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Gearbox founder says Epic Games Store hopes were “misplaced or overly optimistic” (arstechnica.com)

submitted 2 months ago by Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world

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[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

In that link you have one person making a claim without any backing or evidence. Even if that did happen there are multiple possible explanations:

The email was not clear about the other stores not selling keys
The person who answered the email did not understand that they weren't talking about steam keys
The person answering the email doesn't know what they're talking about
Etc

And in that same link you have multiple persons in the comments describing the exact opposite experience providing the same amount of evidence, so if the text on that link is evidence that Valve does that, then the comments there are even more evidence that they don't.

If only there was a way of knowing... Well, they did say they opened a lawsuit, and those are public record so the email would be there since it's crucial to the case, without it they would have no case, right? Feel free to read the entire complaint here and you'll notice the email is suspiciously missing, their claims are that Valve wouldn't give them more keys to resell, which is directly opposite to what the blog claims.

I can do you one better, Overgrowth is a sequel to Lugaru, which is paid on Steam but free if you install via your package manager on Linux, therefore completely disproving the fact that Steam enforces price parity even for games from this company

[-] unautrenom@jlai.lu -2 points 2 months ago

Um, I've read the complaint from top to bottom and it claims way more than just 'Valve wouldn't give them keys to resell' if they're not at the same price as on steam. It also claims Valve puts a 'Price Veto' clause which allows them to delist games from Steam if the publisher gives bigger sales on other platforms, even if they do not using steam keys, which does sound super uncompetitive to me.

Although I'll agree the evidence listed in the complaint seem a bit on the light side. Do you know if the trial happened yet? And if so, do you know where I can find what resolution they reached?

[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Yeah, it does, but the only claim for which they present any evidence is the keys thing, showing a couple of screenshots.

I haven't read it all, but it seems that here is a ruling for most of the stuff.

[-] unautrenom@jlai.lu 1 points 2 months ago

Thank you for the link! It helped putting things into proper nuance and context (indcluding throwing away that ridiculous notion that the 'Steam Store' and the 'Steam Gaming Platform' are two completly different things in different markets).

However, reading the whole thing, it sounds to me like while the court dismissed some of the claims (1 to 4 and 7 apparently), they agreed that Wolfire and the other plaitiffs had the right to 'plausibly allege unlawful conduct' about the 'Most-favored-nations restraints' (the part where Steam forces publishers to set prices on all stores without steam keys being involved) without mentioning anything more on the subject.

I'm not americain so I'm not sure if I understand correctly, but that means the ruling isn't over and it'll go into an appeal court, right?

[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

I'm also not American (well, technically I'm, but you meant from the USA not from the American continent) but yeah, I think it's still ongoing, although I remember hearing a while back that Valve settled some case, not sure if this one (notice that settling doesn't mean admitting guilt or that they were going to lose, but sometimes it's just cheaper to settle than to keep defending yourself (the problem is that on the long run this sends a message that you're a good target).

Also I believe they would have won the claim that they don't enforce price parity just by pointing at the other game from Wolfire (Lugaru) which is paid on Steam and free outside of it, and Valve never did anything about it.