they're a pro-consumer monopoly.
just like how ideal government style would be a BENEVOLENT monarch, the fact that valve is pro-consumer and also a monopoly actually improves the industry.
>artificially high
There's games that go down to 90% off. Literally right now. >monopoly
Literally more competition right now than ever. You can't sue someone for having a successful business model.
No, Gabe, it's not artificially high because games don't go on sales. It's artificially high because Valve makes developers sign contracts that disallow selling those games for lower than on Steam.
And Valve is actively stifling competition with said contracts. I could sell my game on Steam for $60 and Epic for $50, taking the same revenue, but noooo someone has to be a dick about it. Pricing cheaper is an aspect of competition, and Valve is anti-competition.
no but epic games certainly is trying really hard to build one.
I wonder if one day they'll be sued for it. It can't be fully legal to hoard exclusivity by artifical means.
don't even own a console, I can just pirate whatever your chinks overlords try to hoard, moron.
I know for certain you can't do this shit with essential products like toilet paper, food or so on. Games are quickly becoming more mainstream and I won't be surprised if the law were to change. Probably not, but it'd be hilarious to see epic games get a lawsuit for attempting to force a monopoly upon themselves.
Just sell the game at the same price then and enjoy the higher cut epic gives you. Or is the store so far behind its competitors that people prefer to pay to not use a shitty store?
>someone has to complain about it
Yeah your fricking customer, the one that matters the most? homie I still remember the dick move of ghostrunner developers, they sell it on epic for cheap as frick, then people complained on steam that the price isn't fricking fair for steam version so we demand the steam price lowered so it's the same as epic price, but noooooo we'll just raise epic's price to the steam price instead. It's one of the reason I won't buy ghostrunner if it's not dirt cheap
But you will still buy it... This is why publishers keep doing scummy shit. Gamers will buy their addiction product no matter how poorly they are treated.
2 years ago
Anonymous
homie I've pirated it, had my fill and gonna get it if I even remember about it, here's a hint: it's not even on the list of what I'm going to buy on this and future sales, even when I've check out the sale price, it'll never go down to what I think acceptable so I doubt I'm gonna get it at all
So just use something else moron, there's plenty of competition. The draw of steam is the player base, if you don't want to use their system don't be surprised that you can't get their benefits.
If I'm not mistaken the agreement is that you have to offer people on steam a similar discount within a 1 month or something like that.
I'd be upset if I for example bought a game on steam and then a DLC comes out that's 20€ for example while another store gets it that DLC for 10€. Valve doesn't stop you from discounting games, they just as that you give your customers on steam a similar deal.
>Valve makes developers sign contracts that disallow selling those games for lower than on Steam >Put my game for 60$ on Steam >Put in my game descriuption that if they by directly from my own store website they can buy it for 50$ >people bypass steam and go to developers site instead and pay without paying the cut
it stops abuse of the platform for free marketing
if ya wanna sell your game on your own then sell it
if ya wanna sell it on steam ya gotta give Gaben his cut and make sure not undercut him
>Sell game on Steam for 60$ >Sell game on your website for 60$
Why didn't they just do this to bypass the steam cut? It doesn't violate their TOS and you get a little more money.
They wanted to pass on the savings to the consumer since they didn't lose 30% on the sale. You can see how much this upsets the steam zealots. RENDER UNTO GABEN WHAT IS GABEN'S!!!
>They wanted to pass on the savings to the consumer
Just like what Disney and Square did with the Kingdom Hearts collection, right? Thank goodness they took the epic deal, so they can pass the savin-
>300 dollars to own the whole series on Epic >when a compilation on consoles costs only 30 bucks
Oh......
2 years ago
Anonymous
Obviously disney and square don't give a frick, but smaller indie devs would sell their own keys for less if they could.
2 years ago
Anonymous
... no they wouldn't. Theres very few that would even consider it, and even less that would do it.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I still bought KH3 on Epic, just so I didn't have to lug my PS4 around when I house-sat.
>Valve makes developers sign contracts that disallow selling those games for lower than on Steam >Put my game for 60$ on Steam >Put in my game descriuption that if they by directly from my own store website they can buy it for 50$ >people bypass steam and go to developers site instead and pay without paying the cut
it stops abuse of the platform for free marketing
if ya wanna sell your game on your own then sell it
if ya wanna sell it on steam ya gotta give Gaben his cut and make sure not undercut him
>lower than on Steam.
This is true, and I think is the reason the Epic store never has any sales like Steam does. Pretty c**tish move by Gabe, but maybe he didn't realize what it implies.
valve takes inputs from developers on their sales strategy and how they want sales to be run so valve can handle it for them automatically (if they so desire), I really don't think valve gives a frick if there is another site thats selling a key for cheaper, but they definitely have it in writing for when people abuse it
and they definitely care when people are abusing it
which I think is the big thing, this cuck tried to game the system and abuse it, so his game got pulled from steam and flopped even harder than it normally would have, and he blames valve for that
How can you 'abuse' a system when valves system is about ease of use? The stupid people will pay a bit extra on steam anyways, and if the price is too high less people will buy it. As long as it's not advertised in the game description itself "BUY IT HERE FOR $10 OFF!" then I don't see the problem.
because you are still using Steams infrastructure to host the game and get it to users, while trying to cut out their sales percent. its not rocket science dude, it was just some guy trying to keep that extra 30% and saying he would sell it cheaper to look like a good guy and not a greedy c**t like he actually is
2 years ago
Anonymous
Still, Valve should of stated you can't advertise on their website for less, not sell the game for less in general. Seems like an excuse for a power grab.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>should of
would you have understood what they stated anyway? have you published a game on steam before? I certainly haven't but I would assume that the frickhueg massive TOS you have to agree to would explain that shit in excruciating detail
its the opposite you frickwit, price fixing would be selling a game in multiple places for different prices to encourage consumers into a specific decision. price matching is at least an even playing field
because they don't demand a certain price
the contract is that you offer equal deals to people on steam that you do to other stores in a reasonable time frame
pretty sure its the exact opposite of price fixing?
The deals can't equal if the percentages aren't. They know this, they take 30 percent and other sites take less. Obviously they could charge less on other sites since they aren't taking such a high percentage, but valve blocks them.
Sounds like a developer problem - if they don't like it they don't have to use steam. Doesn't affect the consumer at all
2 years ago
Anonymous
It does effect you since you could be paying less money for the same game.
2 years ago
Anonymous
no you couldnt, or those epic exclusives would have been cheaper. stop replying you fricktard moron you can barely speak english
2 years ago
Anonymous
No, because I'm not going to download a billion platforms to save next to nothing. Epic doesn't offer half the shit steam offers
2 years ago
Anonymous
Then why does Ubishit, EGS, Actishit and EAtrash all still cost full price?
2 years ago
Anonymous
They don't lose 30% from steam, valve gives the big publishers sweetheart deals to keep them on the platform. It's only the smaller devs who get squeezed.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Except for EA, none of those publishers their games on Steam at all.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yeah, I too remember when SE released FF7 remake on the EGS, and it was less exepensive than other typical AAA games...
2 years ago
Anonymous
>It does effect you since you could be paying less money for the same game.
Then why were the epic exclusive games full priced?
pro-tip: savings are NEVER passed onto the consumer.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>savings are NEVER passed onto the consumer
Because it's against valve's TOS
2 years ago
Anonymous
so just gonna ignore the immediate sentence before the one you quoted? Be less blatant about your bad faith "argument"
2 years ago
Anonymous
It IS against their TOS. Epic's store is irrelevant to the argument when valve literally says you are not allowed to pass on any savings to the consumer.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>epic's store is irrelevant to the argument about epic and tim flat out lying about passing the savings to the customer
2 years ago
Anonymous
>tim's a piece of shit, so I have no problem with daddy gaben being one too
2 years ago
Anonymous
where and when did gabe say he was gonna make prices lower than the competition (none existed at the time) then broke that promise
2 years ago
Anonymous
>you can only be a piece of shit in one specific way
2 years ago
Anonymous
cope chink
2 years ago
Anonymous
Tell me anon, what does steam have to do with >Then why were the epic exclusive games full priced?
Use your brain for once
2 years ago
Anonymous
stop thinking about valve for half a second.
there are no examples of "savings being passed on" because that is an advertising spin that only a moron would believe. they want max profits, and they will take them.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Damn. I didn't know Steam was so powerful they even set the price point of exclusive games on other stores.
>Hey if your gonna use our platform your product has to be the same price your selling it everywhere else so not one customer is fricked >W-WHAT THE FRICK THIS IS ACTUALLY PRICE FIXING YOU FRICKING israelite GABEN SAAAAVEEE ME TIM
>sign contract saying you will sell the game at the same price everywhere >knowingly break this contract by selling your game for less while advertising it on steam >get kicked off the market
WOWOWOWOWWWOWOWWW HOW UNFAIR
2 years ago
Anonymous
Imagine defending such an anti-competitive practice.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>abloo bloo blooo how dare you not let me use your servers and app to advertise and distribute my game I'm also selling on the side!!!!
if the furgay was so determined to sell his game for less then he could have just lowered the price on steam to match
2 years ago
Anonymous
how is looking after your consumers anti-competitive
2 years ago
Anonymous
They aren't looking after you, they're making sure you don't get a better deal elsewhere
>Valve makes developers sign contracts that disallow selling those games for lower than on Steam.
You are a moron. The contract states you can sell keys elsewhere and keep 100% of the profits, but you can't go lower than what they sell on Steam. Which is very fair.
I've never seen a source for this
The closest I was ever able to find was a section in their FAQ about developers generating keys. They say you're welcome to generated as many keys as you want to sell on other storefronts or even just give away, but if you're going to offer the game at a discount on a different storefront where they get no cut, they ask that you within a reasonable timeframe offer a similar discount on Steam.
Which is honestly absurdly generous. I'm really not the kind of person to call any corporation "generous" for any reason, but the fact that that's even possible is something I can't imagine any other company doing.
You can list your game on steam and then use steam to host it, provide all their services like friends lists and workshop, use their distribution system, take advantage of their backend and server hosting, and then just generate a bunch of keys to sell on a completely unaffiliated website and they don't earn a cent from those sales.
There's a reason no one can compete with them.
Yeah the aftermarket is oversaturated with Steam keys. It's near impossible to compete with that and all Valve did was just allow devs to make more keys.
