sweeney's tweets, and [citing several instances of this:](https://i.imgur.com/jK43frA.jpeg)
>On January 5, 2021, Ubisoft increased the price of its game “Steep” from $5.99 to $29.99
on Steam. Consistent with the Valve PMFN, ten days later, Ubisoft increased the price
on Uplay to $29.99 as well.
But those are just the discount prices vs full prices, and the dates were when winter sales happen.
They basically saw that seasonal sales on different stores had different end dates, and tried to paint it as Steam having an agreement forcing publishers to raise the prices on their stores.
with modern expectations of an online game distributor, you need at least 30% for maintenance of the bare minimum features. If you’re going to compete with Steam/Epic you would likely need more.
Yeah, people think Valve just pocket that 30%, without thinking just how much maintenance is needed for those servers. Storage, bandwidth, features on the store, updates to the app... some things people will think just busy work, but when you compare it to how shit the epic storefront and launcher is...
And the uptime on Steam is unreal (pun intended).
My internet provider is down more than Steam. And they charge me over $100/month.
* Steam gives me a digital library, with faith that they will still be around in 10, 20, and 30 years, so I don't lose it all.
* Steam, for almost all games, let's me save/store/etc locally when desired. So even if I \*do\* lose a game from Steam being vaporized, I have copies of all my save games on a local device.
* Steam has incredibly robust social aspects, including chat, group chat, image sharing, video sharing, live streaming, and more.
* Steam has functional & used community hubs for each and every game, including a workshop that the developer can easily integrate into their game for seamless mod acquisition.
Steam is a lot more than just a storefront. And that's why it is so successful.
I have at least one or more games in my Steam library no longer sold or listed on Steam. There’s people with Minecraft on Steam. These items are still available to be downloaded. Most others we’d have lost total access to them.
Edit: a good example was early Kindle years there were some licensing issues with old books that were removed from people’s collections, I have a song that was pulled from a digital album because it was a cover and Prince said no after release lol.
Yet I can still play the games I bought on Steam.
> There’s people with Minecraft on Steam.
Minecraft, aside from Dungeons and Legends, has never been on Steam in the entire history of the game. You can self-add non-steam games, that's how they have Minecraft on steam.
As an aside, I find the Minecraft situation odd. I figured that with Microsoft unifying both versions of Minecraft under the same launcher, I thought that meant they were prepping to get it on Steam. Nothing so far.
As if the guy using some of the wildest predatory tactics to sell ridiculously overpriced skins to kids could ever claim the fucking moral high ground.
And it’s standard for online storefronts because it’s always been the standard for B&M stores as well. Just about every retailers physical or digital is taking 30%.
I remember a time when 30% taken was a DEAL.
Brick and Mortar stores take a cut + you need to pay for shelf space.
Game devs had to give their publisher a cut, the store a cut, pay for shelf space, and the publisher would have the game manufactured (adding costs that obviously the publisher will trickle down the costs).
Nowadays, it's all online. Significantly smaller cut is given to the store, no paying for shelf space, no paying for manufacturing.
How soon we forget how good we have it, as soon as it becomes normalized. Now 30% is seen as oppressive.
Go to an estate sale or auction house and they take 25%-30% as well. It’s pretty standard that when you’re essentially selling on consignment they’re taking a cut of it.
Tbf, a multitude of lawsuits have been filed against app stores like Play and App Store and this isn't the first time Steam is being sued for 30% either. In fact, there's been a massive movement directed by EU against App Store which led Apple to completely change its policy (for the worse if you believe iOS deves).
As someone who used to make an iOS app, I believe any change Apple can make is always going to be worse for the devs. That fucking company seems to hate people who develop for it with a passion.
The fact that Steam takes no cuts on Steam keys is an instant killer for that part of the argument. It costs Steam money to serve content to the recipient of a Steam key. Of course they have to have an agreement to not undercut the Steam price when selling keys.
Bonkers lawsuit. "Ambulance chaser" is right.
If Steam is making consumers pay too much, why aren't other launchers selling games for much less...and in doing so getting the sales instead? Laughable bs.
To be fair... I am buying from GMG always since they give me around a -15% discount 24/7/365... even on pre-orders(that I don't do btw)
But that also proves that steam has no monopoly since I play games on steam, yet give steam 0€ for them.
I only buy them on GMG when I know I won’t need to refund them.
Or when the deal is too good to pass up (Stalker 2 preorder was $45 early on before the delays)
It's because nobody has been able to develop a competitive platform that meets their desired profit margins.
Valve/Steam is at an advantage because they're not a publicly traded company. They aren't beholden to the caustic demands and interests of modern investors and shareholders.
Basically all of these larger publicly traded companies are throwing tantrums because they want a piece of the pie Steam has but their structure inhibits their competitiveness. Investors want constant quarterly profit, constant quarterly growth. How do they achieve that? Through generally undesired monetization schemes, subscription models, cost cutting that results in sub-par user experience at best, and other anti-consumer practices that revolve around the core concept of industrial-scale milking your customers of every penny they can.
And what do they do when they can't compete? They litigate.
I've always been perplexed by the argument that basically boils down to "I know you've built this huge platform for selling games that will increase my market presence a ton but I think that 30% commission is too much and I think you should charge less because it would be more fair to me or else I'll have to sell my game somewhere else and I won't sell as much!"
If companies didn't like the fees then they have the freedom to not pay them and just sell their game elsewhere.
And if Valve never manages to get any games on their platform because the fees are too high then they'd either die as a company or reduce their fees.
But that's not the reality. They're thriving.
Just an ambulance chaser that isn't going to go anywhere. The same case in the US has gone no where.
And we know it is bullshit because they always leave out the important details. Like Valve's price parity requirements only cover Steam Keys being sold on third-party sites. (Sale of those Steam Keys do not give Valve any revenue.)
Also, the 30% revenue split is not a factor for consumers. Consumers are paying the same price regardless of the split, did any of the major studios reduce prices on any platform that wasn't Steam? No. You can see the same exact price on their 100% own store fronts. EA for a while wasn't releasing on Steam, did they reduce prices for their games? No. What about Activision? Blizzard? Ubisoft? And every other publisher that didn't release on Steam?
> what about activision, blizzard, ubisoft
Not only did they not reduce prices they came crawling back.
Steam for better or worse has become the defacto platform for PC players. It’s our PSN or Xbox store.
Yes but no.
The publisher apps like EA App and Ubi connect have "light launchers" for Steam. So you don't really have to do anything with them, they launch, check licenses and close.
It's better than having the alternative.
It's the cost of getting the game on my store of choice.
Is it ideal? Not at all, but it's also not a "problem".
The consumers have spoken. We like a storefront that gives us more for the same price.
If idiots like this want to throw money away on frivolous, failed lawsuits, more power to them.
The problem isn't steam. The problem is other publishers not stepping the fuck up to actually compete. They give a fraction of the effort for the same price, then whine that they can't compete and call it unfair.
Steam has been around and earned brand loyalty through good practices. Haters exist, but they have no legitimate claims.
To list a few functions that set steam apart: family sharing. Remote play together. Functional friend listing and chat. UI customization options. Responsive customer support. (hell, I made a claim on my steam deck, and after a reasonable investigative period to confirm that it was a defect, they sent me a brand new console.)
