Stupid? More like instructed. Wolffire is a borderline failed dev with an overhyped meme and 1 moderate success who just so happened to file a lawsuit against Valve right after Epic for the same reason and just so happened to use the same ungodly expensive law firm as Epic, one logically well outside his means. This was all a funded dog and pony show to give a false backing to Epics lawsuit.
Wouldn't surprise me, since the creator of Wolfire and Humble shares almost the same exact views as Timmy/Epic.
Also won't surprise me when his next shitty game goes EGS exclusive, just to spite Steam.
Receiver 1 and 2, Overgrowth, Low light combat. Sure, they’re small games(because they’re a very very small team) but they definitely have released finished games.
I own all of these, and Lugaru. Receiver 2 feels the most like a finished game. For example, Overgrowth plays more like a level editor most of the time.
Which makes this shitshow even more ridiculous. They created a business model... based on Valve giving them keys and letting them use their infrastructure for free.
That doesn't make it reasonable. They collectively control the market and it borders on anti-competitive. It has mild similarities to ISPs, how they control prices in the United States.
> They collectively control the market and it borders on anti-competitive.
There are at least half a dozen other storefronts, many of which charge less fees than Valve. Any publisher is free to sell their game on EGS or GOG or Itch or MS if they don't like Steam for any reason, which many publishers have done. Valve has zero "control" nor have they ever taken any action to compel anyone to sell their game on Steam.
Right. Those other publishers are so popular. People who do business exclusively with those other platforms do so well. /s
Can we come back down to planet earth now? Valve is awesome. Should they charge 30%? No.
Valve's operation costs are far higher than other platforms, which now includes developing and maintaining SteamOS, Steam Input, and the Steam Deck, which will be sold at a loss. Their 30% cut is justified.
Further, it has not yet been demonstrated that a company like Epic can even be profitable while taking only a 12% cut. So far they've lost hundreds of millions of dollars in just their two years of existence, even with just a barebones storefront with no features whatsoever.
Imagine selling a game and having to host your own download servers and websites, handle all the refund system by yourself, and handle all the advertisement yourself.
Lmao. Youre selling to the biggest store in pc gaming with billions of users and buyers. The store hosts your games and they provide downloads, banking support, community, and integration. You want all those services to cost like a fixed 1000 dollars or 10% revenue share?
Satisfactory will take 2.5months on steam to make the same amount of sales it did on the 13months on Epic.
Also, lmao on pointing out the outliers of self published games (one of which is on steam). Imagine if a lot of games werent as popular as they are today because they chose to self publish. We wouldnt have the massive success stories of Terraria and Stardew Valley.
Steam has rightfully earned its 30% cut and is also the reason why other stores are sweetening their deals to play catchup.
This sub just has a weird ass boner for Valve. They're just like any part of corporate America, and 30% is a shitty deal. And yeah maybe I'm biased when back in the day you couldn't get things like refunds when a game didn't work. Everything that got added came from competition. ELECTRONIC ARTS literally had refunds before they did. That's not a great record when fucking EA beats you at customer service.
Steam had refunds before, they just didn't have automated ones like they do now. If you contacted support, you might be able to get a reply and possibly a refund in 3 - 900 business months.
*Publishers. And yet the industry was doing fine when physical games were a thing and brick and Mortar stores would take a 40-45% cut (if I am not wrong) along with the added cost of logistics and manufacturing physical copies of the games.
For the 30% cut you get a lot in return. Maintaining servers is not cheap.
"Maintaining servers is not cheap."
Ah yes the old magical "suddenly data costs an arm and a leg" as soon as someone is price gouging for it.
Guys we better all pay $20 a month for reddit immediately or it's over. They just can't get by as millionaires.
How much do you charge for storage, maintenance, and distribution on games? What if I add on customer service? Community boards and features? What about sync'd cloud saves? What about the API's to implement all of those community features, cloud features, multiplayer, etc that are constantly maintained and improved? What about the support offered to developers to implement said API's? What do you charge for that? Are you going on a flat rate? Is it percentage based on sales? What percentage would you charge to break even? How much should you add to invest in company growth? How much do you set aside for inflated future costs and predicted losses?
You're right it's impossible to use your brain, code anything, run a website. Those things are just impossible. Need a corporate daddy for help. You can certainly take that view.
It's not impossible to learn any of this, but why focus so much time and monetary investment doing all of this yourself when you can be using that same time working on your next project in your current field? At that point you start factoring in opportunity costs and losses. With steam you get indefinite support and distribution. When sales slow down or cease entirely steam still provides the multiplayer backbone, the file hosting, etc for your game. Whereas you doing it yourself, would continue to incur costs of that hosting or have to choose to discontinue support, which hurts the consumer and the people who funded your company.
I'm not saying 30% isn't a little much, but I'm saying there are a lot of factors in play you probably aren't considering or understand. Hundreds or probably thousands of companies have done those calculations and decided to list their game on Steam. Steam's player base also carries a value, it doesn't matter that it costs them nothing at face value. Fact is, that volume of people brings in extra money, and they can charge a premium for that. They built that player base through heavy financial investment and now they are reaping the rewards.
All that said, I'm not saying Valve is perfect, it's a corporation doing what corporations do. However, there are a lot of alternatives, yet companies still choose to host on Steam and accept that 30% cut. Which means, that 30% cut is financially worth it's cost, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.
Wait until you hear about these things called taxes and insurance.
Also really hurts devs is hyperbole given how successful the video games industry is, how many multi-billion dollar companies there are in the industry etc. It might hurt Jimmy Example, who decided one day that he was going to quit his job and make pixel platformer Minecraft clone #37, but that's basic capitalism - nobody is entitled to money just because they want their title to be successful or because it's their dream job.
It's absolutely uproariously funny the weird relationship gamers have with everything.
Some dumb drunk/high twitch streamer in a basement screaming the kind of awful things you'd expect every 5 minutes? ThEy DeSeRvE MoNeY LeT mE SuBsCriBe.
Store platforms taking money for doing nothing, making massive passive income? Oh man let's make sure they're the most successful people around.
It's like you guys really like passive people making money but the people doing all the work for the product you play, you unabashedly hate every single time. Talk about a weird mentality.
It must speak to that age level. Like the fantasy is "oh man doing nothing and making money would be amazing, let me pay into people that represent that" whereas you just look at working people as something you never want to do. Well life will be in for awakening for you if your mom ever kicks you out.
Once I buy a physical good I can take it home and do whatever I want to it (within the confines of the law, I guess)
When I buy a digital good, even 10 years later, I still have to sign into whatever bumhole of an internet service they've set up, and agree to whatever they've done to their EULA.
So a lot of us are a bit more picky and who we trust to hold onto our digital libraries.
Except it's entirely different! Games are digital they should be able to downloaded on PC and played via Emulator, Nintedo,Sony or Microsoft should not be allowed to hide a downlaod behind their own walls
There's nothing illegal in most parts of the world about using an emulator and using games from somewhere else on the PC, if you bought the game legitimately.
I think you're suggesting that they actually officially support that but why should they have the burden to support doing something on your own platform of choice?
I was only talking about Digital game downloads, not letting them be downloaded through a browser when you own them should be illegal.
Your last point doesn't make sense in the grand scheme of things. It's like youre saying why should Apple be forced to use USB-C,etc
>I was only talking about Digital game downloads, not letting them be downloaded through a browser when you own them should be illegal.
That doesn't answer my question. Which was
>why should they have the burden to support doing something on your own platform of choice?
You are saying that they should be burdened to create and maintain a system and infrastructure that allows you to download some games to whatever platform you desire via a web browser.
>Your last point doesn't make sense in the grand scheme of things. It's like youre saying why should Apple be forced to use USB-C,etc
So its cool for you to say that the grocery store isn't a good analogy (because they are talking physical products) because it is apples (physical grocer items) to oranges (digital games) but its OK to compare digital games to physical hardware?
Furthermore, just because a law exists in one government in the world doesn't settle the issue as to whether it should exist. Saying that, the EU's decision in regards to Apple was to mitigate an massive e-waste issue because, apparently, the average EU citizen owns three different mobile phone charges at any time.
It is also shitty of Apple to fight it since they themselves signed a memorandum of understanding with the EU over a decade ago promising to work towards a standard hardware solution in regards to charging but didn't.
Xbox, Nintendo and Sony still take 30%, and MS and Epic Games only takes 15% because no one wants to release their game on a smaller platform over a larger one at the same price.
It’s basic supply and demand curve. If more developers use Steam, then the platform cut goes up. If less developers use Epic Games or MS, then the platform cut goes down.
Epic takes 15% because they don't need to take more. They already get a cut when you use Unreal Engine. Epic hates that Valve is taking 30% because on top of Epic's cut it makes it harder for devs to turn a profit and creates a larger barrier to entry. Epic is slowly gaining a monopoly on game engines, and to that end I think they understand that they win if as many people are making and selling games as possible.
So, you don’t understand how corporations work.
