If the allegations in the current lawsuit are true, and they are still being tested, then Valve is leveraging its market dominance to keep prices fixed at a higher level. If you have bought more than 0 video games in recent years, this is most certainly interfering with things in your life.

If you don’t like giving money to rich assholes, I have some bad news for you about Valve.

🙄 That would make sense if valve set the prices or adjusted their cut in real time.

🙄 I’m well aware that they don’t do this, I’m asserting that the reason is at least partially because they don’t have to, because of their anti-competitive practices.

Games don’t have to be on steam to be successful.

Finding a few examples of successful games not on Steam doesn’t prove that Steam’s market dominance and price fixing aren’t hurting consumers.

You can’t be mad epic isn’t “allowed” to compete when they’re actively competing.

They’re competing so hard they’re not turning a profit after 5 years (Source IGN). They’re competing so hard that social media explodes in a circle jerk about Fortnite or lootboxes or some bullshit every time there’s an Epic exclusive. Epic is despised and not doing so well as a platform. A market without a massive anti competitive juggernaut dictating everyone else’s terms would make Epic’s store better, and it would make Steam better too.

How much does Diablo cost? How much did StarCraft 2 cost? Alan wake 2 ? Every Nintendo game? PlayStation or Xbox console exclusives?

I don’t know. Do you want me to do your research for you? Interesting that you list Nintendo and consoles who take 30% cuts from their monopoly stores.

But checking your example of Alan Wake 2, looks like it launched at $60 on consoles (30% cut) and $50 on Epic (12% cut). Huh, funny how that works.

Here’s an example of a communication from a court document:

A Valve employee informs [redacted] in an email that Valve will be delisting one of its games due to discrepancies between Steam and other platforms. When describing Valve’s decision, Valve states, "Ultimately [redacted] retail strategy is yours to control in whatever way you see fit. However, it is our job as stewards of the platform is [sic] to protect Steam customers and to ensure that they are being treated fairly. We will not knowingly invite customer regret by offering your game at a premium to other retailers.

There are dozens of examples like this. This is not behavior of a company that’s not price fixing. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59859024/348/1/wolfire-games-llc-v-valve-corporation/

Some games choose to skip steam and use epic. Epic pays them to do so, and the publisher doesn’t lower prices.

Evidence? Even if we went down the list of launch Epic exclusives and somehow determined that the price is equivalent to what it would launch at on Steam, the economics of an exclusive launch on a smaller platform are going to be completely different.

If you’re a publisher, why would you want to offer a lower price elsewhere?

Maybe ask the publishers who got together to sue Valve for the ability to do this, and check their many examples of comms with Valve where Valve was upset that publishers were offering lower prices on other platforms.

The appeal to a lower cut to you is higher revenue, not equivalent revenue.

There is a phenomenon called price elasticity. Example, a 5% price cut might result in 10% more units sold, giving you higher revenue.

epic. All of which are perfectly successful without using steam.

This entire lemmy post is about someone being upset that Epic is successful enough to have an exclusive. If a few large players can still succeed without Steam, it’s not proof that Steam’s practices aren’t making the market worse for consumers.

If they can’t make sufficient revenue without valves advertisement and distribution network, then maybe the service is worth the price valve charges for it.

Listing your product on Steam isn’t advertising. They’re not promoting your game unless you pay them.

Let’s make an analogy. Is it reasonable for Nordstrom to go after a company selling the same product at Wal-Mart cheaper?

Valve has done nothing to stop consumers from using other stores

If we lived in a world where Epic was allowed to compete with Steam on the only way it can, with lower prices, we might have cheaper prices on Steam, and a more robust competitive market. This is why Valve is doing this price fixing. They know that consumers are price sensitive, and a $55 price tag on a new game going for $60 on Steam would be a disaster for them. They know their price fixing department would have to become a “watch for prices on other platforms and adjust our prices / cut to be competitive” department.

The lawsuit already has several public examples of communications between Valve and publishers where Valve is all “whoah whoah you can’t be selling that cheap on another store!”. Publishers want to offer lower prices. The economics make sense, passing on some of the savings to consumers will result in an increase in revenue, this is also what the expert economists in the lawsuit are going to be testifying.

If you’re big enough to not be using Steam, you’re what, Ubisoft or EA? (and even these are using Steam these days.)

They don’t offer lower prices on Epic because Valve bullies publishers into matching the price with Steam. Valve threatens to delist the game from Steam if a lower price is available elsewhere, using their market dominance to prevent smaller stores from competing the only way they realistically can – on price.

they are totally cool with you making the sale elsewhere and giving a steam code out which means steam makes nothing on that sale

And they can afford to do this because they still require price matching, so all it does is create an inconvenience for the user to sign up for another site (something Steam fans don’t have a problem noticing in other contexts). They still get the game at the same price. I personally have hundreds of games on Steam and I don’t think I have ever purchased a Steam code this way, and I expect it’s the same for the majority of Steam users.

Steam is single handedly the most pro-consumer and pro-developer platform on the market

The lawsuit wants to create a world where a new game can come out for $60 on Steam and $55 on Epic. Valve doesn’t want this. Valve wants you to be required to pay the same price on Epic and Steam. This doesn’t seem very pro consumer.

It’s great that Steam is investing in their platform and Proton and Steam Deck. But they shouldn’t be requiring publishers to pretend that that stuff is free, to make consumers pay other storefronts like Epic as though Epic is also investing in these things.

It’s not illegal to have a better product, only to use your market position to keep other products from trying to compete.

That’s exactly what the lawsuit alleges though. The only way smaller featured storefronts have to compete with Steam is on price. Valve uses its market dominance to prohibit offering a better price on smaller stores. If you offer a better price on Epic, Valve will kick you off Steam.

If it’s only on Steam and no other PC platform, it’s exclusive. I don’t see the relevance from a consumer’s point of view whether money changed hands for that exclusivity. You could even argue that no money changes hands, Epic just doesn’t take its cut from the game’s sales is how I believe that works.

If Steam has the better store, then it should have no need to require publishers to match their prices. Of course if you’re buying a game on a fully featured, 30% cut store, it should cost more than on a less fully featured 12% cut store. Steam is using their large market share to bully publishers into not passing on savings to consumers from lower cut stores.

Steam keys can be generated, but the product can’t be discounted, ie again the 0% cut savings cannot be passed on to consumers. So all this does is create an extra inconvenience for the consumer to sign up to some publisher’s storefront to get the same product at the same price.

They’re in a class action lawsuit now over price fixing. They’re kicking games off Steam if their publishers offer games at lower prices on cheaper stores. They’re trying to be a monopoly.

But why should this matter to a consumer? If you don’t like Steam or Valve’s business practices, it’s much more difficult to avoid Steam because of its exclusives.

There’s a class action lawsuit against Valve now, over Steam’s practices similar to price fixing. Part of the reason Epic has to pay for exclusives is that Steam prohibits publishers from offering lower prices on lower cut stores like Epic. If publishers could pass on part of the savings to consumers from the smaller cut, Epic could be more successful without exclusive contracts. Anyway, hopefully what comes out of the suit will be better for consumers in the end.