5 ms·

Yeah it's worth nothing that Steam is allegedly responsible for the default 30% cut number app stores get, by sort of arbitrarily picking it, and that Steam is

Yeah it's worth nothing that Steam is allegedly responsible for the default 30% cut number app stores get, by sort of arbitrarily picking it, and that Steam is an absolutely crushing monopoly that has so much of a vice grip on the PC gaming space that when you go outside of it, tons of people whine and cry because everything is expected to just use the thing that takes a third of all revenue. Nobody likes buying exclusives, but it's basically the only way to break into a market under such heavy capture.

Jensson 3y ago
Steam adds a lot of features to games though over just having a windows install. Setting up multiplayer for indie games before steam was always annoying, with steam it is very easy and gives a uniform way to play with friends for every game I own there. There are many such quality of life things from steam, to me as a user it means I prefer paying more for games in steam than to pay for it without steam.
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  > adds a lot of features to games though over just having a windows install Sure, and that goes into ways it should be able to compete well with other stores, not just be "the default". > a uniform way Also known as "a complete monopoly", and this is exactly the mountain that any competitor has to completely break. Epic's use of both paid exclusives and free games is to build you enough of a library that you (and your friends) likely have and want to play at least some Epic Games, and hence, already have both Epic and Steam installed. Only once both stores are somewhat similarly available to you, can Epic really compete on the price and features aspects. EDIT: The other thing that's important to realize about monopolies is that nothing remains the same forever. You might like Steam today, and feel we should all just let Steam be a monopoly because they're "good", but what happens when Gabe retires and a private equity firm comes in? The only difference between Steam and Ticketmaster is that Steam hasn't tried to maximize value extraction yet.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    > Epic's use of both paid exclusives and free games is to build you enough of a library that you (and your friends) likely have and want to play at least some Epic Games, and hence, already have both Epic and Steam installed. The epic store program is trash though, it is extremely slow and clunky and power hungry and lack most of the features I have in steam. They do have multiplayer integration which is nice, I have played games with friends there that were free, but the store being such a bad program is the main reason I still buy games on steam. Steam isn't some super well made program, if epic store was a better program I would prefer buying games there for that reason. But as is epic store is way worse in almost every way, it takes seconds just to view a page, the epic store is much nicer to browse as a web page than in their dedicated program but I can't play the games from their web page. If they fixed that then I don't think people would hate buying games on epic store, but until then I am pretty sure the main reason people still prefer steam is that epic store is garbage. Not sure why they don't just fix the app instead of spending so much money on exclusives or free games.
- rezonant 3y ago
  > me as a user it means I prefer paying more for games in steam than to pay for it without steam. Unfortunately this is not an option. Valve's Steam agreements forbid publishers from charging less money on competing platforms. https://www.masonllp.com/case/valve-mass-arbitration/#:~:text=To%20help%20maintain%20its%20monopoly,less%20than%20the%20game%20publishers https://www.masonllp.com/case/valve-mass-arbitration/#:~:tex... (Others have pointed out that this fact is contested, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38625225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38625225)
  - terribleperson 3y ago
    It's not just contested, but contradicted by reality. Many games on steam can be purchased from retailers who receive keys directly from the publishwr (e.g. Green Man Gaming), at a substantial discount. Sometimes that discount price is much closer to the after steam cut amount the publisher would otherwise receive. The rumor, for many years, was that you could sell a game separately and if it didn't use steam keys and steam services Valve did not care. If you wanted to sell steam copies, there seemed to be two conditions. 1. Keys sold off of steam must make up less than some percentage of on-steam sales. 2. If you have a sale on another storefront, there must be a matching sale on Steam in some time window. It is entirely possible that valves notoriously bad communication abilities resulted in a company believing a total ban on discounts was policy, but the fact that other publishers seemingly are not and were not held to that standard for many years is certainly odd.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    I disagree with such contracts, I think they shouldn't be allowed, at least when you are as big as steam. I can see it being reasonable to ban selling steam keys for less than they are sold at steam. But selling a steam-less license for less than what it costs at steam seems reasonable.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  Steam is good. But they have some sketchy policies. Eg epic requires games offered on multiple storefronts to have cross play compatibility
