this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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$843 million lawsuit against Valve already has its own website: "The Steam Claim" accuses the biggest store in PC gaming of "overcharging" players (www.gamesradar.com)
submitted 9 months ago by Dadifer@lemmy.world to c/pcgaming@lemmy.world
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[–] dinckelman@lemmy.world 124 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

Every time I see a post with this specific claim, targeted at Valve, i just can't help but laugh.

Yes. They take a cut.

Yes. Everyone else takes the same cut, so you're biased, if you don't understand this.

Yes. They are an undisputed leader in the market, but no, that's not called a monopoly.

The difference is that Valve, while taking this cut, and being as big as they are, are consistently investing that money into improvement of the platform, AND also paying people to directly contribute to OSS, that affects everyone else in the market too.

Not to even mention the regular, very considerable discounts, practically platform-wide. Show me a time when Nintendo have done the same. A 10 year old copy of MK8 is still 50$

This isn't even a bogus claim, but just a waste of everyone's time

[–] Anyolduser 48 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Wait, you're telling me that reinvesting in the business instead of increasing dividends and executive pay increases profits in the long term?

Preposterous!

[–] astrsk@kbin.run 9 points 9 months ago

You misspelled prosperity.

[–] saltesc@lemmy.world 26 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yeah, I don't think they realise Steam is itself a product to pay for. Sure, someone could come up with a free game manager, but that's only a part of Steam's services. There's all the licencing, marketing, communities, features, connecting to other platforms, a console mode, remote play, ongoing security, support for external titles, the workshop, great refund policies, all this stuff and Valve doesn't ask for a sub, pays all the staff involved, and stays on top of it all with premium quality.

No shit they take some off the top. How else could the Steam we love and know exist if they didn't?

The irony of this lawsuit trying to ruin things gamers cherish.

[–] helenslunch@feddit.nl 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

As an "undisputed leader in the market, Valve holds to the ability to drive down gaming costs across the board.

They also make insane amounts of money at the expense of consumers and developers/publishers.

Could they do all the things they do at 15-20% commission?Absolutely.

Is Valve a relatively pro-sumer company? Sure.

Does that excuse exorbitant fees? No.

Do other vendors charge similar? Outside of Epic, yes.

30% is an absolutely insane amount of money to charge. That's why Valve is so impossibly wealthy and powerful.

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[–] CriticalMiss@lemmy.world 69 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I see what Vicky is attempting to do. But there's nothing stopping publishers from going over to the Epic Games Store for example and selling their content there. Valve does nothing to suppress competition (it can't really either), the competition is just bad.

[–] snooggums@midwest.social 39 points 9 months ago

Exactly. Epic's complaint is that steam has such a large user base that they can get away with the percentage they charge, but nothing is stopping people from having every game selling storefront at the same time. Steam doesn't do crappy stuff like exclusive deals with other companies to draw people in.

Now I only used Epic for a couple years, but I don't remember them doing sales. They did the free stuff which was mostly shovel ware crap, and their games stayed full price. I get games regularly at a discount on steam, which is a better deal as a user.

Epic is just whining that their terrible approach isn't as good as steam's.

[–] ogeist@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They can and had done it before, see the link at the bottom of the article. Basically, game devs are forced to sell the game at the same retail price in all platforms regardless of the commission cut of the platform according to Steam license. BUT as a customer, usually other platforms are more expensive, so mileage may vary. I like Steam a lot and support it whenever I can but if there is evidence of wrongdoing I would change my mind, however, the complaint from the article smells strongly to cashgrab.

[–] stardust@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Do they? As a long time user of /r/gamedeals and isthereanydeals that is focused on game sales I've got tons of games cheaper than they were being sold directly through steam. Humble monthly being one of the best with sometimes price of like 8 game bundles being less than the cost of the cheapest price a single game went on sale.

