qarboneDutch gamers file €220 million claim against Valve, operator of game platform Steam
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.
It can import your Steam wishlist and give you tons of examples. 😊
Here’s some: Civ 5, Disco Elysium, Yakuza 6, Borderlands GOTY, Outer Wilds, Doom Eternal.
You can also make filters that limit the suggestions to a certain sale percentage (eg. 50%+ off), or to a max price (eg. $10).
Civ 5 is 30€ on Steam and 2-3€ on other Stores.
Outer Wilds is 23€ on Steam and 16€ elsewhere.
All those stores just sell the game on steam, so we're back to steam being the cheapest. This is why the lawsuit exists.
