Such a weird stream of comments to be read on Lemmy.
Regardless of what you folks think about Valve, does anyone believe that a marketplace should have this kind of leverage over their suppliers? For instance, should Amazon be permitted to force manufacturers to set the price of a product outside of their marketplace? Should Apple be allowed to force app developers to price match the Google store?
Amazon literally does this if you sell on their platform as the manufacturer or just at all. My source: Hi, that’s me, and I can confirm this is standard practice at Amazon and I’m the manufacturer of my own product.
Hell, Reggie from Nintendo of old just stated that the entire reason Nintendo was not on Amazon for like 3 years because Amazon asked Nintendo to basically burn bridges with alllllll of their other suppliers, just like what you mentioned.
Platform A has a 40% fee and requires price elsewhere to be the same. Manufacturer X sells their own product on their own website, at +40% their price.
This is bad for buyers and competition. Platform A is already big and important enough that you can’t skip it, and can drive up and control pricing generally.
If the requirement were not there, if platform A does not offer enough plus service for the 40% margin, other platforms would keep the prices at a reasonable level. People could buy from the manufacturer at their original price.
A marketplace important enough that you can’t skip it being able to dictate market conditions is how it manifests itself further as the primary player and controlling instance.
Amazon is one of the largest online retailers in the world. If they force prices on suppliers to get a better deal than anyone else, that’s between extortion and price fixing.
For the same thing sold on their marketplace, yes. Literally you are voluntarily agreeing to use a private marketplace, you should agree to all their rules or just stop using that marketplace.
Amazon isn’t a public service. They aren’t a Farmer’s market run by the city. They aren’t a sidewalk. If you would like a public version of Amazon that doesn’t have those restrictions and would be cheaper for literally everyone, advocate for that. But until a public alternative exists then yes, Amazon can and should impose whatever rules it wants. Alternatives will appear if it becomes too restrictive and the platform will die.
That’s insanity. Under those terms, most suppliers would be at the whims of platform owners.
Microsoft asking Valve for a 50% cut? Sure. Google delisting a website because the owner criticized their CEO? Absolutely. Amazon telling you to sell at a loss or not sell at all? Why not.
That’s insanity. Under those terms, most suppliers would be at the whims of platform owners.
Congrats, you found one of the many problems with the concept of capitalism.
Microsoft asking Valve for a 50% cut? Sure. Google delisting a website because the owner criticized their CEO? Absolutely. Amazon telling you to sell at a loss or not sell at all? Why not.
Yes. That is how all that works. Because they are all private companies and it is voluntary to use their services.
If you think those services should be neutral, congrats, you’re advocating for communism. I think communism is pretty cool and there should be a state-run online marketplace that is entirely non-profit. But you seem to think you should or could force companies to be that public entity. That’s not only not realistic and not how the world has ever worked under capitalism, but it’s just simply a bad idea. Look at the USPS for why you should not have a private entity perform a public service.
But you seem to think you should or could force companies to be that public entity. That’s not only not realistic and not how the world has ever worked under capitalism, but it’s just simply a bad idea.
I disagree. There are plenty of success stories of companies being forced by governments to act in the best interest of consumers, from adopting USB-C to removing lead from gasoline.
Look at the USPS for why you should not have a private entity perform a public service.
You are conflating very different things here, I’m afraid.
Absolutely, stop using Amazon. Except what’s the alternative? They’ve wedged themselves in that space, and bought out any other competitor. So either they get forced to compete with themselves (by breaking the company apart) or they adhere to anti-monopoly laws where they’re not allowed to influence other prices as part of their agreement.
Except what’s the alternative? They’ve wedged themselves in that space, and bought out any other competitor.
Aliexpress, walmart.com, ebay.com, wayfair.com, any manufacturer’s website. Or the actual global leader in the space, Alibaba which dwarfs Amazon’s entire marketplace with over twice the users and easily a thousand times the suppliers.
So either they get forced to compete with themselves (by breaking the company apart) or they adhere to anti-monopoly laws where they’re not allowed to influence other prices as part of their agreement.
Or, if people think private companies should be neutral, like a public service… PEOPLE SHOULD FUCKING ADVOCATE AND ORDER THEIR GOVERNMENTS TO PROVIDE A PUBLIC SERVICE.
It is infinitely easier and better to get the government to do things for you than it is to force a private company to do things for you.