soulofmischief 3y ago
The important thing is that Valve does not engage in anti-consumer practices, and they provide a vastly larger infrastructure than Epic Games, going far and beyond your typical storefront and providing a rich, unparalleled gaming experience. I do think that their price control for multi-platform launches is in very bad taste, but unfortunately this is commonly found in retail. I buy from GOG sometimes, because they also have a unique value proposition with their anti-DRM stance. Other than that, Steam simply provides the best service by leagues, and it's very take-it-or-leave-it when it comes to the 30% cut. I personally would love for them to reduce their cut, I think 30% is massive. It is worth pointing out that the 30% cut is well-established in many industries outside of gaming, such as franchising. But it's also fairly standard within gaming. - Gamestop, Amazon, Best Buy and Wal-Mart take a 30% cut. - PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo each take 30% from their console stores. - GOG, Microsoft take 30% from their game stores. https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut-is-actually-the-industry-standard https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut...
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  > Valve does not engage in anti-consumer practices Yet. Imagine how PC gaming would look if tomorrow you woke up and Valve said, hey, our cut is 50% now. The problem with monopoly capture is once a company has it, it can choose to abuse it at any time in the future. And even if you have complete faith in Valve's current leadership, those people get old and die or retire, and the next guys may not run things the same way. > But it's also fairly standard within gaming. One of the things uncovered by these lawsuits is largely than everyone settled on the 30% cut because Steam picked it and got away with it. We should definitely blame Steam for this abusive tax on the game industry, even if many others have now copied it.
  - soulofmischief 3y ago
    > Imagine how PC gaming would look if tomorrow you woke up and Valve said, hey, our cut is 50% now. I would expect a bunch of bright, freshly-laid-off engineers would get together and try to seriously compete either through a single platform offering, or a system of integrated services. I'd love to see Valve's platform advantages a little more democratized; but you can't deny the level of engineering that goes into their products. SteamVR, Steam Play, streaming, Steam Deck, Proton, it goes on and on. > We should definitely blame Steam for this abusive tax on the game industry, even if many others have now copied it. No more than we blame anyone else who followed suit, as a gain, Valve chose a number that was already massively standardized in many industries. If the 30% cut is too much, someone should seek to disrupt them at a 5-20% margin.
timlatim 3y ago
Steam is also the reason Linux desktop is becoming more and more viable for everyday use (yes, including gaming) through Valve's involvement with Wine, Mesa, and other parts of the stack. As a consumer, I'm glad this is where the store's cut is going to, instead of perpetuating the Windows monopoly and lootbox gaming. Not to mention that Steam has tons of quality of life features that EGS still lacks: written reviews, discussions, gifts, I could go on and on... There are many reasons people prefer Steam besides its popularity. Epic had so much time and resources to improve their storefront and expand platform support, but they just don't seem to care.
- ThatPlayer 3y ago
  > I'm glad this is where the store's cut is going to, instead of perpetuating the Windows monopoly and lootbox gaming Valve is practically the ones that mainstreamed lootbox gaming with Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, and Dota 2. When others like Rocket League have removed lootboxes from their games altogether, Valve don't bother. The lootbox "winnings" being tradable and having an item marketplace (in which they take a cut of all transactions), makes it even more egregious to me.
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  Valve was the originator of loot boxes...
  - higeyuki 3y ago
    MapleStory Introduced Loot Boxes and Randomized Rewards
guitarbill 3y ago
> Steam is an absolutely crushing monopoly Origin, U-Play, EA Play, etc. Blizzard titles are not on Steam. Microsoft Game Pass, and before that Games for Windows Live. Some physical releases require Steam, many do not. GOG. Edit: itch.io. So it's easily disproven. The other option sucking (e.g. not allowing reviews) does not a monopoly make.
- Novosell 3y ago
  Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 are both on Steam actually.

