qarboneDutch gamers file €220 million claim against Valve, operator of game platform Steam
Is there any actual proof of valve taking actions to limit competition or are they just popular because they have a good business model?
They don’t limit competition, but it’s a more open question whether they are engaging in a form of price fixing.
Seems to me the only fixing they’re doing is fixing the prices lower than other clients.
Rather than what you usually hear with price fixing, where prices go up. Like Amazon with Levi jeans.
iamthetotWell, no, it’s the opposite. The accusation goes that Steam strong-arms people into keeping prices on Steam the lowest (or tied for lowest) available if they’re selling the same game on another storefront. For example, Ubisoft cannot sell a game on their own platform for cheaper than they will also sell it on Steam.
Again, allegedly.
Of all the accusations against Steam, I’m most amenable to that one. I think devs should be able to sell on their personal storefronts for cheaper, if they’re going to the effort of setting up a storefront at all.
Selling on GOG or Epic for less does feel some type of way too, but I can’t say I’d block devs from doing that either.
But wouldn’t that be malicious from the dev side? “Hey, don’t bother with Steam because it’s more expensive. Come buy it here instead”. Just don’t sell on Steam if that’s an issue, but we all know they want to piggyback on the exposure/trust associated with Steam.
How is competition that benefits consumers in the form of lower prices “malicious”?
KraidenIt’s not going to result in lower prices for consumers. It’s going to result in higher prices on Steam.
It’s also going to fragment the game market on PC. That may or may not be a good thing depending on who you ask, but personally, I like not having to hunt around for the best store to purchase my game in. I go to Steam and I know I’m not getting completely shafted. This is essentially going to allow scummy corps like Ubisoft and EA to implement a “Steam tax” because I don’t want to use their shitty, bloated, spyware riddled miserable excuse for a storefront.
I’m seeing it as “pay the Steam price for Steam integrations like achievements, if you care about that” and “pay the cheaper price for just the game.” People could “abuse” it for free marketing but I don’t think most people would do that.
And you just gotta eat those costs; sorta like how there will be some level of public aid fraud, but that doesn’t mean you cancel food stamps.
I think that only applies to selling Steam keys on other platforms. They’re free to price the games however they want, but they can’t sell keys cheaper somewhere else.
That’s basically the crux of the accusations. Valve says it’s only for steam keys, other devs say they’ve been told not to sell their game for less elsewhere, even if they don’t include a steam key. I guess we’ll see as the case continues.
If it were only about Steam keys, I think I would agree with Steam. Selling Steam keys elsewhere is still making full use of Steam to fulfill distribution of their game.
It’d probably just lead to Steam not allowing devs to get free keys of their games. You lock into Steam and, if you want a Steam version of the game, you have to buy one.
That is what everyone takes wrong about the case. Two points I want to mention
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allegedly, they force other storefronts to match the price on steam or their storefront regardless of what type of key it is (Valve claims it is only for Steam keys)
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Nobody stops Ubisoft or EGS or whatever to sell their games on their storefront. OR even 3rd party publishers can avoid selling on Steam (look up EGS and Borderlands 4/Metro Exodus case). Literally nobody says they should sell on Steam.
What annoys me that everyone took “they force them even with own keys to match the price” as a factual truth just because of EGS, Ubi and some other company claimed so. The case is not closed yet. There is no verdict. Nothing is ruled out. And somehow tons of people are angry at Valve?!
Who do we trust more out of the box? Valve or EGS/Ubi? Sharpen your pitchforks only after the fact are known, people…
The thing is that this is in Steam’s TOS when it comes to steam keys. You can sell steam keys but not at a lower price than on Steam. Which is extremely fair – selling a steam key still means you’re using Steam’s infrastructure, you don’t have to manage the downloads & updates. It does not apply in a situation where you manage your own store with its own infrastructure
But that’s the crux. The accusation is that Steam has an unwritten policy that applies to non steam key sales, and uses their near monopoly to enforce it.
I’ve read about that, afaik we don’t know how much of a policy it is vs. some random employee going rogue. Hopefully it all comes to light with these lawsuits
The problem is if valve is price fixing then it would mean any company that limits the use of their service to others via fixed pricing agreements would also be price fixing.
If a company is no longer allowed to have control over their own service when used by others then functionally you cant have second or third parties anymore. It would basically break the very concept.
Cause yes valve does prevent you from selling your game on other platforms at a cheaper rate, so long as you are doing so via steam key or when valve servers will be the source of distribution. This keeps coming up over and over and its wild that people seem to think that valve should not be allowed to limit the abuse of their own servers.
The only example ever floated of them doing this with out steam keys or them being the distribution source was a single email from steam support to a developer. That has been proven over and over to have been a miscommunication and not actually an enforced policy.