Your own website as the manufacturer doesn’t have the reach of these other platforms. (in an age of SEO and AI searches it really doesn’t have to be that way).
The strongest argument here is in favor of Aliexpress. Which isn’t without issues and heavily lobbied by amazon to have even more issues in the US.
No company should have that kind of market leverage, no. The issue though is saying this makes them a monopoly. It’s shit behavior but then if that ability makes a company a monopoly, we should be busting down a lot of company doors that do/did the same thing. Looking at Wal-Mart, nearly every major ISP in the USA, there’s a lot of that going on.
No. The issue is exactly what they stated. The law does not mention “monopoly.” It is against “monopolistic behaviors”, such as using your market dominance to force price parity. A game developer can’t afford to not be on Steam, because they have such strong market dominance. Valve knows this, and this is about them abusing this position to force price parity.
Regardless of what you folks think about Valve, does anyone believe that a marketplace should have this kind of leverage over their suppliers?
On principle, no, and Valve should not be above criticism.
I’m cautiously in favour of uniform retail pricing, such that no sales platform could either gouge customers or undercut to win more people over, such that the competition is determined by the available selection of products and other amenities, but my gut says that kind of price fixation would end up a minefield of complications, exceptions and loopholes. Few things are ever as easy as a layperson may think, and I sure am one.
Either way, one retailer dictating the prices for all others definitely seems unfair.
For instance, should Amazon be permitted to force manufacturers to set the price of a product outside of their marketplace?
Aside from the obligatory “fuck Amazon”, that would open the door to a particularly vicious level of fuckery. They would set their own price, sustained by cheap, fucked-up working conditions and the capital to afford selling at a loss, which they already do and which is bad enough, but to also dictate that price to other vendors that definitely can’t afford to operate at such a loss? If they’re currently on the road to monopoly, that would turn it into a bullet train: fast, on rails and with no stop to get off at.
If I manufacture your product from a product version prototype you provided me and give you unlimited access to that product to use outside my manufacturing plant and store front, then say, you can have and sell all this free product I manufactured for you, but you have to price it the same in my store as you do where you sell it elsewhere, that’s makes sense.
What doesn’t make sense and what isn’t right, is if they say "you can’t price your product that someone else is manufacturing for you at a price lower than the one your price my manufactured product of yours at.
But people keep thinking that those two groups are saying the same thing, that Valve should be allowed to do it regardless of who manufactured what when that’s not what they are saying.
If Valve is doing this, they obvious should have the book thrown at them. But we haven’t seen evidence of that that isn’t tantamount to hearsay. So we are doing what you should do when you hear something and can’t determine the veracity of what is being said. You wait for proof and don’t make up your mind based on rumors.
“That person isn’t being robbed. Sure, there’s a gun to their head, but the person is only saying to hand over their money or they can choose to die. They don’t have to obey them!”
They aren’t even saying that. They’re saying, you can’t sell steam platform keys outside of steam for cheaper than you would on steam. Because a steam key provides all of the services and quality of life of buying a game in the steam store (downloads, cloud saves, workshop, multiplayer, etc.). If you sell keys outside of steam for a consumer to use on steam, steam still has to treat that consumer like everyone who bought the game on the marketplace. Also, when you sell a steam key, valve doesn’t take the usual 30% cut of the sale. In fact they take no cut of the sale and STILL provide distribution and services for that sale.
That’s not what the article says. It’s about UPlay keys sold by Ubisoft through UPlay that have nothing to do with Steam, and Valve threatening to remove a game from Steam unless the UPlay keys sold through UPlay became the same price as the Steam keys sold through Steam.
When steam provides substantially more services for a game with achievements, forums, workshop, etc. And then developer wants to list on steam and then funnel people over to a different platform to buy it cheaper. Steam isn’t getting compensated for the services they provided to boost the game’s popularity.
As others have said there’s already ways to get the game cheaper like humble bundle or Green Man gaming. This is literally just steam doing what they can to see a return on investment and not provide these services for free.
The comparison between Google and apple doesn’t really make sense as steam provides a whole bunch of services while epic provides a purchase button
To make the same argument, but to point out the absurdity of your argument, GameStop (or other retailers) put up advertising for products on their window. This has a material cost. However, if you buy it from somewhere else they don’t pay for this cost.
Valve choosing to advertise is a choice they make. They can choose not to, but it makes them more money if they do. Other stores should not have to pay for a different store’s choices. That’s insane.