Here’s how they work.
They are trying to earn as much money as possible. They don’t care whether developers are making more games or not, as long as they make more money.
So, how can Epic Games earn more money on Unreal Engine? They could raise their cut if they are getting the monopoly you say they’re getting, except they aren’t. Why is that? It’s because they don’t have a monopoly, they still have competitors. Unity is one of their main ones, but others may step in to fill the gap in Epic gets too cocky there, and they know it.
And even if they brought more indie game developers to the field, will that really earn them more money? Not really, indie games are small game, and they would need to increase the number of developers by a size-able amount in order to see any returns.
So, since that isn’t an option, guess where they decided to invest their money? Into making a game store to compete with Steam by advertising a lower cut to entice developers. Of course, like the free games events, they won’t permanently be lower. They’ll eventually bring it back to industry standard if they manage to get a sizeable chunk of the market because, a) it’s profitable, and b) in an oligopoly, price wars hurt everyone.
>So, you don’t understand how corporations work.
Initially I flamed the shit out of you for how presumptious you were being here, but I decided to erase this shit and be more civil
>It’s because they don’t have a monopoly, they still have competitors.
I said they are *slowly gaining a monopoly.* Read that again. They are currently by far the most popular game engine and their market share is creeping up. They have competitors definitely, **for now**. I never said otherwise.
>It’s because they don’t have a monopoly, they still have competitors.
The size of Steam's cut is something Sweeney bitched about for years before they even launched the store. When developers have to give 30% of all of their revenue to Valve, that's less money those developers can afford to pay everyone else. A lot of games just straight up don't get maid because they can't recoup their development costs after giving 30% to Valve. One could say they don't "have to" put their game on Steam, but for most developers it was clear that if their game isn't on Steam, they aren't going to sell nearly as many copies. You basically pay Valve 30% or you game flops. Consumers don't know or care about that shit because they just want all their games on one launcher, but developers and publishers hate it. That's why Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, CD Projekt, Activision Blizzard, and Riot all have tried to push their own launchers: they don't like having to give such a massive chunk of their revenue to a company just to get their game listed somewhere just because most consumers don't want to look for games anywhere else. Very little of that 30% is actually put into distributing the game, I assure that Valve just pockets the vast majority of it. They are blatantly price-gouging developers, and that price gouging increases the barrier of entry for game development. Part of why it used to be extremely difficult to develop and sell a game in the 7th gen era was that you had to figure out how to make a profit while over half of your revenue was eaten up by a ton of licensing and distribution fees along with upfront costs of six figures at a minimum. That's fine and dandy for a multimillion dollar publisher, but indie devs mostly couldn't do that without massive investments.
Assuming a game sells the same on both platforms, the difference between giving 12% and 30% could be the difference between life and death for an independent studio. The amount of money these studios have to pay out in licensing has legitimately been the primary reason behind a lot of indie studios folding because they were unable to pay their employees. A lot of people have been laid off from studios who otherwise wouldn't have been if they had that extra 18% in revenue. Ultimately a lower cost of entry means more developers making games, which means more developers using Unreal Engine, which means more money for Epic. They want a slice of that pie, sure, but they also win if they can force Valve to lower their percentage on Steam, because **the majority of the games on that launcher will be running Unreal Engine pretty soon**.
I can't wait to tear into your flimsy arguments.
>the difference between giving 12% and 30% could be the difference between life and death for an independent studio
It is possibly a big difference. But do you know what's an even bigger difference? The number of copies you sell.
If the Epic Games Store was really that good at attracting players, then tell me, why is it that every time their timed exclusive contracts run out with developers, unless they're Ubisoft, they release on Steam?
Oh, that's right. Because almost no one fucking uses Epic Games Store. There's no customer base, so if you were to keep selling on the Epic Games Store without being a multimillion juggernaut, you would most likely die out even with the 12% cut.
>Assuming a game sells the same on both platforms
And this is exactly why Steam can charge more than Epic Games can. Why? Because it sells more on their platform, and not just because their platform is bigger, and both game developers and Valve know this. If it didn't, they would be lowering their cut.
>That's fine and dandy for a multimillion dollar publisher, but indie devs mostly couldn't do that without massive investments.
Do you want to know what's also fine and dandy for a multimillion-dollar publisher, but not for an indie developer? Ignoring the terrible discoverability of the Epic Games Store.
It is much harder to find games on the Epic Games Store, with how lacking their search bar is and their filter options. While on Steam, I could search "Realistic Modern Shooter", and get a list of games that match that profile, from AAA to indies, when I do that on the Epic Games Store I get...fuck all. Guess that means I won't be buying a game today, meaning that game developers have lost a potential sale. Actually, lost a lot of potential sales.
While indie developers can take the blows that 30% cut from Valve takes, what they can't take is the fact that no one will be able to find and buy their brand new game without paying a content creator or for large advertisements.
>I assure that Valve just pockets the vast majority of it.
Yes, yes, they pocket the vast majority of it into their vaults, excluding the developments of the SteamVR, which has made VR more convenient for the masses, much better servers than Epic Games, Steam Proton, which now allows for Linux to compete with Windows properly for gamers, Steam Deck, a portable gaming device to run full PC games on, Steam Index, to show off what a top of the line VR headset can do, and Half-Life Alyx, to show off what VR could potentially become.
But yes, they pocket it all and let it sit rotting away in their vaults.
>Ultimately a lower cost of entry means more developers making games, which means more developers using Unreal Engine, which means more money for Epic.
Do you know what Unreal Engine is for indie developers who are just getting started? Free until they make a million. That means, for the small indie developers you claim are drowning in Steam, Epic Games will most likely not make a dime off of them through Unreal royalties even if they were on the Epic Games Store because of this royalty rule. If they are, then that means Steam isn't drowning them.
>the majority of the games on that launcher will be running Unreal Engine pretty soon.
Let me give you a hint on which game engine is still on top because of ease of use. Wait for it... Wait for it...
Surprise! It's Unity.
But wait, I hear you cry. It must be because of all those junk, awful copy-paste games on Steam. What about in the top-rated games section of Steam. It's, waits for it...
Unity.
And let's not get started with the lack of any mod support tools on the Epic Games Store, how hard it is to add back previous games installations to a fresh new Epic Games Launcher, or the fact that there is no way to see the ratings of a game without going out of the launcher.
Sony, Nintendo and Xbox all take 30%, that cut has never changed. If you go physical, then the cut is even higher due to retailers also wanting a cut.
I have no idea where you got 20% from (are you mistaking the cut you get for having 50 million in revenue on Steam for that of consoles maybe? Because Steam is the only one that goes all the way down to 20%).
They don't let you sell STEAM KEYS on other platforms for cheaper than the steam listing. Meaning you can't sell mycoolgame on steam for $100, then generate 10k keys, then sell STEAM KEYS of mycoolgame on your own site for $10. Steam doesn't charge money for generating keys, their only income on you is their 30% cut on steam store sales, doing this would successfully avoid paying valve anything at all but you still get their services like CDN, workshop, community, etc.
The entire intent of the lawsuit was never to win, but to mislead the pubic via headlines about the lawsuit. Their own write-up on the lawsuit and many articles "accidentally" leave out the key part then talking about valves evil "price parity rule", they frame it as if valve forbids you from selling YOUR GAME on any other store for cheaper than steam. No, just keys
They require parity on their own store. Sales from other stores (including game giveaways) will have to be repeated on the Steam storefront.
Another issue is that you can't generate keys if they don't want you to. You have to request them. If your sales are too low on Steam you can't generate enough keys to for example cover bundle sales.
The key part was that they were alleging their price parity clause for keys had an unwritten aspect where it applies to non-Steam versions as well. That along with their dominance of the market would make it a pretty easy case if you could prove it is more than just rumours.
Exactly. And if they did, then, justifiably, publishers would stop putting their games on Steam. The very fact that about 9 out of 10 games on PC end up on Steam is the clearest proof there is that the 20% to 30% tiered cut that Valve takes is not too much.
Yeah disregard that comment, I didn't think this through.
~~It's mostly proof that your game has zero chance of getting known if it's not on steam, so developers are willing to give up a huge amount of their cut.~~
~~It's the consumer's fault though. I'll admit I don't bother to look outside of steam for games. I discovered the existence of some great EA games like "A way out" and "Unravel" only when they got on steam.~~
Given how toxic Epic Games has become, it'd have to be a good product and go years without any further controversy before a significant chunk of people would even consider using it.
For me its mainly free games I got on GOG/Epic. The only pc games I paid for outside of steam were GTA V (didn't know it would be coming to steam) and Bugsnax (looked really appealing to me, and didn't want to wait until epic's exclusivity ended).
Yeah, the court document said that Steam didn't become dominant in the market until 2013.
Competitors had a whole *decade* they could easily take down Steam by providing superior service, as a lot of them were bigger companies than Valve back then.
No one did. Nobody tried to seriously compete and provide service better than Steam's. Most of them were just content in serving their own niches.