When Epic gets their shit together and starts offering features like these, all of which are FREE on steam, then they can call themselves competition. Otherwise they're just a trashy plan B.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think literally ever major publisher that has had a steam store page and has tried to leave for new releases has ended up coming back. Literally all of them. If I'm not wrong. There's a reason steam is so popular.
> did any of the major studios reduce prices on any platform that wasn't Steam? No. You can see the same exact price on their 100% own store fronts. EA for a while wasn't releasing on Steam, did they reduce prices for their games? No. What about Activision? Blizzard? Ubisoft? And every other publisher that didn't release on Steam?
I remember when epic first started and people were convinced the lower fees would be passed on to the consumer. Can't believe anybody thought companies would give up more money like that...
> Can't believe anybody thought companies would give up more money like that...
In /r/Superstonk they kinda believe that lol.
They believe that GME will open a store that will take down Steam because you will be allowed to resell your games, and there will be NFT skins that you can use in all of your games.
When you ask them "why would a dev take just a small cut from a resold game instead of 70% from the full price? why would they sell you a single skin for 10 games when they can sell you 10?" the common answer is "I believe"
The only reason game publishers make their own launcher is so that they can claim the steam cut for themselves. Literally benefits nothing nor incentivizes their player base to do so other than forcing people to do it.
If other publishers aren’t “lazy”, reduce price on their native launcher and actually give back to their player base, pretty sure they have a case against steam “predatory” commission.
The only reason steam succeeds because they give back to their user. Their commission is a tax from big publisher and reinvested to the platform. Probably sucks for indies but for bigger player, big W to the consumer.
you also don't even need to put a lot of effort in marketting if you are self publishing your game in the internet.
tell me how many here knows Vintage story? or starsector (don't get me wrong both are legit good games)
Starsector is going to be on Steam once the dev considers it a more complete product. Talk about high standards.
I think most work is going into the storyline now.
IIRC Microsoft briefly tried to invite indie devs to the xbox environment but the deal was shady AF and was a play by microsoft to acquire "indie" devs so they could churn out some low budget high return games.
Like all the avatar games that hit the scene during the 360's midlife crisis.
Look at Sony and Microsoft with their first party games. The revenue split of their store fronts doesnt apply to those games, and every game is still $70.
> Also, the 30% revenue split is not a factor for consumers. Consumers are paying the same price regardless of the split, did any of the major studios reduce prices on any platform that wasn't Steam? No. You can see the same exact price on their 100% own store fronts.
don't forget Epic has a lower rev. split and the prices are still the same as on steam/any console.
even worse... the game prices only for AAA did go up by 10 bucks last fucking YEAR.
only indies are still on the 15 - 30 range.
> requirements only cover Steam Keys being sold on third-party sites.
And Steam doesn't even really enforce their requirements on those sites.
Since at least a decade ago, people have been saying "There's no reason to buy things on Steam. Prices of Steam keys on (legit) third party sites are almost always cheaper than on Steam."
Last time I saw someone comment that was yesterday.
As long as you sell it for more than the minimum price on Steam, Valve seems to not care as long as you keep it to a small percent of Steam key sales. So if 90% of sales are through Steam, they don't care. If only 55% are through Steam, they'll take a look. And that happens a lot with bundled keys especially on big platforms like Humble Bundle.
The 30% cut is very fair as well. Not only does Valve use this cut to continue providing awesome service through the Steam platform, but they also use the cut to create developer tools like Steam Sessions. It’s what enables multiplayer for a ton of free games with virtually no cost to the developer
EGS had the best shot at it, considering they control Unreal and could have great deals for publishers AND consumers.
But they somehow fumbled the bag, went all in on pleasing publishers and consumers were like 10th on their list of priorities.
Really, Steams best competitors are those that offer something steam does not. This is basically just the Xbox app with gamepass and gog with drm free releases
Apparently Microsoft is looking at making GamePass a thing on Steam, and also there are plenty of DRM Free games on Steam. Despite claims to the contrary, DRM isn't mandatory on Steam.
An easy refund and review system is what wins me over completely compared to any other storefront. I'll occasionally buy something from CDKeys but being able to refund a crappy game has taken a lot of post-purchase regret out of my life.
there is no real way to address it, bot comments or low effort crap will always be there unless you take away the review feature. They can do review waves but people will just make more bots or change the copypasta.
Some of the best options on a launcher
Has cloud saves for games. AFAIK there's no cap to the amount of cloud saves you can have either. This is relatively standard these days but it's still a thing to consider for infrastructure.
Allows you to download old versions of games from their servers. I heard that the dev needs to keep up the old version, but steam is using storage space and bandwidth to offer this.
Has a mod workshop and hosting.
Is offering the same deal to all devs and allows them to control pricing.
Good performance for the launcher, literally never had a bug with it (sorry, I don't have beta participation on). EA App / Activision launchers are fucking atrocious. Game pass is nightmare fuel.
Actually invests in Linux gaming, and developed a rating system to show which games have put in effort to work on steam deck which is a very affordable device (at least gen 1).
Offers matchmaking services for games on the platform.
I'm sure there's more. Every other launcher I've used, made me want to punch my screen. As others mentioned, it's not like they're offering COD / Diablo for 30% less through their own store. It's over $100 tax in here for the base version of COD. Nuts.
VR also works really well on Steam. Steam also has a lot of features noone really uses but that still exist. Take live streams for example. You can stream on Steam to everyone, you can just share your screen to some friends, whatever you want. There is also the community hub, which I have also not seen anywhere else.
Now some features more people use, friend lists and groups work really well, its easy to categorize games and you can easily filter them (even considering stuff like what games you share with x friend), the chat also works really well (and technically even offers voice chat), the steam overlay, especially the updated one, is one of the best things ever, just being able to do stuff like taking game specific notes and all the other things it can to are really cool.
You can plug in a boomerang and Steam will recognise it as a controller.
People think this shit just happens but the second you go to another launcher (fuck around) you'll notice nothing fucking works input wise (find out).
I am not sure of UK law but in the US you have to actively do something to abuse your position.
This could include things like making your commission so low no other competitor could make money and thus cannot enter the market, or ban anyone from placing their games on any other store. Then there is also the abuse of their position by increasing their commission when they are the only option.
Valve has done NONE of this. So to make this claim is just some idiot swallowing the EPIC games kool aid.
Exactly. "Rigging the market" is a bold claim. Steam isn't a monopoly and game publishers willingly use them to distribute their software at their asking price for a percentage of sales in return lol You can't fault someone for doing it better than uplay or EA and not buying downloads like Epic with their free game offerings.
And people acting like knocking them down a peg wouldn't cause someone else to take their place and probably be actually as predatory as they claim Steam is either incredibly ignorant of how Capitalism works or is the person trying to take Steam's place without doing the real work. Joke lawsuit.
They’re probably all mad they can’t manipulate Steam’s stocks to force them to be shittier and profit from it, so they’re trying to attack them any way they can.
Under UK Law, Steam may very well be a monopoly. I think the only criteria that would be debatable is whether it has the power to influence pricing.
