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Valve will be facing an antitrust lawsuit soon, according to US District Judge John C. Coughenour. The road to this decision started in April of last year when Overgrowth developer Wolfire Games sued Valve, claiming anti-competitive practices. The lawsuit came down to two things: Valve's controversial 30% fee on all game sales, and their Steam Key Price Parity Provision, which prohibits publishers from selling games for a lower price on any other platform, under threat of removal from Steam. Wolfire claims that Valve has not earned the 30% fee, and can freely implement it because publishers need to sell through them due to their market dominance. They believe this has resulted in prices rising across the industry as publishers need to raise game prices to account for the fee. They also allege that the Steam Key Price Parity Provision prevents fair competition as competing stores cannot entice publishers with a lower fee, and cannot build a customer base because they cannot offer lower prices.

The most notable competitor to Steam, the Epic Games Store, has notoriously lost quite a bit of money for Epic while they're securing their place in the market. It was reported in August 2021, based on court documents made public during their lawsuit with Apple, that Epic has sunk nearly $500 million into the EGS and does not expect to turn a profit until 2027.

Valve filed for the suit to be dismissed in July, claiming that the policy is only in place to protect Steam users and that "seeking the best price for your customers is not harm to competition; it is competition."

The suit was dismissed without prejudice in November 2021, but Wolfire was given 30 days to issue another complaint addressing the dismissal and providing additional context. They have, and now parts of the lawsuit have been dismissed with prejudice, while other motions will go ahead. Wolfire has claimed that they were told by a Steam account manager that Valve would delist any games from Steam that were being sold for a lower price elsewhere, whether or not it was a Steam key. Noting that Valve's policies affect the way even “non-Steam-enabled games are sold and priced,” Judge Coughenour concluded "these allegations are sufficient to plausibly allege unlawful conduct."

Judge Coughenour was initially dismissive of the criticism towards the 30% fee as that has always been Valve's policy, even when they were not a dominant force in the market. With their latest appeal, however, Wolfire pointed out that Valve acquired the World Opponents Network in 2001 and shut it down in 2004 as Steam gained popularity, forcing users to migrate to Steam, making it "a must-have platform." Judge Coughenour also claims that Steam's lack of market share versus brick-and-mortar stores at this time is irrelevant, as it "did not need market power to charge a fee well above its cost structure because those brick-and-mortar competitors had a far higher cost structure."

Source

 

[Viri]

MS should buy activision for 2 reason's 1) if anyone would "clean house" of actiblizz's sexual misconduct problems it's them and 2 Phil spencer tweeted early on he plans to revive Sierra IP's (to date only one sierra IP was released (that 5 game King's Quest) a waste of a studio reactivation imo it's been stagnate for years (early 2000's iirc) i hope if they reactivate sierra they'll bring back some of the greatest minds to grace the Adventure Genre in the late 80's to the mid 90's Police quest quest for glory and yes space quest NEEDS to be revived

I would prefer to see them merge with another 3rd party. I don't want to see any 3rd parties get bought by any 1st parties. I'm still butt hurt about Rare.

 

[AkiraKurusu]

The most notable competitor to Steam, the Epic Games Store, has notoriously lost quite a bit of money for Epic while they're securing their place in the market. It was reported in August 2021, based on court documents made public during their lawsuit with Apple, that Epic has sunk nearly $500 million into the EGS and does not expect to turn a profit until 2027.

It'd help if Epic had actually released a feature-ready store, with an actual shopping cart and achievements and stuff - and if they hadn't done heavy-handed exclusivity purchases in the early days. Idiots.

 

[Marc_LFD]

to be fair, IDK how you'd sell a no DRM copy to begin with
people can just duplicate the files

You could say the same about physical media. People can buy and then make backups for others.

Corporations want to go the streaming service route so they're in total control and the customer owns nothing.

Who can say no to a smiley guy like that? (:

 

[ZeroFX]

The best and most pro consumer store that changed PC games as a whole while fighting piracy by lowering prices by region.
Vs
One "muh companies pay 30%, let's buy games exclusively to our crappy platform" boi.

 

[Foxi4]

The problem with this kind of litigation is that the publisher agrees to those terms when publishing their game on the platform. As ridiculous as the price match and the cut seem, they’re priced into the equation at the point of signing the deal. Valve doesn’t spring this onto publishers - they know they’re getting the raw end of the deal from the start. In the absence of clear contract violation it will be difficult to litigate this in any other way than on grounds of anti-competitive behaviour and monopolistic practices - that’s a rough fight. It was rough for Epic against Apple and Google, it’s rougher here because there’s no multibillion money-making conglomerate behind it. People always fold their arms and turn their nose up when publishers sign timed exclusivity deals with the likes of Epic, but there’s a reason for that - the launch period is the most lucrative, and Steam isn’t making things easy on the publisher, whether they’re big or small. The storefront is Valve’s main source of income - everything surrounding it serves no purpose other than promoting Steam itself. They’re not going to let that golden hen be drawn and quartered without a fight, and I don’t think this straw will break the camel’s back.

 

[Stealphie]

It'd help if Epic had actually released a feature-ready store, with an actual shopping cart and achievements and stuff - and if they hadn't done heavy-handed exclusivity purchases in the early days. Idiots.

I dislike epic as much as the next person but nowadays Epic has a shopping cart and achievements.