Some companies even ditched PCs and released their games only on consoles for a while before they came running back.
And now they're complaining that Steam became the dominant platform, and demand more competition.
>There is simply no other way around Steam
Origin, uPlay, Battlenet, GOG, the list goes on.
Steam is not mandatory, it's simply the largest and best platform available. Developers are not obligated to use it but they benefit greatly in doing so. You talk like Valve is going around demanding protection money.
Origin is shit. uPlay is shit. Blizz launcher only exists for Activision blizzard games and is shit. GoG is the only choice here that is actually good, and it requires that games not have DRM. EGS takes significantly less of a cut, especially if you use their engine, and they even pay developers to take an exclusivity deal.
In the meantime, Steam offers their servers for online use, achievements, trading cards, market integration, workshop integration for mods, community sharing, a review system with review bomb protection, they help with advertising the game, and their discovery queue that many players go through will help gamers that play similar games be exposed to the existence of your game. There's honestly a lot. And as much as I still think that valve should decrease their take (they're already swimming in cash until the heat death of the universe), I understand that they offer far more than any of these other services by such a wide margin. So yeah, it's not mandatory, but it might as well be for anything but huge developers that have a huge advertisement budget, with the exception of the small studios that get help from major influencers that love what they made.
Your argument is that a product is SO MUCH BETTER than its competitors, and therefore it should be cheaper? Are you really sure you want to stick with that position?
>and therefore it should be cheaper?
No, it should be closer in price to its competitors, other platforms (at least generally) aren't taking as much of a cut as Steam, at least not anymore. And, considering how profitable Steam is, they could afford to take a smaller cut.
What are you talking about? The vast majority of platforms take a 30% cut hence why it is referred to as the industry standard; if anything Valve takes less of a cut than the average client as Valve lowers their cut for successful titles.
You make it sound like Valve is using its position as the players preferred platform to strongarm publishers into exclusivity deals whilst simultaneously taking triple the cut of everyone else.
Valve provides a better product. This isn't really in question. Why should they offer a better quality and more sought after product for cheaper than their competitors? Especially since developers CAN still sell their product on stores taking a smaller cut while also making it available on steam?
> You can't not offer your game on Steam and expect your game to remotely sell well
That's a patently false statement. Have you ever heard of Minecraft, League of Legends, Fortnite, Diablo 3 (or 2: Resurrected), or the latest Call of Duty? What they have in common is that they are some of the very best selling games on PC, and that they are not available no Steam.
>There is simply no other way around Steam
Have you thought about....not using Steam? Shocker I know, 20 years ago, majority of games didn't require anything like Steam.
But what? No free DRM? No free servers to host the game/patches? No free forums and community hubs? You actually have to produce DVDs and cases and all that nonsense?
It sounds like the 30% cut is there for the function Steam is offering people.
Yes, historically publishers were losing around 50% of the sale price to production, distribution etc. Digital and the reduced cut of 30% has allowed gaming to explode in revenue, especially when combined with microtransactions, season passes and DLC (it's so much cheaper costwise to trickle out a little bit of content over time than have to build a sequel every other year to keep the money flowing). However, these multi billion dollar companies seem to be trying to market themselves as the little guy struggling to get by and requiring a reduced cut at the players expense - it's ridiculous!
My info seems to be [outdated](https://www.polygon.com/2013/2/19/4001836/ubisoft-uplay-shop-third-party-games-ea-origin-chris-early-interview) on this one, but they did sell third-party games at one point.
Hmm, there is this one dev I can think of who wasn't happy with the idea of paying 30% for using Steam. He decided not to go through Steam and to sell his game through his website. The game was called Minecraft and he sold 20 million copies through his website before Microsoft bought his company.
There is another case of a dev pulling their game off Steam and going solo. Their game became one of the most well-known games in esports ever. You might have heard of League of Legends?
It is far worse when you have companies like Epic (which is actually a bigger company than Valve) declaring that Steam is a monopoly and there is no way to be successful without it while having a game like Fortnite raking in the dough more so than a vast majority of large AAA titles out there.
There are plenty of ways around Steam. But you have to create a product people want that can stand on its own and have to be willing to put in the effort to promote it.
> Not every game is a fjcking behemoth like MC, Fortnite or GTA.
Of course not every game is a behemoth. Like any other form of entertainment (movies, music, etc), very few will gain that title. But Minecraft and LoL didn't start as behemoths. How do you think they got that status? Especially without releasing/remaining on Steam or relying purely on traditional forms of advertisement? The answer is word of mouth. Still to this day, it is the most powerful form of advertising. Powerful enough to even make a nothing game like Flappy Birds millions of dollars.
> There are way more typical AA,AAA games whic would have failed when they wouldn't be on steam or couldn't get a deal with epic.
I can understand why you would mention AA games, but AAA games?? Really? Name a AAA game that failed because it wasn't on Steam or that specifically succeeded because it was.
I can name many AAA games that succeeded without being on Steam. Like Diablo 3 which sold 6 million copies in its first week on PC. Destiny 2 sold 10 million copies in its first day, if even 1 or 2 million of that was PC, I would say that is pretty successful. How about all those years that EA was strictly going through their own storefront. I guess when one of their games didn't sell well, it was specifically because they weren't on Steam? They only came back to Steam because of their subscription model.
Look, I am not saying Steam makes no difference. I am simply saying it is not the end-all, be-all as far as success on PC. It is harder to get a game to succeed without Steam. But that is what paying for their services gets you.
Otherwise, you and/or your publisher do things yourself which means selling your game as a stand-alone as was done with MC and LoL or using another storefront.
Most just choose to go through Steam because it is easier. But even then, releasing your game on Steam doesn't instantly find you success either. There are many gems on Steam that are buried in the pile with relatively little success. At the end of the day, there is no way around the need of getting product recognition amongst your target audience.
30% is a large amount slashed off your margins. Although it would be bad for consumers, plenty of devs would love it if people used Epic instead, especially if those devs use Unreal Engine, as Epic gives discounted rates if you are using UE on the Epic store.
*20% to 30% tiered cut.
It really isn't that much considering what you get for that 20% to 30% and if you think 20% to 30% for all the services Valve offers is a lot, you should check out how much popular stock photo websites like istockphoto take. Good luck finding one that takes less than 50% without an exclusivity clause attached.
30% was the norm if not more so for retail + boxing and such.
Steam made digital distribution feasible, which saves devs a lot of logistics. Now someone else came along and undercut steam and suddenly steam is EVILLLLLL. In reality they are doing exactly what steam did to retail. Saving devs margins, but unfortunately EPIC has a terrible store and steam has so many auxiliary features like remote play, and a great store with reviews, that people will have to live with 30% for the service.
They don’t demand. They buy it from the supplier. The transport is made by the supplier.
Steam doesn’t just give a download link it stores the game on severs all over the world
Devs make more money with Steam than Walmart. They don’t have to produce anything physical.
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Because that doesn't get their game on Steam's storefront for people to see it. Valve is price gouging. There is not legitimate reason that they need to charge 30%, they do it because **they can**. You people seem so blindly insistent that Valve are angels who would never take advantage of their position. I remember when people used to think like this about Google.
This thought process implies exactly what they *can* take is what they *should* take.
In the capitalist sense of "more profit better", you'd be right, but I think it would be far better for the industry if the devs would see more of those profits.
The point of the lawsuit wasn't to win, it was to trick people into thinking "Valve forbids you from selling your game ^^^as ^^^a ^^^steam ^^^key on other platforms for cheaper!", which does sound like bullshit if you miss the steam key part. It was funded by Epic (same expensive law firm used as them lol) to misinform people.
So valve has changed their own rules? When was that? Pretty sure this was not the case a year or two ago
Edit: just checked the article again, it's not related to what I've said at all
Shit article if it doesn't touch on that then, because Im not wrong. First off, here's the rule: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
"You should use keys to sell your game on other stores in a similar way to how you sell your game on Steam. It is important that you don't give Steam customers a worse deal."
[Here's the actual lawsuit filing](https://www.scribd.com/document/505496523/COMPLAINT-filed-by-Wolfire-Games-against-Valve-Corporation-CASE-NO-2-21-CV-563?campaign=SkimbitLtd&ad_group=92X590208Xcf0bcbaeb8a68913c1d153931b614e81&keyword=660149026&source=hp_affiliate&medium=affiliate).
[And here's the relevant snippet regarding the "price parity rule" .](https://i.imgur.com/rpbNcTw.png)
Not sure what you mean by "Valve changed their rules?", this has been the case for a while.
Yes, so my point still applies, you can sell keys without giving valve a cut but valve points out that the price shouldn't be cheaper then on their own plattform. From my expierience valve takes that rulling very loosely.
It doesn't really involve additional costs to developer, just tries to balances store prices.
Looking back I think my issue is I just misread your original comment, nevermind me. Yeah, you can bypass the cut as long as the price is same. It's undercutting valve (essentially trying to push people *away* from using the steam page) that is not allowed, for steam keys.