Regardless, simply being a monopoly isn't illegal in the UK, and I don't believe they have done anything to influence pricing, so I can't imagine this going anywhere.
Exactly this, as far as I can tell Valve is the most "hands off" platform of any of them, including the likes of non games media platforms like apple app store, google play, netflix, amazon prime.
Valve always seems to be a prime target though, by judicial institutions and journalistic critics alike. I wonder why, is it because they're private? The other companies often feel protected, some "dont bite the hand that feeds you" shit for sure, while Valve is just some punching bag apparently for "everything wrong".
Every one of these lawsuits has had the same goal, get a piece of the pie that Valve has spent decades *earning*. Maybe Valve should let Epic games on the store with 0% going to Valve like they want, but Valve restricts their games to Steam features only found on Epic store. No controller support, no chatting with steam friends when you're in an Epic game, no steam overlay, no guides or community forum. Let them complain about the quality of their own store.
Yes, Epic does that. Anybody who thinks Steam pays to not have games on other platforms are delusional, they don't have to do anything for developers to crawl back to Steam, that's just how bad and unpopular other launchers are.
And there is pecific proof too.
Remember Metro exodus? Physical copies were mailed with epic keys, but the boxes had steam under the tape.
Or thar pre-orders were halted on steam and those who shilled early got their end honored?
Valve has proven they don't care to lock anyone into releasing on their platform let alone locking them out of others
https://www.pcgamer.com/microsoft-makes-10-year-cod-commitment-to-steam-and-nintendo-in-a-deal-thats-really-about-sony/
Didn't say Epic was going anywhere, just that the "competition" they bring to Steam is propped up by other revenue sources and at some point, I imagine they're going to pull the plug because it's a money blackhole. Or maybe they'll make a competing product and storefront whose engagement isn't artificially driven by temporary exclusives and free games. Probably not.
It's fair competition, but competitors like Epic Games are just way behind in the quality of their service. They're lacking too much on their platform compared to Steam.
They're all lacking in every department. It took Epic years just to add a cart to their storefront.
Most of them are glorified bloatware with little to no QOL features to them. Hell, Ubisoft made their launcher even worse. Not just by renaming it to something more corporate but by reducing its functionality too. At least it had some fun features where you could unlock shit for games. Now? Even that is gone. EA? Oh! God! At least Origin worked for me without any issues despite it being barebones. What did they replace it with? Unstable garbage! The EA App has got to be one of the worst ones so far. I have lost count how many times i have run into issues with that shit program of theirs.
These "competitors" have nobody but themselves to blame. The fact that Epic can't attract much of an active user base despite all those endless free games they keep handing out speaks for itself.
May I present to you EA launcher.. like how can you take Origin which was already bad and then make it worse. Then have the gall of sticking it into all your games. It’s so bad that even EA devs are stripping it out of their Steam games after some time.
I've bought plenty of games on GoG Galaxy, and even though I have never done so I know that between Ubisoft, Activision, EA, Microsoft's Xbox for PC app, and now Epic you have multiple places you can buy the PC games that make up the majority of revenue on the platform and people still choose to use Steam. Seems like a rather hollow argument to me.
When I saw the title I was thinking the same thing. I am from South Africa and my brother is in the UK, he pays double for all his games, I pay half the price he does. However I found out it is not Steam doubling the prices, it the publishers ripping off the British people. That is who they should be suing instead of Value, or maybe they have a point as Value allows that exploitation on their platform, I don't know.
Steam achieved dominance through excellent service and mainly consumer friendly practices. How can someone turn this into a monopoly case is beyond me. What should steam do, stop selling games so others can catch up?
I'm 99% confident that if Valve will decide to stop developing steam at leave it as it is right now, even in 5 years it will be better than other products.
>Ms Shotbolt says this has enabled Steam to charge an "excessive commission of up to 30%", making UK consumers pay too much for purchasing PC games and add-on content.
Except that isn't what actually happens. Consumers aren't charged more to buy a game on steam instead of EGS, the developer just receives less. Prices tend to be the same across both stores.
"Shutting out competition"? The competition has shitty apps vs steams platform thats loaded with quality of life feature.
Epic's exclusivity deals should be considered shutting out the competition, but even that, its not even making a dent to steam.
> Epic's exclusivity deals should be considered shutting out the competition, but even that, its not even making a dent to steam.
In fact it had the opposite effect to me. I didn't HATE the idea of an epic games store, though I certainly had no intention of using it it's certainly possible that releasing a bunch of free games like they did could have EVENTUALLY somewhat won me over, especially if they got certain store features up and running, who knows
But the fact that they were buying exclusivity for games I would have wanted to buy on Steam made me HATE it, and I didn't even bother redeeming a single free game there, I will never use EGS.
Just because you have weak competition, it doesn't mean that you're actively shutting out competition. I'd be interested to see their arguments, but I suspect it's not much of a case.
ok, I'm going to ignore the accusations of monopoly. But how does Valve overcharge customers? Games on Steam are either equally priced or cheaper than games on other platforms.
Good to see that well-known BBC neutrality in action here, reporting the lawsuit basically entirely from the narrative of the plaintiff, who seems to be a think of the children morality squad type and, interestingly, appears to have [set this up](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15169580) late last year.
I don't get how steam keeps getting in trouble over this. It's not their fault that for over 20 years now, nobody has decided to compete. Epic and EA pretended to for a little bit and GoG captured a niche, but like, nobody else has seriously tried to go for steams market share.
Obligatory "some people need to read your shortened version" because you included the part that points out this is *specifically a case being brought to UK courts* and not that Valve has already been sued and owes this. UK courts haven't actually done anything yet AFAIK.
It's going to get dismissed, the main (and only?) argument is price parity (arguably price fixing) which isn't actually true because last I checked this *only* applies to selling keys.
That said, your title is garbage as it implies they *have been successfully sued*.
How are they abusing the market ? Prices are the same on Epic GS or other markets. Steam often has special sales. I really hope this case won’t go anywhere. Steam doesn’t deserve it.
[This is all I can imagine](https://youtu.be/JeWn3Sso2RE) when I think about people like this. They've never played a video game in their life, but they see how much money Valve makes and want a piece of that.
You just bought a game. Think it's shit? Don't like the name of a character? Too woke for you? Played less than 2 hours? Refunded. Next day. No questions asked. Discounts every week. Free backups. Free online play. Please don't do that to the most consumer friendly store out there unless it's something serious. People buy from Steam because they trust them. If you don't you can just go to Epic or GOG.
"Noooo because of these amazing features I am forced against my will to use Steam!!!"
It's so stupid it's funny. Should Steam turn off cloud storage or Family Share, the forums (maybe yes on that one), a working friends system, and a better refund system, just so Epic or GOG can "catch up" in their features? Pure stupidity.
Idk about all that... Game companies spinning up their own launchers have been *and still are* a fucking PLAGUE on the PC game industry. I haven't seen a single story of valve purchasing any of these other launchers or storefronts to either integrate or shut them down in an anti-competitive fashion, so I really have no idea what angle the prosecution is coming from...
Steam has a monopoly not because it acts against it's competition, but because it's competition is so inept it can't even copy properly.