Theres a lot of questions on how healthy it is for valve to be so dominate in the market and to have such a wide reach. But the fact is that other companies keep leaning on valve for distribution or build their entire company around it either legitly or though majority theft cough g2g cough.
Everyone else MADE valve into the market dominator either willing or via ignorance and bad business. It valve ever does turn fully evil we are fucked yes. But no one ever seems to want to actually try to fix the problem of everyone else being stupid as fuck. Instead just trying to legal valve into oblivion.
I agree with you that anything using Steam’s services should be subject to their terms. I don’t think a lot of people are arguing to the contrary about that. I have heard others accuse, though I don’t know with how much basis, that they apply the same control to games not using their infra.
The only example ever floated of them doing this with out steam keys or them being the distribution source was a single email from steam support to a developer. That has been proven over and over to have been a miscommunication and not actually an enforced policy.
If this is true, I definitely agree that they have done nothing wrong. Problem is with the many conflicting stories online and lack of solid info.
EinhornyordleCause yes valve does prevent you from selling your game on other platforms at a cheaper rate, so long as you are doing so via steam key or when valve servers will be the source of distribution.
This is false. Even if I put the game up on my own server, letting you download a zip directly from there, cutting valve fully out of the picture service-wise too, I am still not allowed to sell it cheaper on my site then on steam.
That’s quite demonstrably false. There’s so many games that do this, and are and have been part of steam for decades. i can think of is IL-2 sturmovik Battle of X series. They have sales almost every month on il2sturmovik.com and the account there is linked to the steam one. Same for other sims like Microsoft etc, selling through the Microsoft store…
MaestroIt's not about sales, it's about base price. And yes, Steam does consider "perpetual sales" a base price. They nearly kicked Ubisoft off Steam for that trick.
and yet, these games have a monthly sale. If that’s not perpetual sales, I don’t know what it is.
I’ve updated my original post with a testimony proving my point. For this case, I can only guess that it is the same case as with Mindustry: Because they have not been made aware that they are getting a worse deal.
This is false. Even if I put the game up on my own server, letting you download a zip directly from there, cutting valve fully out of the picture service-wise too, I am still not allowed to sell it cheaper on my site then on steam.
I’ve updated the original comment with a testimony about the topic which also contains an answer for your question:
In the rare occurrences where we’re made aware that the game is being sold on another platform for a lower price,… I guess no one has made them aware yet.
Yes, but all the valve fanboys will argue anyone who mentions the multiple price fixing lawsuits (which are not related to using steam key sellers, but they’ll endlessly post that TOS clause anyway) against Valve into oblivion.
A pending lawsuit is a merely a claim, not a proven fact or hard evidence. Swamping an entity with lawsuits doesn’t mean the defendent is guilty, because you can sue for anything.
We’ve already seen this happen with Monsanto, Disney, Nintendo, etc. where they go after smaller entities by smothering them in lawsuits to drain their coffers. It doesn’t matter if some lawsuits get thrown out or whether they’re valid, they just need to squash the competition.
And Microsoft, Apple, Nintendo, Sony, Epic, Ubisoft, EA, etc. all have financial reason to see Valve fall. Linux adoption is a threat to Microsoft and Apple, the PC market is a threat to console manufacturers, and having a pro-consumer store as the dominant player in the market limits what anti-consumer practices other storefronts can do.
Don’t just blindly trust claims and speculation, especially when there’s a lot of finilancial incentive to lie. Wait for lawsuits to actually get resolved.
gmtomI know from experience valve coerces developers into participating in their sale events, basically saying there game won’t get promoted on the store or in searches unless they agree to sales.
Which considering they already take a massive 30% cut of developers earnings, is very scummy. Lots of indie Devs that already struggle to make money and already sell their games for super cheap are basically forced to cut their profits even further just to get some visibility on the platform.
basically saying there game won’t get promoted on the store or in searches unless they agree to sales.
I’m very skeptical of that. The Factorio devs famously refuse to ever put the game on sale, and has even increased the price over time to account for inflation. Yet they’re one of the most popular games on Steam
Got any proof to back up your claims?
You’re the one making the claim. Thr onus lies on you
You’re the one making claims figure it out.
But by this point it’s pretty obvious that you have no proof. You’re just trying make it look like you’re waiting on me because you can’t admit you’re full of shit.
Like I said, pony up or shut up
It’s a pretty simple question and you refusing to answer it just proves you’re not here to argue in good faith and just don’t want to back yourself into a corner that forces you to accept any particular evidence I would give you. As by refusing to state what evidence you would accept you leave yourself the option of arbitrarily refusing anything I present to you.
Which is exactly why I ask. I’ve been on the internet a long time and this is the best method for dealing with bad faith trolls.
Lol.
Again, that’s not how proving claims work. You made the claim, so pony up. If your evidence is so irrefutable, then share it.
