Here’s the thing. There are other places. Epic, Amazon Gaming, Origin/Battlenet/Ubi, itch, Microsoft store, gog…
Most suck at discoverability or they don’t have the variety of Steam. Some are shitty by design (Origin, Ubi, Battlenet) - intended to only get you to play their games. Others like itch aren’t built for scaling out to deliver thousands of big games.
This isn’t a thing like Apple’s walled garden, I feel like this is Steam out performing the competition.
Steam quite literally provides almost everything you could ever need too, it’s so much more than a storefront. It’s genuinely mind blowing just how many services steam offers, I don’t think anybody, including valve employees knows about every function and service it offers tbh.
Does steam provide a good service? Sure. Is it worth the 30% cut they take? Absolutely not. Gamers don’t realize the amount of money valve is making off them. What we need is a good old fashioned bill at every purchase detailing how much money these rent seeking stores are extracting from you.
I don’t want the 90 services and bloated platform steam offers, I want to play my game and pay the developers.
It’s absolutely worth the cut they take. Ask every developer and publisher.
It’s hard getting recognized outside Steam.
It’s hard getting recognized on steam too.
Try going to any other platform and tell me how much better it is.
95% of the players on pc are on steam, if you don’t publish your game there you’re just shooting yourself in the foot - this has very little to do with the quality of the service valve provides and everything to do about their monopoly on the market. Would devs like to pay a smaller cut to valve? Sure, but it’s just the cost of doing business, you go where your customers are.
Customers flock to valve because it’s more than a storefront. It eliminates the needs for everything else, no need for discord, forums, lfg pages, recording software, controller mapping software, 3rd party mod hosting, mod managers, etc etc etc. look at how much further Valve has pushed Linux and Linux support in gaming than anyone imagined possible. Look at their return policy, absolutely no other storefront is that consumer friendly.
30% is industry standard, get mad at the storefronts that are just storefronts as well as steam or you’re just sounding like Tim Sweeney on another unhinged nepo baby rant.
Because they provide a lot of value.
It’s not like GoG or EGS are better stores that can’t get traffic.
In fact, if anyone actually put enough money and created a store with better moderation, people would be more than happy to use it. It’s just that there is none. Not because they lack users, but features.
their monopoly on the market
Should Steam be doing something differently in order to not be a monopoly? Their competitors being shit doesn’t make Steam a Monopoly.
Then you have the option to buy from epic who take a lower cut. I prefer Steam because of the convenience and features it offers. Until another storefront can supersede steams features then I don’t see a reason to switch
30% is industry standard, everybody but Epic charges that and also Steam is not just a flat 30% many devs and pubs pay less.
I agree 30% is high for every storefront besides Steam and and arguably GoG. The sheer range of services and support for both players and devs is exponentially above literally everything else, you are not just paying for a storefront with steam like you are literally everywhere else.
As for GoG, I’ll let them slide on 30% because of how much effort and resources they put into preservation as well as their “customer is the administrator of their purchases” attitude.
When the competition (excluding any stores operating at a loss to build marketshare) is charging both developers and gamers more, they’re less bothered about Steam taking 20-30%. Consoles charge 30%, have extra fees, take a cut of third party keys (or restrict them altogether) and require a mandatory subscription for online play/cloud saves, while disallowing third party stores on their hardware.
Is it worth the 30% cut they take? Absolutely not. Gamers don’t realize the amount of money valve is making off them.
The same cut that is industry standard and they could ABSOLUTELY jack up by abusing their market position and choose not to? Especially given how much extra infrastructure they supply for that 30% vs literally anyone else?
Is there a better service to use? I’m not saying Steam is a Paragon of virtue, there’s is no such thing as an ethical billionaire and there’s no reason for someone to own multiple mega yachts, but as a consumer Steam is a much better service than most of the competition out there. Steam isn’t a monopoly just because it’s the only store not shooting itself in the face.
I would have killed for Steam Input alone back in the day when I was using xpadder to sloppily translate controller inputs to keyboard keys so the game would recognize it
I agree. That’s not what this is about though. This is about Valve using their market dominance to force price parity, supposedly to “protect consumers” (which is bullshit and doesn’t make sense). Yes, they’re the better storefront. I’d be willing to pay a little more to use it.
