Ubisoft games on Steam are using Ubisoft launcher and make use of an Ubisoft account.. so by selling a DLC pack cheaper on the Ubisoft store they effectively are allowing steam users to get the DLC they purchased on the Ubisoft store when they run the game on Steam.. thats the reason why Valve does not want to allow it
Gabe Newell says Steam doesn't pressure developers on pricing, emails suggest otherwise
- Thread starter Daniel Sims
- Start date
urielejh
Posts: 61 +49
For many years I've been buying from 3rd party stores and/or non-steam stores. why should I support Steam/Newell? epic games offers better discounts and payback.. just saying.
fadingfool
Posts: 466 +629
Good for you - for many years I've been buying games from Steam, Epic, GOG, U-Play, Battlenet, greenman gaming, humble bundle, origin, Amazon and CEX (according to GoG Galaxy I have over 2,600 games). Why should I support anyone and everyone I chose to? Steam is not a monopoly as they control nothing. The examples above is the developer deciding how much profit they want to make irrespective of publisher platform - that is not the same as protecting the customer. You don't have to use steam if you don't want to. I chose to keep my options open.
LordVile95
Posts: 486 +295
I mean they can change it to what would be a competitive rate and still knock off $15.
Aside from steam does becaure devs have to factor in the 30% cut as a cost. A developer might really want to hit a say $30 sale cost but due to steam taking $10 of that it just might not be finically feasible.
It’s also not the same at all because Tesco is not a monopoly. I really don’t see why you’re simping for a billionaire who’s ripping you off.
Aside they’re not free to not use steam because steam make up in excess of 80% of the market. They’re a de facto monopoly and the only games that have been able to survive off of steam are the likes of Minecraft and LoL. Even CoD and EA couldn’t stay off of steam despite trying.
Brick and mortar stores sell games for the same price as each other, but does anyone know if all those stores purchase games from their supply chains for the same price before reselling them?
AI is telling me they do not, but we all know how reliable that is...
AI is telling me they do not, but we all know how reliable that is...
Oh, and to everyone here that thinks Valve is the one being greedy, please consider this:
If Valve did nothing, and allowed companies to list games for more on Steam because of the 30% fee, then Valve themselves would just make more money from each sale of that game on their platform. We can't say if this would make up for the loss expected from what we think would be a reduction in the total sales count, but it's not nothing.
60*.3=18
70*.3=21
Consumer purchasing habits do not make a company a monopoly. Monopolies buy out their competition so they're the only ones consumers can turn to.
Anyone attempting to build a Steam competitor has a lot of catching up to do. I'd be open to using another store if they had a similar return policy to Steam, in-home library sharing, streaming functionality from one device to another, access to my entire library regardless of the game's current purchasable status, online co-op for couch co-op games, voice and text chat in-platform, a peer-to-peer back-end for easy connection to friends for co-op, cloud saves, tools for hosting my own game server, algorithms that put popular games up-front regardless of the publisher/developer/owner relation, an ever evolving compatibility layer that gives me more options to play my games on whatever device or operating system I want; the list goes on.
I use Steam because it's feature rich and provides me with comforts that aren't available elsewhere. Do any of those features sound like a greedy company hoovering up all the money for themselves? To me, it sounds more like a company that reinvests its profits to benefit their customer base.
Valve is a privately held company. How many of these complainants are under the pressure of investors to make good on the unrealistic goal of higher revenue every single year?
Check out Gabe's clip where he talks about pirating games. Their business model is clear: if you build it, they will come. That business model appears to be working.
If Valve did nothing, and allowed companies to list games for more on Steam because of the 30% fee, then Valve themselves would just make more money from each sale of that game on their platform. We can't say if this would make up for the loss expected from what we think would be a reduction in the total sales count, but it's not nothing.
60*.3=18
70*.3=21
Consumer purchasing habits do not make a company a monopoly. Monopolies buy out their competition so they're the only ones consumers can turn to.
