3 ms·

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 bey

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.
  - ocdtrekkie 3y ago
    > If the 30% cut is too much, someone should seek to disrupt them at a 5-20% margin. And we have come full circle: Epic's cut is 12%.
    - soulofmischief 3y ago
      Epic is absolutely not competing with Steam in any meaningful way for me as a consumer until they compete on several more fronts, or at least integrate with services that allow them to do so. If Steam was just a store frontend, I wouldn't use it. I just established their competitive offering above. In fact, EGS's primary way of competing, exclusives, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's anti-consumer, and a poor substitute for engineering a competitive feature offering. I actively avoid their store for this reason, and have passed up on their exclusives in the past, despite being interested in the IP.
      - ThatPlayer 3y ago
        > In fact, EGS's primary way of competing, exclusives, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. You're only noticing because of the competition. Without it games would be exclusive to Steam and you would never notice. Anything from The Finals to Lethal Company, PUBG to Destiny 2. Are these any less anti-consumer because they're only on Steam? I don't think so.
        soulofmischief 3y ago
        I'm speaking of exclusivity deals. None of those games had exclusivity deals with Steam. You're blaming Steam for not having worthy competitors, but that isn't their job. Valve/Steam doesn't engage in exclusivity deals, EGS does. And Valve-published games obviously don't count, there's no deal, they just decide not to publish elsewhere. And remember: the closest competition is literal piracy. I'm not only noticing that Steam provides a quality service worth paying for because of EGS. I don't think you understand how many would-be pirates instead have gigantic Steam libraries.
- offices 3y ago
  Steam do the same pseudo-ownership crap Sony have just been lambasted for. The cart page explicitly says 'purchase' but you have no right to sell, trade or lend them. Steam only reluctantly added refunds due to legal obligations and if you have a justified reason for a refund outside of the 2 hour/2 week window, you have to communicate with Google-esque customer service. Years before Half Life: Alyx, Valve said they would never make single player games again. It made sense - TF2 was making silly money selling silly cosmetics. Presumably, the economics have now changed to make single-player viable again: any further player-base goodwill means a few more years of getting away with predatory BS.
  - extraduder_ire 3y ago
    > Presumably, the economics have now changed to make single-player viable again I think alyx/deskjob primarily exist to sell hardware rather than make silly money on their own. You even get a free copy of the former with any index hardware.
  - arc-in-space 3y ago
    >communicate with Google-esque customer service This is a strange allegation; While I have little personal experience with Steam's consumer service, the typical report I hear is that it is excellent and very helpful, while Google more or less doesn't have it at all. I've even successfully refunded some games that were a bit over the 2 hour window.
    - soulofmischief 3y ago
      They promised to fix my damaged Steam Deck LCD screen for free 8 months ago, and I still haven't sent it in because I was on the move a lot. Twice I have renewed the ticket with staff deeply apologizing and asking for them to print a new RMA, offering to pay this time, and they just send me a new RMA free of charge, which I have twice disregarded. I can't think of another digital business off the top of my hand which would put up with my shit.
      - arc-in-space 3y ago
RockRobotRock 3y ago
Good points, thank you.
rezonant 3y ago
Valve is certainly better than others, but they do prevent publishers from selling their game for less outside of Steam (if they sell that game on Steam), and I think that is anti-consumer.
- maccard 3y ago
  If you're going to make statements like this, at least be correct. Valve don't prevent yoou from selling your game for less outside of steam, they prevent you from selling _steam keys_ for less outside of steam. You're perfectly free to host it on your own website for $10 less.
  - rezonant 3y ago
    (See update at bottom for a source supporting parent's claim) That's not correct from what I've read. You are more than welcome to ask for a source instead of accusing me of falsehoods. "To help maintain its monopoly power, Valve uses what is known as a Platform Most Favored Nations (“PMFN”) clause in its agreements with game publishers which prevents game publishers from selling their games on other on-line gaming sites with lower costs, fees, and/or sales commissions for less than the game publishers sell their games on the Steam platform" https://www.masonllp.com/case/valve-mass-arbitration/#:~:text=To%20help%20maintain%20its%20monopoly,sell%20their%20games%20on%20the%20Steam%20platform https://www.masonllp.com/case/valve-mass-arbitration/#:~:tex... Nothing about that refers to Steam Keys. I did do some cursory searching to find sources which disagreed with this interpretation but was unable to find any. There's always the possibility that the class action lawsuit was misguided or incorrect- so if you have any sources that say otherwise, please provide! ..Or I suppose, some examples of games that sell for less (excluding temporary sales) on other stores than they do within Steam. EDIT: Elsewhere someone provided this Ars Technica article where an unidentified source at Valve said this does only apply to Steam keys, which is likely what you are referring to: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/05/why-lower-platform-fees-dont-lead-to-lower-prices-on-the-epic-games-store/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/05/why-lower-platform-fe... So it's definitely a contested fact.
    - 3y ago