 

[Karones]

The parity is terrible for developers and a better solution must be found, the problem Valve seems to avoid by having it is devs creating lots of keys and selling them somewhere else, essentially using Steam's services without giving them money.

 

[AkiraKurusu]

I dislike epic as much as the next person but nowadays Epic has a shopping cart and achievements.

I'll have to defer to your knowledge about that, but those features (and others) weren't there at launch, nor for quite some time after; I do recall an EGS sale period that went disastrously wrong, since customers were getting locked out for too many repeated purchases within a short time frame (due to no cart functionality) and devs/publishers not being informed ahead of time at how their pricing would be altered.

I believe this is the right YongYea video about it.

 

[AkiraKurusu]

So yeah, EGS' reputation would be better - and making a profit more likely - if they hadn't pissed people off with a barebones storefront for an extended period of time, hadn't done exclusivity purchasing (especially with games previously announced to launch on Steam, with people even pre-ordering Steam copies; and let's not forget crowdfunded games like Shenmue 3 that promoted Steam launch only to be sucked up by Epic), and weren't partially owned by goddamn CCP.

 

[leon315]

Yea well... I think 30% is quite high for only publishing the game compared to all the work behind the game developped

THEN you should definitely ask how much $ony asks to sell games on PSN.
and u will be surprised.

 

[64bitmodels]

i'd happily pay 30% if it meant that i get to have exposure on the biggest gaming storefront on the planet

 

[eyeliner]

The best and most pro consumer store that changed PC games as a whole while fighting piracy by lowering prices by region.
Vs
One "muh companies pay 30%, let's buy games exclusively to our crappy platform" boi.

And making game installation a nightmare, forcing you to install the client ON A DISC BASED GAME.
No internet? No game for you. Get online.
Wanna play? Use the damn client.

We were better before that client/storefront crap came about. Publishers directly sold their games, hassle free, online.
You preferred the disc? Sure, install it and play it.

Steam is OK, but by no means the gaming savior a lot of people scream about.

 

[Deleted member 546149]

Yea well... I think 30% is quite high for only publishing the game compared to all the work behind the game developped

Well, that's just capitalism, nothing you can do about it, without this fee, Steam wouldn't be as big as they are

 

[Xzi]

Wolfire claims that Valve has not earned the 30% fee

LMAO any judge with half a brain should toss this shit out. Valve does far more than Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, or Epic to earn their cut, and they don't even charge monthly to access those services on top of it. All the most successful indie games in the last three years have only achieved that success because of the way Steam promotes them, and the size of its user base.

 

[Megadriver94]

I hope Microsoft fails at buying Activision, and Sony fails at buying Bungie. I don't want the video game industry to consolidate. The Bethesda sale should have never gone through, imo.

I honestly didn't mind Zenimax getting bought by Microsoft very much. But who knows about Actiblizz? Maybe it will fall flat , like when ARM managed to evade acquisition by Nvidia.
Anywho, I also hope that Epic gets caught in a lawsuit involving general shady practices involving Epic Store exclusivity, and their possible backroom deals with Tencent.

 

[ZeroFX]

And making game installation a nightmare, forcing you to install the client ON A DISC BASED GAME.
No internet? No game for you. Get online.
Wanna play? Use the damn client.

We were better before that client/storefront crap came about. Publishers directly sold their games, hassle free, online.
You preferred the disc? Sure, install it and play it.

Steam is OK, but by no means the gaming savior a lot of people scream about.

No internet? Crack the game.

 

[MarkDarkness]

Valve has been aggressively pro-consumer all the way, bringing a lot of innovation to the market, that's unmatched by competition. Supporting cloud saves from early on, providing a permanent mod/Workshop infrastructure, keeping DRM measures as light as they can, promoting major year-round events showcasing smaller games, resisting censorship in many cases, and even the opening of the erotic games market to western audiences (outside of some obscure niche).

The idea that Steam does not deliver benefits from the cut they charge is absurd. They are not like Epic who sold out to China money and can give things away for free at a loss forever. They are a privately held company accountable to GAMERS ONLY, not to toxic shareholders.

There is no monopoly in the market, and in fact their main competitor is giving pricey games away for free for years! If gamers don't migrate, guess what, it's because they enjoy the service!

This is unwarranted and absolutely undeserved.

 

[Xzi]

They are a privately held company accountable to GAMERS ONLY, not to toxic shareholders.

This is what truly pisses other industry giants off, Valve's flat, self-contained business structure. If you had to pick one reason for their massive success, it'd be this. It's also the reason so few of their competitors can measure up, not because they can't restructure to be more like Valve, but because they choose not to. They prioritize the possibility of hitting it big in the short term, rather than establishing a rapport with customers and benefiting massively in the long term. Like gambling addicts.

 

[ChibiMofo]

Valid point, but you know, digital purchases are more akin to rentals. You don't actually own it.

Unless it's on GOG (DRM-free games), iTunes (m4a), Bandcamp (FLAC/AAC), etc.

So you own your FLACs and M4a's? Go ahead and try to sell them and see if it's really true.

 

[Xzi]

So you own your FLACs and M4a's? Go ahead and try to sell them and see if it's really true.

Just because he owns them, that doesn't make them valuable. Anybody else can still download them for free, and that's why ownership over any sort of digital content is a nebulous concept. Outside of owning a trademark/copyright, anyway.