>when they take 30%
*of sales on their store
Sell it on a different store, you're perfectly able to, they support that and in fact make it easy as shit. You just can't undercut steam's store while selling steam keys. And even then you can, just not permanently. If you want to sell at a discount on a different storefront with a lower cut, do it. Put it up at 30% off for a week and ask all your fans to go buy it there because they'll get it cheaper and you won't make any less. And then put it up for 30% off on Steam afterwards so Steam isn't outright helping you rip them off. >but I'll make slightly less money when people buy it at 30% off on Steam because Valve takes 30% of that 70%
Well, clearly they weren't going to buy the game anywhere else so that's still 100% more than you'd have earned otherwise.
Its really not that unbelievable, but its also standard boiler plate in most retail contracts.
Why would I put your product on my store's shelves, and spend all the money in upkeep that costs, if you're going to make me sell at $59.99, while across the street you let my competitor sell it for $39.99.
Sales prices are one thing, but you can't set different normal MSRPs for different businesses.
This is also why some brick and mortar stores don't take credit cards and have a ATM instead that charges a fee. So that they get all the money from the transactions, and aren't selling a bottle of pop for $1 to customers paying cash, and $.75 to customers buying with a credit card because of the payment handler's processing fees.
Or why some places will have a separate 'cash price' even though that's technically not allowed by the TOS, its the kind of thing a little mom and pop gas station can get away with, but not a major corporation.
>Vavle is a monopoly! >well timmy, what about Microsoft and Disney >sh-shut up!
this gay is just butthurt that no one bought his shitty furry game
I like to present the court Valve's illegal actions in AU for breaking the law on refunds and EU anti-geo laws. Valve company is a international company that breaks laws.
that already happened in Australia
valved paid fines of a few million, and implemented refunds
why do u think they implemented the refund system? Australia
We just get an even better refund system than the global one since we can return games for up to a week no questions asked.
do u know how many games I buy, play for like 40hrs, then refund? nothing valve can do lmao
this. It's only a whataboutism if you're pointing to Disney and microsoft and saying "they get to do it, so why can't we"? The real question being asked is "why do you specifically defend them, if Valve is in the wrong? They are all doing the same thing, so by your logic, they should all be brought to justice" but saying this gets you called a nazi incel chud.
What do you mean what about microsoft and disney. Disney is literally just one of many animation/movie studios so not a monopoly. And microsoft has to constantly wrestle with anti trust lawsuits and has to constantly fracture parts of itself away.... so i have no clue how you are trying to prove a point by greentexting 2 unrelated companies.
What do you mean the law does not punish them. As i said, disney has plenty of competition, so why would the law punish them when you have shit like netflix, warner bros, 20th century fox, paramount and other directly in competition with them.
On the other hand microsoft? They have been fined fricking billions. Just look up the fines they had to pay over they years for anti trust related issues. How the frick am i being a hypocrite when im pointing out that the antitrust laws seem to work. But they only apply when you actually dominate the market without any alternatives and on top of that leverage that power.
>What do you mean the law does not punish them
With PC games it's usually pretty obvious as there's actually good reasons for the exclusivity. It's either small indies that can't afford to release on consoles or games built around keyboard and mouse that wouldn't work on them.
I have no idea what is exclusive and what isn't. I recently reinstalled Civ VI (it still sucks, don't bother) only to learn from various forum searches about a bug that it's also on xbox and even switch.
It's kinda baffling that anyone would care if a title is exclusive to any system. They are fricking video games and not some high end mafia clubs for the country's elite.
True, tho I don't play on PC because of exclusivity, but because I feel like I have way more control software, modding and such. Well, maybe being able to mod everything to your taste is somewhat exclusive to PC.
>Disney can influence the law to change it as much as they want, and nobody can stop them >Microsoft literally defunded the IRS when they attempted to break them up >"NO YOU SEE THEY ONLY CONTROL 98% OF THE MARKET, THERE'S STILL 2%, SO IT'S NOT A MONOPOLY, HAH OWNED CHUD"
>Valve needs to be broken up!
Is there anything to even break up? Did they ever buy another company?
If so that's definitely true of every such company.
No company should be allowed to buy other companies. This should be enshrined in law to force legitimate competition and they should be forced to then spin all of them back off into their own standalone businesses.
Being able to buy other businesses encourages just getting big enough to make a payday off the people you could've competed with.
30 is the industry standard asswipe, gog and microshits expects 30 too
ONLY reason Epic will give you 15 percent is if you are roped into a UE licensing deal so they get their 30 percent and then some after you factor in Epic Online Services
Quit pretending EPIC and Timmy boy are the heroes, they arent, far from it in fact
Even private companies can have shareholders, angel investors and such. Gabe was already a millionaire at Microsoft when he left, and they likely didn't need much outside investing if any.
2 years ago
Anonymous
0 outside investment if the story they tell is true
was started solely by the group of ex microsoft devs that came with gabe without any extra funding since they were all millionaires
2 years ago
Anonymous
At worst I'd have maybe guessed they took in some funding from Sierra, but considering Gabe and Mike were both rich already, I'm apt to take their word as is.
>furgays are israelites
If they hate Steam so much then why are they continuing to do business with them? If they are not forced to do business with them, then this blows the frick out of any antitrust lawsuit.
>If they hate Steam so much then why are they continuing to do business with them?
because they're hypocrites, same as most of these homosexuals that say one thing and do another.
EGS was made directly in response to Steam's Chinese client. It was cobbled together for the purpose of beating Valve to the market, which is why it's pulling those same Chinese tactics you're seeing in this very thread.
Daily reminder that Chinks are worse than Black folk and israelites combined and deserve to eat a nuke. Frick those commie homosexuals.
That's what this lawsuit is about if I remember correctly. They wanted to sell on steam but then also sell (steam keys) for cheaper on their website which breaks Valve's TOS and Valve told them to suck a dick.
Oh so they wanted to used valve's servers but undercut valve's revenue?
Sounds like a moronic move
If the version they sold through their website was entirely hosted by them, it'd think valve wouldn't give a frick
If humble bundle and fanatical are allowed to sell keys for less than steam's price, then the actual makers of the game should be too.
2 years ago
Anonymous
They can they just have to lower the steam price within a month of their other discount as well
2 years ago
Anonymous
There are plenty of games on isthereanydeal where the lowest price has never been the steam price, it's always a third party. Only the devs have to match the price? That's bullshit.
2 years ago
Anonymous
those are key resellers who operate in a legal grey area and live in places like russia and ukraine where its almost impossible to do anything about them through legal means
steam and devs will sometimes disable keys sold on those websites
I think the problem here though, is that you're actually a disingenuous moron and a prostitute
2 years ago
Anonymous
Legit keysites go lower than the steam sales too, not just the shady ones. They don't get punished by valve.
Those websites are dubiously legal to start with. I guess it's different when a publisher is doing it instead of a chink with stolen credit cards which is difficult to go after.
Third-party key sites are not sold by the developers, and revenue proceeding from such doesn't go to the developers either. Who's going out to claim people breaking TOS for things they have nothing to do with?
The third-party sites are using dubious region-pricing to get keys for cheap and then resell them to (You) for cheap(er) than the local price. It's not the devs generating keys (which they are allowed to do) and then selling them for their own benefit while removing steam from the revenue equation.
Then why isn't valve blocking fanatical or gamersgate, they've done bigger discounts than the steam sale before. They only want to enforce it on the actual developers?
2 years ago
Anonymous
they're 3rd party key resellers who exist in a legal grey area. Steam and devs sometimes disable the keys being sold because of it.
Legit keysites go lower than the steam sales too, not just the shady ones. They don't get punished by valve.
There are no "legit keysites" they all operate in a legal grey area.
How many times does this need to be repeated for it to sink through your stupid fricking head? Holy shit. You are the definition of a liar and a shill.
2 years ago
Anonymous
So humble bundle is a shady russian op now? Or amazon? Lots of websites sell steam keys legit.
2 years ago
Anonymous
They make specific deals with the developers and steam, which the key resellers you're attempting to say are the same thing, don't.
They aren't the same, and the way they work isn't the same.
2 years ago
Anonymous
So they are 3rd party key resellers but also they are not 3rd party key resellers? Make up your mind schizo.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yes, lots of websites sell legit keys. And lots don't. Random 3rd party key sites would also buy up keys from humble bundle then resell them later for a markup. And just because humble bundle strikes a deal directly with the developers trough valve, does not mean that every other site does so as well.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>they're 3rd party key resellers who exist in a legal grey area
Lmao
2 years ago
Anonymous
what about the Humble Store or Green Man Gaming?
2 years ago
Anonymous
Those are legitimate third party stores that buy keys straight from publishers. The same goes for Fanatical.
That guy is full of shit.
2 years ago
Anonymous
notice how they all have the same sale price?
its because they have gotten authorization from the developers and valve
2 years ago
Anonymous
Sometimes they're lower than steam's lowest price
2 years ago
Anonymous
Humble became famous because they sold games ridiculously low priced, via bundles.
You may not remember it, but at the time, the EA bundle was a batshit insane deal, of prices never before seen on Steam
2 years ago
Anonymous
Humble is a charity first and foremost.
they buy the keys and redistribute them in bundles.
2 years ago
Anonymous
It's weird how many people ITT are pretending nothing's ever gone on sale for less than steam's price.
2 years ago
Anonymous
what most companies do >build a sales & pricing strategy around events, holidays, releases, and other factors >put stuff on sale in a variety of places with varying sales slowly trending down in price over time on various platforms >valve doesn't give a frick
what the overgrowth dev did >wants to put game on >but not sell through steam >wants to sell on his on website but still use valves infrastructure for downloading, updating, and hosting >throws a shitfit when valve tells him its not free and he can frick off if he wants to do that and he signed a contract >valve graciously terminates his contract and delists his game after he continues flinging shit >a decade passes and hes still trying to start trouble because hes moronic & greedy
idk why people are defending this spastic and his furgay buddies
2 years ago
Anonymous
>they're 3rd party key resellers who exist in a legal grey area.
no that's g2a, kinguin, etc.
epic shills just repeat this same tired narrative for years on end its pathetic.
>They wanted to sell on steam but then also sell (steam keys) for cheaper on their website
No actually it's worse than that, he wants to be able to sell steam keys but NOT sell the game on Steam. Meaning he wants Valve to host and distribute his game for 100% free because his game could only be sold on his own website where Valve gets no cut of any sale that could ever happen.
>Anti-consumer
Valve has done nothing that has been deemed as such under federal law. >Monopoly
Do you even know what monopoly means? Beyond the board game, I mean.
The USA has refunds law, Valve should have been charge for it but wasn't until AU. This is the USA laws for refund: https://smallbusiness.com/selling/federal-state-return-regulations/
Valve broke all of them, people sold fake games in 2012-2015, not following IRS tax rules on international law, no policies on refund, etc.
