This lawsuit build on a false premise. Steam doesnt have a price parity clause for other stores. What this lawsuit alleges applies to Steam keys that the developer generates through Steam. If the developer lists those keys for sale at a price lower than what the game is listed for on Steam, then the price of the Steam Store purchase price must match it, so that people visiting the store page on Steam get the same discount. It doesn’t matter if you list your game on GOG and discount it there.
Its literally helping players.
How can this be? All the games I buy on Steam are cheaper than on other platforms. Where are these cheaper games?
Sue Meta or Google instead geez
Tim Sweeney, is this you?
What a load of rubbish.
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How is Lemmy so anti corporate, but bends over backwards to defend steam as an immaculate corporation. I love steam, and 90% of my game purchases or from their store. 5% are from stores that let me redeem steam keys.
I think their market position should have some scrutiny.
Mainly because Steam actually provides a really good quality service. Most corporations over time charge more while getting worse on quality. People can sell their games for cheaper on Epic which only has a 12% fee, but Epic’s service is much worse.
They’re not immaculate. They used to outright deny people the right to refund their games, but they turned that around after a massive lawsuit from a government agency. Good change! I support that. But they’re not behaving in an anti-competitive manner. What, are they supposed to intentionally make themselves worse in the hopes that other stores pop up? That’s not how any of this works.
I won’t say no to cheaper games. The 30% cut was settled upon in the days where physical copies were the norm and Steam was still under heavy development. Given how established Steam and digital distribution in general is, it’s not really fair to developers to dedicate almost a third of the price of the game to a hosting platform. Yes, exposure is important, but that’s a service provided passively due to the fact of being the largest platform. Reducing Steam’s cut hurts no one except maybe Gabe’s ability to buy another yacht (and even then, not likely). Even if customers don’t see lower prices if Steam were to reduce their cut, it’d be great to see the actual developers getting more money from the games they put all the effort into making.
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Somehow production costs increased exactly as much as valve’s cut got reduced. Crazy, ain’t it?
The end of my post is where I address this. Publishers have the option to use their bigger cut to reduce prices, but even if they don’t, money is moving closer to the people actually making the games possible instead of a platform provider. There are also a lot of indie developers. It’s not just all greedy publishers.
