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this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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"give us your money or let us install cookies" yeah no I'd rather not read the article then.
“I will opine on something I refuse to learn anything about, as it is my god given right”.
Sounds about right.
Okay my guy, whatever you say <3
Do yourself a favor and read the article before commenting on it.
Just for you, I gave Eurogamer my information to farm and sell of to the highest bidder. And I learned nothing new. Ubisoft want to have their game on Steams store, Steam says "alright sure, these are the requirements". Ubisoft breaks that agreement, Steam says "then we won't sell your game". Okay? So? No one is forcing them to sell on Steam if they don't like it.
Those requirements being that they cannot price the product lower outside of Steam, even if the specific version of the software doesn’t use Steam at all.
And by the way, this wasn’t on a contract, it’s a non written policy uncovered on email correspondence between Valve and Ubisoft.
Maybe you should try reading the article for real this time.
Steam only takes a share on sold copies. Having YOUR game on THEIR site while selling it cheaper on your OWN site would effectively be leeching free exposure off of Steams front page. How is it not reasonable for Steam to not want that?
Seems that Steam has reach and power that most publishers cannot afford to ignore, whereas in an earlier comment you said that "nobody forces developers to publish their games in Steam". Turns out, they kind of have to after all.
The question here is, why should Valve be allowed to set the prices of software they didn't create?
According to you, a developer who gets a better deal in, say, the Epic Store, and thus publishes their game at a lower price there, should be delisted from Steam. Do you really think that's reasonable? Doesn't that sound like an abusive business practice?
I don't get it. Steam does not have a chokehold on supply of servers, hardware, software, personnel, investments, nothing. Steam has a huge base because people like their platform.
If the big publishers would pull out of Steam, you think it would survive? If Ubisoft and EA and Rockstar and all of the others decide hey, we're just gonna sell on our own platforms from now on, you think Steam would prevail anyway? Counter-Strike is not THAT profitable.
The CORE ISSUE is not Steam having a 30% fee, it is THE OTHER PLATFORM ARE CRAP and people rather not play your game than install Uplay.
And again, Valve are not setting any prices. They do 2 things,
Look, I don't like the 30% fee either. They could lower it drastically and probably still be fine. But make no mistake; if, say, EA had launched an equivalent to Steam in the early 2000s, today it would be common practice to have Ads in the launcher, Subscriptions for "better deals", Fees for adding more games to your library, Spyware, and don't think they would have more generous fees for developers. If anything, they would have a HIGHER fee than 30% and if anyone tried to launch a competing game launcher they would buy it up and shut it down.
Stop acting like Valve isn't the best we could ask for out of all the alternatives.
I'm going to stop right here, because this is absolute nonsense.
There are plenty of big tech companies out there that are the "best" at what they do, and still shouldn't be allowed to do shady and illegal stuff. Simple as that.
If we are going to forgive this behaviour just because "people want games", then I'm sorry to say, but this society might be more fucked up than I thought. Probably beyond salvation.
Panen et circenses with a side of billionaire cock.
You want to punish Steam in favor of the shareholders of the likes of Ubisoft, who is really gagging on billionaire cock here?
I couldn't care less about Ubisoft or their shareholders. But just so you know, Valve is roughly ten times bigger than Ubisoft, and this suit was filed by the founder of Humble Bundle. So go ahead and wipe your chin now.
Humble Bundle isn't even mentioned in the article shared my guy.
https://archive.ph/YvHxF#selection-1867.0-1879.103
Just... Read it. I pasted this link three times already. It makes no sense for me to keep posting if you willingly ignore every single fact.
My apologies! Genuinely.
Now, from what I understand, Rosen had his game in early access on Steam for like 5 years. And the game was hosted solely on Steam. Things that cost Rosen nothing. Then, Rosen wants to sell keys directly to the costumers rather than through the very service used to distribute the game, effectively bypassing paying Valve anything. Valve says that's not ok, Rosen sues them, and somehow Valve is the bad guy?
The above quotes all point to exactly what I've been saying: Other stores/platforms simply don't appeal to users.
No one is forcing anyone to use Steam.
They tried, and failed, to launch BFV and Sims on just their own platform because IT WAS A BUGGY MESS. Not because StEaM hAs A BiG MaRkEt ShArE.
Not even having a Cart in your online store is mind boggling. Also, if I have to go to Steam to see reviews I might as well buy it there.
So Valve protected their own brand by not wanting to be associated with "significantly higher prices". Sounds like a sound business decision to me.
Speaking of God Given Rights, "we want to sell our games on Steam but not on their terms". Don't like it? Don't do it. "but they have the largest market share 😢" , because you keep selling on their platform. I don't understand how this shit is so hard to grasp.
See, this is the reason why it is important to read the fucking article.
Honestly, I'm astonished at the near cultist behaviour I'm seeing here. This is a multibillion operation in a dominant market position, pulling the rug on publishers because of an internal policy that requires "material parity" with prices on Steam, which, given that they get 30% of the sale price, forces higher prices everywhere else where they don't take such an outrageous cut.
I really hope you folks have the same sympathy for your landlords.
None of that first paragraph is in the article OP linked lmao, at least not the one I can see.
Why would Steam put your game on their site for free, giving it exposure to potential buyers, just for the buyers to turn around and buy it cheaper somewhere else? Steam only takes a cut on sold copies.
Xbox, Ubisoft, EA, Blizzard/Activision, Epic, Rockstar, all have launchers. Hell, even Amazon has got a game launcher.
Had any of them been better than, or at least as good as Steam, people would probably buy a game there if it was not listed on Steam.
From my previous response: https://archive.ph/YvHxF
I understand that you refuse to read sources, but the comments you are responding to? That's a new low.
Because it's not their fucking product.
If I go to, say, Amazon, because I want to buy a Samsung TV, and then I go to the Samsung website and find that the same TV at MSRP is cheaper, should Amazon be allowed to force Samsung to raise their prices so they cannot compete?
The answer is no. It's called abuse of market dominance and is codified in the Sherman Antitrust Act.
"But hurr durr Steam is better I love GabeN"
Who. The. Fuck. Cares. Being better doesn't mean that you get to bully your suppliers and customers. That's just insane and such a childish argument.
And Steam is not their fucking platform . If Amazon where to set such a policy, well then just fucking stop selling there. It would come crumbling down on itself. You people don't seem to realize the responsibility of the sellers in keeping companies like Valve at the position their in. You can't have the cookie and eat it, which is exactly what they are pushing for with these lawsuits.
But yeah, let's kill Steam and watch EA put commercial breaks in their games, MTX just to progress in the story, subscription to even continue to have access to your games, always-online for the most basic single player games just so they can keep track of you.
Feel free to share it, I'm not paying for it.
I hope that, at some point, you get to appreciate the irony of not wanting to accept some cookies because you don’t want to “pay with your privacy”, while you ardently defend Steam, a platform that doesn’t even tell you what they do with your data or who are they selling ads to.
Here’s the archived version from Bloomberg: https://archive.ph/YvHxF
Tell me, what have Valve done that is so evil? In your own words