That’s one way the competition can compete though. They can’t make as good of a product, but they can make a cheaper one. They should be able to charge less, and make less profit per sale. Valve has ensured no developer can do this though by threatening removal if it’s cheaper anywhere else, and you can’t afford to not be on Steam. This would be good for consumers as it’d drive Valve to compete, either with an even better product or by lowering prices. There’s no way consumers lose, and I don’t get why people rush to fight for Valve on this.
Looked into this, found a source: https://steamyouoweus.co.uk/faqs/ points made by @Cethin@lemmy.zip are legit.
I did a quick scroll on that site, but couldn’t find any sources or evidence about Valve actually doing this
I don’t know why people come here, act like other people are wrong, and haven’t done the bare minimum to look into the case. It’s literally what this case is about. It’s even in the article for this post.
Edit: Why am I being downvoted. Click the link! I’m sorry that it’s against the mega-corporation that you like. They make a great product, but stop defending them for literally anything they do. I can’t believe people on Lemmy, of all places, still do this shit. Maybe it’s astroturfing? That’s the only thing that makes sense.
So like most stores? What do you think MSRP is? A lot of places will pull their product from stores who undercut pricing outside of occasional sales.
MSRP is manufacturer suggested retail price. It is not an enforced price. For example, stores have started selling physical Nintendo games below MSRP as Nintendo has started selling digital copies at a lower price than physical MSRP. (This is also what would likely happen if games are sold cheaper. They’d compete the price down.)
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a case of MSRP being enforced. I don’t think it’s reasonably possible. It means no sales, for example. A retailer buys a product, and then they stock it at whatever price they decide. The manufacturer doesn’t control it at this point.
Edit: Also, MSRP is very different. It’s from the manufacturer, not another store. The equivalent is Walmart telling a product creator to enforce an MSRP or they won’t carry their product, not a manufacturer enforcing one on their own, assuming that happens.
I have seen it being enforced in several stores in multiple provinces. If you’ve never worked in purchasing, you’ve probably just not heard about it since it doesn’t typically get mentioned to consumers, it’s a backend thing.
Wizards of the Coast, for example, is quite strict about it.
One, it’s kind of silly to just ask someone accused of doing something bad/illegal and then take their word for it. What’s Gabe going to say? “Oh, yep, we are a monopoly, you’re right.”
Two, Valve makes some damn good software. Steam is really slick, has generally only improved over time, and has worked pretty flawlessly on every platform I’ve used it on. They also provide a great storefront experience, game managing experience, and have contributed to some awesome open source projects.
Three, I have zero doubt that Gabe and Valve in general has done some shady shit such as but not limited to the alleged unspoken policy mentioned in the article. No one becomes a billionaire ethically.
No one becomes a billionaire ethically
Agreed… but when you’re a great, customer centric service in a wildly underserviced market, it’s basically a license to print money. Gaben is unethical in the fact that he’s hoarding wealth, and I can’t speak to speculation on shady practices with circumstantial hearsay as evidence… but Valve, by virtue of not repeatedly Cobain’ing their dick on a regular basis is in a prime position to make substantial amounts of money…
All that being said, someone tell me what I’m missing.
This is your weekly reminder at this point that Valve is a corporation and that corporations are not your friends nor your allies.
Honest question, is there any other store that directly supports seamlessly running games on Linux? Even games that do not natively build for Linux?
Edit: Because in that case, Steam does have a monopol on Linux, since it’s the only store that can seamlessly/without 3rd party tools run most games.
Given that Proton is open source, provides plenty of instructions and permits reproduction and distribution (BSD-3-Clause-Open-MPI), any other store could likewise include it or a fork of it. They may have a factual monopoly, but it’s not enforced legally in any way.
It’s just that nobody seems to compete meaningfully. Steam has a vested interest in being independent from Microsoft, maintaining their own SteamOS and making games run on it. Other companies just might not have the same commercial drive. And if there are easy to use 3rd party tools that people are content with, why would they bother investing in their own solution? They’re accessible to the Linux market through no work of their own.
Of course, there are some companies actively not wanting to work with Linux. Some just don’t trust the platform. Some require particular technology that might not work on Linux. For example, things like kernel-level-anticheat being confined to the wine environment defeats the point of spying on the whole OS. And some would require additional work to make it run smoothly, which obviously is an investment into a market they may feel doesn’t promise enough profit.
