Everything except fortnite and a few other kernel level anticheat games

Their approach feels like how lot of companies are currently focusing on AI to market to investors and AI data centers directly, and ignoring what consumers want assuming their opinions are of little relevance. Like how Microsoft doesn’t care if people dont want copilot, and keeps talking up the corporate side with the assumption that they know people will use Microsoft no matter what.

Which is much like Epic with them focusing more on giving money to publishers to lock up titles in the past like Final Fantasy 7 Remake from Square Enix over concerning themselves with the demographic of people buying the product.

Its not a consumer focused business model, because the idea of consumers not buying it is impossible to comprehend. Their headlines never seem to be around how its better for the consumer and the benefits to using them over the competition.

Of course, but…broken clock, you know? A large percentage of personal computers will be freed from Windows in large part because of Valve, even though they profit off of legalized child gambling addiction. And walled gardens in mobile will be broken down in large part because of Epic, which uses dark patterns to trick people out of their money in pursuit of a cultural hodge podge of nonsense that won’t even exist in a few decades.

I personal want a store that is native Linux. I have yet to find a store that does it better, no matter your OS. Epic, GOG, Amazon, ubisoft, and Xbox gamepass do not support or have a native Linux programs and require using Wine/proton to access their stores. Having an extra layer on top makes it hard to install games as all of them are expecting a C:/ that is just how any Linux OSes work.

I never claimed steam was being sued by Sweeney. Sweeney made a statement about the steam lawsuit saying he agreed with it. https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/epic-games-boss-tim-sweeney-voices-support-for-usd900-million-steam-lawsuit-valve-is-the-only-major-store-still-holding-onto-the-payments-tie-and-30-percent-junk-fee/

I was quickly googling market share stuff on break so I misread the Epic e-shop market share vs Epic’s full market share outside that.

The fact that Steam only makes double what epic e-shop makes with literally 11 times the market influence?

What regulations are you expecting out of this? How will that have a positive effect on consumers?

I never said this was about good or bad. I pointed out pros and cons of using each service which extrapolated quite literally to why consumers choose Steam over Epic.

A monopolistic corp who uses anit-consumer/anti-competitve tactics to remain a market leader/? monopoly is illegal. And it’s regulated.

The only reason steam is being investigated at all is because 2 or 3 out of literal thousands of game developers have made a claim that steam is threatening to remove their game if they try to sell it on other game stores for cheaper than steam (not steam keys, but using another stores licensing keys).

That hasn’t been proven and if it is, a further investigation into how wide spread that behavior is would still be needed to prove that Valve or Steam came by their market share illegally.

Also the fact that you brought up Amazon as the foil to your argument at the end is laughable. For multiple reasons.

That’s false. They do not allow steam keys (free to generate steam licenses of games) to be sold cheaper anywhere else for less than the game is sold for on steam. And in exchange, the profits on those game licenses sold elsewhere the developer gets to keep 100% of.

It is alleged by one developer that steam told them they can’t sell their game for less on other stores even if they use a different company to generate the license keys. But that hasn’t been proven. And since only 2 other developers are backing the new class action lawsuit out of literally thousands of devs who would be effected this way if it were true, it logically doesn’t make sense. The dev who brought the first lawsuit that go thrown out? Their game is still up on Steam.

The fact is, Epic is making half the revenue Steam is with 11 times less market share, and not gaining market share because customers don’t want to use their store. Customers don’t want free games they want services that work.

You’re alleging that Valve is doing something anti-competitive to maintain their market share here and you still haven’t given me what I asked for.

What regulations are you expecting to be imposed, and how will that detrimentally or positively effect the consumers?

That’s because they can’t intimidate Bethesda with an email.

It only applies to Steam product keys though, so developers cannot sell cheap Steam keys on other platforms while still taking advantage of Steam’s services.

It only applies to steam keys though. Like if you want to sell on other storefronts (like Epic) for cheaper, it’s perfectly fine. You simply can’t sell steam keys on other storefronts for cheaper. It’s not really “price fixing” as much as it is “Steam ensuring their servers aren’t used to download the game unless the dev has properly paid them for the key”…

Like imagine a company wants to sell more copies of their game. So they set up their own site to sell directly to consumers, and it’s cheaper than buying on Steam. This is totally fine. Consumers can still choose to add the standalone version as a non-Steam game to be able to launch it via Steam.