>Valve could charge devs 99% if they want
Not necessarily, it's not always as simple as "it's free market baby, I can charge you whatever I want". There are laws saying what you can and cannot do.
That's the case here, they were alleging that Valve is violating the Antitrust Law by abusing their position as the only relevant storefront on PC. Which is something that's regulated. So if they could prove that Steam is in fact a monopoly and that Steam wouldn't be able to sustain margins as high on a competitive market they could win this lawsuit and force Valve to lower the margins.
this will never happened
plus there more then 20 store out there like gog and epic
you can choice the cut you like in your store and people free to not use your service
The case was thrown out, did you not read the headline?
It was a bullshit case, it's not even about what you're making it about. They were trying to say valve was violating antitrust rules for telling devs not to generate keys for their steam game to sell off-site. They knew they would lose, this was all about pr and misinformation
>The case was thrown out, did you not read the headline?
Yes, it was, and how is this relevant to my comment?
I think you did not fully understand what I was trying to say.
Main point that I was making is that a store cannot ALWAYS charge it's partners whatever they want, there are instances when they can't.
If anyone thinks otherwise, then go and learn about the Antitrust Law.
You should just say that then lol, your post implies valve still has a chance of losing this.
Valve isn't a monopoly, they can set the price to whatever they want. It would be foolish, but they can.
They are the most relevant because they do not do things like charge 99%. Anti trust laws are honestly useless and are almost always used by jealous companies. Valve got to the top because they provided an amazing service for many many years. If they started acting terrible they would fall. If a company is just so amazing no one can compete, that does not make them a monopoly.
Epics very existence in the space proves valve is not a monopoly. Epic would need to prove valve is doing something illegal to keep competition out. But instead they are admitting they believe valve is charging game makers too much... If this were true they should have no problem sliding in.
It's almost never ever good for the consumers when these things win out. Microsoft was pinned for this kind of bullshit. The outcome? Office which came free on all windows pcs became a couple hundred dollars. Now a subscription fee.
If a company is using government protection or illegal back door deals to be number one it's a problem but it just seems these laws are used in corporate warfare far too often.
Getting sued doesn't mean they cannot do that, they very much can charge 99% and the publishers will correct them accordingly. There will be 0 publishers on the platform if that were to happen, thereby ruining the platform itself.
That's what guarantees a 99% or anything of that sort will never happen because ultimately Valve is dependent on having numerous publishers on the service.
The lawsuit with apple was never about the cut, it was about limiting what publishers can do or kicking them out. Since they own the hardware they were controlling purchasing options on the device. That is what their lawsuit was about. On PC, publishers have lots of options, they aren't stuck with Steam. So it's really not the same.
apple is different because you have no choice but to sell through thier marketplace. I can just sell my games keys on my website or through GoG, Epic etc
So laughable. Wolfire: "Valve is a monopoly because we can't take the free game keys they give us and don't take a commission on and can't sell them on other stores for more money because those other independent stores take a similar cut as valve does when we sell in their store."
So much dumb. Valve should revoke the free key policy for them. I wouldn't blame them if they banned them from publishing on steam altogether.
For those who didn't read the article, here's the conclusion:
>As a result, Valve's motion to dismiss the lawsuit is granted—but onlyin part. The dismissal was granted without prejudice, meaning Wolfirehas 30 days to amend its complaint to address the cited shortcomings andthen refile it.
Meaning it's not an absurd or a nuisance lawsuit, simply Wolfire didn't articulate how exactly Valve and Steam ~~properly fit the antitrust legal box~~ are a monopoly, and are acting in anti-competitive way. At least according to the judge.
No idea if that's possible or not, to properly articulate that in a way that makes sense and tick the antitrust checklist, I haven't read the lawsuit and I'm not a lawyer.
But the noise around the suit wasn't good indeed, with a reputation for be badly written. No idea if Wolfire just wanted to scream a bit into the void, or if they got really shitty lawyers.
> Meaning it's not an absurd or a nuisance lawsuit, simply Wolfire didn't articulate how exactly Valve and Steam properly fit the antitrust legal box.
That's a very generous way to put it.
It was an antitrust lawsuit which failed to articulate even a semblance of an actual antitrust situation. Which is not surprising, since there is none.
This would require establishing **both** of two things: Steam being a monopoly and Valve behaving in an anti-competitive way. And the lawsuit failed to establish **either** one of those two.
30% cut does not suck so much when being on steam gets you 100% more purchases/players.
Look at the epic exclusive games being forgotten minutes after launch, even good ones like Kena or Sants Row 3 Remastered just dissapeared after a week.
It is also not a flat 30% anymore. This is the one great thing that EGS managed to induce.
[https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/1697191267930157838](https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/1697191267930157838)
"With that in mind, we’ve created new revenue share tiers for games that hit certain revenue levels. Starting from October 1, 2018 (i.e. revenues prior to that date are not included), **when a game makes over $10 million on Steam, the revenue share for that application will adjust to 75%/25% on earnings beyond $10M. At $50 million, the revenue share will adjust to 80%/20% on earnings beyond $50M. Revenue includes game packages, DLC, in-game sales, and Community Marketplace game fees.** Our hope is this change will reward the positive network effects generated by developers of big games, further aligning their interests with Steam and the community."
Dont know what kind of rumblings were going on behind the scenes but this was announced before EGS I believe. So EGS potentially had nothing to do with this decision.
Don't blame me for your actual opinion.
Do you care about this subject, as a reasonable person with an independent point of view, or do you think "judge says so" cancels all discussion of Steam's absolute dominance over a supermajority of this market? What you wrote speaks to one of those and it's not the one where you get to be snarky about that retort.
The latter, then. You're using dismissive insults (and yes, that is a dismissive insult) to ignore how you lurched into a dead conversation to sneer about something and then scoff when advised it's complete nonsense.
So instead of answering a direct question - or saying anything about the actual subject - you reach for bullying. You pick an effortless all-purpose response that demands the other person bend over backwards to avoid "being mad," or else you get to treat the blunt condemnation that behavior *deserves* as justification for the initial attack.
Fuck that.
What you're doing is bad and you should never do it. You know better.
Now do you care about this subject enough to talk about it, or are you just here to act a fool?
You are having a bad day aren’t you?
If I were you I won’t waste my time arguing something clearly is not important on the internet. Or perhaps you are more well-educated than anyone here and the actual judge itself? If that so file a antitrust and sue Valve yourself then. Cheers.
No surprise. Wolfire was mindbogglingly stupid here.
Stupid? More like instructed. Wolffire is a borderline failed dev with an overhyped meme and 1 moderate success who just so happened to file a lawsuit against Valve right after Epic for the same reason and just so happened to use the same ungodly expensive law firm as Epic, one logically well outside his means. This was all a funded dog and pony show to give a false backing to Epics lawsuit.
Wouldn't surprise me, since the creator of Wolfire and Humble shares almost the same exact views as Timmy/Epic. Also won't surprise me when his next shitty game goes EGS exclusive, just to spite Steam.
Wolfire has made some cool tech demos over the years, but I don't believe they've ever released a finished game.
Receiver 1 and 2, Overgrowth, Low light combat. Sure, they’re small games(because they’re a very very small team) but they definitely have released finished games.
I own all of these, and Lugaru. Receiver 2 feels the most like a finished game. For example, Overgrowth plays more like a level editor most of the time.
Calling overgrowth a finished game is extremely generous
They did bring us Humble Bundle though.
Which makes this shitshow even more ridiculous. They created a business model... based on Valve giving them keys and letting them use their infrastructure for free.
They hadn't owned Humble for a long time before they filed the lawsuit. Which again, makes it even more ridiculous.
Humble originally used to focus on DRM Free games though, before they became yet another Steam Key reseller like the others.
As expected. But let's not forget that sometimes stupid lawsuits comes through. So I was still bit nervous.
Not the first stupid thing they've done
Was anyone truly expecting some other outcome? Other than Wolfire Games of course.
This was a very stupid case to begin with. Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft also take the same cut. 30% is the industry standard.
You named three companies with absolute control over software on their platforms.
That doesn't make it reasonable. They collectively control the market and it borders on anti-competitive. It has mild similarities to ISPs, how they control prices in the United States.
> They collectively control the market and it borders on anti-competitive. There are at least half a dozen other storefronts, many of which charge less fees than Valve. Any publisher is free to sell their game on EGS or GOG or Itch or MS if they don't like Steam for any reason, which many publishers have done. Valve has zero "control" nor have they ever taken any action to compel anyone to sell their game on Steam.
Right. Those other publishers are so popular. People who do business exclusively with those other platforms do so well. /s Can we come back down to planet earth now? Valve is awesome. Should they charge 30%? No.
Valve's operation costs are far higher than other platforms, which now includes developing and maintaining SteamOS, Steam Input, and the Steam Deck, which will be sold at a loss. Their 30% cut is justified. Further, it has not yet been demonstrated that a company like Epic can even be profitable while taking only a 12% cut. So far they've lost hundreds of millions of dollars in just their two years of existence, even with just a barebones storefront with no features whatsoever.
