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> Other providers could host those games for much less than the 30% fee. Hosting costs are extremely low nowadays. It's basically nothing compared to the develo

> Other providers could host those games for much less than the 30% fee. Hosting costs are extremely low nowadays. It's basically nothing compared to the development cost of an AAA game. This is often many years and hundreds of people working on a game. The hosting costs are completely minor in comparison. Steam does far more than just host, and everyone who uses it knows this, so it's clear that you either have no idea what Steam does (in which case you should not be commenting) or you're actively lying about it. Steam provides payment processing, cloud saves, ratings, game tags, social integration, wishlisting and sale notification, search indexing, game discovery, a bunch of incredibly useful APIs including networking and input, Linux compatibility, and many, many other things. > By your definition, any Monopoly selling you strongly overpriced stuff would be a "huge success of capitalism". This is not only false, due to the above value-adds, but intentionally false because I never gave a definition - you made one up and attributed it to me to lie about my positions. And yes, there is competition - the fact that you don't know this is yet another indicator that you're totally ignorant of anything relevant to the conversation. There's the Epic Games Store, GOG, the EA App, Battle.net, the Xbox one/Windows Store, and more. And you know what the most popular one is, by a large margin, because it provides value to both devs and players? Steam. That's the market at work. Your comments are false due to your total ignorance of reality, and your malicious lying about my statements indicates that you don't care that they're false - you'll say anything plausible, regardless of truth, to advance whatever agenda you have.