Valve is anti-consumer
Valve has many reasons to be consider a Monopoly. The numbers do not lie, more people in gaming community have steam client install than microsoft store that came in default. Business with international government like china, creation of their own physical products, economic impact on gaming sales, game companies not uploading anywhere else, zero damage when sued for X amount for USA gov fees. The list goes on and on but the message is clear, Valve is a Monopoly.
you can't charge a company for doing something anti-consumer in the past if it's been remedied. also people very much abuse the refund system to hurt small devs so that's probably why they didn't have one in the first place.
AU consumer law doesn't let you get a refund just because you don't like something. It covers you from defects on goods that are not fit for purpose. This gets more grey with video games when it's less of a case of shipping broken -- which plenty of games absolutely do -- and people trying to run it on a bottlenecked toaster and then complaining they don't get a smooth 60FPS.
The current approach to refunds is just Valve making life easier for themselves, rather than some confession. Just means they don't have to frick about working out if the product is truly defective. Just now means people can purchase games as trials and say it's shit and get their money back. Can you imagine if other things were so generous?
Honestly, the way people go on about refunds, I fully expect that when asked "Would you walk out of a movie, say it's shit and expect your money back? Or eat all your meal, claim it was disgusting, and refuse to pay?" to simply reply "Well, yeah!"
>trying to talk about steam on Ganker
don't bother, this place is pretty much the biggest hive of steam drones on the internet.
I still remember the b***hing and moaning when steam was forced to allow refunds.
easily the biggest corporate bootlickers on here.
Are the modded civs meant to be balanced at all? I tried some Touhou civs and it was practically a guaranteed culture victory, shitting out Great Works every turn.
Yes. Imagine thinking developers having to have incredibly high sales volumes in order for pc gaming go be viable is a good thing. If you aren't lucky or the next fotm social credit bandwagon your game will not sell in the time frame that would matter
Valve is one of the most natural monopolies out there. They didn't become the largest company by using underhanded anti-competitive tactics but just by providing what their clientele wants. They deserve their position.
They did offer to pay developers to get VR games and only Steam offer VR support. Facebook was a dead market place and other places like PlayStation had almost no customers and no developers, SEGA try to even make Miku Hatsune VR game just to help but still fail, SEGA then brought it to Steam and it saw numbers.
See how wrong you are, Valve is a monoplity, there are too many people in use steam client and too much control on developer profit.
Valve never paid the developers, many where tricked and they uploaded their game thinking they'll get some funding. No one got anything, Valve lied or created exclusive deals because no developer in VR has spoken about it.
reddit post about steam users also agreeing Valve did something bad: https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/cmjk3k/so_what_did_happen_to_valves_vr_game_funding/
Well it doesn't matter because Valve lied, there was no VR fund program, there was no submissions for Valve to look through, there was no announcement to the ending to the funding and no free stuff given to smaller developers.
Valve single handly lied to small developers, they never reply back, small developers bet too much on Valve's lies, VR die because Valve made it die. This is why VR sucks now.
2 years ago
Anonymous
And what does any of that have to do with Steam being an anti-consumer monopoly? The only part relevant was them paying people for exclusivity, which you couldn't proof.
2 years ago
Anonymous
What they did was anti-consumer, news outlets from gaming to TV told people about. Valve lied to get people to upload VR games to their platform only. Everyone else like playstation suffer and developers leaving to steam.
that already happened in Australia
valved paid fines of a few million, and implemented refunds
why do u think they implemented the refund system? Australia
We just get an even better refund system than the global one since we can return games for up to a week no questions asked.
do u know how many games I buy, play for like 40hrs, then refund? nothing valve can do lmao
You are not a gamer, everyone who used steam before 2010 knows you wont get a refund. You can even look at wayback machine, Valve clearly say sin the User Agreement that you get no refund: https://web.archive.org/web/20080909180028/https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/
2 years ago
Anonymous
yeah they didn't give u a refund
until they introduced the automatic refund system and actually complied with laws after they got sued
I get refunds regardless of my play time as long as I lodge it within a week
iv done it multiple time when my friends get me to buy some garbage to play with them for a few days where I rack up like 20-30 hours then refund it the next weekend
you're fricking moronic and can't even read what I said
they don't have a choice, they have to refund me or I can send an email to fair trading who will send them an email to refund me or they will see them in court because they are legally required to give me a refund
>PlayStation had almost no customers and no developers
6 million headsets sold making it one of the best selling vr products of all time. There are still games being made and updated for it even with its far below standard 2016 tech
I've already shared this several times, and I will share it again because it's worth noting... >Closet furry >Always kept them at an arm's length >Go to a local convention because 'why the frick not' >Check out the 'game room,' because of course they have one >Playing Smash Bros with randos >One frick literally goes out of his way to literally name his character HIV+
my condolences. I'm not a furgay, but I know a very good looking one who is single to this day because he avoids degenerate meetups like the plague. he often accompanies me for a few drinks, and cries every time to me how there are no places for people like him to meet people. I wish him all the best, but it really must suck to be a gay on the search for love.
he wants to be able to sell his game on steam and get the exact same amount of money he would selling it on his website
so $20 on his website, and $30 on steam
but he (willingly) agreed to valves terms that ur not allowed it just straight up sell it cheaper without also selling it cheaper on steam within a certain time frame
hes a whiny b***h in short
Isn't it you can't sell steam keys cheaper than the steam store price?
I believe if he sold its own game launcher without steam features valve won't bat an eye, customers would raise hell though
Devs are literally selling Steam keys by the tens to hundreds of thousands to websites like humble constantly
This draconian control by Valve over prices is completely made up
he wants to be able to sell his game on steam and get the exact same amount of money he would selling it on his website
so $20 on his website, and $30 on steam
but he (willingly) agreed to valves terms that ur not allowed it just straight up sell it cheaper without also selling it cheaper on steam within a certain time frame
hes a whiny b***h in short
I refuse to believe anyone at Valve gave a shit about what some asshurt furgay does with keys for his game on his own shitty website that nobody visits.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I mean valve just delisted his game because of it and he threw a shit fit
I imagine it went something like this >be guy who works at valve >see some game on some dude website, think u might of seen it on steam >go check and see its way cheaper on his site than steam >and hes selling steam keys >go into work next day >bring it up to coworker >he brings it to gabe, flat structure after all >gabe is busy in his sex dungeon and tells him to frick off and just delist the fricker, hes busy
or something like that
2 years ago
Anonymous
I can confirm that this is exactly what happened. I was in the sex dungeon at the time
2 years ago
Anonymous
It's possible but I also think that it is possible this guy deliberately sabotaged himself because I know for a fact that he is a huge fricking homosexual.
During gamergate or whatever he told anyone who wasn't "with him" that they should just request a refund because he doesn't want anything to do with the wrongthinkers.
He's basically the Kotaku poster child
2 years ago
Anonymous
oh yeah I know
I remember when his game was coming out
he was a massive self important homosexual who thought he was gods gift to the world
fricking delusional furgays
2 years ago
Anonymous
Wouldn't that means most of the cost is covered by humble? Since I don't know if humble buys the key full price or not.I feel like reseller - individual keys or in a bundle - is a grey area where it's kinda touchy and would open a can of worms, so so long as humble or other website like it buys the key with full price, or the dev doesn't caught selling the keys cheaper, valve won't do a thing... Well shit, so long you don't get caught doing it, you might get away with it. Isn't the problem the dev in question asks to valve if it's okay to do shit like that? Had the dev not asked, the dev might get away with it
2 years ago
Anonymous
Humble is a charity drive you fricking idiots, wildfire doesn’t keep that money. They are assblasted that their charity drive makes money that they don’t get to keep
2 years ago
Anonymous
Like I've said, I don't know how humble bundle works, to my understanding, they buy the key legit full price and cover the costs for whatever people are paying the bundles and charities
They don't pay full price and Valve doesn't care just like they basically never care unless people are gaming the system super hard.
Which I find it hard to believe that they would go after whiny faildev #13514 doing some shit on his obscure website that had less impact on their bottom line than a drop in the ocean
Feels like humble bundle can use charity as a reason to valve, but yeah, it really does feel like the dev brings this problem to valve and valve said no and remove his game because he got caught doing it before asking
2 years ago
Anonymous
No, publishers donate the keys and all proceeds are donated to charity. The publishers write off the keys as donation and it helps their taxes at the end of the year. It is not just some nice guy buying expensive keys and giving them away for less, and that idea is so fricking moronic i can’t believe it’s what you thought
2 years ago
Anonymous
Like I've said >I don't understand how humble bundle works
So wait, how exactly does this "can't sell steam keys that are lower than steam prices" rule work? I've bought keys that were way cheaper than steam prices, Bamco has been selling discounted keys for years.
Basically the rules are there, but not really strongly enforced unless you got caught doing it, basically
valve takes inputs from developers on their sales strategy and how they want sales to be run so valve can handle it for them automatically (if they so desire), I really don't think valve gives a frick if there is another site thats selling a key for cheaper, but they definitely have it in writing for when people abuse it
and they definitely care when people are abusing it
which I think is the big thing, this cuck tried to game the system and abuse it, so his game got pulled from steam and flopped even harder than it normally would have, and he blames valve for that
2 years ago
Anonymous
They don't pay full price and Valve doesn't care just like they basically never care unless people are gaming the system super hard.
Which I find it hard to believe that they would go after whiny faildev #13514 doing some shit on his obscure website that had less impact on their bottom line than a drop in the ocean
the blatant valve worship on this board is ironic. Imagine being a "PC master race" yet being as cucked, if not MORE cucked than console fans.
Valve has: >Completely ruined the physical disc market >Make players RENT game on their servers >Introduce and create loot boxes & other horrible monetization tactics >Sponser fricking gambling >Make hardware promises that fall flat every time
>Imagine paying a console maker for the privilege to use your own internet, which you already pay an ISP for, to play an online game with other people.
Despite all of that the platform they have is leagues better.
Its not hard for a big company to beat Steam. Just do everything steam does except the shit people hate(minus drm because big game companies love drm). But no company wants to do that because they are all greedy b***hes.
EGS tried to buy its way to the top with a shitty platform and failed.
GOG serves a niche of pc gamers that hate drm games above all else and old games
Dlsite is for weebs
Based. Frick Seam. All pcgays should hate Steam too for turning pc gaming into a normalgay streamerbait platform with no huge exciting exclusives anymore.
>pcgays have become so dumbed down and moronic that they actually prefer the low effort indieshit and asset flips over the ACTUAL good exclusives that pc used to have like Deus Ex and Planescape: Torment
You know what? Fine. I'll frick off and leave you to your dogshit future, homosexual.