Jensson 3y ago

Steam adds a lot of features to games though over just having a windows install. Setting up multiplayer for indie games before steam was always annoying, with steam it is very easy and gives a uniform way to play with friends for every game I own there. There are many such quality of life things from steam, to me as a user it means I prefer paying more for games in steam than to pay for it without steam.

ocdtrekkie 3y ago
> adds a lot of features to games though over just having a windows install Sure, and that goes into ways it should be able to compete well with other stores, not just be "the default". > a uniform way Also known as "a complete monopoly", and this is exactly the mountain that any competitor has to completely break. Epic's use of both paid exclusives and free games is to build you enough of a library that you (and your friends) likely have and want to play at least some Epic Games, and hence, already have both Epic and Steam installed. Only once both stores are somewhat similarly available to you, can Epic really compete on the price and features aspects. EDIT: The other thing that's important to realize about monopolies is that nothing remains the same forever. You might like Steam today, and feel we should all just let Steam be a monopoly because they're "good", but what happens when Gabe retires and a private equity firm comes in? The only difference between Steam and Ticketmaster is that Steam hasn't tried to maximize value extraction yet.
- Jensson 3y ago
  > Epic's use of both paid exclusives and free games is to build you enough of a library that you (and your friends) likely have and want to play at least some Epic Games, and hence, already have both Epic and Steam installed. The epic store program is trash though, it is extremely slow and clunky and power hungry and lack most of the features I have in steam. They do have multiplayer integration which is nice, I have played games with friends there that were free, but the store being such a bad program is the main reason I still buy games on steam. Steam isn't some super well made program, if epic store was a better program I would prefer buying games there for that reason. But as is epic store is way worse in almost every way, it takes seconds just to view a page, the epic store is much nicer to browse as a web page than in their dedicated program but I can't play the games from their web page. If they fixed that then I don't think people would hate buying games on epic store, but until then I am pretty sure the main reason people still prefer steam is that epic store is garbage. Not sure why they don't just fix the app instead of spending so much money on exclusives or free games.
rezonant 3y ago
> me as a user it means I prefer paying more for games in steam than to pay for it without steam. Unfortunately this is not an option. Valve's Steam agreements forbid publishers from charging less money on competing platforms. https://www.masonllp.com/case/valve-mass-arbitration/#:~:text=To%20help%20maintain%20its%20monopoly,less%20than%20the%20game%20publishers https://www.masonllp.com/case/valve-mass-arbitration/#:~:tex... (Others have pointed out that this fact is contested, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38625225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38625225)
- terribleperson 3y ago
  It's not just contested, but contradicted by reality. Many games on steam can be purchased from retailers who receive keys directly from the publishwr (e.g. Green Man Gaming), at a substantial discount. Sometimes that discount price is much closer to the after steam cut amount the publisher would otherwise receive. The rumor, for many years, was that you could sell a game separately and if it didn't use steam keys and steam services Valve did not care. If you wanted to sell steam copies, there seemed to be two conditions. 1. Keys sold off of steam must make up less than some percentage of on-steam sales. 2. If you have a sale on another storefront, there must be a matching sale on Steam in some time window. It is entirely possible that valves notoriously bad communication abilities resulted in a company believing a total ban on discounts was policy, but the fact that other publishers seemingly are not and were not held to that standard for many years is certainly odd.
- Jensson 3y ago
  I disagree with such contracts, I think they shouldn't be allowed, at least when you are as big as steam. I can see it being reasonable to ban selling steam keys for less than they are sold at steam. But selling a steam-less license for less than what it costs at steam seems reasonable.
jncfhnb 3y ago
Steam is good. But they have some sketchy policies. Eg epic requires games offered on multiple storefronts to have cross play compatibility