Anyone attempting to build a Steam competitor has a lot of catching up to do. I'd be open to using another store if they had a similar return policy to Steam, in-home library sharing, streaming functionality from one device to another, access to my entire library regardless of the game's current purchasable status, online co-op for couch co-op games, voice and text chat in-platform, a peer-to-peer back-end for easy connection to friends for co-op, cloud saves, tools for hosting my own game server, algorithms that put popular games up-front regardless of the publisher/developer/owner relation, an ever evolving compatibility layer that gives me more options to play my games on whatever device or operating system I want; the list goes on.
I use Steam because it's feature rich and provides me with comforts that aren't available elsewhere. Do any of those features sound like a greedy company hoovering up all the money for themselves? To me, it sounds more like a company that reinvests its profits to benefit their customer base.
Valve is a privately held company. How many of these complainants are under the pressure of investors to make good on the unrealistic goal of higher revenue every single year?
Check out Gabe's clip where he talks about pirating games. Their business model is clear: if you build it, they will come. That business model appears to be working.
LordVile95
Posts: 486 +295
Steam is kind of pretentious here, considering the games they sell are locked on the platform itself, and physically required to be encrypted in steam's own algorithm.
If I was a developer, I'd be hating steam. So the developer is creating content for the platform, possibly, even advertising it (some games don't need steam to sell), and on top of that, Steam is locking my game on its servers. Great deal for the developer! As a developer, who even controls the fee and the discounts ? Sounds as if Steam is the middleman here.
If I was a developer, I'd be hating steam. So the developer is creating content for the platform, possibly, even advertising it (some games don't need steam to sell), and on top of that, Steam is locking my game on its servers. Great deal for the developer! As a developer, who even controls the fee and the discounts ? Sounds as if Steam is the middleman here.
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dangh
Posts: 1,838 +2,893
It is a monopoly. There are many, many games I can't buy in any other place, only steam store. Publishers can't sell games at cheaper price elsewhere, where they aren't taxed 30pct. And users don't even buy games, they only rent. Most Devs consider them monopoly. They have risk control over market. I but mostly my faves on gog, but it's impossible sometimes to get titles I want to get there.
fadingfool
Posts: 466 +629
Because GOG insist on games being DRM free hence a lot of developers do not want their games on GOG - that is not Steam's fault.
poshflamingos
Posts: 342 +691
Is that what your argument is? You want to have government-mandated prices because you want to pay less?
Why not just have the government come in a say that the price of everything in the grocery store should be no more than 10 cents? Why not have the governemnt declare that all housing is to be sold for $1000 of less? What, why do you want to pay more?
Yes, that is a perfectly fair system. Steam is a private, non-essential business. They are entirely within their right to curate their store any way they see fit. If they do not want to carry a certain product for whatever reason, they are free to not carry it. Just like any store is free to choose which products they stock and which ones they don't, and just like other stores (like EGS) also curate their offerings in whatever way they want.
Steam choosing not to list a dev's game is not taking away the dev's freedom to list their game anywhere else they want to for whatever price they want to. If Steam doesn't want to carry that game (because the price the dev chose on Steam, or any other reason), then he can simply go and sell that game somewhere else.
This is such a monumentally dumb comment it completely undermines everything else you wrote.
Those games have not always been on Steam, genius. They were sold by the devs themselves on their own websites for years, and only quite recently finally went to Steam. Those games became successful while being completely absent from Steam.
The fact you think you can just write "well, I can see the games on Steam today so you're wrong", as if the past somehow didn't exist, says everything we need to know about how intelligent of a person you are.
Well, good thing your opinions are incorrect and completely worthless then.
Minecraft is from late 2011, when Steam was already very well established, and launched alongside Steam successes such as Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas, Dark Souls, and Portal 2.
Except those exceptions completely destroy your claim that Steam is a "monopoly".
Yes, exactly. Want to use the Steam infrastructure, pay the 30% fee. Don't want to pay the 30% fee, sell your game anywhere else. Simplicity itself.
It's the claim that this somehow constitutes a "monopoly" that must be regulated and broken apart that is lunacy.