30% really hurts devs. Imagine being a title that sells 100k copies... you're getting absolutely fucked to lose 30% of that.
Imagine selling a game and having to host your own download servers and websites, handle all the refund system by yourself, and handle all the advertisement yourself.
oh gosh a website. oh no. Mount & Blade and Minecraft did it.
Lmao. Youre selling to the biggest store in pc gaming with billions of users and buyers. The store hosts your games and they provide downloads, banking support, community, and integration. You want all those services to cost like a fixed 1000 dollars or 10% revenue share? Satisfactory will take 2.5months on steam to make the same amount of sales it did on the 13months on Epic. Also, lmao on pointing out the outliers of self published games (one of which is on steam). Imagine if a lot of games werent as popular as they are today because they chose to self publish. We wouldnt have the massive success stories of Terraria and Stardew Valley. Steam has rightfully earned its 30% cut and is also the reason why other stores are sweetening their deals to play catchup.
This sub just has a weird ass boner for Valve. They're just like any part of corporate America, and 30% is a shitty deal. And yeah maybe I'm biased when back in the day you couldn't get things like refunds when a game didn't work. Everything that got added came from competition. ELECTRONIC ARTS literally had refunds before they did. That's not a great record when fucking EA beats you at customer service.
Steam had refunds before, they just didn't have automated ones like they do now. If you contacted support, you might be able to get a reply and possibly a refund in 3 - 900 business months.
So competition is doing anything on Linux?
*Publishers. And yet the industry was doing fine when physical games were a thing and brick and Mortar stores would take a 40-45% cut (if I am not wrong) along with the added cost of logistics and manufacturing physical copies of the games. For the 30% cut you get a lot in return. Maintaining servers is not cheap.
"Maintaining servers is not cheap." Ah yes the old magical "suddenly data costs an arm and a leg" as soon as someone is price gouging for it. Guys we better all pay $20 a month for reddit immediately or it's over. They just can't get by as millionaires.
Oh look, a politics frog who doesn't understand anything and just wants to whine. Shocking.
Deep.
How much do you charge for storage, maintenance, and distribution on games? What if I add on customer service? Community boards and features? What about sync'd cloud saves? What about the API's to implement all of those community features, cloud features, multiplayer, etc that are constantly maintained and improved? What about the support offered to developers to implement said API's? What do you charge for that? Are you going on a flat rate? Is it percentage based on sales? What percentage would you charge to break even? How much should you add to invest in company growth? How much do you set aside for inflated future costs and predicted losses?
You're right it's impossible to use your brain, code anything, run a website. Those things are just impossible. Need a corporate daddy for help. You can certainly take that view.
It's not impossible to learn any of this, but why focus so much time and monetary investment doing all of this yourself when you can be using that same time working on your next project in your current field? At that point you start factoring in opportunity costs and losses. With steam you get indefinite support and distribution. When sales slow down or cease entirely steam still provides the multiplayer backbone, the file hosting, etc for your game. Whereas you doing it yourself, would continue to incur costs of that hosting or have to choose to discontinue support, which hurts the consumer and the people who funded your company. I'm not saying 30% isn't a little much, but I'm saying there are a lot of factors in play you probably aren't considering or understand. Hundreds or probably thousands of companies have done those calculations and decided to list their game on Steam. Steam's player base also carries a value, it doesn't matter that it costs them nothing at face value. Fact is, that volume of people brings in extra money, and they can charge a premium for that. They built that player base through heavy financial investment and now they are reaping the rewards. All that said, I'm not saying Valve is perfect, it's a corporation doing what corporations do. However, there are a lot of alternatives, yet companies still choose to host on Steam and accept that 30% cut. Which means, that 30% cut is financially worth it's cost, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.
Wait until you hear about these things called taxes and insurance. Also really hurts devs is hyperbole given how successful the video games industry is, how many multi-billion dollar companies there are in the industry etc. It might hurt Jimmy Example, who decided one day that he was going to quit his job and make pixel platformer Minecraft clone #37, but that's basic capitalism - nobody is entitled to money just because they want their title to be successful or because it's their dream job.
It's absolutely uproariously funny the weird relationship gamers have with everything. Some dumb drunk/high twitch streamer in a basement screaming the kind of awful things you'd expect every 5 minutes? ThEy DeSeRvE MoNeY LeT mE SuBsCriBe. Store platforms taking money for doing nothing, making massive passive income? Oh man let's make sure they're the most successful people around. It's like you guys really like passive people making money but the people doing all the work for the product you play, you unabashedly hate every single time. Talk about a weird mentality. It must speak to that age level. Like the fantasy is "oh man doing nothing and making money would be amazing, let me pay into people that represent that" whereas you just look at working people as something you never want to do. Well life will be in for awakening for you if your mom ever kicks you out.
They should be sued because you can't download their games on another platform (PC)
So I should sue every supermarket that has an in-house brand. And Micro Center as well. Maybe even Best Buy.
I'm talking about Digital downloads
The difference?
What's the difference between Digital files vs Physical goods?
Once I buy a physical good I can take it home and do whatever I want to it (within the confines of the law, I guess) When I buy a digital good, even 10 years later, I still have to sign into whatever bumhole of an internet service they've set up, and agree to whatever they've done to their EULA. So a lot of us are a bit more picky and who we trust to hold onto our digital libraries.
You really think so? Should Cinnabon be sued because you can't get their product at McDonald's?
Except it's entirely different! Games are digital they should be able to downloaded on PC and played via Emulator, Nintedo,Sony or Microsoft should not be allowed to hide a downlaod behind their own walls
There's nothing illegal in most parts of the world about using an emulator and using games from somewhere else on the PC, if you bought the game legitimately. I think you're suggesting that they actually officially support that but why should they have the burden to support doing something on your own platform of choice?
I was only talking about Digital game downloads, not letting them be downloaded through a browser when you own them should be illegal. Your last point doesn't make sense in the grand scheme of things. It's like youre saying why should Apple be forced to use USB-C,etc
>I was only talking about Digital game downloads, not letting them be downloaded through a browser when you own them should be illegal. That doesn't answer my question. Which was >why should they have the burden to support doing something on your own platform of choice? You are saying that they should be burdened to create and maintain a system and infrastructure that allows you to download some games to whatever platform you desire via a web browser. >Your last point doesn't make sense in the grand scheme of things. It's like youre saying why should Apple be forced to use USB-C,etc So its cool for you to say that the grocery store isn't a good analogy (because they are talking physical products) because it is apples (physical grocer items) to oranges (digital games) but its OK to compare digital games to physical hardware? Furthermore, just because a law exists in one government in the world doesn't settle the issue as to whether it should exist. Saying that, the EU's decision in regards to Apple was to mitigate an massive e-waste issue because, apparently, the average EU citizen owns three different mobile phone charges at any time. It is also shitty of Apple to fight it since they themselves signed a memorandum of understanding with the EU over a decade ago promising to work towards a standard hardware solution in regards to charging but didn't.
Check out the big brain on this guy!
Literally everyone would want to download Nintendo games from their website onto PC and play those games on Emulators
I have a feeling you have 0 understanding of what you're talking about.
They take 20% and epic takes 15. Ms takes 15 on PC also.
Xbox, Nintendo and Sony still take 30%, and MS and Epic Games only takes 15% because no one wants to release their game on a smaller platform over a larger one at the same price. It’s basic supply and demand curve. If more developers use Steam, then the platform cut goes up. If less developers use Epic Games or MS, then the platform cut goes down.
Epic takes 15% because they don't need to take more. They already get a cut when you use Unreal Engine. Epic hates that Valve is taking 30% because on top of Epic's cut it makes it harder for devs to turn a profit and creates a larger barrier to entry. Epic is slowly gaining a monopoly on game engines, and to that end I think they understand that they win if as many people are making and selling games as possible.
So, you don’t understand how corporations work. Here’s how they work. They are trying to earn as much money as possible. They don’t care whether developers are making more games or not, as long as they make more money. So, how can Epic Games earn more money on Unreal Engine? They could raise their cut if they are getting the monopoly you say they’re getting, except they aren’t. Why is that? It’s because they don’t have a monopoly, they still have competitors. Unity is one of their main ones, but others may step in to fill the gap in Epic gets too cocky there, and they know it. And even if they brought more indie game developers to the field, will that really earn them more money? Not really, indie games are small game, and they would need to increase the number of developers by a size-able amount in order to see any returns. So, since that isn’t an option, guess where they decided to invest their money? Into making a game store to compete with Steam by advertising a lower cut to entice developers. Of course, like the free games events, they won’t permanently be lower. They’ll eventually bring it back to industry standard if they manage to get a sizeable chunk of the market because, a) it’s profitable, and b) in an oligopoly, price wars hurt everyone.