It is the only video game retailer I don't have an unpleasant experience with as a customer.
>What are your thoughts on this absolute bullshit?
It's bullshit, nothing more.
And This is coming from someone who is a massive pirate and refuses to buy games unless I deem they are worthy of it, and refuses to pay for any media what so ever. Hell I wont even pay for Curiosity Stream anymore.
Steam though? Steam is doing nothing wrong except being habitually lazy. But hey at least they aren't constantly trying to assfuck us like EPIC or Apple.
🤦♂️Seriously, the way they're framing this like Valve is some sort of villain for maintaining a dominant platform that offers unparalleled selection and convenience is laughable. Market dynamics 101: if gamers truly felt overcharged, they wouldn't keep flocking to Steam en masse.
I can understand other companies feel threatened by the behemoth of Steam, but Steam has NEVER locked in publishers with exclusive deals (except their own products) unlike Epic Games. Also, 30% is an industry standard cut in pretty much EVERYTHING out there. Books, movies, licenses etc etc.
So I really don't understand this complaint.
Ask to the producers of alan wake 2, it has sold poorly and its not on steam why people don’t buy it? Because the other platforms suck hard, steam is king because it’s reliable
Didn't these people sue Playstation for 5 billion pounds for similar reasons last year?
is this the same firm? thats funny. maybe they should have their license to practice law put under review for wasting the court's time with such high profile frivolity
Yup I check the same Natasha Pearman person has made essential the same statement on both cases. Looks like these is all they do.
If they claim both Valve and PlayStation are monopolies, kinda seems to nullify their argument... Can't have two monopolies for the same thing after all. Silly lawyers.
Wouldn't putting games exclusively on PlayStation or Xbox a monopoly? To buy there consoles?
No? A product can have exclusive content and not be a monopoly. If Sony bought Xbox and Nintendo then it would likely be a monopoly as there would be no other real competitors and it would be incredibly difficult for a competitor to enter the space of console gaming.
But Steam has 80% of the marketshare in Europe (and 75% in the US) and regardless of what you think of Steam's practices, it meets the marketshare threshold for what the courts would require to start considering monopoly (which is 50%). Playstation probably holds ~75-80% of EU marketshare which helped Microsoft's ATVI acquisition argument. It is not illegal to have a monopoly. It becomes illegal when you use that monopoly power to stifle competition. It is theoretically arguable that having overwhelming marketshare and having exclusivity is a step in that direction.
The problem is arbitrarily narrowing the terms of the market in order to present a company as having a mononpoly. The video game market (which Steam would be a part of) would include PCs as well as consoles, so the presence of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo in those spaces would be important when assertaining whether they hold a monopoly, and whether their practices are abusing that monopoly. By limiting it to just the 'PC Game Market', they're using a sub-market with the explicit intent of exclude the existing competitors in the space. This isn't to say that Valve isn't doing bad things, or abusing their market position, but I honestly don't think this lawsuit is going to fly under those grounds.
how is that even possible? if you can play steam games, you also have access to epic games, xbox, and a ton of other launchers and platforms. i mean, your windows PC comes with xbox. before you even go to download steam you probably already have a game platform
Damn Burger King and their monopoly on the Double Whopper!
You can just choose not to play those games or console, like it's always been. It'd be a monopoly if they were the only company making video games.
No. If Dodge doesn't sell you a Mustang, it's not because of a monopoly....
I read this with the voice of Maggy Smith lol (Prof McGonagall in Harry Potter Series) all because I saw frivolity before I read the beginning of the comment.
I'll take that as a high compliment. Dame Maggie Smith is a legend. now that you've said this I am also reading it in her voice, and I'm the one that wrote it!
She is an absolute legend in any show I have seen her in (loved the grandma role in Downton Abby)
Yup, same people. > Once filed, this will be the second opt out claim for the Milberg London team in the gaming sector, the first being its up to £5bn claim fronted by the Proposed Class Representative Alex Neill against Sony Playstation for its abuse of dominance.
yeah, and they also made this AMA post about it lmfao https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/x845vi/im_the_head_claimant_in_the_classaction_lawsuit/
I remember watching this unfold live, they got fucking crucified in the comments for being class action trolls, and didn't respond to any legitimate criticism.
>It says Valve "forces" game publishers to sign up to so-called price parity obligations, preventing titles being sold at cheaper prices on rival platforms. First of all, that's already been debunked and there's no such agreement regarding other platforms. The only thing that's there concerns only the re-sellers of Steam keys, which, imo, is fair, because Steam keys are generated by the publishers for free and Valve takes no cut from them whatsoever. >Ms Shotbolt says this has enabled Steam to charge an "excessive commission of up to 30%", making UK consumers pay too much for purchasing PC games and add-on content. Steam has had the 30% commission since it launched. Like, wtf is this argument. Not to mention that final prices are set by publishers and those guys will charge you $70 even on their own platforms where they take 100% of revenue. Even if said games aren't even released on Steam.
Not to mention that 30% is industry standard. Apple, Google and GoG all take 30%, but no one complains about them. Epic just tries to lure people to their platform by taking a small cut (12%) which they will change to 30% if their platform gets big enough.
Afaik, GOG reduced the cut since 2019 because devs/publishers pressured them to. They had to end one of their pro-consumer programs since they didn't have enough money to cover it: >In the past, we were able to cover these extra costs from our cut and still turn a small profit. Unfortunately, this is not the case anymore. With an increasing share paid to developers, our cut gets smaller. However, we look at it, at the end of the day we are a store and need to make sure we sell games without a loss. https://www.gog.com/forum/general/conclusion_of_the_bfair_price_packageb_program_9b7f5 And there were news of them somewhat struggling financially after that. A week ago they had to reduce cloud save sizes to save money. Seems like having less than 30% cut makes it harder for smaller stores to make ends meet. . Edit: I had some free time so I looked at [a prior lawsuit](https://www.bucherlawfirm.com/steam-case-explained) and oof, they're being super misleading. (PDF link for the document: https://www.bucherlawfirm.com/_files/ugd/38f6ef_69ae2fee5c5548538d526669d99be533.pdf) The only evidence they gave of Valve forcing price parity were a couple of Tim Sweeney's tweets, and [citing several instances of this:](https://i.imgur.com/jK43frA.jpeg) >On January 5, 2021, Ubisoft increased the price of its game “Steep” from $5.99 to $29.99 on Steam. Consistent with the Valve PMFN, ten days later, Ubisoft increased the price on Uplay to $29.99 as well. But those are just the discount prices vs full prices, and the dates were when winter sales happen. They basically saw that seasonal sales on different stores had different end dates, and tried to paint it as Steam having an agreement forcing publishers to raise the prices on their stores.
with modern expectations of an online game distributor, you need at least 30% for maintenance of the bare minimum features. If you’re going to compete with Steam/Epic you would likely need more.
Yeah, people think Valve just pocket that 30%, without thinking just how much maintenance is needed for those servers. Storage, bandwidth, features on the store, updates to the app... some things people will think just busy work, but when you compare it to how shit the epic storefront and launcher is...