I was going to point out how heroic launcher is fine, but that’s not a store.
That’s not really Valve’s fault that all the other storefronts don’t care to support Linux, though.
There are plenty of frontend alternatives out there that work fairly seamlessly and, at this point, I don’t think work on compatibility tools like Proton would be too affected even if Valve decided to stop working on it tomorrow.
No. You can use Lutris although it appears to be unmaintained. Native GOG games work fine. Even better than the Windows versions do on windows because you don’t need Admim privileges to install for whatever fucking reason
Oh, I know how to run my games, my point was more that in that case, Steam does have a literal monopol on being the only store that can run most games on Linux without using any 3rd party tools.
Not that I mind at all, and it’s not a real problem, but I was just wondering if that’s technically the case.
Billionaires shouldn’t exist.
“Buy” games on Steam? Sure wish they let you own them.
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God forbid people want to own their shit.
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Some are DRM free and can be backed up at your leisure. I’m pretty sure that’s up to the developer to implement or not.
It would be neat if steam let you sell a game back, but I’m not sure how to square that with “you have a drm free copy that’s trivial to copy”
You mean to tell me that Gabe Newell wasn’t magically the only “good” billionaire? Color me shocked.
Does anyone have a link to the “internal communications” mentioned in the article showing Valve employees enforcing the unwritten rule? Seems foundational to the whole issue, I’d like to read them for myself.
Also:
… but a big challenge Epic Games faces is simply that an awful lot of gamers don’t seem to want an effective Steam competitor: Steam rules the roost, and they like it that way.
The article mentions that the Epic Games GUI isn’t great, and I think Steam’s monopoly (It is, for sure, a monopoly) is backed up in part by the fact that they’ve had the time required to develop a decent interface that at this point, not many people are too itching to leave. With software everywhere enshittifying Steam keeps looking better in comparison, and I think that challengers need to at least focus on building out a comfortable trustworthy GUI before there’s a serious argument for dethroning Steam.
GUI is definitely a big reason, but features as well. Epic could make their store snappy as hell and their GUI easier to use, but that doesn’t give us controller remapping, game recording, an overlay with a web browser, per game notes, per game news, community guides, baked in mod support, performance data overlay, controller centric mode (big screen mode), and god knows theres more I’m missing.
Personally, I’d put my money on GOG becoming the real competitor over time. GoG Galaxy feels absolutely better than Epic does, and the fact it integrates other storefronts is such a major benefit that it makes it at least capable of competing with steam in the long haul. If GoG Galaxy gained all the features Playnite has, it would easily be able to compete with Steam.
Steam’s “monopoly” is purely because none of their competitors bother with pro consumer updates.
GOG is absolutely tiny. It was sold by CD Projekt to one of the store’s founders for a mere $25 million last year:
https://screenrant.com/gog-sold-cd-projeckt-red-new-owner/
I know several family-owned businesses in my small town (that nobody outside of very specialized industries has ever heard of), which are worth significantly more each.
Profits were just $1.2 million in 2022:
Again, absolute peanuts compared to other online storefronts.
While the site does provide a highly valuable service, it’s far too small, too little known and has been so for such a long time that I doubt it can grow significantly in the foreseeable future.
Part of Epic’s problem is also their leadership pretty publicly showing they hate their potential customers on a regular and ongoing basis. If someone keeps screaming at me to eat shit and die, I’m not going to be particularly motivated to buy anything from them.
As far as GoG, they are actually my preferred storefront. I look at GoG for games before Steam, and am even willing to pay a slight premium to get them on GoG. Their DRM free stuff is a big thing for me. Being able to archive my games has value to me.
I guess he’s not wrong. You can buy them on Steam, or you can buy them on your other account on Steam, or you can have a friend buy them on Steam and gift them to you, etc.
Sometimes, I don’t even buy them…
It’s so clear that so many people here DIDN’T read the article, which is further compounded by the author not understanding the meaning of monopoly vs anti-competitive practices. Just so we are all on the same page:
This isn’t about steam being a better service, (even though it IS a better service,) or being a monopoly, (it isn’t.) The lawsuit is about anti-competitive practices.