>not wanting exclusives means only wanting low effort indieshit
Guess completely making up arguments and connecting points that don't make sense is the only way your dumbshit take can work, huh? Fricking idiots on this board, jesus christ.
I have no idea what is exclusive and what isn't. I recently reinstalled Civ VI (it still sucks, don't bother) only to learn from various forum searches about a bug that it's also on xbox and even switch.
It's kinda baffling that anyone would care if a title is exclusive to any system. They are fricking video games and not some high end mafia clubs for the country's elite.
Depends on the perspective--Epic is definitely trying to, but it's only Valve that gets majority of the attention because they're literally the biggest client out there.
But keep in mind, both Ubosoft, EA, and especially Epic have exclusives to their own clients. I would still go after Epic first since they're actively bribing companies with their frick-you-Tencent/China-money...
The apple trial flat out stated otherwise, and this case was already falling apart.
Also dont forget timmy said, flat out, that he wouldve had a special deal with apple if he could- in a court of law. So basically he's bullshiting for money with his crusade.
frick off Black personhomosexual. I dont give a shit.
Because they are morons. If they don’t agree with steam, they can sell the game in other places. If they want to sell it for $20 on their website, they can do that too. They are literally b***hing that steam won’t show ads for their game while they sell it elsewhere for less, which makes perfect sense.
They're a 'monopoly' in the sense that their store is so successful and good at what it does nobody else can compete with it.
Literally the only other store able to stay in the game is Good Old Gamers, by offering something Steam doesn't - which is no DRM and the ability to download the game and store it whatever way you want.
Which isn't good enough for the publishers conspiring together to increase prices.
That's why they're funding the anti-gog website and astroturfing against steam and gog 24/7 on every forum
I don't even understand wtf Epic is doing. They can just copy the Steam store and offer better terms for developers. Instead they keep their store features at moron levels (they don't even have per-game community boards and that is 1990s level technology).
They would only be considered a monopoly due to others' laziness.
Through the years valve has been gathering a massive userbase.
It now uses that userbase as a huge potential market for devs/publishers to sell to easily.
You put a game on steam, you instantly have your game in the eyes of 120+million people.
To do that previously you'd need to have millions spent on billboards, TV adverts and shit (what they still have to do for console games)
Steam has just been building that userbase through first party games like TF2, CS, HL and portal and offering huge discounts earlier (early days 90% flash sales on great games)
That's the work gabe and valve have put in.
Yeah, it has put them in a comfortable position.
But it's by no means a monopoly, Epic games are currently building their userbase (which is the exact same people that already have steam accounts).
For a game to release and not use steam they just need to accept that they are actually going to have to work to get their game out there and seen by PC gamers.
what the lawsuit is is literally; >Waaah steam is an easy convenient way to get games to millions of people, we wanna do that but keep more money.
Nothing is stopping them from not using steam to distribute their game.
They could make their own website and organise the downloads/payments themselves and keep 100%.
Why won't they do that? Laziness.
Well laziness is the 30% you pay to steam for doing all that shit for you.
Rimworld devs tried all of that while still selling Steam keys to their game but guess what, they eventually gave up when they got tired of getting bombarded by endless fraudulent purchases and having to do things like filing taxes for all the regional pricing manually
>They're a 'monopoly' in the sense that their store is so successful and good at what it does nobody else can compete with it
So it's not Steam's fault. They're either really good or the competition is really shit. It's not illegal to be good at a market.
In simpler terms: the competition needs to GIT GUD
Being a monopoly requires you to take actual anticompetetive measures, not simply being the biggest fish in the pond because you were the first there.
Epic epic bribing publishers to host their games nowhere else is the definition of anticompetetive.
Huh?
Pretty sure they cried, pissed and shat when Valve introduced 2 hour refunds because it would mean their shitty <2 hour "games" couldn't sell anymore
But also how exactly are they blocking lower sales?
Humble Bundle and countless other websites are constantly selling at a lower price than Steam
he wants to be able to sell his game on steam and get the exact same amount of money he would selling it on his website
so $20 on his website, and $30 on steam
but he (willingly) agreed to valves terms that ur not allowed it just straight up sell it cheaper without also selling it cheaper on steam within a certain time frame
hes a whiny b***h in short
>Humble Bundle and countless other websites are constantly selling at a lower price than Steam
Yeah, they get to do it but the actual makers of the game don't. That's the issue.
>Melodramatic
Frick off. His game was priced on par for its duration as any game on steam and yet because the sight unseen refunds people who play it and even rate it well can get a refund because the system is moronic. Just teaches people to aimlessly pad their games out to avoid this shit
How is some homosexual indie dev trying to undercut a storefront “pro consumer”? It doesn’t help me at all
And don’t say they would sell it for less, because they could have sold it for less without steam but they would never choose that
The ghostrunner devs tried to make it cheaper on epic but all the steam zealots complained and made them equalize the higher pricing, instead of just buying it for lower.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>source: my ass.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>source: my ass.
Is it really hard to imagine customers want to buy shit in the place of their choice? And their choice is steam, yeah they could buy it on epic for lower price but they want to buy it on steam instead. The cheaper price on epic actually hurts the game values and makes a demand for the game to have the same price on epic, but instead they raise the epic price to steam price
Can't really blame steam if your sales got hurt because of it when the customer already perceived your game value is not worth the asking price
valve is not a monopoly neither it has control if a developer wants to sell their game in other places, the lawsuit is complete moronic, but who cares about the truth anyway, this gay earth is full of homosexuals that are burning it down anyway
i hope microsoft and epic become the shitstandard for game stores and US and China governments use it for their own gay purposes so the whole industry becomes unberable propagandized more then its already is
>May 11, 2022
The balls on this homosexual to say the 30% cut is to blame for artificially hight prices at the same time that AAA games have become $70 and are full of in-game purchases regardless.
I'm not interested about the French ruling from 2 years ago. What happened to the appeal?
It's probably not a high priority case either with all the bullshit that is going on lately.
The results could change digital distribution forever, I have to see it.
>The results could change digital distribution forever, I have to see it.
No, they will just make software vendors cease operations in France. No lost revenue from 1 country is worth ending digital distribution forever by abiding by that moronation.
A used copy of a digital product is 100% identical to a new one. There is no wear and tear, there is no damage, there is not lost parts, there is absolutely zero disincentivization to purchase used. Even a 1 penny discount from resale is 1 penny saved. There is 0 measure and value in ever buying a new version over a used one, it's a moronic idea. No company will ever do business in a place like this.
France is a special case because it's part of the EU. The results of the case are likely to have ramifications.
Also, don't forget that other forms of digital media have come under scrutiny in the past. If consumer right groups are smart they'll spring to action like rabid animals.
they fricked me by taking down that steam mod downloader website, i already had my isaac and rimworld mods downloaded but if i want new ones im gonna have to buy those games
>developers get a higher percentage cut of the cash from sales on epic >but the games are also cheaper there
Don't they basically end up making the same as if they were selling their games on steam?
So what were the alterations? Is this a meaningul case or just "They aren't doing anything illegal but we'll MAKE what they're doing illegal" that'll get laughed out as soon as the bureaucracy progresses enough that it can be laughed out?
So wait, how exactly does this "can't sell steam keys that are lower than steam prices" rule work? I've bought keys that were way cheaper than steam prices, Bamco has been selling discounted keys for years.
What are they going to do? Force millions of people to stop using steam? I don't get the point of this lawsuit
You can buy games from other distributors already, steam is merely the most popular of them
And it's popular because it offers features other stores do not offer and from the shared features they have they're superior in every single way. It was why Epic had to literally buy exclusivity to make it worth it for the devs - because stream is just the better platform.
The problem with valve isn't that they have a monopoly on the market, it's that they have a brainwashed following of people who breakout in hives at the mere thought of having to access a second launcher.
>want to make 20$ profit per unit of my game >Steam gets 30% >Do some rough math and decide that 26$ base will net me the profits I want >Sell the game on steam for 30 to cover other costs and still meet my profit goal >Sell the game off of my own site for 30 to cover what is taken by steam
>Monopoly
not really >Anti-Consumer
Yes DRM and the fact you can't give "your" digital licenses to your friends or strangers like you can with physical games.
Valve has never stopped anyone from competing with them, ever. In fact, it's hilarious how little they've done despite the competition from EGS and such and is still coming out on top. EGS literally gives you like free games every week but the market has decided that they'd rather pay for games on a superior service than get free games on a shit one.
They know people aren't even playing most of these games, they just want them getting used to opening up the store and putting things in their cart every week. Repetition training, like with dogs.
Yeah this. Valve is only a "monopoly" in the sense that any competition will have to be as good or better than Steam to even stand a chance and that's really unlikely. Offering a superior product shouldn't be a punishable offense. They played fair and they're just better than everyone else.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/monopoly.asp
The Pure Monopoly
A company with a "pure" monopoly is the only seller in a market with no other close substitutes. For many years, Microsoft Corporation had a virtual monopoly on personal computer operating systems. As of July 2021, its desktop Windows software still had a market share of about 73%,1 down from about 97% in 2006.
Anyone claiming current steam store is not a monopoly is a massive fricking liar
They fulfill the market share condition, but there are substitutes. Furthermore, they haven't abused their position in any significant way.
Remember, monopolies aren't even illegal, monopolistic abuses are.
it is a monopoly, and that's a good thing.
I'd much rather have this private company, unbeholden to investors, bound only by the whims of the actual programmers who work there, than fricking Timmy TENCENT have controlling market share.
I really fear the day gabe dies. everything's going to go to shit fast.
>microsoft pushes out any competition using predatory tactics to maintain its dominance >valve does nothing and wins because its competitors are that garbage
On the contrary, Valve has done a lot to serve under served minority platforms that its smaller competitors have completely ignored.
Even though while proportionally the number of paying customers on a platform like GNU/Linux makes up only 1.18% on Steam, that 1.65 million users would more substantially increase the number of paying customers on a platform like EGS.
So its not so much that Valve did nothing, because they've actually done quite a bit. It their competitors who have flatly refused to attempt to serve the customers that Valve serves. Even if only a small percentage of Steam users run GNU/Linux today, that number is almost certain to increase over time as Microsoft continues to seek new anti-consumer ways to profit off their dwindling marketshare (29% and falling), and Valve's user base is aware of that.
Anti consumer like Ubisoft closing down their online network and preventing you playing games you've paid for?
Yeah, no.
These people need to concentrate on shit like that. There should be a law against it. I'm not stupid enough to have supported that but its happened before and it will happen again. Epic is bound to follow suit and others.
