Unsurprisingly, Epic Games CEO and frequent X poster Tim Sweeney has thoughts about the $900 million lawsuit against Valve in the UK, which recently got the go-ahead from a competition tribunal. Also unsurprisingly, given his competing store and past criticism of Steam, Sweeney approves of the action, and based on his related legal tussles with Apple and Google, thinks there's something to it.
The lawsuit, filed in 2024, very broadly alleges that Valve unfairly prevents game makers from offering their products at lower prices on other platforms and requires that all add-on content for games purchased on Steam also be purchased through Steam, and that Valve's "excessive commission" has resulted in inflated prices for UK consumers. Valve had argued that the suit should not be allowed to proceed as a collective action—functionally similar to a class action—but a Competition Appeal Tribunal disagreed, ruling earlier this week that the suit can proceed.
Have you seen the prices of indie games coming out? Many are $5 to $20 and are far better than AAA games. What argument do they have that's preventing games lowering their prices?
If they dig into this, I'm sure they'll find greedy publishers to be the problem.
There is a clause in the Steam EULA or TOS or something for publishers/developers that states you can not OFFER STEAM KEYS for less than the price you sell the game on Steam.
It absolutely does NOT prevent launching your game on 2 different platforms at diffrtent prices, so long as any secondary stores are not offering a Steam key to own it on Steam.
Dipshit Sweeny is basically illiterate.
The only "proof" that it really is exactly as Sweeny describes, is the word of the dev of Overgrowth, a known liar and scammer, who has been in a legal battle over his claims that Valve delisted one of his games over a price difference on anothet store for years now with nothing being proven.
I don't know how humble bundle works, but I get a fair amount of steam keys for much below the steam store price.