Didn’t the Epic lawsuits against Apple and Google end up showing Valves Steam cut ended up working out to something closer to 20% after all the key sales and whatever other factors. Plus EGS already does less than 20% cut and it’s been like 6+ years and that client is still bare bones and they don’t even do gift cards or price lower. Same for Microsofts store which I believe is lower on PC while still 30% on console.
Regardless at best this lawsuit would just mean an end to 3rd party steam key sales or Valve taking a 30% cut on those too. At best a victory against Valve would mean more expensive games with the loss of keysite stores pricing advantage
Also games used to MSRP $10 cheaper on Steam when there was an argument that going digital was a major cost savings compared to physical products/packaging, shipping, and retailler cut. Eventually publishers stopped caring and made physical and digital prices the same while adding an assortment of DLC and subscriptions
Does this mean cheaper games on the Steam store? Might be good for indie developers, but I bet most publishers will pocket the difference.
It’s kinda funny to read through this thread ngl.
Everyone claiming: “OH WOW PRICES WILL BE LOWER” or “OH MAN DEVS WILL PROFIT SO MUCH MORE!!!”
You know who profits? Publishers. The ones already taking 80 - 90% of a games revenue. Devs don’t see shit of that. And for indie devs that don’t have a publisher, the 30% cut is a godsend considering that steam is handling everything in the distribution chain.
You guys are fighting for corpos that want to buy their 5th luxury yacht.
People who genuinely believe game prices will get lowered if stores take a smaller cut are delusional. You can literally look at the Epic Game Store and see that it isn’t even remotely true. The only games on there that are cheaper than on Steam are the ones Epic invested in specifically to entice developers/gamers to use their services. The ones that don’t have exclusivity deals are the same as on Steam.
Edit: changed “take a cut” to “take a smaller cut”.
Tbf, any game that’s on both steam and Epic Game Store will be priced the same, because anything other than steam having the lowest available price is against Steam’s terms of service. You cannot be priced lower on another platform. GOG and a few others like it get around this by selling steam keys.
While that’s in place, you definitely can not see prices go lower.
IMO the only way game prices will get lower is if people just stop buying them at the higher prices. If the price of a game goes from $60 to $100 and people complain but still buy the game, then the next one’s going to be $100 too (or more.)
The wonderful side effect of buying cheaper games is you never have to worry about buying a game that is the result of a megacorp dropping $400 million into a metastasized web of sweatshop developers that comes with a "micro"transaction store where you can spend $240 on a new pair of shiny shoes for your avatar.
Bingo. We even saw price increases on the EGS instead of reductions lmao.
People are coping so badly because they want to hate valve or something, idk. It’s cringe beyond believe. Of all the shitty semi-monopolistic companies you could hate, valve is at the bottom of the list.
You are in the wrong here, Steam have a term where you can’t mark the sale cheaper on any other place, including your own website as you can generate your product keys.
Nope. This is, at best, a misconception. At worst, it’s an intentional misinterpretation. They have a term that prohibits the sale of Steam keys cheaper elsewhere. Game publishers are welcome to put their game up for sale on other sites for cheaper; They just can’t sell Steam keys cheaper. Basically, Steam wants to protect their own product keys from being undercut.
Ubisoft has their own storefront, and their own launcher. If you buy games on the Ubisoft Store, you get access to them via Ubisoft’s launcher, called Ubisoft Connect. Ubisoft is free to sell their games at whatever price they want on the Ubisoft Store, as long as they’re not granting access to the game as a Steam key. If you buy it on the Ubi Store and get access via Ubi Connect, then everything is fine. The only way it would be a breach of contract is if Ubi ran a sale on the Ubi Store, then gave players access via Steam. If you buy it cheaper than Steam on the Ubi Store, you won’t get a Steam key.
You can even sell DRM-free versions of your game for cheaper. As long as you’re not selling Steam keys, you’re fine.
Unless you can point us to that term, is it worth considering that you may be in the wrong here?
I’ve been searching for someone who can give me more than “yeah, but I saw someone say it online” for a while now… I’ve read the public facing docs and have found nothing that says you can’t sell your game cheaper - though there is something that says you can’t sell your free generated Steam keys cheaper without an equivalent deal on Steam ([here] (https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys#3)).
It is important that you don’t give Steam customers a worse deal than Steam key purchasers.
It’s not even that strongly worded.
Even if there was a super secret policy, how do you think it is communicated to developers so they know not to do it?
I constantly see people saying this.
Explain the pricing on virtually every non-Valve-published game on IsThereAnyDeal at any given time. Steam is almost always being undercut by another legit store selling legit Steam keys.
Incorrect, steam allows for lower prices and give aways if steam keys you request… As long as it’s not the base price. That’s how humble bundle works. That’s how every dev give away works.
The “devs” in this case want to sell access to the steam version of their game for lower than the steam price, on a permanent basis. Which is against steams rules, because steam provides a service that needs to be paid for, one that is worth far more than the 30% cut.
The solution is the same as every other industry IMO.
Worker owned and operated cooperatives that are integrated throughout their respective industries by a organization such as Mondragon.
Worker-owned businesses do not work on a large scale. If it would, more people would do it.
Please go back to lemmy.ml
Did you look at the linked Wikipedia page? Mondragon is big, it has 70000 workers. Wikipedia says it is one of the biggest companies in Spain.
Taking money away from one billionaire and giving it to another billionaire is completely irrelevant.
Also, of all the billionaires we have, gaben is one of the few I like. Steam has brought linux gaming ahead like nobody else ever did before, and there was no profit incentive until the steam deck which was like 5 years after the first release of proton, and that’s something I’m genuinely thankful for.
Valve had a Steam Machine before the Steam Deck which went down like a lead balloon but did get enough indie interest to continue to support a Linux version of the client. The Steam Deck is basically a continuation of that in a small form factor. I wouldn’t be surprised if Valve ever decide to offer cloud gaming that it is also derives from some of these efforts, if for no other reason than to avoid a Windows license fee on the server.
I’d love to see valve just blacklist devs who are on this lawsuit :D Go back to epic ig you care about your cut and not your customers.