Those laws don't mean that every company that reaches a high marketshare must immediately be broken up, genius. Those laws exist to stop companies WHEN THEY ARE BEING ANTI-CONSUMER. And Steam is in no way whatsoever being anti-consumer. Quite the opposite, Steam is one of the extremely rare instances where capitalism produced something that is very positive for consumers.
If one day in the future Steam changes its philosophy and starts taking anti-consumer measures, then we can talk about regulation. But acting like we need to break up any successful company every time the reach 50%+ marketshare just because "they could potentially be anti-consumer" is exceptionally dumb.
Except that is not what they do. Steam never forbade developer from listing their games anywhere else for whatever price they want. Steam simply says that if the game is more expensive on Steam than elsewhere, then they don't want to have that game listed on Steam. Which is entirely within their rights to do, and does not prevent devs from selling their games anywhere else for whatever price they want. If devs don't like Steam's terms, they can simply go and sell their games somewhere else, like many devs have done before.
Steam's right to curate their store they way they want, and choose what products to have on their store and what products not to have, absolutely is Steam's business. You are the one who wants to take that right away from Steam. Which, again, is a private non-essential business, not a public service.
poshflamingos
Posts: 342 +691
And why would they do that? What makes you think you can demand private companies operate the way you desire, with the margins you choose?
If using Steam is not financially feasible for the devs, they can simply not use Steam. They can go sell their games on any of the other several stores, including entirely for free (as in zero fees) on Itch.io.
Neither is Steam. There are tons of other stores the devs can sell on. Besides the fact they don't need a store at all, they can sell them game themselves (like Factorio and Tarkov did), devs don't need stores to begin with. It's just a convenience for them.
LMAO
Are we living in the same planet?
How is Steam ripping me off? I have a library of hundreds of cheap games, most that I bought with 80%+ discounts. On top of that, they offer me proton, big picture, steam input (for my PS4 controller), workshop, voice chat, cloud saves, an useful overlay with performance graphs, streaming between devices, and a bunch of other features, entirely for free. How could anyone possibly reach the conclusion that Steam is "ripping customers off"?
How is that relevant? The percentage of sales that happen on Steam doesn't prevent you from selling your games somewhere else, as many devs did and still do. Just because a lot of people like using Steam doesn't mean that selling games elsewhere is impossible.
Complete nonsense. We've seen indies be successful off Steam (Tarkov, Factorio, Path of Exile, Runescape, etc), alongside every Ubisoft game, every EA game, every Blizzard game, some Rockstar games, and more modern ones like Fortnite, Valorant, Genshin Impact, etc.
Again, complete nonsense. EA games sold just fine on Origin. EA went back to Steam because they realized they would make more money that way, not because their survival was threatened by not being on Steam.
Quite the opposite, the fact that publishers like EA and Ubisoft could survive perfectly fine outside of Steam, but chose to return anyway because it was beneficial to them, shows that not only Steam is not a monopoly, but also the fees they charge are perfectly adequate, because devs still choose to willingly pay those fees to reap the benefits.
No, The argument is that a flat fee for all devs being 30% makes no sense and that cost is pushed onto the consumer which it is. So obviously take the 30% away on your own store it will be cheaper. It aint rocket science.
dangh
Posts: 1,838 +2,893
Swap gog for epic, where devs pays much less, and you will see the same story. Additionally, games I'm interested in and not available on gog are not DRM protected. Except Steam being a DRM
dangh
Posts: 1,838 +2,893
Monopolies are using its position to dictate own rules to other companies on the same market. Steam clearly requires same prices in different store fronts even if they do not own them, reducing developers/publishers rights to set sales on other platforms, and so on.
Monopolies do not always buy the competition, they let them struggle, so they can pretend they are not a monopoly. Remember Intel lending money to AMD so they wont bankrupt? yup, same stuff.
LordVile95
Posts: 486 +295
Because that’s what antitrust is literally for? Like do you think Microsoft should have been able to continue their IE shenanigans from the 90’s?
You’re missing the point again. The point is due to steams terms and the fact steam is by definition a monopoly there is no choice but to use steam. These terms should make it an illegal monopoly which is why lawsuits are being filed.