As much as I hate what valve has become, cutting them down to size is not a good idea. If valve is kill in its current form things will get much worse. They can at least get a lower cut from selling games though.
nothing will happen. this is like a third party seller suing amazon for their goods not selling fast enough because amazon won't put their stuff on the front page and you have to sell through because they're the most popular e-tailer
>wolfire
is this indie people that got mad at valve because their game wasn't advertised enough among the sky high mountains of other indie trash and further got mad because they won't sell on any other store because "you have to sell on steam because its popular so its a monopoly"
I think it's more of a pro-consumer monopoly in a way, Not intentionally but since every single competitor they've ever had has been far worse and more shit and anti-consumer than they've ever been. It's a unique situation really.
How does Valve suppress competition? They do no promotions, they don't advertise, they take bigger cuts than the competitors and don't pay off publishers for exclusivity. They do literally nothing but provide a better service for the users.
Yeah but that's not faaaaaaaaaair. It was funny when Epic game stores lower cut is supposed to be good for developers. Why the frick would anyone give a shit who aren't the developers?
>2000's to 2010s >tons of companies down right hostile towards pc gamers >refused to even put alot of games on pc >any games that do usually got slim pickings of awful ports >completely leaves the entire pc market to valve >fricking pioneers digital downloads of video games >tons of added benefits for the consumer
>early 2010's >companies seeing dwindling sales of consoles >sees Valve doing tremendously well with Steam >decides to make their own >still hostile towards the consumers
Yeah, frick the entire market. I will forever use steam. They completely have the right to be as successful as they are.
>more money than Valve's profits would make them
literally not true. Valve is a more profitable venture than either of those listed companies gaming divisions. they may be close to tencent but that doesnt mean a sale would make sense for either party
Never forget that Microsoft has tried to buy out Valve in 2012. That's the whole reason that Valve started treating dependent on Microsoft's platform as their #1 threat and started investing in GNU/Linux.
This is also the reason why Valve is privately held. They're extremely robust against any attempt to stage a hostile takeover.
What I don't understand is Microsoft chumming up to Valve lately.
Listing a ton of games. Praising the steamdeck. Future plans for more listings.
I'm sure they get a good discount on the % take but they're just making themselves more reliant on steam. And Gabens doing all he can to not be reliant on Microsoft and windows.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Its the Microsoft business plan
Embrace
Extend
Extinguish
Sometimes they'll shift back to previous stages, 10 years ago they were at the 'extinguish' phase when it came to Valve. Today they're back to 'Embrace'.
Essentially today Microsoft knows they're on their way out of the consumer software market. They also know that Valve has won the enthusiast market for the next decade or so as they're really the only company in a good position for the post-Windows world and so they're playing nice, at least for the moment.
However their plan is to 'extend' Steam by requiring players to purchase their subscription service if they want online or certain features.
With the plan to extinguish now simply being streaming games to the mass market audience on phones who vastly outnumber players on traditional open platforms.
2 years ago
Anonymous
They're just waiting for Gaben to die.
Microsoft is genuinely just waiting to snatch up Valve and Steam.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Isn't Steam/Valve going straight to his son who also has the same distaste towards Microsoft?
2 years ago
Anonymous
There's a board of directors, investors, shareholders, etc... it's not just a king passing on his kingdom.
2 years ago
Anonymous
You can give your shares to next of kin in your will, anon. Since Gaben is the majority shareholder and the company is private, it is like a kingdom.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Either way, kingdoms get invaded and conquered all the time. When microsoft wants valve, they'll buy valve. This notion of Gaben or his family having "enough" money is childish nonsense.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Do you not know how private companies operate?
2 years ago
Anonymous
he doesn't know how any company operates and merely spews buzzwords he has heard others mention in other scenarios
except valve isn't like most large public facing companies who make stuff, since its private
so it really outs the morons who have no idea what they are talking about.
gaben can fricking close valve if he wants, its all up to him
2 years ago
Anonymous
You're invested in valve's continued independence, you don't want to believe it's possible they could sell out.
2 years ago
Anonymous
how is a hostile takeover the same as selling out
2 years ago
Anonymous
It's the same outcome. Someone else owns valve. It doesn't matter how it's done, someone else will own it one day, probably not too far off.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yeah, his son will own it.
2 years ago
Anonymous
And everything will be peachy and nothing will ever change, we understand how you think. It's a fantasy you want to come true.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>we
Are you ok anon?
2 years ago
Anonymous
i dont know why you are so personally invested in the idea of Newell selling the company. there is no indication that it would happen, his son might one day sell it but thats a pretty long way off realistically
2 years ago
Anonymous
Valve is structured to specifically prevent enough shareholders from selling their stock to Microsoft to enable a hostile takeover.
Private companies can have rules about who can own shares, and how much they're allowed to own.
Even if Microsoft were to get a Stephen Elop style trojan horse in the door at Valve after Gaben checks out of the company, it would be extremely difficult for such a bad actor to run the company into the ground and sell off all the IP to Microsoft at a fire sale like what happened to Nokia.
Even if they did, that wouldn't really stop PC gaming, everything important Valve has done for the last decade is in the open. In the extremely unlikely event of a successful hostile takeover, there is basically nothing to prevent all of the important employees at the company from just moving across the street, and continuing to maintain everything Valve was doing.
2 years ago
Anonymous
MS doesn't have to do anything complicated, they could simply do what apple is doing and demand a cut of everything sold on windows. How do you think that would affect steam? That's a takeover without ever taking it over.
2 years ago
Anonymous
that would be the worst idea for them fricking ever, and affect so much more than video game sales. why even say this, are you thinking before typing?
2 years ago
Anonymous
If you think microsoft could get away with that you're stone cold moronic
2 years ago
Anonymous
>apple
calm down Timmy
2 years ago
Anonymous
>they could simply do what apple is doing and demand a cut of everything sold on windows.
Long term that is almost certainly what is going to happen, including blocking third-party stores. Its why the Epic lawsuits against Google and Apple happened. Note that they didn't sue Microsoft who also owns a platform and a store. That's because Microsoft and Tencent are in bed.
The most fricked up thing is that Microsoft probably wanted Epic to lose. They wanted the precedent that going closed platform is legal.
Why do you think Valve refused to sell to Microsoft ten years ago, and why they've spent all their time and energy since then in turning GNU/Linux into a viable PC gaming platform?
Yes Valve is going to take a big hit when that happens, but they're prepared for it and betting on the enthusiast market shifting to GNU/Linux.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Long term that is almost certainly what is going to happen, including blocking third-party stores
At that point valve would be begging to sell.
2 years ago
Anonymous
This is straight up why Valve is pushing Linux so hard.
They know it's coming and want to be prepared.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>At that point valve would be begging to sell.
Yet when Microsoft told them that 10 years ago Gaben laughed at them.
Then spent the last decade preparing for the post-Windows world.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>hostile takeovers are literally like invasions between countries
DUUUUUUH DUUUUUUURRRRRR FRICK IM SO FRICKING moronic UUUUUUUUUUGHGHGH
2 years ago
Anonymous
Everyone in this thread lavishing praise on steam will never see it coming, too. They're too personally invested in valve's independence.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Microsoft is past wanting to acquire Valve, they really don't care that much about users playing games on open platform AMD64 PCs.
Their plan is to essentially push the enthusiast market who want to play on local hardware into a corner by themselves, while they take the broader market of streaming games to mass market devices and closed platforms.
If there's one thing that the last couple of years has taught Microsoft its that having to sell users an Xbox or a high end GPU before they can buy your game is inconvenient for users if you can't meet supply.
Better to have a big distributed cloud of gaming capable hardware, and then when demand for games is high use it for games, and when its not in demand use it for other services.
Its like how there's this small sub culture of people who buy vinyl records, or get movies on disc, but the big money in those markets is in streaming to the masses who don't care as much about quality and just want convenience above all else.
2 years ago
Anonymous
You are right but it's a gamble. In favour of streaming but I'm not sure.
2 years ago
Anonymous
That's assuming Valve's investment in wine, vulkan, dxvk, and lutrix won't pay off. MS is fricking scared of PC gamers abandoning Windows.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I think Microsoft is past being afraid or bargaining when it comes to the end of Windows as a platform for making money off of end users.
They're fully into acceptance and moving on.
They're more than willing to let Valve have win32. Valve's income and growth potential is small potatoes to them. Especially as open platform hardware increasingly becomes something only an enthusiast minority cares about.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Small potatoes in grand MS scale, but still a market. Win11 proves they still want desktop/laptop market. Imagine a world where most gamer PCs are sold as a linuxbox with steam preinstalled. That's a big cut.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Valve's income and growth potential is small potatoes to them.
what kind of cope is this kek
But how can Valve be literally the most profitable compagny by only selling other's dev game if PC player only pirate?
How come the fastest selling game on PC is one that came with absolutelly 0 protection against piracy?
something doesn't add up here
its almost like there are far far far more people who play games on PC than anything else
and even if a huge amount of people pirate games, the sheer size of the market makes them be able to buy massive amounts of games
oh whats that? piracy actually makes people buy more games in the future and helps developers and publishers?
well lets sweep that under the rug and keep complaining about it
I don't think piracy had any role to play in the success of the fastest selling game on PC, which sold millions of units on Steam (but also on others platforms) in less than a week
a lot of people pirate first then buy later.
When i was a poorgay i pirated a lot of games then when i was well off i started buying them because i felt like it.
Im certain that there are other people like me too.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yeah probably, most likely even.
But here, they bought the game faster than they could have pirated it
yeah it's valve fault if said game can't be played without steam even with a physical copy you inbred illiterate moron
2 years ago
Anonymous
I didn't know gabe sent people into the dev's office and held them at gun point to make it only playable on steam, at least I truly see its valves fault the devs made the game the way they did and not the dev's free choice
>But how can Valve be literally the most profitable compagny by only selling other's dev game if PC player only pirate?
because they offered a storefront and services that nobody else did. brick and mortar stores charge similar stocking fees, and on top of that you have to deal with overhead, packaging, shipping, and printing. digital distribution has a significantly lower footprint and a much easier method to distribute. valve offers basically an A-Z plan, in addition to SDK, workshop, and a bunch of other both developer and consumer friendly deals.
its funny because valves 30% is significantly lower than most physical stores
and this was never an issue until epic started clamoring about how 30% is too much
because they were still by far the lowest at 30% with the best service, and actually offered a lot for that 30%
30% is the industry standard for digital storefront.
Steam isn't the lowest, there just the same as other digital storefront (PSN, Xbox store, eShop, Origin, Google store...).
