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Steam keeps on winning (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 11 months ago by Carighan@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world

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From the opinion piece:

Last year, I pointed out how many big publishers came crawlin' back to Steam after trying their own things: EA, Activision, Microsoft. This year, for the first time ever, two Blizzard games released on Steam: Overwatch and Diablo 4.

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[+] Aielman15@lemmy.world -7 points 11 months ago

I'd also be winning if I could force all my competitors to match my prices despite my fees being higher than theirs.

[-] Carighan@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

What's forcing a publisher to sell for the same price on Epic or GOG than on Steam? They could always just not sell there (on Steam), or do a different edition of the game for each platform so they're independent tax units, or immediately run a coupon system for the other platform.

Mind you, that's the choice of the publisher. Not the platform. Someone else already corrected me that epic is doing something like this but that's based on the store not the publisher.

Plus, there's something to be said about a central store. For all we decry monopolies, most people have serious issues in their lives. Just got one random example, the recent free days I've heard consistent screaming and banging from my neighbor's flat. Turns out her eldest daughter is there, and her ex is using the children's against her, which in turn has caused the one that was already mentally unwell to become violent and aggressive without provocation being caught in the middle of all of that (and he keeps the children support money which draws out the legal process as she cannot hire a good lawyer).
Anyhow, point being: in such a situation, having one less tiny worry on your mind (like which of 1500 stores is safe or not) is quite good. The less extra shit to think about, the better. Android has other stores too but there's real value as a user not having to hunt down which place to get which app from. Mich like for physical goods Amazon got so big because having it all in one central place and for delivery is, well, quite convenient. Got real issues to worry about, no time to worry about small shit.

It of course feeds into a terminal monopoly, sure. But I cannot fault users who don't have the brain space for such issues for not investing into their choices of an immediate solution is easily available: just buying on steam.

(Plus, real value in something like Steam Link, modding, discussions, guides and reviews)

[-] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 months ago

What’s forcing a publisher to sell for the same price on Epic or GOG than on Steam?

Steam's anti-competitive price rules

[-] Carighan@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

They can trivially get around that, as I've said. Plus there's always the option to avoid the anticompetitive place, like companies avoid selling through Amazon.

[-] Aielman15@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

They literally cannot. If they offer a game at a lower price than Steam on other storefronts, Valve delists the game from Steam, which publishers cannot afford to since it's the de facto leader of the industry, and forfeiting Steam sales means forfeiting a huge chunk of sales. Listing "they could just not sell on Steam" as a "trivial" way to get around Steam's monopoly is so willfully moronic on so many levels that I don't think I need to explain to you why that would be a bad idea.

As for "doing a different edition of the game for each platform", that's also a no-go. The content parity clause extends to DLC as well, and the link provided above by the other user includes multiple examples of games that were forced to match Steam's price on other storefronts despite not being compatible. One such example:

There are ample examples of Valve explaining and enforcing the PMFN.
Valve enforced the Valve PMFN, for example, to block competition from the Discord Store. As detailed below, Discord launched a competitor to the Steam Store that charged only a 10% commission. As Discord offered a much lower price, some publishers wanted to steer customers to Discord, where the publisher could charge a lower price to the customer while growing its own revenue.
In late 2018, for example, one publisher had been selling its game on the Steam Store for $5, but launched its game on the Discord Store (enabled for Discord’s gaming platform) for free. Valve detected that the publisher was charging different prices on the two storefronts, and told the publisher that offering its game for a lower price on Discord violated the Valve PMFN. Valve insisted the publisher renegotiate its deal with Discord and ensure that gamers buying the Discord version pay the same price as gamers buying the Steam version.
Valve’s enforcement of the Valve PMFN harmed Discord, publishers, and gamers. Discord was unable to use price to grow its share of the market. Publishers were unable to reap the benefit of Discord’s lower commissions. Gamers were denied the ability to purchase the game for a lower retail price.

Having a central store is nice and all, but I should not be forced to pay my games on GOG, Epic or whatever the same price that Valve charges on Steam. That doesn't benefit me in the slightest. Heck, if anyone else other than Valve was forcing their competitors to match their prices, the outcry from the gaming community would be huge, and justifiably so. But since it's Steam, nobody cares and "having a central store" is used as a smoke screen to cover their shitty monopolistic anti-consumer practices.

EDIT: My god, the Steam fanboys in this thread are insane. You can like the storefront and still criticize its anti-consumer practices. Your Lord and Saviour Gaben won't knock on your door to kiss you, no matter what you do.