You’re literally running the playbook of Gaslight, Obstruct, Project. You should quit “trying” to make indie games and run for political office for the MAGAts.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you posting on here, and you paint yourself as a wannabe indie dev that’s totally incompetent so you start bitching and moaning about everyone else instead of actually learning how to make a decent game, all to avoid admitting that you suck at it. Grow up, you are not entitled to have the entire world bow down and tell you you’re a special boy like your mother.
Yes here: wolfire.com/…/Regarding-the-Valve-class-action/
They have the proof in the claim, but I don’t know if it’s public yet.
I agree that steam should enforce STEAM CODE sales to be the same price, but this is just a download of the game. I hope steam just fucked yo here and misunderstood; otherwise, it’s completely anticompetitive and is illegal based on the contract the developer signed from valve.
I’m curious who’s bankrolling them for this one.
They are not the same as Noyb who actually are very transparent and actually « believe » in something : these dudes are closer to insurance claims chasers from what I read about them.
Also I love their Q&A that states that they don’t get money from this
No. The Consumenten Competition Claims Foundation is a non-profit foundation.
Someone is absolutely paying them for the action it’s literally 5 questions above and is Winward NL. And they go back to my ambulance chaser parallel since it’s just a company doing litigation finance.
There’s nothing showing links from those guys to broader financial interests but that would not be out of the possibilities.
chameleonA different FAQ item mentions Winward NL Limited is in the Cayman Islands, which is a really nice place if you would want to hide such links. But yeah, could also be a bunch of individuals just looking for some extra yachts (bonus irony if they buy them from Gaben's yacht company).
Indeed.
From their page (www.winward.uk/about) they are funded by Rocade Capital. Rocade Capital itself links to EJF Capital and Barings.
It all could be unethical gambling based on the last Epics shenanigans… Maybe the chances to get a jugement favouring them is now statistically higher than against them.
I love valve as much as any other gamer but I’m with Dutchies on this one. Valve has monopolistic policies
Name one
Maybe if you read the goddamn article you'd know of one?
The foundation claims that Valve holds a dominant position in the market, estimated at around 85%, and is breaching competition law through so-called Most-Favoured Nation clauses. According to the complaint, these terms prevent developers from selling games more cheaply on rival platforms like the Epic Games Store than on Steam. This, they argue, keeps prices across the PC gaming market artificially elevated.
But if you go on isthereanydeal.com you will see a whole bunch of online stores that offer sales on games. They offer Steam codes too but are not limited to Steam, they cover many other platforms (including Epic).
(Those btw are all legit sites showing only sales endorsed by the game publishers themselves, they all sell new game codes. ITAD has a standing policy to only source from that kind of sales, strictly no key resale sites.)
So if you can get Steam games cheaper than are currently listed on Steam, and many games are also available on GOG which is DRM free… not entirely sure what this lawsuit is about.
Limited time sales is not what’s being talked about. Those are allowed.
It’s the regular pricing. A game listed on steam needs to make up for their 30% cut. Some other sites take a smaller cut. But multiple game companies have found that trying to list their games on non-steam key selling websites, for less money (because they don’t have to make up for as big a cut) are getting threatened to have their games removed from Steam for doing so. This is well outside any clause in Steam TOS, and would be illegal even if it was covered.
But multiple game companies have found that trying to list their games on non-steam key selling websites, for less money (because they don’t have to make up for as big a cut) are getting threatened to have their games removed from Steam for doing so.
Has any of these claims been proven yet?
They’re still working their way through the courts.
One of them is over two years old, though, so it’s not just a clout chaser blowing hot air based on absolutely nothing.
One of them is over two years old
Which only proves my point. They allegedly do, and we yet to discover if they actually do it or Epic, Ubisoft and whatever another publisher are lying. 2 years to prove if Valve was abusing the system and still nothing out there to confirm this suspicion.
I suspect that is really tough to prove and that is why eventually case will be dropped due to lack of evidence.
A court case with zero evidence doesn’t last 2 years…
Court case with undeniable and sufficient evidence also doesnt last long. There is more to the story than “they do it/they dont do it”
But claiming they do before it has been proven is dumb.
Defending a company with multiple unrelated entities suing them over the same thing, including non competitors, before they’ve been proven to NOT be doing that thing is very stupid.
with multiple unrelated entities suing them
How do we know they’re really unrelated? A lot of the lawsuits are in the US, where bribery lobbying is very prevalent, and the lawsuits brought forth by private entities could be backed by Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Epic, etc. under the table. Hell, any publisher/developer involved in the ESA is by definition not “unrelated”
Blindly believing those claims before they’re proven in court is very stupid.
Let the courts make their ruling.
Have you seriously never heard of the Nintendo v Palworld cases? Those are still going on after 2 years despite Nintendo’s claims being complete bullshit
Could you share an example of a deal that is less than on Steam? I couldn't find one.