Digital being the keyword, physical duistribution will always take a higher cut from the dev, simply because physical distribution is more expensive as a whole
2 years ago
Anonymous
>everyone else uses 30% too! >so they aren't the lowest, see!!!!
thats what lowest means
and I was talking about the time valve started selling other games on steam instead of just a distribution platform for themselves
when they were competing pretty much only with physical stores or at least online stores who sold physical games
in which case, they were the lowest
learn to read
2 years ago
Anonymous
>everyone else uses 30% too! >so they aren't the lowest, see!!!!
thats what lowest means
and I was talking about the time valve started selling other games on steam instead of just a distribution platform for themselves
when they were competing pretty much only with physical stores or at least online stores who sold physical games
in which case, they were the lowest
learn to read
Sales used to be much more diverse/better overall. Once publishers realized they can sell product on their own service (Similar to how everyone ripped their stuff off Netflix and now there's a million subscription services) the offerings haven't been entirely the same.
it's obvious to anyone who sold games on the platform that the 30% isn't just some arbitrary cost to use the marketplace, they offer way more tools that offset that cost (CDN, keygen, developer tools and much more) . even higher selling games are eligible for a lower percentage cut to Valve.
like everything Timmy does, it's always a false equivalence. he's basically trying to stir up dissent to draw eyes to his platform. people use valve because it's just a superior platform. GOG had offered a viable alternative and was as close to a best competitor as the market had seen.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Timmy managed to convince swathes of people he was fighting against a monopoly while he spends millions trying to bring a console-war exclusivity to PC and it fricking sucks
you can tell the people that are both underaged, and/or uneducated when they call it a monopoly.
getting patches in the early days of the internet meant you had to go into babbages/eb and get the patch disks at the counter, or actually hunt to find them (on usenet if you were smart enough, or on random forums). there was no universal marketplace to both buy games and receive patches and mods. almost every game had its own site and many of them were written by some idiot who just started learning HTML.
moddb wasn't even a site until like 2003, just around when broadband started to become prevalent for most of the country.
and i forgot magazines also used to do the cd/diskette thing too.
Steam is definitely a monopoly, otherwise you wouldn't have to wait months/years to buy a game on sale. I don't even think steam sales are gonna exist 10 years from now.
I didn't know about this, but apparently Steam has rules regarding how often a game can go on sale.
The limit was once every 6 weeks. However, recently the restriction was lowered to 28 days.
I don't see how this lawsuit can even go through when Epic literally holds games hostage and "supresses competition" with exclusivity contracts. Just look at what happened recently with Fall Guys as just one example of many.
>monopoly
they don't force people to use it, and devs can sell keys for 100% profit off of it.
nothing about it is anti-trust, they just have a superior product to the rest of the market. people choose to use it because of what it offers in comparison to everyone else.
timmy thinks he can force people into using epic by hoarding exclusives. took them five years to make a fricking shopping cart.
>anti-consumer
Pro:
lets you buy games
refund shitty ones
sales
workshop
streaming to friends so they can check it out
family sharing
user reviews with histogram to filter out review bombing
drm so weak a drop in .dll can bypass it
steamworks support for multiplayer
cons:
allows denuvo to exist on their storefront
allows devs to sell DLC while still in early access
allows other launchers on top of theirs
attempted paid mods with bethesda
flip flops on whats allowed nudity-wise(instead of creating another platform for it entirely called steamy. you cant ignore my emails forever gay BEN)
Family sharing is trash. It was only done to ease tension Valve was getting because you cant let friends borrow your games.
Valve doesnt want the sell or borrowing of "used games" on steam. When we should have that.
>steam >suppressing competition
What? Steam has been the best PC game launcher for a reason. The other attempts at competition fricking failed. And we have stuff like Epic Game Store and GOG. How is Steam causing a monopoly?
because they don't want to sell it, and have been adamant about that fact since the beginning. why is that hard to understand? one day they will die or retire, and the new owners probably will sell it. not until then though
Other people have been adamant about not selling their baby, too. Remember Minecraft? Gabe's a businessman, not some valiant protector of gaming. He has a price like anyone else.
I'm saying he's a human man with billions of dollers. he doesn't need more. when he dies, his successor may want a 50B payday for no reason, but Steam will make that in a few years anyway. I don't know what this "has a price" idea is when the person in question is so wealthy. do you think Bill Gates has a price too?
>he's a human man with billions of dollers. he doesn't need more
Cause if there's one thing billionaires are known for, it's not being greedy
2 years ago
Anonymous
would you also expect someone to buy out SpaceX for the right price? single time payouts are not as good as continuing profits, especially for a smart business person
2 years ago
Anonymous
nah it's based gaben, he's rich enough and he's making linux gayming viable so it's /our guy/
>furgays are israelites
If they hate Steam so much then why are they continuing to do business with them? If they are not forced to do business with them, then this blows the frick out of any antitrust lawsuit.
so you pay 30% for exposure and server hosting, or you send demos to every shit website until they write stories about your gay indie game and sell it wherever you want. nobody is forced, that hasnt changed
>90% of exposure
exposure from what, the front page? no amount of begging valve to to put your game on the front page is going to help when customers can control what they see and have whatever genre your game is filtered out.
>thread about supposed anti consumerism >its literally nothing about that but complaining about dev tax because they are hosting the game for you
frick off Black person, make your own site or face the tax
>Chinese bots start reeeeing about steam >Sensible people point out the flaws in their arguments >"wtf valve bootlickers this is a safe space for me what are you doing"
Ganker is filled with underage/easily manipulated idiots. You can make fake screencaps for thread and actually have people fall for it and even spread around the fake info for you free of charge. The replies you just got right now is just even more proof. Valve has done a lot of shit that PC gamers have ignored or defended because of the "good guy valve/gabe" propaganda. Anything screaming about MUH CHING CHONG AND FURRY TRANNIES is just butthurt morons that have no argument.
zoophiles take care of animals better than average pet owners
2 years ago
Anonymous
You sexually abuse them, no, you objectively take worse care of them.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yeah, that's why mares still kill stallions more than humans.
Animals can consent, are smart, and know what they're doing. We aren't the only species who have sex for pleasure.
gays like Kero are instantly shunned when found out. necrogays and sadists always get the rope, meanwhile, you don't actually give a shit about animals or even children, simply brainwashed by Abrahamic religions while letting them break their own rules
moralgays get the rope
2 years ago
Anonymous
Animals can never consent with a person. I hope you go to jail.
2 years ago
Anonymous
They can.
also legal here and in a lot of places.
You simply refuse the biological evidence when it is given to you
2 years ago
Anonymous
>also legal here
oh no no no dont just outright admit to being a subhuman jesus christ anon
2 years ago
Anonymous
nearly every continent has a country/state where its legal, are you claiming everyone is subhuman?
legal in the united states except Oregon, legal in several European countries, legal in several asian countries.
2 years ago
Anonymous
You are subhuman, taking out your sick desires on things that cannot understand everything you can. There's no purpose to it except you coping for failing to frick consenting humans of proper age. You belong in a cell, maybe you can be made the plaything of someone bigger and stronger yourself. You deserve to be made sport of.
2 years ago
Anonymous
You are a moralgay, the ultimate subhuman
2 years ago
Anonymous
Morals elevate humanity, having no morals makes you sub-everything.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>be pro morals >while wanting to genocide blacks and israelites
2 years ago
Anonymous
>everyone on Ganker is 1 person
yeah OK m8.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yeah m8 you totally don't have hatred against homosexuals and trannies
i dont understand this , are you implying the only two options is bestiality or /misc/?
actual moralgays aren't Stormfront Black folk and since this site has a lot of newhomosexuals that align with /misc/ views, you have no right to a moral pedestal while being associated with someone who would exterminate non-whites
2 years ago
Anonymous
>you totally don't have hatred against homosexuals and trannies
I disagree with their morals, doesn't mean I want them dead. You fricking psycho dog fricker
2 years ago
Anonymous
>someone who would exterminate non-whites
anon you're making the mistake in thinking /misc/ types have any real convictions or beliefs.
2 years ago
Anonymous
you dont need to be a moralgay to not frick dogs jesus christ dude how fargone are you? would you ever admit this shit to your parents, or do you just pretend to be proud of it anonymously online
2 years ago
Anonymous
2 years ago
Anonymous
[...]
and talk about killing everyone but whites while claiming the moral highground
2 years ago
Anonymous
i dont understand this , are you implying the only two options is bestiality or /misc/?
Again, calling people out for being moronic Black folk and not understanding what a word actually means does not equal defending said entity. You acting like this is mutually exclusive shows that you are a fricking moron double Black person.
Prove you're not a bot by answering this question like a normal human being: why is pointing out a factually incorrect statement so upsetting to you? You don't need to feel passionate lust for something to be able to comprehend when someone says something untrue.
Youtube is also a natural monopoly. However, unlike Steam, it bleeds money, but Google keeps pumping resources into it because they want to corner the market.
Also, unlike Steam (again), they have serious competitors. Tik Tok is becoming a serious threat to them.
they are, but as another poster said, it's a natural monopoly. a lot of newer startups are using this model where they offer a product free for an indeterminate amount of time, and then introduce pricing models/tiers/subscriptions in hopes of capturing their (hopefully) significant install base. soundcloud was one I used from not long after it was introduced that I saw this sort of trend.
Customers overwhelmingly preferring one business out of many, doesn't make it a monopoly. Blame the stupid fricking gamers for this. I have games on gog, steam, epic, origin and ubishit but I prefer steam for multiplayer games because that's where all my friends get their games, so steam is a given for mp stuff. If everyone consciously decide that steam is their shit and that they only want to get games on steam, then that's their prerogative, as they say. How many game stores are there on the internet? There are dozens, right? But there are only two or three really big ones, with steam being the absolute king. I don't really understand why timmy boy keeps going on about this, he is a 100 percent going to lose if he tries to argue that steam is a monopoly. No sane court on the planet is ever going to argue in his favour, how can they?
Timmy managed to convince swathes of people he was fighting against a monopoly while he spends millions trying to bring a console-war exclusivity to PC and it fricking sucks
it goes to show how fricking stupid a portion of the population truly is
Their good PR is limited PR honestly. Their Twitter just calls out deals and shit. They rarely get political or send me "we think you might like this game..." with some gay video game attached, like Hulu constantly suggests for TV shows for me despite never watching gay shit.
Though they did have a blunder jumping on the "Latinx sale" train, and paid mods were pretty bad. But they didn't personally target me.
thats nearly 5%, so 1/20 games has no DRM. still proof its not mandatory
https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
This seems to be more updated/accurate. The number is over 3000, just from the launcher-free list.
Yes, and it's clear by how they treat their 1st party products. >tf2 and hl abandoned >dota 2 and csgo on minimal support >shartifact and blunderlords dead >kills off their hardware projects shortly after release
They've realized just how profitable the app store model is and are content with that alone.