Right let’s do some simple math here. Platform A has 10,000 users but has heavily anticompetitive terms and takes a large cut of your fee, platform B had 1,000 users, no restrictive terms and takes a significantly smaller cut. To break even on your game you must sell 5,000 units with a profit of $30 per unit, can you break even only using platform B? Yes or no.
Ah yes those “80% discounts”. Please tell me what those games sell for on other platforms? Because I remember seeing Doom within a year after launch in 2016 for under £10 new when it launched on a shelf, steam didn’t get to that for years. COD titles are well over £30 over a decade and only match other platforms when they’re on sale. You’re not getting a discount you’re getting the fair market rate rather than being ripped off.
Selling games elsewhere makes most titles unprofitable as steam is a monopoly and steam prevent you offering better prices that reflect the better terms competitors offer.
Which of those aren’t on steam or were crowdfunded before going onto steam? RuneScape also predates steam and is F2P. EA and Ubisoft also couldn’t make a profit without listing their games on steam due to the fact steam is in fact a monopoly. Listing a handful of exceptions and incorrect assertions doesn’t help your point.
Because it wasn’t profitable.
Nope, the games weren’t profitable which is the entire point.
urielejh
Posts: 61 +49
Good for you too, but that is a monopoly as already stated: when developers are backfired and can't do what they want without repercussions, that is monopoly.
urielejh
Posts: 61 +49
Are you a Steam associate?
poshflamingos
Posts: 342 +691
Antitrust laws are for when companies are being anti-competitive, not for forcing any company you want into catering to your whims.
Non sequitur. What Microsoft did against Netscape in the 90's has nothing whatsoever to do with how Steam operates now. Microsoft wasn't selling anything, they were attemting to force OEMs to not preinstall Netscape for free on their computers.
Steam is just a store. And like every other store, it has the right to curate their product selection however they see fit.
Except Steam is not a monopoly by any definition.
And there is an abundance of choice for devs, including the choice not to use a store at all and sell the game themselves. That alone completely obliterates your argument.
This is a moot argument. If platform B is not adequate for this dev, the dev can simply not use it. Try platform C, platform D, platform M, platform Z, or even no platform at all and sell the game themselves, like Factorio did. The dev is not entitled to force platform A to bend to its will.
Comparing clearance sales of physical products (where the retailer loses money to clear inventory) to digital markets has got to be one of the dumbest things I have ever read on this website, congratulations.
Besides, I got Doom 2016 for sale on Steam for £1 one week after launch. I also saw a gnome once. See, I also can make wild claims without any evidence. It's almost like unsubstantiated anecdotes from random people on the internet have zero value.
Go complain to Activision then. They're the ones who set that price. Other games on Steam don't have that problem, it's not a platform issue.
Again, complete nonsense that is the easiest thing in the world to disprove. Here in this link you can see, at any given time, all the games that are currently discounted to their historical lows specifically on Steam. Meaning they have never been cheaper than this current Steam price on any other store at any other point before. You can peruse this website and see that for most games the historical low price happened on Steam. The claim that on Steam you're somehow getting worse prices is completely detached from reality (much like your argument as a whole is).
Being F2P doesn't mean they don't make money, genius. Fortnite, Valorant and Genshin Impact are also F2P, do you think all of those games don't make money, they're just charities?
Now you're just pulling unsourced, incorrect factoids straight out of your digestive tract.
Someone would have to be extraordinarily dumb to think EA and Ubisoft were unprofitable for a whole decade because they weren't putting their games on Steam.
poshflamingos
Posts: 342 +691
Are you a communist?
urielejh
Posts: 61 +49
ahahah that answers everything. case closed.
Axeia
Posts: 1,046 +1,443
Yes.
I want the government to take steps against monopolies to protect customers and cartels.
I guess you're on the side of Apple as well when it comes to payments?
With Apple there's no alternatives, you're stuck with the App store and thus if you want to be paid for an app Apple ALWAYS gets 30%.
Want to offer a subscription inside the app? Apple takes 30% again and will ban you if you try to get around it. You're not allowed to mention inside your App that subscribing through your site instead of the App is cheaper (because regular payment processors usually take 2-3% rather than 30%) - gets your app banned.