Valve services do not apply when a game is being sold by Ubisoft in their own platform, with no steam keys included in the purchase. Valve’s infrastructure is not being used. That’s what these lawsuits are about. Not steam key resellers.
Im saying there are other key sellers that have it for less that they don’t stop from doing so, but the things steam had and the publicity it gives are of value and they don’t want to have publishers using steam for publicity and other community and forums what it and directing most of the sales elsewhere. They can by all means list their games elsewhere and price it however they want. But that’s always been the terms of selling on steam. Of they don’t like it they shouldn’t agree to the terms. But it’s not like it’s some new policy that valve implemented out of nowhere. I don’t completely agree with their policy but if publishers have an issue with it then don’t agree to it
So if I go to Amazon searching for a product, read the reviews, check if it’s been returned often, etc., that should be enough for Amazon to set the price of the same product on the manufacturer’s website?
The comparison between Google and apple doesn’t really make sense as steam provides a whole bunch of services while epic provides a purchase button.
Who is talking about Epic here?
Also, both Google and Apple have their own app stores, where they take a cut of the sales, while providing a SDKs for things from push notifications, to payment processing, to analytics. Nowadays they also provide game platforms for things like multiplayer or achievements, among other things. Essentially the same as Steam.
There are other marketplaces to steam. Steam doesn’t prevent you from installing from sources outside of steam. Steam doesn’t regulate your hardware or how you use it. If you want to sell on steam you can still sell elsewhere but it has to be the same price.
This means if you go to steam to find out about a game and then decide to buy it from the manufacturer’s website the manufacturer makes more money because they don’t have to give Valve a cut, and Valve might even authorize you to activate that product on steam.
Expecting valve to offer their marketing and delivery systems without any incentive for you to sell products through it would defeat the purpose of their platform.
Compare that to the other two chuckle fuckers in this mix:
Apple maintains an exclusive platform. Apple has taken specific steps to prevent people from installing software from sources that have not paid them for permission to make software for the hardware you rent from them.
Google maintains an exclusive platform. Google has taken specific steps to prevent people from installing from sources that have not paid them for permission to make software for the hardware you bought from third party vendors and manufacturers.
The ever shrinking accommodation to installing third-party software on your purchased hardware is anti-competitive, and defeats consumer choice.
This means if you go to steam to find out about a game and then decide to buy it from the manufacturer’s website the manufacturer makes more money because they don’t have to give Valve a cut, and Valve might even authorize you to activate that product on steam.
Expecting valve to offer their marketing and delivery systems without any incentive for you to sell products through it would defeat the purpose of their platform.
You can only activate that product in Steam if it’s sold as a Steam key. Also, any game added to Steam from outside the platform has no access to their SDK, so this point is moot.
I’m not defending either Apple nor Google, but their business model is essentially the same, with the exception of the hardware integration, which again, doesn’t even matter that much since Steam is at 75% PC market share. And if you read some of the comments in this thread you’ll find out that for many people, the moat is not the hardware, is the platform itself.
Again, weird to see people defending anti competitive behaviour coming from a multi billion corporation, just because they sympathize with them.
Yeah that doesn’t even vaguely resemble what I’m saying.
Valve isn’t regulating your hardware and they aren’t forcing anybody to do anything.
Valve is not a bully here. They have a contract saying if you sell your product with me you can’t sell it someplace else cheaper just to use me for marketing and delivery.
Apple says you have to pay me to even have the right to sell your product and you can only sell it through me. If you sell it someplace else I want to cut of that too.
Google just keeps changing the nature of what you’re allowed to do with your own stuff and they take a cut.
If you feel bullied by Valve or some developer feels bullied by valve then you have a victim complex.
Based on your take, I agree with you. If valve is providing services, then developers should not be selling steam keys for cheaper elsewhere. It dilutes trust in their business model too if people start assuming that they can get the same services, provided by valve, for cheaper elsewhere.
However, is that what this article is talking about? The games mentioned, specifically R6 Siege and SoM, both appear to run stand alone without steam integration. I’m not intimately familiar with either one, just what I can gather based off the article and a pair of quick online searches.
The article is alleging. We don’t yet have proof of the veracity of the documentation that has been collected. When the trial finishes and the court has determined whether or not those documents and other information gathered during the course of the case have been proven to be true, then and only then do we have something that says that Valve actually did this.