>game prices artificially high >epic doesnt undercut them >if they did people might actually use their store and they wouldnt have to cry about steam in court
Bro Genshin and Valorant on EGS is literally just a download link for their actual launcher. I dont even know the point of them being there outside of shallow bragging rights.
What people need to watch out for is fricking Microsoft that Gamepass deal where you unlock all the chara ters in Riot games is crazy. Imagine if they had a Ge shit deal as well ehere players got a set amount of wishes every month. Like people have said, it's not epic Valve should look out for but Microsoft.
Ye, I know.
Riot and Genshin's deal is still on FOMO tho, same for Ebin so they don't really care too much about that shit.
The riot one should be a lot bigger for disreputable players getting easy access to everything but they bank on players being upset over losing cosmetics they charge out the ass for.
A sad time.
>It's not epic Valve should look out for but Microsoft.
Epic is acting like a Microsoft sock puppet in a lot of ways just like SCO did back in the day, and Valve has been acutely aware of and ready to defend against attacks by Microsoft for a decade.
That's the whole reason they have their GNU/Linux initiative, and its why they're working on being entirely self hosted with the Steam Deck. Valve's game store, running on Valve's OS, on Valve's hardware.
not a fan of steam but just off the top of my head you got >Epic Games Store >GOG >Origin >Microsoft Store >Uplay
How the frick can steam be considered a monopoly? >"b-but all those other stores are bad"
irrelevant
Valve is the most consumer friendly business i deal with, prices arent dictated by them either, but do slash them off in my country by a lot
Its a private company so thats why its always attacked
The sensation rides on Steam being most popular, therefore also an advertisement, platform and israelitey shits being angry with that. I personally don't really like that Steam is the hegemon but no one ever provides substantial arguements against it.
Timmy-boy just can't let it go huh.
Are you an illiterate moron?
It has nothing to do with Epic dipshit
Yes.
they're a pro-consumer monopoly.
just like how ideal government style would be a BENEVOLENT monarch, the fact that valve is pro-consumer and also a monopoly actually improves the industry.
Yeah, Monopolies are not inherently bad. Let Epic bleed itself dry. though I'd still prefer less DRM and I'd like to actually "own" my games.
>artificially high
There's games that go down to 90% off. Literally right now.
>monopoly
Literally more competition right now than ever. You can't sue someone for having a successful business model.
No, Gabe, it's not artificially high because games don't go on sales. It's artificially high because Valve makes developers sign contracts that disallow selling those games for lower than on Steam.
Developers are not consumers. If they want a better deal they should push Epic to make their store not shit so there is actual competition.
And Valve is actively stifling competition with said contracts. I could sell my game on Steam for $60 and Epic for $50, taking the same revenue, but noooo someone has to be a dick about it. Pricing cheaper is an aspect of competition, and Valve is anti-competition.
Cry about it to Sony.
don't even own a console, I can just pirate whatever your chinks overlords try to hoard, moron.
I know for certain you can't do this shit with essential products like toilet paper, food or so on. Games are quickly becoming more mainstream and I won't be surprised if the law were to change. Probably not, but it'd be hilarious to see epic games get a lawsuit for attempting to force a monopoly upon themselves.
Ok so just don't sell on steam then
>Cry about it to Sony
Epic and Sony you mean
Just sell the game at the same price then and enjoy the higher cut epic gives you. Or is the store so far behind its competitors that people prefer to pay to not use a shitty store?
>someone has to complain about it
Yeah your fricking customer, the one that matters the most? homie I still remember the dick move of ghostrunner developers, they sell it on epic for cheap as frick, then people complained on steam that the price isn't fricking fair for steam version so we demand the steam price lowered so it's the same as epic price, but noooooo we'll just raise epic's price to the steam price instead. It's one of the reason I won't buy ghostrunner if it's not dirt cheap
But you will still buy it... This is why publishers keep doing scummy shit. Gamers will buy their addiction product no matter how poorly they are treated.
homie I've pirated it, had my fill and gonna get it if I even remember about it, here's a hint: it's not even on the list of what I'm going to buy on this and future sales, even when I've check out the sale price, it'll never go down to what I think acceptable so I doubt I'm gonna get it at all
So just use something else moron, there's plenty of competition. The draw of steam is the player base, if you don't want to use their system don't be surprised that you can't get their benefits.
If I'm not mistaken the agreement is that you have to offer people on steam a similar discount within a 1 month or something like that.
I'd be upset if I for example bought a game on steam and then a DLC comes out that's 20€ for example while another store gets it that DLC for 10€. Valve doesn't stop you from discounting games, they just as that you give your customers on steam a similar deal.
well than maybe you'd not use steam in that case?
Hm, interesting point anon
>Valve makes developers sign contracts that disallow selling those games for lower than on Steam
>Put my game for 60$ on Steam
>Put in my game descriuption that if they by directly from my own store website they can buy it for 50$
>people bypass steam and go to developers site instead and pay without paying the cut
it stops abuse of the platform for free marketing
if ya wanna sell your game on your own then sell it
if ya wanna sell it on steam ya gotta give Gaben his cut and make sure not undercut him
>Sell game on Steam for 60$
>Sell game on your website for 60$
Why didn't they just do this to bypass the steam cut? It doesn't violate their TOS and you get a little more money.
They wanted to pass on the savings to the consumer since they didn't lose 30% on the sale. You can see how much this upsets the steam zealots. RENDER UNTO GABEN WHAT IS GABEN'S!!!
>They wanted to pass on the savings to the consumer
Just like what Disney and Square did with the Kingdom Hearts collection, right? Thank goodness they took the epic deal, so they can pass the savin-
>300 dollars to own the whole series on Epic
>when a compilation on consoles costs only 30 bucks
Oh......
Obviously disney and square don't give a frick, but smaller indie devs would sell their own keys for less if they could.
... no they wouldn't. Theres very few that would even consider it, and even less that would do it.
I still bought KH3 on Epic, just so I didn't have to lug my PS4 around when I house-sat.
not sure where it says but I'm pretty sure it does break their TOS otherwise everyone and their mother would be doing it
lol this is what some devs were doing for a while, advertise your game on steam then get timed exclusivity bucks from epic
Yeah exactly, it's shitty business practices
>lower than on Steam.
This is true, and I think is the reason the Epic store never has any sales like Steam does. Pretty c**tish move by Gabe, but maybe he didn't realize what it implies.
valve takes inputs from developers on their sales strategy and how they want sales to be run so valve can handle it for them automatically (if they so desire), I really don't think valve gives a frick if there is another site thats selling a key for cheaper, but they definitely have it in writing for when people abuse it
and they definitely care when people are abusing it
which I think is the big thing, this cuck tried to game the system and abuse it, so his game got pulled from steam and flopped even harder than it normally would have, and he blames valve for that
How can you 'abuse' a system when valves system is about ease of use? The stupid people will pay a bit extra on steam anyways, and if the price is too high less people will buy it. As long as it's not advertised in the game description itself "BUY IT HERE FOR $10 OFF!" then I don't see the problem.
because you are still using Steams infrastructure to host the game and get it to users, while trying to cut out their sales percent. its not rocket science dude, it was just some guy trying to keep that extra 30% and saying he would sell it cheaper to look like a good guy and not a greedy c**t like he actually is
Still, Valve should of stated you can't advertise on their website for less, not sell the game for less in general. Seems like an excuse for a power grab.
>should of
would you have understood what they stated anyway? have you published a game on steam before? I certainly haven't but I would assume that the frickhueg massive TOS you have to agree to would explain that shit in excruciating detail
I really don't remember what he did anon
its been over a decade at this point iirc
he eventually reneged and the game went back up on steam
hes just a greedy shitstirrer
>Valve makes developers sign contracts that disallow selling those games for lower than on Steam
How is that not price fixing?
its the opposite you frickwit, price fixing would be selling a game in multiple places for different prices to encourage consumers into a specific decision. price matching is at least an even playing field
Learn what price fixing it because it's not what you think it is
because they don't demand a certain price
the contract is that you offer equal deals to people on steam that you do to other stores in a reasonable time frame
pretty sure its the exact opposite of price fixing?
The deals can't equal if the percentages aren't. They know this, they take 30 percent and other sites take less. Obviously they could charge less on other sites since they aren't taking such a high percentage, but valve blocks them.
Sounds like a developer problem - if they don't like it they don't have to use steam. Doesn't affect the consumer at all
It does effect you since you could be paying less money for the same game.
no you couldnt, or those epic exclusives would have been cheaper. stop replying you fricktard moron you can barely speak english
No, because I'm not going to download a billion platforms to save next to nothing. Epic doesn't offer half the shit steam offers
Then why does Ubishit, EGS, Actishit and EAtrash all still cost full price?
They don't lose 30% from steam, valve gives the big publishers sweetheart deals to keep them on the platform. It's only the smaller devs who get squeezed.
Except for EA, none of those publishers their games on Steam at all.
Yeah, I too remember when SE released FF7 remake on the EGS, and it was less exepensive than other typical AAA games...
>It does effect you since you could be paying less money for the same game.
Then why were the epic exclusive games full priced?
pro-tip: savings are NEVER passed onto the consumer.
>savings are NEVER passed onto the consumer
Because it's against valve's TOS
so just gonna ignore the immediate sentence before the one you quoted? Be less blatant about your bad faith "argument"
It IS against their TOS. Epic's store is irrelevant to the argument when valve literally says you are not allowed to pass on any savings to the consumer.
>epic's store is irrelevant to the argument about epic and tim flat out lying about passing the savings to the customer
>tim's a piece of shit, so I have no problem with daddy gaben being one too
where and when did gabe say he was gonna make prices lower than the competition (none existed at the time) then broke that promise
>you can only be a piece of shit in one specific way
cope chink
Tell me anon, what does steam have to do with
>Then why were the epic exclusive games full priced?
Use your brain for once
stop thinking about valve for half a second.
there are no examples of "savings being passed on" because that is an advertising spin that only a moron would believe. they want max profits, and they will take them.
Damn. I didn't know Steam was so powerful they even set the price point of exclusive games on other stores.
>ITS VALVES FAULT TIMMY KEEPS LYING
They are free to only sell on Timmies ching chong store.
>Hey if your gonna use our platform your product has to be the same price your selling it everywhere else so not one customer is fricked
>W-WHAT THE FRICK THIS IS ACTUALLY PRICE FIXING YOU FRICKING israelite GABEN SAAAAVEEE ME TIM
>Allfather Gaben said the price cannot be lower anywhere else
>I will somehow confuse this as a good thing and defend his honor
>sign contract saying you will sell the game at the same price everywhere
>knowingly break this contract by selling your game for less while advertising it on steam
>get kicked off the market
WOWOWOWOWWWOWOWWW HOW UNFAIR
Imagine defending such an anti-competitive practice.