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.
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  > If the 30% cut is too much, someone should seek to disrupt them at a 5-20% margin. And we have come full circle: Epic's cut is 12%.
  - soulofmischief 3y ago
    Epic is absolutely not competing with Steam in any meaningful way for me as a consumer until they compete on several more fronts, or at least integrate with services that allow them to do so. If Steam was just a store frontend, I wouldn't use it. I just established their competitive offering above. In fact, EGS's primary way of competing, exclusives, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's anti-consumer, and a poor substitute for engineering a competitive feature offering. I actively avoid their store for this reason, and have passed up on their exclusives in the past, despite being interested in the IP.
    - ThatPlayer 3y ago
      > In fact, EGS's primary way of competing, exclusives, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. You're only noticing because of the competition. Without it games would be exclusive to Steam and you would never notice. Anything from The Finals to Lethal Company, PUBG to Destiny 2. Are these any less anti-consumer because they're only on Steam? I don't think so.
      - soulofmischief 3y ago
        I'm speaking of exclusivity deals. None of those games had exclusivity deals with Steam. You're blaming Steam for not having worthy competitors, but that isn't their job. Valve/Steam doesn't engage in exclusivity deals, EGS does. And Valve-published games obviously don't count, there's no deal, they just decide not to publish elsewhere. And remember: the closest competition is literal piracy. I'm not only noticing that Steam provides a quality service worth paying for because of EGS. I don't think you understand how many would-be pirates instead have gigantic Steam libraries.
offices 3y ago
Steam do the same pseudo-ownership crap Sony have just been lambasted for. The cart page explicitly says 'purchase' but you have no right to sell, trade or lend them. Steam only reluctantly added refunds due to legal obligations and if you have a justified reason for a refund outside of the 2 hour/2 week window, you have to communicate with Google-esque customer service. Years before Half Life: Alyx, Valve said they would never make single player games again. It made sense - TF2 was making silly money selling silly cosmetics. Presumably, the economics have now changed to make single-player viable again: any further player-base goodwill means a few more years of getting away with predatory BS.
- extraduder_ire 3y ago
  > Presumably, the economics have now changed to make single-player viable again I think alyx/deskjob primarily exist to sell hardware rather than make silly money on their own. You even get a free copy of the former with any index hardware.
- arc-in-space 3y ago
  >communicate with Google-esque customer service This is a strange allegation; While I have little personal experience with Steam's consumer service, the typical report I hear is that it is excellent and very helpful, while Google more or less doesn't have it at all. I've even successfully refunded some games that were a bit over the 2 hour window.
  - soulofmischief 3y ago
    They promised to fix my damaged Steam Deck LCD screen for free 8 months ago, and I still haven't sent it in because I was on the move a lot. Twice I have renewed the ticket with staff deeply apologizing and asking for them to print a new RMA, offering to pay this time, and they just send me a new RMA free of charge, which I have twice disregarded. I can't think of another digital business off the top of my hand which would put up with my shit.
    - arc-in-space 3y ago

RockRobotRock 3y ago

Good points, thank you.

rezonant 3y ago

Valve is certainly better than others, but they do prevent publishers from selling their game for less outside of Steam (if they sell that game on Steam), and I think that is anti-consumer.

maccard 3y ago
If you're going to make statements like this, at least be correct. Valve don't prevent yoou from selling your game for less outside of steam, they prevent you from selling _steam keys_ for less outside of steam. You're perfectly free to host it on your own website for $10 less.
- rezonant 3y ago
  (See update at bottom for a source supporting parent's claim) That's not correct from what I've read. You are more than welcome to ask for a source instead of accusing me of falsehoods. "To help maintain its monopoly power, Valve uses what is known as a Platform Most Favored Nations (“PMFN”) clause in its agreements with game publishers which prevents game publishers from selling their games on other on-line gaming sites with lower costs, fees, and/or sales commissions for less than the game publishers sell their games on the Steam platform" https://www.masonllp.com/case/valve-mass-arbitration/#:~:text=To%20help%20maintain%20its%20monopoly,sell%20their%20games%20on%20the%20Steam%20platform https://www.masonllp.com/case/valve-mass-arbitration/#:~:tex... Nothing about that refers to Steam Keys. I did do some cursory searching to find sources which disagreed with this interpretation but was unable to find any. There's always the possibility that the class action lawsuit was misguided or incorrect- so if you have any sources that say otherwise, please provide! ..Or I suppose, some examples of games that sell for less (excluding temporary sales) on other stores than they do within Steam. EDIT: Elsewhere someone provided this Ars Technica article where an unidentified source at Valve said this does only apply to Steam keys, which is likely what you are referring to: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/05/why-lower-platform-fees-dont-lead-to-lower-prices-on-the-epic-games-store/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/05/why-lower-platform-fe... So it's definitely a contested fact.
  - 3y ago