I don’t trust WB and I don’t trust Ubisoft. I’m not sure I trust Valve either but I can say that my distrust for them isn’t as extreme as my distrust for the other two companies.
If Valve did this, throw the book at them. But at the same time, I want to see difinitve proof.
Both games have steam integration, as all games do on steam. They can be run without it, like most games, but that doesn’t change the fact these developers want steam’s audience and integration (since users want steam integration) and thus they voluntarily agreed to this stipulation.
Ubisoft has their own store, if R6S is so good, it should be able to drive traffic and users to that store and they could just set their own price without worrying about what steam is doing. Fortnite proves you don’t need steam integration to make a good game that people want to play. So does minecraft.
So steam isn’t a monopoly, as proven by those two examples, Ubisoft just wants more money without the restriction that comes with that money.
Does R6S use steam integrations if bought through Uplay? Based on what I can find, the answer is no, and therefore valve shouldn’t be setting the price because, at that level, they have no involvement with the product.
It’s the same product. Ubisoft, at any point, can just stop selling on steam and redirect users to their own store and then have full pricing control. Epic did this with Rocket League. This is fully an option a multi-billion dollar company owned by a billionaire can do at any point. Being on steam is voluntary for all parties, because there are alternate streams.
If you want to sell your product in walmart, you will be signing a similar non-compete agreement. If you want to sell your product at any competent store, you will be signing a non-compete agreement.
Because there is no reason for a store to LET you use their platform otherwise. Your product isn’t that good. There’s 3k games released per month. You aren’t that important individually, or even as a developer. If you want to go the easy route, then like literally ALL PRODUCTS SOLD, you will need to sign an agreement like this.
This is the part that is holding me up. Is it actually the same product? The version on Steam comes with server hosting, achievements, voice chat, etc. If I purchased the game through Uplay, would I still have access to those services on Steam? For example, many years ago, I bought “Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale” at Walmart, but it basically just came with an asset disc and a code to register the game on Steam. So buying it at Walmart gave me access to the same features as if I’d bought it directly from Steam. Does Uplay do the same thing?
Such a weird stream of comments to be read on Lemmy.
Regardless of what you folks think about Valve, does anyone believe that a marketplace should have this kind of leverage over their suppliers? For instance, should Amazon be permitted to force manufacturers to set the price of a product outside of their marketplace? Should Apple be allowed to force app developers to price match the Google store?
Amazon literally does this if you sell on their platform as the manufacturer or just at all. My source: Hi, that’s me, and I can confirm this is standard practice at Amazon and I’m the manufacturer of my own product.
Hell, Reggie from Nintendo of old just stated that the entire reason Nintendo was not on Amazon for like 3 years because Amazon asked Nintendo to basically burn bridges with alllllll of their other suppliers, just like what you mentioned.
And in my opinion it should be illegal. What do you think?
Genuinely why? Why do you think you have the right to any specific marketplace?
Do you want them to have a monopoly? Because that’s how they are gonna get a monopoly.
Platform A has a 40% fee and requires price elsewhere to be the same. Manufacturer X sells their own product on their own website, at +40% their price.
This is bad for buyers and competition. Platform A is already big and important enough that you can’t skip it, and can drive up and control pricing generally.
If the requirement were not there, if platform A does not offer enough plus service for the 40% margin, other platforms would keep the prices at a reasonable level. People could buy from the manufacturer at their original price.
A marketplace important enough that you can’t skip it being able to dictate market conditions is how it manifests itself further as the primary player and controlling instance.
Do you really think that Amazon should be allowed to set prices outside their marketplace? That’s wild.
You are allowed to not market yourself at amazon, i dont see the issue really
Amazon is one of the largest online retailers in the world. If they force prices on suppliers to get a better deal than anyone else, that’s between extortion and price fixing.
Sounds like not shopping or selling at amazon is the actual solution to the problem. I havent bought a single item of them in my life, so why do you?
So as long as you don’t shop at Amazon, it’s fine if they do illegal shit.
Got it.
For the same thing sold on their marketplace, yes. Literally you are voluntarily agreeing to use a private marketplace, you should agree to all their rules or just stop using that marketplace.
Amazon isn’t a public service. They aren’t a Farmer’s market run by the city. They aren’t a sidewalk. If you would like a public version of Amazon that doesn’t have those restrictions and would be cheaper for literally everyone, advocate for that. But until a public alternative exists then yes, Amazon can and should impose whatever rules it wants. Alternatives will appear if it becomes too restrictive and the platform will die.