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[–] FreeFacts@sopuli.xyz 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Valve does nothing to suppress competition (it can't really either)

They at least used to have a rule that publishers can't sell cheaper on other platforms (outside of timed sales that is), meaning that consumers can't get a better price on other storefronts even when those platforms would take a smaller cut. That was very much suppressing the competition as them taking smaller cuts can't transfer into cheaper prices if the publisher also wanted to sell on Steam.

[–] chaosmarine92@reddthat.com 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

My understanding is that valve says publishers can't sell their games steam keys cheaper on other platforms but can charge whatever they want if steam is not the one providing the download. Network infrastructure isn't free and if steam is the one actually facilitating the download they get to take their share.

[–] furikuri@programming.dev 5 points 9 months ago

I'm not too familiar with the details but there is this excerpt from a blog post by Wolfire Games from 2021 where they say this wasn't the case. Haven't checked it's validity or if it's relevant information to this case, but it is something

When new video game stores were opening that charged much lower commissions than Valve, I decided that I would provide my game "Overgrowth" at a lower price to take advantage of the lower commission rates. I intended to write a blog post about the results.

But when I asked Valve about this plan, they replied that they would remove Overgrowth from Steam if I allowed it to be sold at a lower price anywhere, even from my own website without Steam keys and without Steam’s DRM.

http://blog.wolfire.com/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-class-action

[–] vaquedoso@lemmy.world 49 points 9 months ago

This is a bogus claim. Steam is by far the most compettitive of the bunch

[–] 9point6@lemmy.world 32 points 9 months ago

There's a thread somewhere else on lemmy about this from a couple of days ago, I think the conclusion was that this was a law firm going for a cash grab and the claims were pretty flimsy, they're going after Sony too.

[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 30 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I am not a fan of the title the article uses. It seems more about Steam abusing their near monopoly in a way that hurts publishers. The overcharging aspect seems more like a byproduct

[–] kbin_space_program@kbin.run 25 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Except steam doesnt abuse their monopoly.

If they did, Epic wouldn't be allowed to use Fortnite and CCP blood money to bribe games to their shit store.

[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I mean abuse in the way where they are taking advantage of their position in the market.

There are several online game retailers publishers can utilize and being profitable is always going to be part of their business model. Epic would do it in their own way no matter what Steam did.

Even Humble Bundle isn't perfect. You can read this article for more information but they trialed removing the slider that decides where your money goes in 2021 and even now the Default Donation and Extra to Charity options still only give the charity a small percentage.

It's just an unfortunate reality.

[–] kbin_space_program@kbin.run 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

That would be the Windows Store that is taking advantage of things.

Steam, for its faults, is where it is because it is the best application to do what it does.

Yes others exist, and they're all vastly inferior.

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[–] JohnnyH842@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago

I bought Skyrim for $9.

[–] Agrivar@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago

I would much rather see this level of dedication aimed at an evil corporation. Save pestering the good guys for WAAAAAY later - like, after we've fixed everything else.

[–] ChihuahuaOfDoom@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What's their claim? With the ridiculous number of sales I've always found steam to be cheap.

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

I literally just bought 3 games for $30 this morning.

[–] bitfucker@programming.dev 9 points 9 months ago

I really wanted to see the effect of valve lowering their cut. It would be pretty funny IMHO since currently people are always talking about valve competition, especially Epic taking lower cuts. If valve started taking lower cut and developers flocked from Epic to valve, wouldn't it be epic? (Pun fully intentional)

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What a pointless claim. Developers get charged, not the end user. You pay the same price as elsewhere, in fact Steam requires developers to price the same if am not mistaken. Besides what's the charge? People are willing to pay more for product they enjoy? If that's the precedent then Apple will go bankrupt day after this lawsuit is won.

[–] vxx@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

in fact Steam requires developers to price the same if am not mistaken.

That practice is the whole point of the lawsuit. The lawsuit claims they're Anti-Competitive because of that.

And it doesn't sound too far fetched imo. They're stiffling other platforms by this.

But then, Sony and Epic and Microsoft have to pay as well because of exclusive deals.

This case might be good for customers .

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