Blaster_M comments on What surprise do you have prepared Nintendo?

[–] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 27 points 3 months ago (9 children)

From what I remember, individual publishers started it, but they used a combo of cd-based drm (which would install rootkits on your pc and sometimes kill your cd drive) and online activation of your key to your account. Steam just made a much less invasive system that lets you access your purchases easily instead of making it risky and hard.

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[–] Jarix@lemmy.world 13 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Ive had this argument with people multiple times and it ALWAYS boils down to, Steam is too successful and no one else wants to compete with what steam is actually doing right.

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[–] accideath@feddit.org 2 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Steam is doing a lot right, don’t get me wrong.

But, there are enough other platforms who are trying to get a foothold and valve doesn’t exactly make it easy for them.
They’re currently being sued for anti competitive behaviour by pressuring devs into not offering cheaper prices on platforms with lower fees.

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[–] Jarix@lemmy.world 1 point 3 months ago (3 children)

I'm aware and it's a bullshit lawsuit because people are jealous of steams success. Its not anti competitive to say I will distribute your games for you, but you can't turn around a out sell it for cheaper once it becomes successful.

they aren't stopping others from selling their games for cheaper, only saying you can't also sell the same thing for cheaper elsewhere to make us look like assholes.

It's entirely fair and transparent. They are free to delist their games from steam if they don't want to sell it for the same price as the steam store.

And also there are multiple ways to get steam keys for cheaper than steam sells the games yet valve still accommodates those purchases inspite of the way the TOC is stated about selling games cheaper elsewhere.

It's Ubisoft suing them and they are just bitter and jealous.

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[–] accideath@feddit.org 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Man y‘all are getting really defensive when it comes to your favourite multi billion dollar company.

I like the service steam provides but they’re not your friend. They’re still a profit oriented company.

And just because valve’s competition are incompetent and/or assholes doesn’t mean valve’s not anti competitive.

It’s not about a dev selling a game cheaper on another platform once it becomes popular, it’s about valve forbidding them to sell it cheaper somewhere else at release. Them using their 80-90% market share to forcing developers to either comply or get locked out of more than three quarters of the market is the essence of anti competitive behavior. Doesn’t matter if it’s Ubisoft who’s complaining (fuck ubisoft). It’s monopolistic.

Also didn’t valve very recently state that they’re gonna enforce their terms of service more strictly in regards to keys sold on other platforms?

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[–] Jarix@lemmy.world 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

Valve hasn't changed anything, I'm tired of people just bandwagoning every thing they don't like. Valve isn't like other companies. They are still a for profit venture but they aren't doing anything problematic.

I personally don't feel the terms they offer to provide the amazing service they provide is anti competitive, and like ive mentioned I have had this argument before. I don't see how it's anti competitive to say I'll sell your shit and host it and distribute it and manage your upgrades, but I don't want you listing it less elsewhere than your are willing to on my platform.

I'm not just out here licking Gabe's ballsack, you aren't offering any rationale for them being uncompetitive other than someone is suing them. Which is what I was responding to mainly. Just because Ubisoft, like Epic before then, even EA too, failed to create a product that people actually want to use, doesn't make Valve uncompetitive.

If this is such a bastardly term, why is it only now that those big firms are failing to launch, that the policies that are almost 20 years old now suddenly anticompetitive.

Can you offer one argument about why price parity is a bad thing?

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[–] accideath@feddit.org 1 point 2 months ago

I don’t dislike valve. I do enjoy and regularly use their services.
But valve is still like any other company out there. For the time being, they (and in turn we) profit from them being in private hands. But that likely won’t last forever, Gabe is already 63.

And forced price parity is a bad thing because it takes away choice from consumers: Do I want the product including great service on one platform, or do I not care about that service and buy it cheaper on another service.

Forcing price parity is an Apple AppStore type move. Subscription services, for example, according to Apple’s terms n service, are not allowed to be more expensive in the AppStore, where Apple takes a 30% cut for providing payment services, etc., than they are when directly subscribing through a service’s website. That’s forcing devs to either take a loss on Apple devices or overcharge customers everywhere else.

And it’s the exact same thing with valve. A: you’re not gonna go somewhere else with less convenient service if it’s not cheaper on there (which makes it harder for competitors to invest in their infrastructure to make up for the huge lead valve has over time) and B: It takes away your ability to chose between a better service and a better price, which, looking at the current rise in game prices, could make a meaningful difference for a lot of gamers.

Also, in any industry, where you’re dealing with physical goods, the manufacturer sells a product to the store for a given price and the store then decides their markup. That’s why the same graphics card can be one price at Amazon while having another on mindfactory or on newegg. The manufacturer still sells their product to those retailers for the exact same money (unless specifically negotiated otherwise). It’s your decision whether to pay more for better service or less for less.

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