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72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study
(www.gamesindustry.biz)
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this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
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Steam does force the sellers on their platform to not give better discounts elsewhere. So basically if you see a game that’s 20% off on steam and it is ATL, you won’t find it 30% off anywhere else.
Not necessarily a monopoly but definitely not allowing competitive pricing.
Now that I think about it, it’s probably why Epic has to go with the “timed exclusive” approach instead of just giving you a bigger discount.
Not actually true. They only require price parity for steam keys. Basically don't sell steam copies anywhere cheaper than on steam. Any other copy you can sell for whatever price.
I linked their own guidelines regarding steam key prices. They do require price parity with steam for steam keys. (with some exceptions)
But the key price is the same, they giving you a discount. They can't change the price of 100$ to 80$ without giving a 20% discount.
It does matters because is how price parity works, promotions has a beginning and end date, it's not based on the lowest price at a time but in the consistency of the price.
Steam does require price parity, and the fact that Arc Raiders were cheaper at some point doesn't prove otherwise. Promotions and discounts are acceptable; the goal is for the price to be consistent.
Jesus Christ. You are ignoring the actual meaning of price parity and focusing on the meaning of the phrase "Basically don’t sell steam copies anywhere cheaper than on steam." which is correct for a basic summary of the policy.
No you dumb fuck, I never say on this stupid thread that the sales price aren't cheaper, what you see to not understand is that SALES price is not what the Steam policy care, I said in my first response, they can change the price IF they give a discount.
I believe the clause applies to any storefronts as it operates on the MFN pricing principle.
But let’s say it doesn’t, and you’re correct and you could buy the same game on itch, gog, humble, epic, M$ store, ubi store, whatever else.
Did you ever actually see any of the stores promote better pricing on their first party platform? I haven’t.
Did you ever see assassins creed games being 5$ cheaper if you buy them on the ubi store as an example?
Same as the above for humble, epic, EA, Microsoft?
That’d be a pretty effective way to drive people to your storefront and drive first party sales with additional profit to the first party… and yet for some reason that practice apparently doesn’t exist.
I am almost 100% sure that’s not done out of the goodness of the shareholders hearts and has more to do with the legal spaghet of it all.
But at the end of the day the above is speculation, I have no concrete way to prove it one way or the other besides the limited observations that I’ve made over the years.
Good resource, thanks
What do you mean it doesn't exist? Epic got me to download their launcher because they were selling gta 5 for free. How could I have found that out if I only play on steam???
They don't want to drive you to your storefront so that you get the games cheaper. They want to sell for the same price without paying commission. They want to pocket the difference, not give it to you.
I've never seen a reliable source display steam has price parity. Their steam key price parity however is very clearly displayed. https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
Not true. I just checked the first game currently discounted I know on GOG's front page: Ghost Runner. It's at -75% (7.49€) on GOG but full price (29.99€) on Steam.
Price parity doesn't mean no discounts. All games in all platforms are the same fucking base price, each store front applies different discounts for different products based on their metrics. The other guy is right, EGS doesn't get 30% cut like steam but their games is not 15%-20% cheaper, if they give you a 15% once in the blue moon doesn't mean shit.
Compare to lowest all time price on steam, not current price. Pretty sure it’s going to come out to the same.
Goal post.