I'd want regulators to go even further there. Nonsense like Apple trying to skirt the new rules by finally allowing other 'App stores' but then wanting full control over what they list and 27% of their sales still is lunacy.
People vote for their government do they not? (Unless you're in North Korea or something, but then you're unlikely to care about what Steam is allowed to do).
If the voters put such people in charge that cause an unworkable system than they can suffer from their own poor choice. They'll vote for someone making better choices next time.
Sounds more like a strawman argument though.
That would be great. I'd very much like to get the government much more heavily involved in the pricing of housing. Get rid of this hardly anyone can afford a house off a single salary housing market. It's one of the biggest factors towards driving all the wealth towards a very small group of people instead of distributing it more fairly.
Now $1000 is again a strawman argument because it's completely unrealistic.
100% agree. Also part of the reason why I see your grocery store example as a strawman argument - because grocery stores are an essential service.
Yes and I'm not making any argument against, except for when that condition is the price elsewhere is lower. Why is steam allowed to set the price and not the person selling it?
If steam charges more than why on their platform can't I as the seller set the price higher to compensate for this?
That's literally forcing the seller (because Steam is effectively a monopoly in this context) to increase their price elsewhere. Mandating prices not on their platform is abuse of a monopoly and indeed something I'd like governments to take steps against.
Except that Steam is a monopoly. In the important markets iirc a marketshare larger than 50% by a single company is considered a monopoly - steam is at ~75%.
Right, or you could wonder why these despite their success STILL felt the need to make themselves available on Steam. Could it be because Steam is so immensely successful you have to be on it? You know, like in a monopoly.
Already saw this argument coming which is why I mentioned Genshin Impact. Because there's some exceptions that succeeded DESPITE being at a massive disadvantage does not make it a good take.
Conspiracy theory: Perhaps Valve gave them special treatment, Apple for example let Netflix and Spotify (because they're behemoths in their own right) get away with mentioning that the subscription is cheaper on their site than the App. Floatplane for example (the Linus Tech Tips) app got their App denied for doing the same.
Anyone who's argument is "Well this one point is so against my own views I'll disregard everything else this person will ever say" is exactly the mentality that's wrong with the world imo. Leads to a black and white world when it's shades of grey.
Back when we had Origin, uPlay and probably others I have forgotten or simply not used. When games had substantially higher in store sales because people still had an optical drive. When Battle.net was relevant because Blizzard didn't list their stuff on Steam yet.
When Steam had much more attractive flash sales because they wanted more market share.
Ignoring Steams ~75% marketshare in the sale of digital games? Convenient.
Monopoly regulations are to prevent one company from imposing its will on others / preventing new competitors from forming.
If Valve tells you can't sell your game cheaper anywhere else it does both of those.
Stated before, I'm fine with having to pay 30% on Steam for using their service.
They provide a platform, they provide servers, they process the payment, heck they even offer things like cloud storage for saved games. All added value as a game dev.
Since they have such an overwhelming market share obviously their customers don't mind paying that extra fee - everyone's happy with it.
Not my argument at all. They can do that, I have nothing against it.
It's when the game developer is NOT using their infrastucture.
When the game has its steam save game cloud storage removed, when it's offered on the Epic game store instead. When Valve has zero costs because it's not their game, it's not their infrastructure, when they have nothing to do with it.
When they don't want you to sell your game for less elsewhere even though your costs are lower there.
That's where I draw the line. None of their frigging business what I charge elsewhere be it more, less or nothing.
Good thing I didn't make such claims then. I'm not against monopolies, I'm against ABUSE of them.
Heck, up till now if you asked me for an example of a monopoly that's been good for the market I probably would have mentioned Steam as such. They have made many decisions that favor consumers rather than the sellers that I very much appreciate.
Again, shades of grey - I don't see Steam (Valve) as bad. I see this particular one thing as bad.
Now you're getting to the argument I am making.
If a developer isn't allowed to sell their game cheaper elsewhere, whilst listing their game on steam (which is crucial because they're so dominant) then that is 'ANTI-CONSUMER' no?