It’s only a breach of contract if they start offering steam keys for that same (cheaper) price, which allows the game to be downloaded via Steam, includes achievement integrations, includes Steam’s friend list “join game” multiplayer, includes Steam Deck/Steam Machine optimizations, etc… If they want all of those nice Steam integrations, they need an official Steam key. And that Steam key can’t be sold cheaper than on Steam’s official store.

How does it do that?

That’s not true, it only applies if you’re selling a steam key. Devs are free to set the price on any platform they want, want proof? Check out the currently free game on epic which has never been free on Steam.

Steam provides developers with infinite steam keys that they can sell outside of steam for 100% profit, however those keys cannot be sold at a lesser price than what it’s sold on steam. Which honestly sounds like common sense.

Best example is Ubisoft and EA when they took their games off Steam and Epic wasn’t around but didn’t sell their games any cheaper despite 0% cut. Or Final Fantasy 7 Remake released as an Epic exclusive, but was priced at $70.

It is weird. Every other product people know that companies want to charge as much as the market will take to maximize profits. Most noticeable examples being GPU prices over the years and now ram and storage.

But, gamers for some reason think companies want to price things lower as though game companies are so noble they escape the greed of capitalism to seek out exponential profits.

I think devs actually get quite a bit for that 30%. Let’s present a hypothetical. What if Valve offered an option where you could list your game on Steam with no restrictions and they’d only take a 10% cut, but the tradeoff is, they won’t promote your game at all? Like, it won’t show up in any Steam storefront advertisements, can’t participate in sales, etc. - it’s still there if it’s linked to from off-Steam or if someone searches for it, but it won’t be promoted, period.

How do you think that would work out for developers? I’d argue not well, especially for small studios.

The promotion those games get applies to the game as a whole, not only through Steam - someone can see the promotion on Steam, then go shop around and buy it elsewhere. Why should Valve promote a game if they aren’t getting a cut of the sales?

It’s a restriction on where you can get a DLC you paid for. The fact that you paid for it at Walmart shouldn’t matter.

There are not many objectively provable monopolies and i doubt that English law would support that claim without extremely strong evidence, generally utilities are the only ones that’d get close. A necessity with high fixed costs and infrastructure lock-in.

Steam has high market share in a segment, but not necessarily a distinct segment, I’m sure steam would argue that there are enough consumers who can and do substitute between pc and console and mobile, as well as other vendors so that their market power is mitigated by a fair amount of consumer mobility.

So what you’re looking to prove is unlikely to be a pure “monopoly” but ‘excess market power’, and ‘abuse of market power’. That is a complex legal art that the competition regulator is usually not that successful at proving, at least in English law.

Abuse of market power has to impact consumers not producers. There are always marginal producers struggling to make a profit - that happens in competitive markets, producers bidding prices down, some going out of business. I’m not saying I agree, but that’s more or less how the law sees it, lookup what they let supermarkets get away with in contracts with farmers.

To show consumer harm from upstream market manipulation you’d probably have to show a material dearth of choice being created by steam policies in order to jack up prices. Maybe that can be demonstrated, but it’s not simple and more likely to come down to subjective interpretation of the arguments and evidence from both sides rather than any unarguable objective truth.

If it were unarguable or objectively true then the CMA might lead the investigation itself instead of this being a private action. Though maybe this is too small a market for them to worry about.

I would say they aren’t.

Because, they aren’t like Epic, who has been going around and locking games behind exclusivity deals. Name me one game by one developer, who Valve went to and was like “hey, I’m going to give you a $5 Million exclusivity deal. I’d like for your game to be available on our Steam platform for 2 years before you’re allowed to sell anywhere else!”

I’m sure nobody can find that game. Meanwhile, Epic has done this to Metro: Exodus, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2 for the PC and outright buying studios going “hey, delist your game on Steam and only be available to our platform.”

How the fuck can that broad be so stupid to not notice that? But it’s all Valve’s fault, somehow.

looks at Hytale doing quite well without even touching Steam