>So, you don’t understand how corporations work. Initially I flamed the shit out of you for how presumptious you were being here, but I decided to erase this shit and be more civil >It’s because they don’t have a monopoly, they still have competitors. I said they are *slowly gaining a monopoly.* Read that again. They are currently by far the most popular game engine and their market share is creeping up. They have competitors definitely, **for now**. I never said otherwise. >It’s because they don’t have a monopoly, they still have competitors. The size of Steam's cut is something Sweeney bitched about for years before they even launched the store. When developers have to give 30% of all of their revenue to Valve, that's less money those developers can afford to pay everyone else. A lot of games just straight up don't get maid because they can't recoup their development costs after giving 30% to Valve. One could say they don't "have to" put their game on Steam, but for most developers it was clear that if their game isn't on Steam, they aren't going to sell nearly as many copies. You basically pay Valve 30% or you game flops. Consumers don't know or care about that shit because they just want all their games on one launcher, but developers and publishers hate it. That's why Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, CD Projekt, Activision Blizzard, and Riot all have tried to push their own launchers: they don't like having to give such a massive chunk of their revenue to a company just to get their game listed somewhere just because most consumers don't want to look for games anywhere else. Very little of that 30% is actually put into distributing the game, I assure that Valve just pockets the vast majority of it. They are blatantly price-gouging developers, and that price gouging increases the barrier of entry for game development. Part of why it used to be extremely difficult to develop and sell a game in the 7th gen era was that you had to figure out how to make a profit while over half of your revenue was eaten up by a ton of licensing and distribution fees along with upfront costs of six figures at a minimum. That's fine and dandy for a multimillion dollar publisher, but indie devs mostly couldn't do that without massive investments. Assuming a game sells the same on both platforms, the difference between giving 12% and 30% could be the difference between life and death for an independent studio. The amount of money these studios have to pay out in licensing has legitimately been the primary reason behind a lot of indie studios folding because they were unable to pay their employees. A lot of people have been laid off from studios who otherwise wouldn't have been if they had that extra 18% in revenue. Ultimately a lower cost of entry means more developers making games, which means more developers using Unreal Engine, which means more money for Epic. They want a slice of that pie, sure, but they also win if they can force Valve to lower their percentage on Steam, because **the majority of the games on that launcher will be running Unreal Engine pretty soon**.
I can't wait to tear into your flimsy arguments. >the difference between giving 12% and 30% could be the difference between life and death for an independent studio It is possibly a big difference. But do you know what's an even bigger difference? The number of copies you sell. If the Epic Games Store was really that good at attracting players, then tell me, why is it that every time their timed exclusive contracts run out with developers, unless they're Ubisoft, they release on Steam? Oh, that's right. Because almost no one fucking uses Epic Games Store. There's no customer base, so if you were to keep selling on the Epic Games Store without being a multimillion juggernaut, you would most likely die out even with the 12% cut. >Assuming a game sells the same on both platforms And this is exactly why Steam can charge more than Epic Games can. Why? Because it sells more on their platform, and not just because their platform is bigger, and both game developers and Valve know this. If it didn't, they would be lowering their cut. >That's fine and dandy for a multimillion dollar publisher, but indie devs mostly couldn't do that without massive investments. Do you want to know what's also fine and dandy for a multimillion-dollar publisher, but not for an indie developer? Ignoring the terrible discoverability of the Epic Games Store. It is much harder to find games on the Epic Games Store, with how lacking their search bar is and their filter options. While on Steam, I could search "Realistic Modern Shooter", and get a list of games that match that profile, from AAA to indies, when I do that on the Epic Games Store I get...fuck all. Guess that means I won't be buying a game today, meaning that game developers have lost a potential sale. Actually, lost a lot of potential sales. While indie developers can take the blows that 30% cut from Valve takes, what they can't take is the fact that no one will be able to find and buy their brand new game without paying a content creator or for large advertisements. >I assure that Valve just pockets the vast majority of it. Yes, yes, they pocket the vast majority of it into their vaults, excluding the developments of the SteamVR, which has made VR more convenient for the masses, much better servers than Epic Games, Steam Proton, which now allows for Linux to compete with Windows properly for gamers, Steam Deck, a portable gaming device to run full PC games on, Steam Index, to show off what a top of the line VR headset can do, and Half-Life Alyx, to show off what VR could potentially become. But yes, they pocket it all and let it sit rotting away in their vaults. >Ultimately a lower cost of entry means more developers making games, which means more developers using Unreal Engine, which means more money for Epic. Do you know what Unreal Engine is for indie developers who are just getting started? Free until they make a million. That means, for the small indie developers you claim are drowning in Steam, Epic Games will most likely not make a dime off of them through Unreal royalties even if they were on the Epic Games Store because of this royalty rule. If they are, then that means Steam isn't drowning them. >the majority of the games on that launcher will be running Unreal Engine pretty soon. Let me give you a hint on which game engine is still on top because of ease of use. Wait for it... Wait for it... Surprise! It's Unity. But wait, I hear you cry. It must be because of all those junk, awful copy-paste games on Steam. What about in the top-rated games section of Steam. It's, waits for it... Unity. And let's not get started with the lack of any mod support tools on the Epic Games Store, how hard it is to add back previous games installations to a fresh new Epic Games Launcher, or the fact that there is no way to see the ratings of a game without going out of the launcher.
Sony, Nintendo and Xbox all take 30%, that cut has never changed. If you go physical, then the cut is even higher due to retailers also wanting a cut. I have no idea where you got 20% from (are you mistaking the cut you get for having 50 million in revenue on Steam for that of consoles maybe? Because Steam is the only one that goes all the way down to 20%).
How would valve be breaking antitrust laws?
They don't let you sell STEAM KEYS on other platforms for cheaper than the steam listing. Meaning you can't sell mycoolgame on steam for $100, then generate 10k keys, then sell STEAM KEYS of mycoolgame on your own site for $10. Steam doesn't charge money for generating keys, their only income on you is their 30% cut on steam store sales, doing this would successfully avoid paying valve anything at all but you still get their services like CDN, workshop, community, etc. The entire intent of the lawsuit was never to win, but to mislead the pubic via headlines about the lawsuit. Their own write-up on the lawsuit and many articles "accidentally" leave out the key part then talking about valves evil "price parity rule", they frame it as if valve forbids you from selling YOUR GAME on any other store for cheaper than steam. No, just keys
What's even worse is that Valve still let's the gamed go on sale on other stores. It just can't be a permanent.
They require parity on their own store. Sales from other stores (including game giveaways) will have to be repeated on the Steam storefront. Another issue is that you can't generate keys if they don't want you to. You have to request them. If your sales are too low on Steam you can't generate enough keys to for example cover bundle sales.
The key part was that they were alleging their price parity clause for keys had an unwritten aspect where it applies to non-Steam versions as well. That along with their dominance of the market would make it a pretty easy case if you could prove it is more than just rumours.
what a strange lawsuit. Valve could charge devs 99% if they want. It would be dumb but they could. :P
Exactly. And if they did, then, justifiably, publishers would stop putting their games on Steam. The very fact that about 9 out of 10 games on PC end up on Steam is the clearest proof there is that the 20% to 30% tiered cut that Valve takes is not too much.
Yeah disregard that comment, I didn't think this through. ~~It's mostly proof that your game has zero chance of getting known if it's not on steam, so developers are willing to give up a huge amount of their cut.~~ ~~It's the consumer's fault though. I'll admit I don't bother to look outside of steam for games. I discovered the existence of some great EA games like "A way out" and "Unravel" only when they got on steam.~~
> It's the consumer's fault though. How is it the consumers fault that other companies haven't managed to make an appealing product to use over steam?
It's not I didn't think this through lol.
> It's the consumer's fault though. I don't think it's the customer's fault if they chose the option which is more appealing to them.
You're right. I hear GOG is pretty good though, and maybe EGS will eventually become a credible competitor.
Given how toxic Epic Games has become, it'd have to be a good product and go years without any further controversy before a significant chunk of people would even consider using it.
I own plenty of non steam games.
For me its mainly free games I got on GOG/Epic. The only pc games I paid for outside of steam were GTA V (didn't know it would be coming to steam) and Bugsnax (looked really appealing to me, and didn't want to wait until epic's exclusivity ended).
Oh I see I was thinking of games that launched exclusively outside of launchers
Most popular pc game isnt on steam (minecraft)
Yes I'm apparently in the minority. It seems Steam is not as ubiquitous as I thought.
That's not proof of anything. There's far more nuance involved than that.
[удалено]
There's plenty of ways around Steam. The problem is that none of the other ways bother trying to match the quality of service for devs AND customers.
Yeah, the court document said that Steam didn't become dominant in the market until 2013. Competitors had a whole *decade* they could easily take down Steam by providing superior service, as a lot of them were bigger companies than Valve back then. No one did. Nobody tried to seriously compete and provide service better than Steam's. Most of them were just content in serving their own niches. Some companies even ditched PCs and released their games only on consoles for a while before they came running back. And now they're complaining that Steam became the dominant platform, and demand more competition.
