A new Dutch class action has been filed against Valve Corporation, the company behind Steam. The case is brought by the Stichting Consumenten Competition Claims (CCC), which has launched the proceedings under the name GameClaim. The foundation acts on behalf of all Dutch PC gamers who have purchased games through Steam or other PC distribution platforms since 2013, IGN Benelux reports.
I love valve as much as any other gamer but I’m with Dutchies on this one. Valve has monopolistic policies
Name one
https://www.wolfire.com/blog/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-class-action/
This dev was trying to sell his own game on his own site. A single player game. No steam keys. Just a download. And got threatened by valve to stop or be removed from steam. Illegal since that’s NOT in the contract he signed.
I’m skeptical this wasn’t about selling Steam keys on an external site for less than the price on Steam. Plenty of places sell DRM free versions of games at whatever price they want but steam keys can’t be discounted on external sites. That price parity is only for steam keys though at least per policy.
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys?hl=en-US#%3A~%3Atext=You+should+use+Steam+Keys%2Cpurchase+or+download+on+Steam.
That’s their claim. They provide no proof.
They’re going to court so I assume there is proof.
Maybe if you read the goddamn article you’d know of one?
But if you go on isthereanydeal.com you will see a whole bunch of online stores that offer sales on games. They offer Steam codes too but are not limited to Steam, they cover many other platforms (including Epic).
(Those btw are all legit sites showing only sales endorsed by the game publishers themselves, they all sell new game codes. ITAD has a standing policy to only source from that kind of sales, strictly no key resale sites.)
So if you can get Steam games cheaper than are currently listed on Steam, and many games are also available on GOG which is DRM free… not entirely sure what this lawsuit is about.
Limited time sales is not what’s being talked about. Those are allowed.
It’s the regular pricing. A game listed on steam needs to make up for their 30% cut. Some other sites take a smaller cut. But multiple game companies have found that trying to list their games on non-steam key selling websites, for less money (because they don’t have to make up for as big a cut) are getting threatened to have their games removed from Steam for doing so. This is well outside any clause in Steam TOS, and would be illegal even if it was covered.
Has any of these claims been proven yet?
They’re still working their way through the courts.
One of them is over two years old, though, so it’s not just a clout chaser blowing hot air based on absolutely nothing.
Which only proves my point. They allegedly do, and we yet to discover if they actually do it or Epic, Ubisoft and whatever another publisher are lying. 2 years to prove if Valve was abusing the system and still nothing out there to confirm this suspicion.
I suspect that is really tough to prove and that is why eventually case will be dropped due to lack of evidence.
A court case with zero evidence doesn’t last 2 years…
Could you share an example of a deal that is less than on Steam? I couldn’t find one.
It can import your Steam wishlist and give you tons of examples. 😊
Here’s some: Civ 5, Disco Elysium, Yakuza 6, Borderlands GOTY, Outer Wilds, Doom Eternal.
You can also make filters that limit the suggestions to a certain sale percentage (eg. 50%+ off), or to a max price (eg. $10).
I looked at the examples you gave and in all of them, Steam has the lowest price . I added an example of Doom Eternal
Civ 5 is 30€ on Steam and 2-3€ on other Stores.
Outer Wilds is 23€ on Steam and 16€ elsewhere.
There may be regional differences for either of us.
Literally all of them are Steam keys. Do you think that if you buy a Steam key from another site it’s somehow not Steam that profits?
I think you might start to understand what this lawsuit is about haha.
All those stores just sell the game on steam, so we’re back to steam being the cheapest. This is why the lawsuit exists.
I though that Steam required content parity e.g. you cannot create a cheaper bundle for your own storefront and not sell that exact bundle on Steam. But they have no issue with you generating keys on their platform and either sell those off for cheaper yourself (Humble bundle) or give them away.
Their TOS require non sale price parity with other stores that sell steam keys.
Nothing else. They’ll still threaten to delist your game for seeking it cheaper on sites outside that scenario, hence the multitude of lawsuits.
Do you have evidence?
They won’t. They’re here to blindly defend a multi billion dollar company despite it actively costing them more money.
Proof?
You right here. Blindly defending them.
You know perfectly well what I meant. Do you have proof that prices on Steam were actually artificially inflated?
Also, claiming I’m blindly defending them? I’m asking for hard evidence and telling people to not blindly believe claims and speculation until proven in court. How is waiting for verified evidence “blind”?
Pure hypocrisy on your end