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Gabe Newell on Steam monopoly accusations: Gamers have 'enormous choice' about where to buy games (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[–] 43 points 3 months ago (15 children)

Epic does somewhere around 12% and the end user still pays the same so if you think that extra 18% would come back your way rather then going to a devs pockets? Hoo boy.

Also, Steam charges the industry standard rate iirc, same as google, apple, etc. While we can complain about that rate (last paragraph in mind: To what end?) its not as though Valve is doing anything extra greedy.

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  • [–] 38 points 3 months ago

    Epic does somewhere around 12% and the end user still pays the same so if you think that extra 18% would come back your way rather then going to a devs pockets? Hoo boy.

    And most of the time that extra doesn't even go to the devs, the publishers keep it. So you're not even helping the devs for the most part.

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  • [–] 26 points 3 months ago

    Besides, Steam won't even take a single cent from Steam keys sold outside of their storefront. Devs are free to sell their games on stores like Humble or Fanatical at whatever price they deem fit.

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  • [+] -9 points 3 months ago* (10 children)

    If any of those games on Epic are also sold in steam, then the (nonsale) price cannot be lower than the steam price because of steam's TOS.

    Also the "industry standard" was arbitrarily chosen to match the cut that brick and mortar stores usually operate at... Despite there being very different costs related.

    But yes, steam is being just as greedy as all the other big walled gardens. People complain about that rate across the board, not just about steam.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    That's simply not true. They aren't supposed to generate steam keys and then sell them at a lower price at other stores. Which is completely fair, as you can generate keys for free, but the game would still be using steams servers and services. But you can absolutely sell a game for cheaper on other store fronts if it isn't using steams backend.

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  • [+] -9 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    It IS true. They've threatened to delist developers who wanted to sell on non-steam key sites at lower prices.

    There's a ongoing class action lawsuit (which is already 2+ years old), started by Wolfire games, for exactly this scenario.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago

    After looking into that more I've yet to see any hard evidence of valve threatening to delist devs for selling cheaper elsewhere. And presumably, so have the courts, because otherwise that seems like it would be a slam dunk case. I'll believe it when I see it, but just going on word of mouth doesn't convince me.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (6 children)

    Despite there being very different costs related.

    How different?

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  • [–] -4 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    How likely is it that it just so happens to exactly match brick and mortar stores?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    So you don't know?

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  • [–] -4 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    We all know it's less. You can stop being smarmy about that.

    That's how online stores are destroying retail, despite charging equivalent prices. But I do not have access to a specific private corporation's operating costs, any more than you do.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (2 children)

    How much less?

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  • [–] -1 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    the giant company won't tell us how much they're ripping us off, so that must mean they're not

    Is quite possibly the stupidest argument you can be making here.

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  • [+] -10 points 3 months ago* (1 child)

    Steam charges the industry standard rate... That Steam set originally decades ago.

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  • [–] 19 points 3 months ago

    Steam initally launched in 2003 as a updater/server browser for Valve games like counterstrike, half life, and team fortress classic. Apple music came out earlier that year, which isn't a 1:1 relation but likely influenced things wrt download pricing.

    Steam didn't have its first third party game til late 2005 which puts the chance for it to standardize a rate for game downloads right around the timeframe of xbox live and psn launching (late 2005, mid 2006 respectively), so I wouldn't be shocked if word got around the industry about that stuff, though that's just me making reasonable logical deductions (People love opening their big fat mouths, lot of folks in the same circles, etc.) rather then anything solid.

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