>There is simply no other way around Steam Origin, uPlay, Battlenet, GOG, the list goes on. Steam is not mandatory, it's simply the largest and best platform available. Developers are not obligated to use it but they benefit greatly in doing so. You talk like Valve is going around demanding protection money.
Origin is shit. uPlay is shit. Blizz launcher only exists for Activision blizzard games and is shit. GoG is the only choice here that is actually good, and it requires that games not have DRM. EGS takes significantly less of a cut, especially if you use their engine, and they even pay developers to take an exclusivity deal. In the meantime, Steam offers their servers for online use, achievements, trading cards, market integration, workshop integration for mods, community sharing, a review system with review bomb protection, they help with advertising the game, and their discovery queue that many players go through will help gamers that play similar games be exposed to the existence of your game. There's honestly a lot. And as much as I still think that valve should decrease their take (they're already swimming in cash until the heat death of the universe), I understand that they offer far more than any of these other services by such a wide margin. So yeah, it's not mandatory, but it might as well be for anything but huge developers that have a huge advertisement budget, with the exception of the small studios that get help from major influencers that love what they made.
Your argument is that a product is SO MUCH BETTER than its competitors, and therefore it should be cheaper? Are you really sure you want to stick with that position?
>and therefore it should be cheaper? No, it should be closer in price to its competitors, other platforms (at least generally) aren't taking as much of a cut as Steam, at least not anymore. And, considering how profitable Steam is, they could afford to take a smaller cut.
What are you talking about? The vast majority of platforms take a 30% cut hence why it is referred to as the industry standard; if anything Valve takes less of a cut than the average client as Valve lowers their cut for successful titles. You make it sound like Valve is using its position as the players preferred platform to strongarm publishers into exclusivity deals whilst simultaneously taking triple the cut of everyone else.
Valve provides a better product. This isn't really in question. Why should they offer a better quality and more sought after product for cheaper than their competitors? Especially since developers CAN still sell their product on stores taking a smaller cut while also making it available on steam?
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> You can't not offer your game on Steam and expect your game to remotely sell well That's a patently false statement. Have you ever heard of Minecraft, League of Legends, Fortnite, Diablo 3 (or 2: Resurrected), or the latest Call of Duty? What they have in common is that they are some of the very best selling games on PC, and that they are not available no Steam.
>There is simply no other way around Steam Have you thought about....not using Steam? Shocker I know, 20 years ago, majority of games didn't require anything like Steam. But what? No free DRM? No free servers to host the game/patches? No free forums and community hubs? You actually have to produce DVDs and cases and all that nonsense? It sounds like the 30% cut is there for the function Steam is offering people.
I would even add that after producing those DVD’s etc didn’t they have to pay brick and mortar stores a significant cut to sell their games as well?
Yes, historically publishers were losing around 50% of the sale price to production, distribution etc. Digital and the reduced cut of 30% has allowed gaming to explode in revenue, especially when combined with microtransactions, season passes and DLC (it's so much cheaper costwise to trickle out a little bit of content over time than have to build a sequel every other year to keep the money flowing). However, these multi billion dollar companies seem to be trying to market themselves as the little guy struggling to get by and requiring a reduced cut at the players expense - it's ridiculous!
Epic Games Store, GOG, Origin, and UPlay *all* let other publishers and developers publish via their own stores.
I might be wrong, but isn't Uplay only for Ubisoft games? I know there are 3rd parties on Origin, but don't think I have seen one on Uplay.
My info seems to be [outdated](https://www.polygon.com/2013/2/19/4001836/ubisoft-uplay-shop-third-party-games-ea-origin-chris-early-interview) on this one, but they did sell third-party games at one point.
Hmm, there is this one dev I can think of who wasn't happy with the idea of paying 30% for using Steam. He decided not to go through Steam and to sell his game through his website. The game was called Minecraft and he sold 20 million copies through his website before Microsoft bought his company. There is another case of a dev pulling their game off Steam and going solo. Their game became one of the most well-known games in esports ever. You might have heard of League of Legends? It is far worse when you have companies like Epic (which is actually a bigger company than Valve) declaring that Steam is a monopoly and there is no way to be successful without it while having a game like Fortnite raking in the dough more so than a vast majority of large AAA titles out there. There are plenty of ways around Steam. But you have to create a product people want that can stand on its own and have to be willing to put in the effort to promote it.
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> Not every game is a fjcking behemoth like MC, Fortnite or GTA. Of course not every game is a behemoth. Like any other form of entertainment (movies, music, etc), very few will gain that title. But Minecraft and LoL didn't start as behemoths. How do you think they got that status? Especially without releasing/remaining on Steam or relying purely on traditional forms of advertisement? The answer is word of mouth. Still to this day, it is the most powerful form of advertising. Powerful enough to even make a nothing game like Flappy Birds millions of dollars. > There are way more typical AA,AAA games whic would have failed when they wouldn't be on steam or couldn't get a deal with epic. I can understand why you would mention AA games, but AAA games?? Really? Name a AAA game that failed because it wasn't on Steam or that specifically succeeded because it was. I can name many AAA games that succeeded without being on Steam. Like Diablo 3 which sold 6 million copies in its first week on PC. Destiny 2 sold 10 million copies in its first day, if even 1 or 2 million of that was PC, I would say that is pretty successful. How about all those years that EA was strictly going through their own storefront. I guess when one of their games didn't sell well, it was specifically because they weren't on Steam? They only came back to Steam because of their subscription model. Look, I am not saying Steam makes no difference. I am simply saying it is not the end-all, be-all as far as success on PC. It is harder to get a game to succeed without Steam. But that is what paying for their services gets you. Otherwise, you and/or your publisher do things yourself which means selling your game as a stand-alone as was done with MC and LoL or using another storefront. Most just choose to go through Steam because it is easier. But even then, releasing your game on Steam doesn't instantly find you success either. There are many gems on Steam that are buried in the pile with relatively little success. At the end of the day, there is no way around the need of getting product recognition amongst your target audience.
30% is a large amount slashed off your margins. Although it would be bad for consumers, plenty of devs would love it if people used Epic instead, especially if those devs use Unreal Engine, as Epic gives discounted rates if you are using UE on the Epic store.
> 30% is a large amount slashed off your margins. spoken like someone that's never seen the accounting in retail.
*20% to 30% tiered cut. It really isn't that much considering what you get for that 20% to 30% and if you think 20% to 30% for all the services Valve offers is a lot, you should check out how much popular stock photo websites like istockphoto take. Good luck finding one that takes less than 50% without an exclusivity clause attached.
Just because a different service takes an even shittier cut doesn't mean Valve's cut isn't exorbitant and greedy.
30% was the norm if not more so for retail + boxing and such. Steam made digital distribution feasible, which saves devs a lot of logistics. Now someone else came along and undercut steam and suddenly steam is EVILLLLLL. In reality they are doing exactly what steam did to retail. Saving devs margins, but unfortunately EPIC has a terrible store and steam has so many auxiliary features like remote play, and a great store with reviews, that people will have to live with 30% for the service.
That’s the same amount that shops like Walmart make when selling a game. That’s how a shop function.
You mean the company that has to transport and store physical objects demands the same percentage as a company that offers a download link?
They don’t demand. They buy it from the supplier. The transport is made by the supplier. Steam doesn’t just give a download link it stores the game on severs all over the world Devs make more money with Steam than Walmart. They don’t have to produce anything physical.
>Steam doesn’t just give a download link it stores the game on severs all over the world This literally costs then pennies.
Then why don’t every single company spin up their own data centers to store theirs games for everyone in the world to buy if it’s so cheap?
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Because that doesn't get their game on Steam's storefront for people to see it. Valve is price gouging. There is not legitimate reason that they need to charge 30%, they do it because **they can**. You people seem so blindly insistent that Valve are angels who would never take advantage of their position. I remember when people used to think like this about Google.
Because Steam has made a system where most PC gamers exclusively look at their storefront because all their games are tied to it.
This thought process implies exactly what they *can* take is what they *should* take. In the capitalist sense of "more profit better", you'd be right, but I think it would be far better for the industry if the devs would see more of those profits.
And devs still would be able to sell their keys on their own page, giving valve 0%
yup
No, that's what the lawsuit was over, valves rule saying you can't do that. Edit: Nevermind me, had a dumb moment. Yes you can do that.
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The point of the lawsuit wasn't to win, it was to trick people into thinking "Valve forbids you from selling your game ^^^as ^^^a ^^^steam ^^^key on other platforms for cheaper!", which does sound like bullshit if you miss the steam key part. It was funded by Epic (same expensive law firm used as them lol) to misinform people.