That’s insanity. Under those terms, most suppliers would be at the whims of platform owners.
Microsoft asking Valve for a 50% cut? Sure. Google delisting a website because the owner criticized their CEO? Absolutely. Amazon telling you to sell at a loss or not sell at all? Why not.
Congrats, you found one of the many problems with the concept of capitalism.
Yes. That is how all that works. Because they are all private companies and it is voluntary to use their services.
If you think those services should be neutral, congrats, you’re advocating for communism. I think communism is pretty cool and there should be a state-run online marketplace that is entirely non-profit. But you seem to think you should or could force companies to be that public entity. That’s not only not realistic and not how the world has ever worked under capitalism, but it’s just simply a bad idea. Look at the USPS for why you should not have a private entity perform a public service.
I disagree. There are plenty of success stories of companies being forced by governments to act in the best interest of consumers, from adopting USB-C to removing lead from gasoline.
You are conflating very different things here, I’m afraid.
Absolutely, stop using Amazon. Except what’s the alternative? They’ve wedged themselves in that space, and bought out any other competitor. So either they get forced to compete with themselves (by breaking the company apart) or they adhere to anti-monopoly laws where they’re not allowed to influence other prices as part of their agreement.
Aliexpress, walmart.com, ebay.com, wayfair.com, any manufacturer’s website. Or the actual global leader in the space, Alibaba which dwarfs Amazon’s entire marketplace with over twice the users and easily a thousand times the suppliers.
Or, if people think private companies should be neutral, like a public service… PEOPLE SHOULD FUCKING ADVOCATE AND ORDER THEIR GOVERNMENTS TO PROVIDE A PUBLIC SERVICE.
It is infinitely easier and better to get the government to do things for you than it is to force a private company to do things for you.
Afaik Walmart does the same.
EBay is a different service as is Wayfair.
Your own website as the manufacturer doesn’t have the reach of these other platforms. (in an age of SEO and AI searches it really doesn’t have to be that way).
The strongest argument here is in favor of Aliexpress. Which isn’t without issues and heavily lobbied by amazon to have even more issues in the US.
No company should have that kind of market leverage, no. The issue though is saying this makes them a monopoly. It’s shit behavior but then if that ability makes a company a monopoly, we should be busting down a lot of company doors that do/did the same thing. Looking at Wal-Mart, nearly every major ISP in the USA, there’s a lot of that going on.
Yes, let’s do that too.
No. The issue is exactly what they stated. The law does not mention “monopoly.” It is against “monopolistic behaviors”, such as using your market dominance to force price parity. A game developer can’t afford to not be on Steam, because they have such strong market dominance. Valve knows this, and this is about them abusing this position to force price parity.
On principle, no, and Valve should not be above criticism.
I’m cautiously in favour of uniform retail pricing, such that no sales platform could either gouge customers or undercut to win more people over, such that the competition is determined by the available selection of products and other amenities, but my gut says that kind of price fixation would end up a minefield of complications, exceptions and loopholes. Few things are ever as easy as a layperson may think, and I sure am one.
Either way, one retailer dictating the prices for all others definitely seems unfair.
Aside from the obligatory “fuck Amazon”, that would open the door to a particularly vicious level of fuckery. They would set their own price, sustained by cheap, fucked-up working conditions and the capital to afford selling at a loss, which they already do and which is bad enough, but to also dictate that price to other vendors that definitely can’t afford to operate at such a loss? If they’re currently on the road to monopoly, that would turn it into a bullet train: fast, on rails and with no stop to get off at.
I don’t think that’s what people are arguing.
If I manufacture your product from a product version prototype you provided me and give you unlimited access to that product to use outside my manufacturing plant and store front, then say, you can have and sell all this free product I manufactured for you, but you have to price it the same in my store as you do where you sell it elsewhere, that’s makes sense.
What doesn’t make sense and what isn’t right, is if they say "you can’t price your product that someone else is manufacturing for you at a price lower than the one your price my manufactured product of yours at.
But people keep thinking that those two groups are saying the same thing, that Valve should be allowed to do it regardless of who manufactured what when that’s not what they are saying.
If Valve is doing this, they obvious should have the book thrown at them. But we haven’t seen evidence of that that isn’t tantamount to hearsay. So we are doing what you should do when you hear something and can’t determine the veracity of what is being said. You wait for proof and don’t make up your mind based on rumors.
