That lawsuit against Steam’s 30% cut of game sales is now a class action, meaning many other developers could benefit
That lawsuit against Steam’s 30% cut of game sales is now a class action, meaning many other developers could benefit
A game developer's gruelling legal case against Valve's allegedly anti-competitive practices has reached an important milestone.
30% is the industry standard across the board, with the exception of Epic which takes 12%. However, Epic has already shown that it's ready to dump loads of money into store exclusivity deals and tons of free games, so I will argue it's for the sake of growing the number of users and developers using their platform.
But do they, or any other competitor or similar store, offer the same functionality as Steam? rtxn already mentioned some. And there's more. And then there's the fact that Valve is using all that money not only to stuff the pockets of alread rich people (not that Gabe isn't a multi-millionaire if not billionaire, idk), but actually puts it back into the industry: Their own store, Linux/Proton (you may not care, but Microsoft becoming a monopoly in PC gaming is no good), and hardware (with their Steam Deck handheld, and VR stuffs).
Steam might be the biggest player when it comes to storefronts, but it's because they've actually earned it. And they're not actively preventing other competitors from entering the scene (other than existing). In fact, they keep trying, and keep failing, and then going back to Steam.
I'm not opposed to more money going to developers, but let's not single out Steam, who (perhaps besides GOG? I am not familiar enough with it) is doing the most for users and develpers.
Steam singlehandedly stopped piracy overnight for me.
Developers were getting $0 from me before steam, and thousands of $$$ from me after steam.
The 30% cut is well worth it for developers, plus all the other services steam provides. Kids have no idea how buying, installing, modding, patching games used to be like.
You cant compare this to the apple app store
Name another platform that has gone 20 years without completely enshittifying itself.
We can start shitting on steam when they turn evil
This seems like such a nothing case. Steam is optional. It's optional for publishers to use, it's optional for users to install. Steam provides many many benefits for even free games or games not purchased on the Steam store.
Any publisher can publish their game on their own site, on other stores, on physical media. Even though Steam is dominant, you can buy games somewhere else as easily as you can download and install Steam itself.
I hope this case gets thrown out.
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.
My extremely Baby's First Monopoly take is that whatever your feelings about specific aspects of Steam's service, or Valve in general, no individual company should exert this much power over the fortunes and overall culture of an artform. As such, I welcome efforts such as Wolfire's to challenge Valve and Steam, even if I may not agree with the detail of the suit in question.
What a stupid take. Valve isn't doing anything anti competitive, they just provide an objectively better service which is why everyone uses it. Anyone can put their game up on Steam, Gog, Epic, Uplay, and Origin at the same time. Valve doesn't own the space, and tbh we're probably getting the best deal we can get with them being the top dog, cuz you know Microsoft and the like would never treat us that well.
The closest thing I can think of wrt competitive rules is their price parity rule, where if you sell your steam keys (note that. not epic or uplay, just steam.) yourself, the price can't be noticeably lower (or a sale can't happen) without a comparable discount/sale on Steam within a reasonable timeframe.
They can use alternative stores if they want. Its not our fault the alternatves bar gog are shit and anti consumer. Valve is the only one supporting linux so I'm buying my games there to support that effort.
Also steam has a lot more than just the store. The chats, the media sharing, the forums, cloud saves and input profiles. Epic can't even show you a list of games in your library when you log in. I claim the free games each week but ive never even bothered to play them as with steam I can just click play and get on with it. As a long time linux user I value the just works approach and the work that wine and valve have put in.
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
Don't be lazy. You only needed to read the 4 annotated summations of your points and back them up in a comment. If you can't even do that I guess suffer in ignorance.