I thought that was the case right up till reading this article. This is the first very much anti-consumer thing I've seen them do. In general I still think they're the exception to the rule of big companies being anti-consumer.
I'm also sure this is entirely due to them being a privately owned company. If they ever list it publicly I'd bet all my money on it that things will get worse for consumers extremely fast. Just takes one stereotypical CEO to run things into the ground for consumers in no time at all.
Axeia
Posts: 1,046 +1,443
-- part 2, because posts are capped at 10000 characters --
The dev is willing to sell it for more to fill Valve's wallet, I the consumer am willing to pay more (so I have all my games in one place).
Then Valve suddenly decides, you know what? Screw the dev, screw the consumer - neither of you gets what you wants.
So choices for the dev are:
1) Up the costs elsewhere and make more profit (consumer gets screwed)
2) Lower the costs on Steam - but since the majority of sales go through Steam due to their dominance this would be effing yourself over big time. So the majority of the time it's option #1, effing over the consumer (not because the dev wants to, but because Valve decided so).
It disadvantages competitors like Epic - because how will they ever gain marketshare if they can't even sell games for less than de facto first place for consumers to check for a game.
It disadvantages sellers because they can't sell their game for the price they want.
It disadvantages consumers because they don't have the option to get things cheaper if they're not interested in the conviences of Steam itself.
The only party that gets anything out of it is Steam, because why would anyone buy from a competitor that offers no extras for the same price.
Now what defines a monopoly exactly could be argued about (and differs per country).
But I'd wager that Steam meets the criteria basically everywhere with its 147 million customers and ~75% of the total marketshare.
And in my opinion if this article is true, or at least has some truth to it that needs to be looked into and acted upon if that is the case.
Like stated before, I made no such claims.
Which is... anti-consumer.
The dev is willing to sell it for more to fill Valve's wallet, I the consumer am willing to pay more (so I have all my games in one place).
Then Valve suddenly decides, you know what? Screw the dev, screw the consumer - neither of you gets what you wants.
So choices for the dev are:
1) Up the costs elsewhere and make more profit (consumer gets screwed)
2) Lower the costs on Steam - but since the majority of sales go through Steam due to their dominance this would be effing yourself over big time. So the majority of the time it's option #1, effing over the consumer (not because the dev wants to, but because Valve decided so).
And imo that's abuse of a monopoly.
It disadvantages competitors like Epic - because how will they ever gain marketshare if they can't even sell games for less than de facto first place for consumers to check for a game.
It disadvantages sellers because they can't sell their game for the price they want.
It disadvantages consumers because they don't have the option to get things cheaper if they're not interested in the conviences of Steam itself.
The only party that gets anything out of it is Steam, because why would anyone buy from a competitor that offers no extras for the same price.
Such is the standards you should be held to once you become a monopoly and where it starts affecting a substantial amount of the population.
Now what defines a monopoly exactly could be argued about (and differs per country).
But I'd wager that Steam meets the criteria basically everywhere with its 147 million customers and ~75% of the total marketshare.
fadingfool
Posts: 466 +629
Dominant market position - yes. Monopoly no. No one can do what they want without repercussions (not even Epstein) - and by the list of shops I already frequent for my games how can it be a monopoly? I've already removed myself from the frankly stupid anti steam case being filed "on behalf of gamers" in the UK because I feel it does not have any merit. You don't like Steam - we get it - doesn't mean we have to believe it is Evil as much as you do. I possess over 1400 games on Steam, over 600 on Epic, a few hundred on GoG and a few more hundred spread across other online stores and physical copies - I have an interest in gaming with the disposable income to support it. Out of all of the stores, Steam has been the most convenient, best value for money and provides the best service - it has earned its place as number one. If I ever get in the game dev space (and with vibe coding it could become a possibility) I would happily let Steam take 30% of my takings (and I would feel a bit of pride at seeing a game I made on Steam). I remember when games were in big boxes and required a physical distribution model - how much do you think that cost the Devs? A bit more than 30% I'd wager.
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