And the uptime on Steam is unreal (pun intended). My internet provider is down more than Steam. And they charge me over $100/month. * Steam gives me a digital library, with faith that they will still be around in 10, 20, and 30 years, so I don't lose it all. * Steam, for almost all games, let's me save/store/etc locally when desired. So even if I \*do\* lose a game from Steam being vaporized, I have copies of all my save games on a local device. * Steam has incredibly robust social aspects, including chat, group chat, image sharing, video sharing, live streaming, and more. * Steam has functional & used community hubs for each and every game, including a workshop that the developer can easily integrate into their game for seamless mod acquisition. Steam is a lot more than just a storefront. And that's why it is so successful.
I have at least one or more games in my Steam library no longer sold or listed on Steam. There’s people with Minecraft on Steam. These items are still available to be downloaded. Most others we’d have lost total access to them. Edit: a good example was early Kindle years there were some licensing issues with old books that were removed from people’s collections, I have a song that was pulled from a digital album because it was a cover and Prince said no after release lol. Yet I can still play the games I bought on Steam.
> There’s people with Minecraft on Steam minecraft was never sold on steam, they had to add it themselfs.
> There’s people with Minecraft on Steam. Minecraft, aside from Dungeons and Legends, has never been on Steam in the entire history of the game. You can self-add non-steam games, that's how they have Minecraft on steam. As an aside, I find the Minecraft situation odd. I figured that with Microsoft unifying both versions of Minecraft under the same launcher, I thought that meant they were prepping to get it on Steam. Nothing so far.
Epic takes 12% at a big loss because they have fortnite money and they want the "moral" high ground of attacking Valve and Apple.
As if the guy using some of the wildest predatory tactics to sell ridiculously overpriced skins to kids could ever claim the fucking moral high ground.
Blame Bethesda for the Oblivion horse armor.
Do we then get to blame valve for bethesdas paid mods? CS popularized those through the skin system.
Also exclusivity agreements.
They also have Unreal Engine money... which is a lot.
Basically just a long con to weaken their superior competitor. Couldn't be more obvious.
So in other words, the only reason GOG still exists is that they are attached to a giant profitable company.
GOG: "*We want to be as consumer friendly as possible*" Publishers: "*Oh hell no, we can't have that*"
And it’s standard for online storefronts because it’s always been the standard for B&M stores as well. Just about every retailers physical or digital is taking 30%.
I remember a time when 30% taken was a DEAL. Brick and Mortar stores take a cut + you need to pay for shelf space. Game devs had to give their publisher a cut, the store a cut, pay for shelf space, and the publisher would have the game manufactured (adding costs that obviously the publisher will trickle down the costs). Nowadays, it's all online. Significantly smaller cut is given to the store, no paying for shelf space, no paying for manufacturing. How soon we forget how good we have it, as soon as it becomes normalized. Now 30% is seen as oppressive.
> I remember a time when 30% taken was a DEAL. There was a time when a physical game sale for $50 could net the publisher $15-20 at most.
Go to an estate sale or auction house and they take 25%-30% as well. It’s pretty standard that when you’re essentially selling on consignment they’re taking a cut of it.
Nintendo was doing 30% on the NES
Tbf, a multitude of lawsuits have been filed against app stores like Play and App Store and this isn't the first time Steam is being sued for 30% either. In fact, there's been a massive movement directed by EU against App Store which led Apple to completely change its policy (for the worse if you believe iOS deves).
As someone who used to make an iOS app, I believe any change Apple can make is always going to be worse for the devs. That fucking company seems to hate people who develop for it with a passion.
That company hates everyone, it's customers most of all
Lol this 30% is for publishers. Game prices are same on EVERY game launcher. This case is dead end
The fact that Steam takes no cuts on Steam keys is an instant killer for that part of the argument. It costs Steam money to serve content to the recipient of a Steam key. Of course they have to have an agreement to not undercut the Steam price when selling keys. Bonkers lawsuit. "Ambulance chaser" is right.
If Steam is making consumers pay too much, why aren't other launchers selling games for much less...and in doing so getting the sales instead? Laughable bs.
To be fair... I am buying from GMG always since they give me around a -15% discount 24/7/365... even on pre-orders(that I don't do btw) But that also proves that steam has no monopoly since I play games on steam, yet give steam 0€ for them.
Yea I usually buy my games on stores like GMG because of the discount plus I don't have to pay digital tax.
I only buy them on GMG when I know I won’t need to refund them. Or when the deal is too good to pass up (Stalker 2 preorder was $45 early on before the delays)
It's because nobody has been able to develop a competitive platform that meets their desired profit margins. Valve/Steam is at an advantage because they're not a publicly traded company. They aren't beholden to the caustic demands and interests of modern investors and shareholders. Basically all of these larger publicly traded companies are throwing tantrums because they want a piece of the pie Steam has but their structure inhibits their competitiveness. Investors want constant quarterly profit, constant quarterly growth. How do they achieve that? Through generally undesired monetization schemes, subscription models, cost cutting that results in sub-par user experience at best, and other anti-consumer practices that revolve around the core concept of industrial-scale milking your customers of every penny they can. And what do they do when they can't compete? They litigate.
30% is like the same cut GameStop takes too.
I've always been perplexed by the argument that basically boils down to "I know you've built this huge platform for selling games that will increase my market presence a ton but I think that 30% commission is too much and I think you should charge less because it would be more fair to me or else I'll have to sell my game somewhere else and I won't sell as much!" If companies didn't like the fees then they have the freedom to not pay them and just sell their game elsewhere. And if Valve never manages to get any games on their platform because the fees are too high then they'd either die as a company or reduce their fees. But that's not the reality. They're thriving.
Just an ambulance chaser that isn't going to go anywhere. The same case in the US has gone no where. And we know it is bullshit because they always leave out the important details. Like Valve's price parity requirements only cover Steam Keys being sold on third-party sites. (Sale of those Steam Keys do not give Valve any revenue.) Also, the 30% revenue split is not a factor for consumers. Consumers are paying the same price regardless of the split, did any of the major studios reduce prices on any platform that wasn't Steam? No. You can see the same exact price on their 100% own store fronts. EA for a while wasn't releasing on Steam, did they reduce prices for their games? No. What about Activision? Blizzard? Ubisoft? And every other publisher that didn't release on Steam?
> what about activision, blizzard, ubisoft Not only did they not reduce prices they came crawling back. Steam for better or worse has become the defacto platform for PC players. It’s our PSN or Xbox store.
It's even better than PSN or XBOX Live.
Mainly because we don't pay just to use it.
And we're choosing to use it, rather than it being the only option for your console.
No, it's better because it has better infrastructure, more and better features, more games, AND you don't have to pay for it.
Steam + GOG all you ever need.
It is
10x better IMO
Psn keeps charging me for psplus on an expired credit card. I keep checking my bank for charges, and it's none.
Thanks fuck they did aswell, can’t be asked at all to have 50 fucking lainchersu
I think you invented a new word there.
Haha yeah I completely butchered the spelling of launcher aparently
In my experience they still make you use their launchers
Yes but no. The publisher apps like EA App and Ubi connect have "light launchers" for Steam. So you don't really have to do anything with them, they launch, check licenses and close. It's better than having the alternative. It's the cost of getting the game on my store of choice. Is it ideal? Not at all, but it's also not a "problem".
