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this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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It doesn't matter. The suit is alleging that valve threatened to ban games if they were cheaper on other stores. Thats monopolistic price manipulation, and it's illegal. Valve even pro.ises not to do this in its terms of service - their price parity policy is only supposed to apply to steam keys. That would be fair, because otherwise they couldn't give out keys in the first place. But you can't force devs to list games at the same price and then decide on the cut you will take if you are a monopoly. They will have to prove Valve violated its ToS.
That is only true specifically for Steam keys and is a very important distinction. You can't sell your game cheaper with your free Steam keys on another store cheaper than Steam without giving Steam customers the same discount within a 'reasonable amount of time'.
Publishers/Developers are free to undercut Steam with non-Steam keys on other stores.
From their policy:
In his blog, David claimed that steam reps were threatening to pull his game if he listed lower on other stores.
But did he have proof to back up the claims? Or did he make the claim with no evidence?
I have no idea. We will see in court right?
Feel like that is never actually enforced with my frequent use of isthereanydeals to check current and historical pricing before buying a game.
https://isthereanydeal.com/game/riskofrainreturns/info/
If that's what they actually did then they deserve to have legal repercussions.
Right. Valve is claiming they didn't, and that they only demand price parity for steam keys. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Honestly, I am not sure what game valve would play to do this. Devs could just make a red and green version of their game to sell on different platforms and price them differently. Meanwhile, to customers, a games price is a games price and developer publisher and distributor are always incentivized to find the highest price a customer is willing to pay through game theory. The market has definitely proven that customers don't care about what percentage of the cut goes to devs. So there is no incentive for anyone to post a game at a lower price than what a customer is wiling to pay on steam as long as steam retains the highest volume. Telling devs to not price the way they want seems very counter productive to being a good retailer, so who knows.
I wonder what would be said if isthereanydeals is pulled up as evidence, and shows games listed cheaper than steam on other stores. Pretty much reason a majority of my Steam games have been bought outside of the Steam stores, since I'm able to consistently get the games cheaper with better earlier discounts.
Is it listed retail price that is being talked about as opposed to sale price?
Have they actually done any banning or such? I have seen Phantom Liberty on sale repeatedly since it launch on GOG, but haven't seen it once on Steam.
Games like Risk of Rain Returns is selling cheaper than it's ever been on Steam. I use isthereanydeals often to check current and historical pricing before buying a game.
https://isthereanydeal.com/game/riskofrainreturns/info/
You have to remember that allot of these sales are from key retailers that will do stuff like buy keys wholesale. I'm not completely sure how that market works honestly, but that generates a lot of sales.
The case is really going to depend on David proving that Valve engaged in the alleged behavior. Games go on sale all the time, so there is a difference between a game being temporarily cheaper on one site because of a sale or key resell market demand, and valve using their influence to fix prices.
Isn't that what sale is with it being sporadic? Retail price is for people who can't wait for sales and need it now.
Not sure how retail price would be used. Permanent price drops are rare for pretty every purchasable good out there beyond digital games with companies saying something is X% off leading to more purchasing with consumers thinking they are getting a deal.
Publishers I believe are also the ones with power to fill the market with Steam keys to then have it priced however they want and including them in bundles that are sometimes less than the price of just the game alone during a sale. Some publishers opt to not make steam keys available at all.
As consumer it's just unusual to see accusations of price fixing, since I can so easily get steam keys for cheaper. And only times I usually go buy direct from Steam these days is if a company doesn't offer steam keys, so the only way to buy a steam copy is through steam. And prices for games feel like they've been so cheap that it's the one thing I have no complaints about.
What devs would like to do is push gamers to buy their games on platforms where they get a higher revenue cut. The logic is that 15 dollar game could be 12 dollars on GoG and a dev makes the same amount of money. The issue with this approach is the game theory doesn't work out for the customer - if a customer is willing to buy a game on steam for more money, than the dev has no reason to offer it on another store for less money when they actually have a higher cut of the revenue, and a higher incentive to price higher. There are non-price reasons a customer would like to buy on steam. Cloud syncing, integrity verification, easy steam deck client, and most importantly parity with the rest of their library. So it is very favorable to Valve as long as its the preferred place to buy games.
The issue is that while it is fair for steam to compete on service, it definitely is unfair for them to try to dictate to devs and publishers where they can sell their games and how they price them, especially if it isn't a part of their ToS. You don't get a steam key from GoG, and you aren't using Steam's servers. If Devs get more of the revenue, AND they were theoretically able to achieve more volume on GoG, why would you ever sell your game on steam and give up more revenue? Steam has to compete - which they claim they do, and David is alleging they don't in their suit.
The suit isn't about key reselling.
It will be interesting to watch the suit unfold. David is claiming that Valve de-facto forces the pricing through the threat of de-listing on steam. So he will need to prove it. We don't see many games sell below steam price, but I do think that there is kind of an incentive for devs to have one consistent price across all retailers. At the end of the day, there is a price customers are willing to pay for a given game, and you don't want to lower it on the platform that give you a higher cut of revenue. It's why it would kind of be silly for Valve to engage in this price fixing behavior, but there are plenty of instances where for-profit companies and employees do silly (and illegal) things, so we will see as this case plays out.
The only way steam falls off is if another store beats them on volume, which also means provides a better customer experience than steam. It's a really tall order - how do you get people to move to your game libary management sytem? The only real way is to have an exclusive game that players can't get on steam. That is the core of EGS - the place where you play fortnite. EGS actually makes a lot of sense as long as epic making the hottest game on earth. Half Life 2 was essentially why Valve was able to launch Steam. The issue is that Fortnite is on the decline and EGS just loses money. I don't know how you make enough money to outdo Valve in the near term.