The lawsuit pertains to steam allegedly disallowing devs to price games lower on other platforms. If this is true, it’s a move that prevents competition. Maybe other digital storefronts are shittier, but they might make up for it by taking a smaller cut from game devs, which allows them to sell at a lower price on GOG, or EPIC. If Steam is forcing devs to charge the same price on all platforms, or preventing them from offering discounts on those other platforms when they aren’t offered on Steam, then it doesn’t matter where I buy the game. This is a form of price fixing, except it isn’t an agreement being done between digital storefronts behind closed doors, the price fixing is allegedly happening by steam leveraging the developers
Imagine you are going to buy Tide laundry detergent. You can go to Walmart, Target, or your local grocery store. They all carry the same exact same 125 fl oz bottle. Walmart has it for the lowest price, Target is the next highest, and the local grocer has the highest price for the item. Does my local grocery store get to force Walmart to raise their prices to match their own?
My local grocery store might charge a little bit more, but I prefer to shop there because it’s closer to me, and the stores are better organized making it easier for me to find what I want. Personally I LOATHE shopping at Walmart. I happen to be willing to pay more for a better experience when buying the same product. Other people might not give a shit about the shopping experience and just want the lowest price, so they go to Walmart.
I refuse to touch EPIC game store. I think it’s a subpar product. But if my buddy is telling me about a game he got for free through their storefront and raves about what a good game it is, I’m gonna buy it off of steam, instead of getting it for free, because steam is a digital storefront I trust, and provides a good customer experience.
I realize laundry detergent isn’t the same as video game software, but I think my example demonstrates how competition can work and how fucked up it would be if the allegations against steam are true.
I swear I’ve bought things on sale on GOG that were cheaper on there than on steam on more than one occasion.
I am starting to believe that the whole accusation of valve threatening to remove a game from steam about price differences likely has to do with if steam keys are generated for games purchased through other vendors. That’s like the only scenario where it would be appropriate.
Realistically, Steam is a monopoly.
That’s not illegal. In fact, it’s not even (necessarily) a problem.
If they misuse their monopoly position, then it becomes a problem.
A very easy solution would be for Steam to transition to the GOG approach optionally: Preserve games without any sort of DRM or online-only feature. Releases past a set amount of time could drop DRM (they already have this option AFAIK) and they would also need to have a sort of non-steam-services connected variant.
Combine this with completely FOSS SteamOS/Steam Client, and Valve would do everything right.
Asked about this rule, Newell repeatedly denied it exists, even when shown internal communications seemingly showing Valve employees enforcing it: “Valve does not have a policy or practice of dictating prices to third-party software developers on other platforms.” When asked how Valve would react if it ever happened, Newell initially said he was confused by the question and then added, “Many of our partners and many of our customers are quite happy with the service that we’re providing.”
It would be interesting to see what happens if some of the larger publishers did this.
Someone few weeks ago posted a link where there were few emails that were exchanged with Valve and puglishers(?) with redacted pieces here and there. Their point was that Valve tells devs/publishers to match prices of their games on their own stores to prices on Steam.
I may be not a great english speaker, but in reality it did read that if a company wants to make discount somewhere else, they need to match the exact same discount on Steam. Point of that was that Valve doesn’t want customers to think that Steam is an expensive option when shopping for games.
I think that this is a common misconception and Gabe was annoyed that interviewer had not double checked information regarding Valve policies.
This has been re-hashed over and over. The terms are that if they want to discount steam provided keys on another platform they have to match that price on Steam. Steam keys are free to generate for them. They are free to distribute them on any platform. But the deal they make when they generate the steam keys is that they will adhere to the pricing rule.
If they want to discount keys generated on Epic’s store, then they can generate and sell them at any price they want.
Yeah, sure.
Developers don’t, though. If you don’t release your game on Steam, you might as well not release it. They could have ended up with a lot worse than Steam though, so at least there’s that.
Not true at all starsector is one of my favs and so is vintage story and before that Minecraft in its early days. Your just straight up wrong.
Neither of those games have released and at least one of them is planning a Steam release
Of course counterexamples exist (Fortnite probably being the biggest one), but it’s true for the vast majority of releases
I get it but its not like they are buying up competition or doing bad practices to win unless doing what your customers want is being unfare. In this case I blame the competition.
Start with SpaceX