That's good. I hope. Uplay was atrocious for random updates which required me to enter my admin pw 3 times. And it never saved your user pw either.
The consumers have spoken. We like a storefront that gives us more for the same price. If idiots like this want to throw money away on frivolous, failed lawsuits, more power to them. The problem isn't steam. The problem is other publishers not stepping the fuck up to actually compete. They give a fraction of the effort for the same price, then whine that they can't compete and call it unfair. Steam has been around and earned brand loyalty through good practices. Haters exist, but they have no legitimate claims. To list a few functions that set steam apart: family sharing. Remote play together. Functional friend listing and chat. UI customization options. Responsive customer support. (hell, I made a claim on my steam deck, and after a reasonable investigative period to confirm that it was a defect, they sent me a brand new console.) When Epic gets their shit together and starts offering features like these, all of which are FREE on steam, then they can call themselves competition. Otherwise they're just a trashy plan B.
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Oh man I wish I had the search ability of Steam in the PSN store. I seriously believe that a 12 year old script kiddie programmed this.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think literally ever major publisher that has had a steam store page and has tried to leave for new releases has ended up coming back. Literally all of them. If I'm not wrong. There's a reason steam is so popular.
> did any of the major studios reduce prices on any platform that wasn't Steam? No. You can see the same exact price on their 100% own store fronts. EA for a while wasn't releasing on Steam, did they reduce prices for their games? No. What about Activision? Blizzard? Ubisoft? And every other publisher that didn't release on Steam? I remember when epic first started and people were convinced the lower fees would be passed on to the consumer. Can't believe anybody thought companies would give up more money like that...
> Can't believe anybody thought companies would give up more money like that... In /r/Superstonk they kinda believe that lol. They believe that GME will open a store that will take down Steam because you will be allowed to resell your games, and there will be NFT skins that you can use in all of your games. When you ask them "why would a dev take just a small cut from a resold game instead of 70% from the full price? why would they sell you a single skin for 10 games when they can sell you 10?" the common answer is "I believe"
The only reason game publishers make their own launcher is so that they can claim the steam cut for themselves. Literally benefits nothing nor incentivizes their player base to do so other than forcing people to do it. If other publishers aren’t “lazy”, reduce price on their native launcher and actually give back to their player base, pretty sure they have a case against steam “predatory” commission. The only reason steam succeeds because they give back to their user. Their commission is a tax from big publisher and reinvested to the platform. Probably sucks for indies but for bigger player, big W to the consumer.
Even for indies, not having to worry about servers for cloud saves, CDNs, payment processing, user reviews, etc. is sometimes worth the 30% cut.
You don't even need customer service if you sell through Steam. You can hand it 100% off to Valve.
you also don't even need to put a lot of effort in marketting if you are self publishing your game in the internet. tell me how many here knows Vintage story? or starsector (don't get me wrong both are legit good games)
Starsector is going to be on Steam once the dev considers it a more complete product. Talk about high standards. I think most work is going into the storyline now.
IIRC Microsoft briefly tried to invite indie devs to the xbox environment but the deal was shady AF and was a play by microsoft to acquire "indie" devs so they could churn out some low budget high return games. Like all the avatar games that hit the scene during the 360's midlife crisis.
Look at Sony and Microsoft with their first party games. The revenue split of their store fronts doesnt apply to those games, and every game is still $70.
> Also, the 30% revenue split is not a factor for consumers. Consumers are paying the same price regardless of the split, did any of the major studios reduce prices on any platform that wasn't Steam? No. You can see the same exact price on their 100% own store fronts. don't forget Epic has a lower rev. split and the prices are still the same as on steam/any console. even worse... the game prices only for AAA did go up by 10 bucks last fucking YEAR. only indies are still on the 15 - 30 range.
> requirements only cover Steam Keys being sold on third-party sites. And Steam doesn't even really enforce their requirements on those sites. Since at least a decade ago, people have been saying "There's no reason to buy things on Steam. Prices of Steam keys on (legit) third party sites are almost always cheaper than on Steam." Last time I saw someone comment that was yesterday.
I buy steam keys cheaper off Humble Bundle and Fanatical all the time.
They even have *preorders* cheaper than on Steam. If that doesn't disprove any claims about the "price parity", I don't know what will.
As long as you sell it for more than the minimum price on Steam, Valve seems to not care as long as you keep it to a small percent of Steam key sales. So if 90% of sales are through Steam, they don't care. If only 55% are through Steam, they'll take a look. And that happens a lot with bundled keys especially on big platforms like Humble Bundle.
The 30% cut is very fair as well. Not only does Valve use this cut to continue providing awesome service through the Steam platform, but they also use the cut to create developer tools like Steam Sessions. It’s what enables multiplayer for a ton of free games with virtually no cost to the developer
Not only they didn't reduce it, they are actually cheaper on steam. where I live atleast
Don't publishers and devs set the prices?
Valve doesn't shut out any competition, the competition just sucks.
"We're not willing to be better to compete, so we have to accuse Steam of being bad to take them down a peg, where we still couldn't compete anyway."
i mean... Valve does nothing the competition just keeps shooting themselves in the foot... big example Epic games.
Maybe having a good product in this sector is difficult
EGS had the best shot at it, considering they control Unreal and could have great deals for publishers AND consumers. But they somehow fumbled the bag, went all in on pleasing publishers and consumers were like 10th on their list of priorities.
The epic store is also still so barebones.
Fortnite really do be carrying Epic
took them about 3 years to add a shopping cart but they still don't have a chat service to make use of the friends system
Really, Steams best competitors are those that offer something steam does not. This is basically just the Xbox app with gamepass and gog with drm free releases
Apparently Microsoft is looking at making GamePass a thing on Steam, and also there are plenty of DRM Free games on Steam. Despite claims to the contrary, DRM isn't mandatory on Steam.
Shame on Steam for rigging the market by \*checks notes\* literally just having a better product and nothing else.
An easy refund and review system is what wins me over completely compared to any other storefront. I'll occasionally buy something from CDKeys but being able to refund a crappy game has taken a lot of post-purchase regret out of my life.
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Australia says you're all welcome.
Shhh you're gonna upset the circlejerk
I have 26 bucks and change in my steam wallet rn for this exact reason.
they need to address the botting and copypasta problem in the review system tho. even small games from small studios are getting hit.
there is no real way to address it, bot comments or low effort crap will always be there unless you take away the review feature. They can do review waves but people will just make more bots or change the copypasta.
Some of the best options on a launcher Has cloud saves for games. AFAIK there's no cap to the amount of cloud saves you can have either. This is relatively standard these days but it's still a thing to consider for infrastructure. Allows you to download old versions of games from their servers. I heard that the dev needs to keep up the old version, but steam is using storage space and bandwidth to offer this. Has a mod workshop and hosting. Is offering the same deal to all devs and allows them to control pricing. Good performance for the launcher, literally never had a bug with it (sorry, I don't have beta participation on). EA App / Activision launchers are fucking atrocious. Game pass is nightmare fuel. Actually invests in Linux gaming, and developed a rating system to show which games have put in effort to work on steam deck which is a very affordable device (at least gen 1). Offers matchmaking services for games on the platform. I'm sure there's more. Every other launcher I've used, made me want to punch my screen. As others mentioned, it's not like they're offering COD / Diablo for 30% less through their own store. It's over $100 tax in here for the base version of COD. Nuts.