They aren’t “forcing” anyone to do anything. All they are saying is saying that you can’t sell on our store if you sell cheaper elsewhere.
“That person isn’t being robbed. Sure, there’s a gun to their head, but the person is only saying to hand over their money or they can choose to die. They don’t have to obey them!”
Then you say:
Steam is the dominant player in PC gaming, by a large margin. Not being in Steam is like not being on the Internet.
How is this not “forcing” someone to do something?
They aren’t even saying that. They’re saying, you can’t sell steam platform keys outside of steam for cheaper than you would on steam. Because a steam key provides all of the services and quality of life of buying a game in the steam store (downloads, cloud saves, workshop, multiplayer, etc.). If you sell keys outside of steam for a consumer to use on steam, steam still has to treat that consumer like everyone who bought the game on the marketplace. Also, when you sell a steam key, valve doesn’t take the usual 30% cut of the sale. In fact they take no cut of the sale and STILL provide distribution and services for that sale.
That’s not what the article says. It’s about UPlay keys sold by Ubisoft through UPlay that have nothing to do with Steam, and Valve threatening to remove a game from Steam unless the UPlay keys sold through UPlay became the same price as the Steam keys sold through Steam.
Everyone here blindly defending valve claiming they’re not doing the very thing they’re being sued for doing.
Insanity
I’m not sure you know how lawsuits work. If I sue you for punching me in the face, do you think that automatically means you are guilty?
I don’t think you know how lawsuits work. The plaintiff has to show the court there’s even a case to begin with.
There’s currently THREE separate lawsuits about this same issue.
It seems pretty likely they ARE doing it.
When steam provides substantially more services for a game with achievements, forums, workshop, etc. And then developer wants to list on steam and then funnel people over to a different platform to buy it cheaper. Steam isn’t getting compensated for the services they provided to boost the game’s popularity.
As others have said there’s already ways to get the game cheaper like humble bundle or Green Man gaming. This is literally just steam doing what they can to see a return on investment and not provide these services for free.
The comparison between Google and apple doesn’t really make sense as steam provides a whole bunch of services while epic provides a purchase button
To make the same argument, but to point out the absurdity of your argument, GameStop (or other retailers) put up advertising for products on their window. This has a material cost. However, if you buy it from somewhere else they don’t pay for this cost.
Valve choosing to advertise is a choice they make. They can choose not to, but it makes them more money if they do. Other stores should not have to pay for a different store’s choices. That’s insane.
Valve services do not apply when a game is being sold by Ubisoft in their own platform, with no steam keys included in the purchase. Valve’s infrastructure is not being used. That’s what these lawsuits are about. Not steam key resellers.
Im saying there are other key sellers that have it for less that they don’t stop from doing so, but the things steam had and the publicity it gives are of value and they don’t want to have publishers using steam for publicity and other community and forums what it and directing most of the sales elsewhere. They can by all means list their games elsewhere and price it however they want. But that’s always been the terms of selling on steam. Of they don’t like it they shouldn’t agree to the terms. But it’s not like it’s some new policy that valve implemented out of nowhere. I don’t completely agree with their policy but if publishers have an issue with it then don’t agree to it
So if I go to Amazon searching for a product, read the reviews, check if it’s been returned often, etc., that should be enough for Amazon to set the price of the same product on the manufacturer’s website?
Who is talking about Epic here?
Also, both Google and Apple have their own app stores, where they take a cut of the sales, while providing a SDKs for things from push notifications, to payment processing, to analytics. Nowadays they also provide game platforms for things like multiplayer or achievements, among other things. Essentially the same as Steam.
There are other marketplaces to steam. Steam doesn’t prevent you from installing from sources outside of steam. Steam doesn’t regulate your hardware or how you use it. If you want to sell on steam you can still sell elsewhere but it has to be the same price.
This means if you go to steam to find out about a game and then decide to buy it from the manufacturer’s website the manufacturer makes more money because they don’t have to give Valve a cut, and Valve might even authorize you to activate that product on steam.
Expecting valve to offer their marketing and delivery systems without any incentive for you to sell products through it would defeat the purpose of their platform.
Compare that to the other two chuckle fuckers in this mix:
Apple maintains an exclusive platform. Apple has taken specific steps to prevent people from installing software from sources that have not paid them for permission to make software for the hardware you rent from them.