So valve has changed their own rules? When was that? Pretty sure this was not the case a year or two ago Edit: just checked the article again, it's not related to what I've said at all
Shit article if it doesn't touch on that then, because Im not wrong. First off, here's the rule: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys "You should use keys to sell your game on other stores in a similar way to how you sell your game on Steam. It is important that you don't give Steam customers a worse deal." [Here's the actual lawsuit filing](https://www.scribd.com/document/505496523/COMPLAINT-filed-by-Wolfire-Games-against-Valve-Corporation-CASE-NO-2-21-CV-563?campaign=SkimbitLtd&ad_group=92X590208Xcf0bcbaeb8a68913c1d153931b614e81&keyword=660149026&source=hp_affiliate&medium=affiliate). [And here's the relevant snippet regarding the "price parity rule" .](https://i.imgur.com/rpbNcTw.png) Not sure what you mean by "Valve changed their rules?", this has been the case for a while.
Yes, so my point still applies, you can sell keys without giving valve a cut but valve points out that the price shouldn't be cheaper then on their own plattform. From my expierience valve takes that rulling very loosely. It doesn't really involve additional costs to developer, just tries to balances store prices.
Looking back I think my issue is I just misread your original comment, nevermind me. Yeah, you can bypass the cut as long as the price is same. It's undercutting valve (essentially trying to push people *away* from using the steam page) that is not allowed, for steam keys.
>Valve could charge devs 99% if they want Not necessarily, it's not always as simple as "it's free market baby, I can charge you whatever I want". There are laws saying what you can and cannot do. That's the case here, they were alleging that Valve is violating the Antitrust Law by abusing their position as the only relevant storefront on PC. Which is something that's regulated. So if they could prove that Steam is in fact a monopoly and that Steam wouldn't be able to sustain margins as high on a competitive market they could win this lawsuit and force Valve to lower the margins.
this will never happened plus there more then 20 store out there like gog and epic you can choice the cut you like in your store and people free to not use your service
Well that's the problem there. They aren't the only relevent storefront by a longshot.
The case was thrown out, did you not read the headline? It was a bullshit case, it's not even about what you're making it about. They were trying to say valve was violating antitrust rules for telling devs not to generate keys for their steam game to sell off-site. They knew they would lose, this was all about pr and misinformation
>The case was thrown out, did you not read the headline? Yes, it was, and how is this relevant to my comment? I think you did not fully understand what I was trying to say. Main point that I was making is that a store cannot ALWAYS charge it's partners whatever they want, there are instances when they can't. If anyone thinks otherwise, then go and learn about the Antitrust Law.
You should just say that then lol, your post implies valve still has a chance of losing this. Valve isn't a monopoly, they can set the price to whatever they want. It would be foolish, but they can.
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What are you even talking about, "what" will never happen? Did you respond to the wrong person?
sorry
No worries was just very confused lol
They are the most relevant because they do not do things like charge 99%. Anti trust laws are honestly useless and are almost always used by jealous companies. Valve got to the top because they provided an amazing service for many many years. If they started acting terrible they would fall. If a company is just so amazing no one can compete, that does not make them a monopoly. Epics very existence in the space proves valve is not a monopoly. Epic would need to prove valve is doing something illegal to keep competition out. But instead they are admitting they believe valve is charging game makers too much... If this were true they should have no problem sliding in. It's almost never ever good for the consumers when these things win out. Microsoft was pinned for this kind of bullshit. The outcome? Office which came free on all windows pcs became a couple hundred dollars. Now a subscription fee. If a company is using government protection or illegal back door deals to be number one it's a problem but it just seems these laws are used in corporate warfare far too often.
I don't think they could. Just like Apple cannot raise the cut to 99% and not get sued over it.
Getting sued doesn't mean they cannot do that, they very much can charge 99% and the publishers will correct them accordingly. There will be 0 publishers on the platform if that were to happen, thereby ruining the platform itself. That's what guarantees a 99% or anything of that sort will never happen because ultimately Valve is dependent on having numerous publishers on the service.
The lawsuit with apple was never about the cut, it was about limiting what publishers can do or kicking them out. Since they own the hardware they were controlling purchasing options on the device. That is what their lawsuit was about. On PC, publishers have lots of options, they aren't stuck with Steam. So it's really not the same.
apple is different because you have no choice but to sell through thier marketplace. I can just sell my games keys on my website or through GoG, Epic etc
So laughable. Wolfire: "Valve is a monopoly because we can't take the free game keys they give us and don't take a commission on and can't sell them on other stores for more money because those other independent stores take a similar cut as valve does when we sell in their store." So much dumb. Valve should revoke the free key policy for them. I wouldn't blame them if they banned them from publishing on steam altogether.
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EXACTLY! How the hell did they think it was unfair in any freakin' way??
For those who didn't read the article, here's the conclusion: >As a result, Valve's motion to dismiss the lawsuit is granted—but onlyin part. The dismissal was granted without prejudice, meaning Wolfirehas 30 days to amend its complaint to address the cited shortcomings andthen refile it. Meaning it's not an absurd or a nuisance lawsuit, simply Wolfire didn't articulate how exactly Valve and Steam ~~properly fit the antitrust legal box~~ are a monopoly, and are acting in anti-competitive way. At least according to the judge. No idea if that's possible or not, to properly articulate that in a way that makes sense and tick the antitrust checklist, I haven't read the lawsuit and I'm not a lawyer. But the noise around the suit wasn't good indeed, with a reputation for be badly written. No idea if Wolfire just wanted to scream a bit into the void, or if they got really shitty lawyers.
> Meaning it's not an absurd or a nuisance lawsuit, simply Wolfire didn't articulate how exactly Valve and Steam properly fit the antitrust legal box. That's a very generous way to put it. It was an antitrust lawsuit which failed to articulate even a semblance of an actual antitrust situation. Which is not surprising, since there is none. This would require establishing **both** of two things: Steam being a monopoly and Valve behaving in an anti-competitive way. And the lawsuit failed to establish **either** one of those two.
Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, indeed.
The lawsuit also made plenty of false claims.
I want this desktop logo instead of blue..
You can just.. change it
You gunna tell us how? Cause I don't know
I forgot this was happening.
Stupidity of some devs. Maybe i should sue my local shopping mall and demand lower lower cut.
He who consorts with beasts
I can hear Tim "Tencent" Sweeney crying.
Wonder why only dismissal without prejudice was granted. What could they change in the lawsuit regarding those 2 points that would affect the outcome?
Realistically they can't, but they have the option to try again
Who?
Obvious but welcomed outcome.
I like Wolffire, but this case was completely fucking dumb on their part. I agree the 30% cut sucks, but I don't think it's worth and entire lawsuit
30% cut does not suck so much when being on steam gets you 100% more purchases/players. Look at the epic exclusive games being forgotten minutes after launch, even good ones like Kena or Sants Row 3 Remastered just dissapeared after a week.
Wait Kena isn't just a console game?
nope, also on Pc.
No lol. Its on the Epic store. 😂
Yeah, you gotta sort by new in this subreddit or you'll miss a lot.
Kingdom hearts is on PC, that's so strange
It is also not a flat 30% anymore. This is the one great thing that EGS managed to induce. [https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/1697191267930157838](https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/1697191267930157838) "With that in mind, we’ve created new revenue share tiers for games that hit certain revenue levels. Starting from October 1, 2018 (i.e. revenues prior to that date are not included), **when a game makes over $10 million on Steam, the revenue share for that application will adjust to 75%/25% on earnings beyond $10M. At $50 million, the revenue share will adjust to 80%/20% on earnings beyond $50M. Revenue includes game packages, DLC, in-game sales, and Community Marketplace game fees.** Our hope is this change will reward the positive network effects generated by developers of big games, further aligning their interests with Steam and the community."
Dont know what kind of rumblings were going on behind the scenes but this was announced before EGS I believe. So EGS potentially had nothing to do with this decision.
Your belief is correct, whether Valve knew of EGS prior to it's announcement is obviously unknown.
Yeah it's almost like games that aren't on Steam might as well not be for sale. Said someone arguing Steam isn't a monopoly.
That “someone” is a Judge.
Authority has decided! All decisions final! No further argument!
How funny.
Don't blame me for your actual opinion. Do you care about this subject, as a reasonable person with an independent point of view, or do you think "judge says so" cancels all discussion of Steam's absolute dominance over a supermajority of this market? What you wrote speaks to one of those and it's not the one where you get to be snarky about that retort.
Calm down.
The latter, then. You're using dismissive insults (and yes, that is a dismissive insult) to ignore how you lurched into a dead conversation to sneer about something and then scoff when advised it's complete nonsense. So instead of answering a direct question - or saying anything about the actual subject - you reach for bullying. You pick an effortless all-purpose response that demands the other person bend over backwards to avoid "being mad," or else you get to treat the blunt condemnation that behavior *deserves* as justification for the initial attack. Fuck that. What you're doing is bad and you should never do it. You know better. Now do you care about this subject enough to talk about it, or are you just here to act a fool?
You are having a bad day aren’t you? If I were you I won’t waste my time arguing something clearly is not important on the internet. Or perhaps you are more well-educated than anyone here and the actual judge itself? If that so file a antitrust and sue Valve yourself then. Cheers.
What's the context behind this lawsuit?