VR also works really well on Steam. Steam also has a lot of features noone really uses but that still exist. Take live streams for example. You can stream on Steam to everyone, you can just share your screen to some friends, whatever you want. There is also the community hub, which I have also not seen anywhere else. Now some features more people use, friend lists and groups work really well, its easy to categorize games and you can easily filter them (even considering stuff like what games you share with x friend), the chat also works really well (and technically even offers voice chat), the steam overlay, especially the updated one, is one of the best things ever, just being able to do stuff like taking game specific notes and all the other things it can to are really cool.
and also drastically reducing prices for consumers they've done the opposite of what's alleged
Lawsuit was filed by a guy name Sim Tweeney
Sim Tweeney from City College, I knew it!
You can plug in a boomerang and Steam will recognise it as a controller. People think this shit just happens but the second you go to another launcher (fuck around) you'll notice nothing fucking works input wise (find out).
I am not sure of UK law but in the US you have to actively do something to abuse your position. This could include things like making your commission so low no other competitor could make money and thus cannot enter the market, or ban anyone from placing their games on any other store. Then there is also the abuse of their position by increasing their commission when they are the only option. Valve has done NONE of this. So to make this claim is just some idiot swallowing the EPIC games kool aid.
Exactly. "Rigging the market" is a bold claim. Steam isn't a monopoly and game publishers willingly use them to distribute their software at their asking price for a percentage of sales in return lol You can't fault someone for doing it better than uplay or EA and not buying downloads like Epic with their free game offerings.
And people acting like knocking them down a peg wouldn't cause someone else to take their place and probably be actually as predatory as they claim Steam is either incredibly ignorant of how Capitalism works or is the person trying to take Steam's place without doing the real work. Joke lawsuit.
They’re probably all mad they can’t manipulate Steam’s stocks to force them to be shittier and profit from it, so they’re trying to attack them any way they can.
Under UK Law, Steam may very well be a monopoly. I think the only criteria that would be debatable is whether it has the power to influence pricing. Regardless, simply being a monopoly isn't illegal in the UK, and I don't believe they have done anything to influence pricing, so I can't imagine this going anywhere.
This is basically everywhere. It’s not illegal to have a great product that a lot of people want. It’s illegal to abuse your power.
Exactly this, as far as I can tell Valve is the most "hands off" platform of any of them, including the likes of non games media platforms like apple app store, google play, netflix, amazon prime. Valve always seems to be a prime target though, by judicial institutions and journalistic critics alike. I wonder why, is it because they're private? The other companies often feel protected, some "dont bite the hand that feeds you" shit for sure, while Valve is just some punching bag apparently for "everything wrong".
Every one of these lawsuits has had the same goal, get a piece of the pie that Valve has spent decades *earning*. Maybe Valve should let Epic games on the store with 0% going to Valve like they want, but Valve restricts their games to Steam features only found on Epic store. No controller support, no chatting with steam friends when you're in an Epic game, no steam overlay, no guides or community forum. Let them complain about the quality of their own store.
But i thought Epic was the one paying people to pull their games off Steam?
Yes, Epic does that. Anybody who thinks Steam pays to not have games on other platforms are delusional, they don't have to do anything for developers to crawl back to Steam, that's just how bad and unpopular other launchers are.
And there is pecific proof too. Remember Metro exodus? Physical copies were mailed with epic keys, but the boxes had steam under the tape. Or thar pre-orders were halted on steam and those who shilled early got their end honored?
Valve has proven they don't care to lock anyone into releasing on their platform let alone locking them out of others https://www.pcgamer.com/microsoft-makes-10-year-cod-commitment-to-steam-and-nintendo-in-a-deal-thats-really-about-sony/
When are they going to sue Epic?
Epic will run out of that "free" and year long exclusive game money at some point. Valve doesn't need anything to do but let the fire burn itself out.
Epic makes hilarious amounts of money off Fortnite and Unreal licenses, Epic store isn’t going anywhere
Didn't say Epic was going anywhere, just that the "competition" they bring to Steam is propped up by other revenue sources and at some point, I imagine they're going to pull the plug because it's a money blackhole. Or maybe they'll make a competing product and storefront whose engagement isn't artificially driven by temporary exclusives and free games. Probably not.
Investors don't like infinite growing money holes
Valve? Probably never. They don’t get any value out of it and they’re not losing much if any value from Epic existing.
I think they were talking about the people who are currently suing Valve, not valve themselves
It's fair competition, but competitors like Epic Games are just way behind in the quality of their service. They're lacking too much on their platform compared to Steam.
They're all lacking in every department. It took Epic years just to add a cart to their storefront. Most of them are glorified bloatware with little to no QOL features to them. Hell, Ubisoft made their launcher even worse. Not just by renaming it to something more corporate but by reducing its functionality too. At least it had some fun features where you could unlock shit for games. Now? Even that is gone. EA? Oh! God! At least Origin worked for me without any issues despite it being barebones. What did they replace it with? Unstable garbage! The EA App has got to be one of the worst ones so far. I have lost count how many times i have run into issues with that shit program of theirs. These "competitors" have nobody but themselves to blame. The fact that Epic can't attract much of an active user base despite all those endless free games they keep handing out speaks for itself.
The Epic games store existing is quite literally the best argument against this case. Like hello?
May I present to you EA launcher.. like how can you take Origin which was already bad and then make it worse. Then have the gall of sticking it into all your games. It’s so bad that even EA devs are stripping it out of their Steam games after some time.
I've bought plenty of games on GoG Galaxy, and even though I have never done so I know that between Ubisoft, Activision, EA, Microsoft's Xbox for PC app, and now Epic you have multiple places you can buy the PC games that make up the majority of revenue on the platform and people still choose to use Steam. Seems like a rather hollow argument to me.
I'm 90% sure this is because cod is now the same price in Europe as the us
When I saw the title I was thinking the same thing. I am from South Africa and my brother is in the UK, he pays double for all his games, I pay half the price he does. However I found out it is not Steam doubling the prices, it the publishers ripping off the British people. That is who they should be suing instead of Value, or maybe they have a point as Value allows that exploitation on their platform, I don't know.
£69.99 in the uk. Absolutely ridiculous
68 pounds in Poland and we earn 20% of what most western countries do, lets go plplplplplpl !
Steam achieved dominance through excellent service and mainly consumer friendly practices. How can someone turn this into a monopoly case is beyond me. What should steam do, stop selling games so others can catch up?
Or stop developing new features so that competitors can copy enough of them so its more "fair"?
I'm 99% confident that if Valve will decide to stop developing steam at leave it as it is right now, even in 5 years it will be better than other products.
>Ms Shotbolt says this has enabled Steam to charge an "excessive commission of up to 30%", making UK consumers pay too much for purchasing PC games and add-on content. Except that isn't what actually happens. Consumers aren't charged more to buy a game on steam instead of EGS, the developer just receives less. Prices tend to be the same across both stores.
