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this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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That's not entirely true. Valve forces devs to not sell Steam keys lower on other sites without also going on sale on Steam in a reasonable close amount of time.
I know it sounds the same at first, but it's a drastic difference. You can generate as many Steam keys as you like and sell then on other sites, Valve won't see a single cent from these sales. They however still provide their online services and servers for free for all those keys sold on other sites. It is quite reasonable that they force you to match prices since they literally are losing money (albeit not much) if you sell on other platforms. And I don't mean lost sales, but infrastructure cost.
And additionally is this rule pretty much never enforced. AAA studios have special deals and indi devs aren't worth the hassle.
I can't speak to whether or not that is true, because it's not necessarily exclusive. Both can be correct. It's not what's in the antitrust lawsuit. it's not what I'm talking about either. The issue outlined in the antitrust suit is: *"Valve has for years maintained its dominance and thwarted effective competition by engaging in various anticompetitive acts. For example, Valve forces game publishers to agree to a Platform Most-Favored-Nations Clause (the “Valve PMFN”) as a requirement to access Steam. Valve explicitly requires that publishers agree that games sold elsewhere must be sold “in a similar way to how you sell your game on Steam” and publishers cannot “give Steam customers a worse deal” for games sold elsewhere,2 i.e., Valve prohibits publishers from giving consumers a better deal on other stores that compete with Steam. Valve interprets and enforces this language to encompass price parity, forcing game publishers to charge the inflated Steam Store price across the marketplace, on all game sales, even sales of games that are not enabled for Steam. Valve thus uses its PMFN to control the prices of games sold in the Steam Store and in other stores. Rather than lowering prices to Steam customers, Valve’s PMFN has the effect of reducing price competition and raising game prices." That's one of several complaints against Valve." * I'm really surprised so many people here of all places believe any corporation gives a shit about anything but their money. Corporations are never your friend. If they helped make piracy necessary it wasn't done for our benefit, it was done because it is profitable for them. Here's the complaint in case No. 2:21-cv-00563-JCC in it's entirety: https://www.steamclaims.com/_files/ugd/5210fb_80b19705e27549158fea02a16055b0e4.pdf
I never said valve is a friend, they simply are the more trustworthy party in this lawsuit. Two things about this:
I've never seen any proof of this MFN clause. I've read the Steamworks distribution agreement (which is hidden behind an NDA), I've read the steam TOS, I've looked through the steamworks documentation that is declared as legally binding in the contract, I've looked for screenshots or citations. There is nothing that would even suggest they are interfering with non-steamkey prices apart from what Wolfire games tells the court. (Who are, of course, coincidentally using the same Lawfirm as epic does, which makes this whole thing even more suspicious.)
This is the second time this lawsuit is brought up and there are pretty much no complaints from other devs, not even anonymous. Usually when lawsuits like this happen a bandwagon full of people come out to complain, twitter descends into a shitstorm and reddit digs out their aluminium foil hats. But there is absolutely nothing at the moment.
You are free to post any links with proof you have. Maybe the lawsuit will dig up something in Valve's basement. But as of now, everything we've seen is just one big accusation from Wolfire games.
You did not that's correct, that was meant more towards all of the people in the thread in general worshiping steam as a corporate savior. That was poor writing on my part. The things you mentioned are almost word for word the conjecture you find on Reddit and has not proof itself. I would love to see a copy of the MFN myself. Valve definitely admits they ask developers to offer similar prices according to their responses to other users, but won't deny it or produce a copy themselves of any MFN. All I'm saying is they're in a well deserved anti-trust suit that covers several topics beyond the MFN as detailed in the links I did provide. Their motions to dismissed have been slapped down because the judges feels there's enough evidence to proceed on at least some of the claims. I guess we'll see whether the case can prove itself or not and neither of us will really know until all of the evidence is presented. I'm not blindly believing they must be guilty, but it's hard to say Steam isn't a monopoly. There are plenty of other reasons to dislike Steam, but arguing that with the other people here is a bit like arguing with gun owners. People are willing to dismiss their principles about things that affect the macrocosm quickly when it could deprive them of something they personally enjoy.