Google maintains an exclusive platform. Google has taken specific steps to prevent people from installing from sources that have not paid them for permission to make software for the hardware you bought from third party vendors and manufacturers.
The ever shrinking accommodation to installing third-party software on your purchased hardware is anti-competitive, and defeats consumer choice.
You can only activate that product in Steam if it’s sold as a Steam key. Also, any game added to Steam from outside the platform has no access to their SDK, so this point is moot.
I’m not defending either Apple nor Google, but their business model is essentially the same, with the exception of the hardware integration, which again, doesn’t even matter that much since Steam is at 75% PC market share. And if you read some of the comments in this thread you’ll find out that for many people, the moat is not the hardware, is the platform itself.
Again, weird to see people defending anti competitive behaviour coming from a multi billion corporation, just because they sympathize with them.
“Those bullies are meaner, so you’re not actually get bullied” is some abuser-grade gaslighting there, pal
Yeah that doesn’t even vaguely resemble what I’m saying.
Valve isn’t regulating your hardware and they aren’t forcing anybody to do anything.
Valve is not a bully here. They have a contract saying if you sell your product with me you can’t sell it someplace else cheaper just to use me for marketing and delivery.
Apple says you have to pay me to even have the right to sell your product and you can only sell it through me. If you sell it someplace else I want to cut of that too.
Google just keeps changing the nature of what you’re allowed to do with your own stuff and they take a cut.
If you feel bullied by Valve or some developer feels bullied by valve then you have a victim complex.
Do you think all the sellers to whom Amazon put exactly the same ultimatum have a victim complex too?
Based on your take, I agree with you. If valve is providing services, then developers should not be selling steam keys for cheaper elsewhere. It dilutes trust in their business model too if people start assuming that they can get the same services, provided by valve, for cheaper elsewhere.
However, is that what this article is talking about? The games mentioned, specifically R6 Siege and SoM, both appear to run stand alone without steam integration. I’m not intimately familiar with either one, just what I can gather based off the article and a pair of quick online searches.
The article is alleging. We don’t yet have proof of the veracity of the documentation that has been collected. When the trial finishes and the court has determined whether or not those documents and other information gathered during the course of the case have been proven to be true, then and only then do we have something that says that Valve actually did this.
I don’t trust WB and I don’t trust Ubisoft. I’m not sure I trust Valve either but I can say that my distrust for them isn’t as extreme as my distrust for the other two companies.
If Valve did this, throw the book at them. But at the same time, I want to see difinitve proof.
Both games have steam integration, as all games do on steam. They can be run without it, like most games, but that doesn’t change the fact these developers want steam’s audience and integration (since users want steam integration) and thus they voluntarily agreed to this stipulation.
Ubisoft has their own store, if R6S is so good, it should be able to drive traffic and users to that store and they could just set their own price without worrying about what steam is doing. Fortnite proves you don’t need steam integration to make a good game that people want to play. So does minecraft.
So steam isn’t a monopoly, as proven by those two examples, Ubisoft just wants more money without the restriction that comes with that money.
Does R6S use steam integrations if bought through Uplay? Based on what I can find, the answer is no, and therefore valve shouldn’t be setting the price because, at that level, they have no involvement with the product.
It’s the same product. Ubisoft, at any point, can just stop selling on steam and redirect users to their own store and then have full pricing control. Epic did this with Rocket League. This is fully an option a multi-billion dollar company owned by a billionaire can do at any point. Being on steam is voluntary for all parties, because there are alternate streams.
If you want to sell your product in walmart, you will be signing a similar non-compete agreement. If you want to sell your product at any competent store, you will be signing a non-compete agreement.
Because there is no reason for a store to LET you use their platform otherwise. Your product isn’t that good. There’s 3k games released per month. You aren’t that important individually, or even as a developer. If you want to go the easy route, then like literally ALL PRODUCTS SOLD, you will need to sign an agreement like this.
This is the part that is holding me up. Is it actually the same product? The version on Steam comes with server hosting, achievements, voice chat, etc. If I purchased the game through Uplay, would I still have access to those services on Steam? For example, many years ago, I bought “Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale” at Walmart, but it basically just came with an asset disc and a code to register the game on Steam. So buying it at Walmart gave me access to the same features as if I’d bought it directly from Steam. Does Uplay do the same thing?