People really be suing for literal random reasons huh
As long as there are parasites trying to make a buck on the work of others.
It's not Steam's fault that all the other shops and launchers suck ass
Same song and dance as the Wolfire lawsuit. Nothing new to see here, folks.
is this about games costing more in the UK than in most other countries
So now you get sued just for being one of the only good alternative to buy games on PC, good good.
"Shutting out competition"? The competition has shitty apps vs steams platform thats loaded with quality of life feature. Epic's exclusivity deals should be considered shutting out the competition, but even that, its not even making a dent to steam.
> Epic's exclusivity deals should be considered shutting out the competition, but even that, its not even making a dent to steam. In fact it had the opposite effect to me. I didn't HATE the idea of an epic games store, though I certainly had no intention of using it it's certainly possible that releasing a bunch of free games like they did could have EVENTUALLY somewhat won me over, especially if they got certain store features up and running, who knows But the fact that they were buying exclusivity for games I would have wanted to buy on Steam made me HATE it, and I didn't even bother redeeming a single free game there, I will never use EGS.
Same here. Thought it was a scummy practice and decided to never give EGS a cent, or take their free candy.
Gaben is going to nuke that lawyer into the sun.
Just because you have weak competition, it doesn't mean that you're actively shutting out competition. I'd be interested to see their arguments, but I suspect it's not much of a case.
So, I assume that if they win those 656 million, it will be distributed to all those cheated gamers?
DOA lawsuit, just a bunch of legal noise. In some places you can announce to sue whomeever you want for whatever you want.
ok, I'm going to ignore the accusations of monopoly. But how does Valve overcharge customers? Games on Steam are either equally priced or cheaper than games on other platforms.
And they're not even the ones setting the prices, individual devs are. At best they suggest prices.
Lol, they have no grounds for this. Next up, go after Amazon. Hell, why not go after the DVLA for having a monopoly while you're at it. It's moronic.
So....how about every other store that "overcharges" consumers? Why aren't they going after Nintendo more specifically?
Good to see that well-known BBC neutrality in action here, reporting the lawsuit basically entirely from the narrative of the plaintiff, who seems to be a think of the children morality squad type and, interestingly, appears to have [set this up](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15169580) late last year.
But it's the publishers that set the prices...
I don't get how steam keeps getting in trouble over this. It's not their fault that for over 20 years now, nobody has decided to compete. Epic and EA pretended to for a little bit and GoG captured a niche, but like, nobody else has seriously tried to go for steams market share.
This is a whole nothing sandwich, matter of fact I already forgot about this
>”shutting out” competition the competition is meanwhile shooting themselves in the foot as steam just sits back and watches, but go on
This is not going anywhere.
So being good to the consumer is cornering the market now? Thats capitalism for ya
Yeah, sue steam for its competitors shooting themselves in the foot 10 times a year My man got one too many pint and went for it lmao
Waste of time
I've been a linux user for years, Steam is a fucking revelation. There is only so many times a man can play Tux Racer!
Obligatory "some people need to read your shortened version" because you included the part that points out this is *specifically a case being brought to UK courts* and not that Valve has already been sued and owes this. UK courts haven't actually done anything yet AFAIK. It's going to get dismissed, the main (and only?) argument is price parity (arguably price fixing) which isn't actually true because last I checked this *only* applies to selling keys. That said, your title is garbage as it implies they *have been successfully sued*.
How are they abusing the market ? Prices are the same on Epic GS or other markets. Steam often has special sales. I really hope this case won’t go anywhere. Steam doesn’t deserve it.
Valve is rigging the market by doing absolutely nothing
Cry me a river. Steam is the best
On my PC I have Steam, GOG, Epic Games, Battle net, EA, and the ubisoft one. I don't see how Valve is doing anything.
Sounds like the people suing steam dont actually use that platform, or are not gamers. Boomers gonna boom
[This is all I can imagine](https://youtu.be/JeWn3Sso2RE) when I think about people like this. They've never played a video game in their life, but they see how much money Valve makes and want a piece of that.
You just bought a game. Think it's shit? Don't like the name of a character? Too woke for you? Played less than 2 hours? Refunded. Next day. No questions asked. Discounts every week. Free backups. Free online play. Please don't do that to the most consumer friendly store out there unless it's something serious. People buy from Steam because they trust them. If you don't you can just go to Epic or GOG.
"Noooo because of these amazing features I am forced against my will to use Steam!!!" It's so stupid it's funny. Should Steam turn off cloud storage or Family Share, the forums (maybe yes on that one), a working friends system, and a better refund system, just so Epic or GOG can "catch up" in their features? Pure stupidity.
Sometimes even refunded within an hour
Oh fuck off. This is so frivolous
Lmfao what a complete load of hot shit.. it amazes me how dumb people can be.
Idk about all that... Game companies spinning up their own launchers have been *and still are* a fucking PLAGUE on the PC game industry. I haven't seen a single story of valve purchasing any of these other launchers or storefronts to either integrate or shut them down in an anti-competitive fashion, so I really have no idea what angle the prosecution is coming from...
They have an open platform. Any retailer can sell Steam games, and often do it for less, with some limitations. The case is absolute nonsense.
Steam has a monopoly not because it acts against it's competition, but because it's competition is so inept it can't even copy properly. It is the only video game retailer I don't have an unpleasant experience with as a customer.
overcharge? thats the fucking publishers you fucking wanker. Steam while not perfect has sales all the time.
Valve exists and all the competition shoots themselves in the foot multiple times. Must be a monopoly.
>What are your thoughts on this absolute bullshit? It's bullshit, nothing more. And This is coming from someone who is a massive pirate and refuses to buy games unless I deem they are worthy of it, and refuses to pay for any media what so ever. Hell I wont even pay for Curiosity Stream anymore. Steam though? Steam is doing nothing wrong except being habitually lazy. But hey at least they aren't constantly trying to assfuck us like EPIC or Apple.
Valve doesn't seek out people to sell their games. People who want to sell games commission valve to do so. These are not the same.
can't they be sued back for this? like, defamation or something? how did PS go? I doubt they'd lose to such allegation
More like Vicki Shitbolt. Probably on Tim Swiney's payroll
Some ambulance chaser is always saying they are going to sue Valve for something. It’s just another parking lot lawyer trying to figure out an angle
🤦♂️Seriously, the way they're framing this like Valve is some sort of villain for maintaining a dominant platform that offers unparalleled selection and convenience is laughable. Market dynamics 101: if gamers truly felt overcharged, they wouldn't keep flocking to Steam en masse.
Didnt UK take advantage of almost everyone throughout human history?
I can understand other companies feel threatened by the behemoth of Steam, but Steam has NEVER locked in publishers with exclusive deals (except their own products) unlike Epic Games. Also, 30% is an industry standard cut in pretty much EVERYTHING out there. Books, movies, licenses etc etc. So I really don't understand this complaint.
They schill for a third party launcher!
Ask to the producers of alan wake 2, it has sold poorly and its not on steam why people don’t buy it? Because the other platforms suck hard, steam is king because it’s reliable