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
> Your comments are false due to your total ignorance of reality, and your malicious lying about my statements indicates that you don't care that they're false - you'll say anything plausible, regardless of truth, to advance whatever agenda you have. They seem to live in this bubble where steam is extremely bad or something. Nothing is as good or as bad as it seems. I think valve is still decent but I prefer Gog-games more if I can be honest, valve has drm but I appreciate their customer service from what I know and the amount of good games it produced like portal and the steam marketplace is still a very nice thing imo. I don't think steam is rent-seeking at all and I agree with your statement on it. Now I still believe that CS-GO's lootboxes are still an issue tho, maybe I am not understanding the significance of change so much Steam still does nothing to prevent gambling for children and people selling the skins on the other websites, I am not understanding how this change changes that, I read some other comment in here which said that you can have contracts which convert the rare to extremely rare Only in steam marketplace so maybe they stopped the other shady websites/the youtubers they sponsor by limiting their influence.... I don't understand :/ I still feel like Steam had turned a blind eye to child gambling for a long time and Coffeezilla had made a video about it which I can refer to. > There's the Epic Games Store, GOG, the EA App, Battle.net, the Xbox one/Windows Store, and more. And you know what the most popular one is, by a large margin, because it provides value to both devs and players? Steam. That's the market at work. The same is true for linux/Windows as well. You could say that windows has the market at work but the point becomes moot. It isn't as if there aren't better options (GOG) but that its rather good enough Like I said nothing is as good or as bad as it seems, my opinion on steam is barely good enough partially because of its previous responses on turning a blind eye to the whole situation but maybe this is changing with this thing they did right now but I am still not sure how.
- throw10920 1y ago
  Yes, of course, I'm not claiming that Steam is some utopic paradise or that GabeN is a saint or anything. Steam has problems too - most notably the huge skins gambling issue that you mention. I'm just specifically saying that out of all of its problems, "rent-seeking" is definitely not one of them. > The same is true for linux/Windows as well. You could say that windows has the market at work but the point becomes moot. Yes, there's additional detail that I didn't add - that, unlike Microsoft, which used (and continues to use) anticompetitive tactics like paying PC manufacturers to include Windows as the default option, Steam didn't do anything anticompetitive to become the most popular - they were just the best - and they haven't done anything to unfairly leverage their dominant market position. That doesn't strike me as a problem - and my point to the GP was specifically that they're the most popular because they're the best, not because they did scummy backroom deals to get there. I agree that GOG is probably better. But Steam is "good enough", and modulo the gambling problem, isn't really "bad".
  - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
    Yea I agree rent seeking is definitely not the problem, huge skins gambling is. > modulo the gambling problem, isn't really "bad". Can you please explain to me what you mean by this. I feel like valve enabled skins gambling which even underage people could do for a long time, so there is some truth about it and coffeezilla made a video about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13eiDhuvM6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13eiDhuvM6Y I am just saying the ethics of the company isn't perfect when they enabled gambling for a long time, I am not sure if right now it can be fixed or how this steps that they did right now fixes that problem if I am being honest.
cubefox 1y ago
> Steam provides payment processing, Other services do the same for arbitrary online shops, at much lower fees. In fact, Valve likely doesn't even run it's own payment processing, but merely integrates other services. > cloud saves, ratings, game tags, social integration, wishlisting and sale notification, search indexing, game discovery, a bunch of incredibly useful APIs including networking and input, Linux compatibility The development cost of these features is likely no larger than of one single AAA game. Yet they charging 30% on hundreds or thousands of AAA games and other games. > This is not only false, due to the above value-adds, but intentionally false because I never gave a definition - you made one up and attributed it to me to lie about my positions. You clearly stated that Steam is fine because it is useful. But anything sold by a monopoly can be useful while still being massively overpriced. Which proves that mere usefulness of something doesn't mean the price of it is justified. Which refutes your original usefulness argument. > And yes, there is competition Yes, but the fact that there is theoretically competition doesn't mean it is working. Large platforms like Steam benefit from network effects which come from their size alone. People will simply stay at Steam because that's already were their other games are, and because they don't see the massive 30% fee, that Valve is keeping, as some cost they have to pay. Any other platform faces a "chicken and egg" style uphill battle against these effects, even if they charge a substantially lower fee. > Your comments are false due to your total ignorance of reality, and your malicious lying Rather than hurling insults at me consider the simple question: If Steam was so fairly priced, wasn't charging excessive fees, how can it be that they have an extremely high profit margin? Realistically, that can only be because Valve's revenue from Steam vastly exceeds the costs of running and maintaining it.
- Hikikomori 1y ago
  It goes down to 20% when you have enough sales. Still high IMO. Marketplaces like steam, app store, etc, should charge based on services rendered rather than some arbitrary %. I still prefer steam even if its more expensive than other marketplaces. They provide real value over just distribution, like their return policy.
- ashirviskas 1y ago
  > > cloud saves, ratings, game tags, social integration, wishlisting and sale notification, search indexing, game discovery, a bunch of incredibly useful APIs including networking and input, Linux compatibility > The development cost of these features is likely no larger than of one single AAA game Then surely Epic, or Microsoft, or Sony could just easily create one. There being literally 0 such services means it's likely a bit more difficult than one AAA game :) So your argument is invalid.

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago

> Your comments are false due to your total ignorance of reality, and your malicious lying about my statements indicates that you don't care that they're false - you'll say anything plausible, regardless of truth, to advance whatever agenda you have. They seem to live in this bubble where steam is extremely bad or something. Nothing is as good or as bad as it seems. I think valve is still decent but I prefer Gog-games more if I can be honest, valve has drm but I appreciate their customer service from what I know and the amount of good games it produced like portal and the steam marketplace is still a very nice thing imo. I don't think steam is rent-seeking at all and I agree with your statement on it. Now I still believe that CS-GO's lootboxes are still an issue tho, maybe I am not understanding the significance of change so much Steam still does nothing to prevent gambling for children and people selling the skins on the other websites, I am not understanding how this change changes that, I read some other comment in here which said that you can have contracts which convert the rare to extremely rare Only in steam marketplace so maybe they stopped the other shady websites/the youtubers they sponsor by limiting their influence.... I don't understand :/ I still feel like Steam had turned a blind eye to child gambling for a long time and Coffeezilla had made a video about it which I can refer to. > There's the Epic Games Store, GOG, the EA App, Battle.net, the Xbox one/Windows Store, and more. And you know what the most popular one is, by a large margin, because it provides value to both devs and players? Steam. That's the market at work. The same is true for linux/Windows as well. You could say that windows has the market at work but the point becomes moot. It isn't as if there aren't better options (GOG) but that its rather good enough Like I said nothing is as good or as bad as it seems, my opinion on steam is barely good enough partially because of its previous responses on turning a blind eye to the whole situation but maybe this is changing with this thing they did right now but I am still not sure how.