soulofmischief 3y ago

The important thing is that Valve does not engage in anti-consumer practices, and they provide a vastly larger infrastructure than Epic Games, going far and beyond your typical storefront and providing a rich, unparalleled gaming experience. I do think that their price control for multi-platform launches is in very bad taste, but unfortunately this is commonly found in retail. I buy from GOG sometimes, because they also have a unique value proposition with their anti-DRM stance. Other than that, Steam simply provides the best service by leagues, and it's very take-it-or-leave-it when it comes to the 30% cut. I personally would love for them to reduce their cut, I think 30% is massive. It is worth pointing out that the 30% cut is well-established in many industries outside of gaming, such as franchising. But it's also fairly standard within gaming. - Gamestop, Amazon, Best Buy and Wal-Mart take a 30% cut. - PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo each take 30% from their console stores. - GOG, Microsoft take 30% from their game stores. https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut-is-actually-the-industry-standard https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut...

ocdtrekkie 3y ago
> Valve does not engage in anti-consumer practices Yet. Imagine how PC gaming would look if tomorrow you woke up and Valve said, hey, our cut is 50% now. The problem with monopoly capture is once a company has it, it can choose to abuse it at any time in the future. And even if you have complete faith in Valve's current leadership, those people get old and die or retire, and the next guys may not run things the same way. > But it's also fairly standard within gaming. One of the things uncovered by these lawsuits is largely than everyone settled on the 30% cut because Steam picked it and got away with it. We should definitely blame Steam for this abusive tax on the game industry, even if many others have now copied it.
- soulofmischief 3y ago
  > Imagine how PC gaming would look if tomorrow you woke up and Valve said, hey, our cut is 50% now. I would expect a bunch of bright, freshly-laid-off engineers would get together and try to seriously compete either through a single platform offering, or a system of integrated services. I'd love to see Valve's platform advantages a little more democratized; but you can't deny the level of engineering that goes into their products. SteamVR, Steam Play, streaming, Steam Deck, Proton, it goes on and on. > We should definitely blame Steam for this abusive tax on the game industry, even if many others have now copied it. No more than we blame anyone else who followed suit, as a gain, Valve chose a number that was already massively standardized in many industries. If the 30% cut is too much, someone should seek to disrupt them at a 5-20% margin.

timlatim 3y ago

Steam is also the reason Linux desktop is becoming more and more viable for everyday use (yes, including gaming) through Valve's involvement with Wine, Mesa, and other parts of the stack. As a consumer, I'm glad this is where the store's cut is going to, instead of perpetuating the Windows monopoly and lootbox gaming. Not to mention that Steam has tons of quality of life features that EGS still lacks: written reviews, discussions, gifts, I could go on and on... There are many reasons people prefer Steam besides its popularity. Epic had so much time and resources to improve their storefront and expand platform support, but they just don't seem to care.

ThatPlayer 3y ago
> I'm glad this is where the store's cut is going to, instead of perpetuating the Windows monopoly and lootbox gaming Valve is practically the ones that mainstreamed lootbox gaming with Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, and Dota 2. When others like Rocket League have removed lootboxes from their games altogether, Valve don't bother. The lootbox "winnings" being tradable and having an item marketplace (in which they take a cut of all transactions), makes it even more egregious to me.
KptMarchewa 3y ago
Valve was the originator of loot boxes...
- higeyuki 3y ago
  MapleStory Introduced Loot Boxes and Randomized Rewards

guitarbill 3y ago

> Steam is an absolutely crushing monopoly Origin, U-Play, EA Play, etc. Blizzard titles are not on Steam. Microsoft Game Pass, and before that Games for Windows Live. Some physical releases require Steam, many do not. GOG. Edit: itch.io. So it's easily disproven. The other option sucking (e.g. not allowing reviews) does not a monopoly make.

Novosell 3y ago
Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 are both on Steam actually.