throw10920 1y ago
Yes, of course, I'm not claiming that Steam is some utopic paradise or that GabeN is a saint or anything. Steam has problems too - most notably the huge skins gambling issue that you mention. I'm just specifically saying that out of all of its problems, "rent-seeking" is definitely not one of them. > The same is true for linux/Windows as well. You could say that windows has the market at work but the point becomes moot. Yes, there's additional detail that I didn't add - that, unlike Microsoft, which used (and continues to use) anticompetitive tactics like paying PC manufacturers to include Windows as the default option, Steam didn't do anything anticompetitive to become the most popular - they were just the best - and they haven't done anything to unfairly leverage their dominant market position. That doesn't strike me as a problem - and my point to the GP was specifically that they're the most popular because they're the best, not because they did scummy backroom deals to get there. I agree that GOG is probably better. But Steam is "good enough", and modulo the gambling problem, isn't really "bad".
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  Yea I agree rent seeking is definitely not the problem, huge skins gambling is. > modulo the gambling problem, isn't really "bad". Can you please explain to me what you mean by this. I feel like valve enabled skins gambling which even underage people could do for a long time, so there is some truth about it and coffeezilla made a video about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13eiDhuvM6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13eiDhuvM6Y I am just saying the ethics of the company isn't perfect when they enabled gambling for a long time, I am not sure if right now it can be fixed or how this steps that they did right now fixes that problem if I am being honest.

cubefox 1y ago

> Steam provides payment processing, Other services do the same for arbitrary online shops, at much lower fees. In fact, Valve likely doesn't even run it's own payment processing, but merely integrates other services. > cloud saves, ratings, game tags, social integration, wishlisting and sale notification, search indexing, game discovery, a bunch of incredibly useful APIs including networking and input, Linux compatibility The development cost of these features is likely no larger than of one single AAA game. Yet they charging 30% on hundreds or thousands of AAA games and other games. > This is not only false, due to the above value-adds, but intentionally false because I never gave a definition - you made one up and attributed it to me to lie about my positions. You clearly stated that Steam is fine because it is useful. But anything sold by a monopoly can be useful while still being massively overpriced. Which proves that mere usefulness of something doesn't mean the price of it is justified. Which refutes your original usefulness argument. > And yes, there is competition Yes, but the fact that there is theoretically competition doesn't mean it is working. Large platforms like Steam benefit from network effects which come from their size alone. People will simply stay at Steam because that's already were their other games are, and because they don't see the massive 30% fee, that Valve is keeping, as some cost they have to pay. Any other platform faces a "chicken and egg" style uphill battle against these effects, even if they charge a substantially lower fee. > Your comments are false due to your total ignorance of reality, and your malicious lying Rather than hurling insults at me consider the simple question: If Steam was so fairly priced, wasn't charging excessive fees, how can it be that they have an extremely high profit margin? Realistically, that can only be because Valve's revenue from Steam vastly exceeds the costs of running and maintaining it.

Hikikomori 1y ago
It goes down to 20% when you have enough sales. Still high IMO. Marketplaces like steam, app store, etc, should charge based on services rendered rather than some arbitrary %. I still prefer steam even if its more expensive than other marketplaces. They provide real value over just distribution, like their return policy.
ashirviskas 1y ago
> > cloud saves, ratings, game tags, social integration, wishlisting and sale notification, search indexing, game discovery, a bunch of incredibly useful APIs including networking and input, Linux compatibility > The development cost of these features is likely no larger than of one single AAA game Then surely Epic, or Microsoft, or Sony could just easily create one. There being literally 0 such services means it's likely a bit more difficult than one AAA game :) So your argument is invalid.