>abloo bloo blooo how dare you not let me use your servers and app to advertise and distribute my game I'm also selling on the side!!!!
if the furgay was so determined to sell his game for less then he could have just lowered the price on steam to match
how is looking after your consumers anti-competitive
They aren't looking after you, they're making sure you don't get a better deal elsewhere
>Valve makes developers sign contracts that disallow selling those games for lower than on Steam.
You are a moron. The contract states you can sell keys elsewhere and keep 100% of the profits, but you can't go lower than what they sell on Steam. Which is very fair.
>Steam is making us sell games for this much
????
I've never seen a source for this
The closest I was ever able to find was a section in their FAQ about developers generating keys. They say you're welcome to generated as many keys as you want to sell on other storefronts or even just give away, but if you're going to offer the game at a discount on a different storefront where they get no cut, they ask that you within a reasonable timeframe offer a similar discount on Steam.
Which is honestly absurdly generous. I'm really not the kind of person to call any corporation "generous" for any reason, but the fact that that's even possible is something I can't imagine any other company doing.
You can list your game on steam and then use steam to host it, provide all their services like friends lists and workshop, use their distribution system, take advantage of their backend and server hosting, and then just generate a bunch of keys to sell on a completely unaffiliated website and they don't earn a cent from those sales.
There's a reason no one can compete with them.
Yeah the aftermarket is oversaturated with Steam keys. It's near impossible to compete with that and all Valve did was just allow devs to make more keys.
It's not generous at all when they take 30% and other storefronts don't. The "same discount" is a much bigger loss on steam and they know it.
They quite literally don't take anything from key sales, that's what anon is talking about
Also 30% is an industry standard
>when they take 30%
*of sales on their store
Sell it on a different store, you're perfectly able to, they support that and in fact make it easy as shit. You just can't undercut steam's store while selling steam keys. And even then you can, just not permanently. If you want to sell at a discount on a different storefront with a lower cut, do it. Put it up at 30% off for a week and ask all your fans to go buy it there because they'll get it cheaper and you won't make any less. And then put it up for 30% off on Steam afterwards so Steam isn't outright helping you rip them off.
>but I'll make slightly less money when people buy it at 30% off on Steam because Valve takes 30% of that 70%
Well, clearly they weren't going to buy the game anywhere else so that's still 100% more than you'd have earned otherwise.
Its really not that unbelievable, but its also standard boiler plate in most retail contracts.
Why would I put your product on my store's shelves, and spend all the money in upkeep that costs, if you're going to make me sell at $59.99, while across the street you let my competitor sell it for $39.99.
Sales prices are one thing, but you can't set different normal MSRPs for different businesses.
This is also why some brick and mortar stores don't take credit cards and have a ATM instead that charges a fee. So that they get all the money from the transactions, and aren't selling a bottle of pop for $1 to customers paying cash, and $.75 to customers buying with a credit card because of the payment handler's processing fees.
Or why some places will have a separate 'cash price' even though that's technically not allowed by the TOS, its the kind of thing a little mom and pop gas station can get away with, but not a major corporation.
I like to present the court Valve's illegal actions in AU for breaking the law on refunds and EU anti-geo laws. Valve company is a international company that breaks laws.
Those are fixed now.
>West Taiwan mainlander attempts to form coherent English sentences
Australian's deserve to get ripped off.
that already happened in Australia
valved paid fines of a few million, and implemented refunds
why do u think they implemented the refund system? Australia
We just get an even better refund system than the global one since we can return games for up to a week no questions asked.
do u know how many games I buy, play for like 40hrs, then refund? nothing valve can do lmao
>I literally have no idea what am I talking about but here is my opinion
you do you but ew
>I literally have no idea what am I talking about but here is my opinion
you do you but ew
>Vavle is a monopoly!
>well timmy, what about Microsoft and Disney
>sh-shut up!
>strawman
>whataboutism
Yeah, sounds about moronic.
>"N-NOOOOO YOU CAN'T JUST POINT OUT THAT ANTI-CONSUMER PRACTICES ARE PART OF A LARGER ISSUE! NOT MY HECKIN' GAMERINOS!!!"
this. It's only a whataboutism if you're pointing to Disney and microsoft and saying "they get to do it, so why can't we"? The real question being asked is "why do you specifically defend them, if Valve is in the wrong? They are all doing the same thing, so by your logic, they should all be brought to justice" but saying this gets you called a nazi incel chud.
What do you mean what about microsoft and disney. Disney is literally just one of many animation/movie studios so not a monopoly. And microsoft has to constantly wrestle with anti trust lawsuits and has to constantly fracture parts of itself away.... so i have no clue how you are trying to prove a point by greentexting 2 unrelated companies.
The law never punishes them, and you're calling people moronic for implying that they should be subject to anti-trust monopoly laws as well.
>Valve needs to be broken up! we need competition
>you want alternatives to windows? Wow shut up you stupid linux baby!
See how you're being a hypocrite?
What do you mean the law does not punish them. As i said, disney has plenty of competition, so why would the law punish them when you have shit like netflix, warner bros, 20th century fox, paramount and other directly in competition with them.
On the other hand microsoft? They have been fined fricking billions. Just look up the fines they had to pay over they years for anti trust related issues. How the frick am i being a hypocrite when im pointing out that the antitrust laws seem to work. But they only apply when you actually dominate the market without any alternatives and on top of that leverage that power.
>What do you mean the law does not punish them
With PC games it's usually pretty obvious as there's actually good reasons for the exclusivity. It's either small indies that can't afford to release on consoles or games built around keyboard and mouse that wouldn't work on them.
How the frick did I mess that quote up?
meant for
True, tho I don't play on PC because of exclusivity, but because I feel like I have way more control software, modding and such. Well, maybe being able to mod everything to your taste is somewhat exclusive to PC.
>Disney can influence the law to change it as much as they want, and nobody can stop them
>Microsoft literally defunded the IRS when they attempted to break them up
>"NO YOU SEE THEY ONLY CONTROL 98% OF THE MARKET, THERE'S STILL 2%, SO IT'S NOT A MONOPOLY, HAH OWNED CHUD"
>Valve needs to be broken up!
Is there anything to even break up? Did they ever buy another company?
If so that's definitely true of every such company.
No company should be allowed to buy other companies. This should be enshrined in law to force legitimate competition and they should be forced to then spin all of them back off into their own standalone businesses.
Being able to buy other businesses encourages just getting big enough to make a payday off the people you could've competed with.
this gay is just butthurt that no one bought his shitty furry game
Isn't it 30%? The same as every brick and mortar store and digital front save for one or two?
epic and microshit store are 15%, not sure about gog
Microsoft is 30% the frick you smoking
30 is the industry standard asswipe, gog and microshits expects 30 too
ONLY reason Epic will give you 15 percent is if you are roped into a UE licensing deal so they get their 30 percent and then some after you factor in Epic Online Services
Quit pretending EPIC and Timmy boy are the heroes, they arent, far from it in fact
>gaben is using proprietary software sales to fund foss software
huh
Yes and that's a good thing. No I will not elaborate. Get fricked, chink.
Steam is also a Chinese platform
What?
Steams highest consumerbase is Chinese. Epic is run by China. Steam is run for China
I don't think consumers have nearly the same decision making power as shareholders.
steam doesn't have shareholders anon
gaben is the end all be all of steam decisions
was that not his point?
idk, it was either that or the exact opposite, so I thought id say it
depends on who he was talking about with the last remark, its unclear
Even private companies can have shareholders, angel investors and such. Gabe was already a millionaire at Microsoft when he left, and they likely didn't need much outside investing if any.
0 outside investment if the story they tell is true
was started solely by the group of ex microsoft devs that came with gabe without any extra funding since they were all millionaires
At worst I'd have maybe guessed they took in some funding from Sierra, but considering Gabe and Mike were both rich already, I'm apt to take their word as is.
>If they hate Steam so much then why are they continuing to do business with them?
because they're hypocrites, same as most of these homosexuals that say one thing and do another.
its like saying
china has a bigger population than united states
a lot of chinese use steam
therefore steam is run for china
EGS was made directly in response to Steam's Chinese client. It was cobbled together for the purpose of beating Valve to the market, which is why it's pulling those same Chinese tactics you're seeing in this very thread.
Daily reminder that Chinks are worse than Black folk and israelites combined and deserve to eat a nuke. Frick those commie homosexuals.
Frick I really need to lay off the porn
>EGS
El Goonish Shive?
Epic is so shit that Steam is actually more consumer friendly even if it is the dominant player.
>Steam is actually more consumer friendly
It's not, which is why countries took Valve to court for being anticonsumer
the law is not a good measure of consumer friendliness
is this from the assmad furgay developer again lol
>wolffire games
Did they finally release that rabbit game after a decade of nothing but concept videos?
Yes. It was shit.
Overgrowth is what Kenshi wishes it would be.
That's what this lawsuit is about if I remember correctly. They wanted to sell on steam but then also sell (steam keys) for cheaper on their website which breaks Valve's TOS and Valve told them to suck a dick.
Oh so they wanted to used valve's servers but undercut valve's revenue?
Sounds like a moronic move
If the version they sold through their website was entirely hosted by them, it'd think valve wouldn't give a frick
Third-party websites sell keys for less than what steam sells all the time, and that doesn't break the TOS. Why can't the actual devs do it too?
It does break the ToS though?
Both steam and devs can disable those keys if they find out and it happens from time to time
Why should Steam let devs use their platform for free advertising to undercut them?
>Why should Steam let devs use their platform for free advertising to undercut them?
If humble bundle and fanatical are allowed to sell keys for less than steam's price, then the actual makers of the game should be too.
They can they just have to lower the steam price within a month of their other discount as well
There are plenty of games on isthereanydeal where the lowest price has never been the steam price, it's always a third party. Only the devs have to match the price? That's bullshit.
those are key resellers who operate in a legal grey area and live in places like russia and ukraine where its almost impossible to do anything about them through legal means
steam and devs will sometimes disable keys sold on those websites
I think the problem here though, is that you're actually a disingenuous moron and a prostitute
Legit keysites go lower than the steam sales too, not just the shady ones. They don't get punished by valve.
Those websites are dubiously legal to start with. I guess it's different when a publisher is doing it instead of a chink with stolen credit cards which is difficult to go after.
Third-party key sites are not sold by the developers, and revenue proceeding from such doesn't go to the developers either. Who's going out to claim people breaking TOS for things they have nothing to do with?
The third-party sites are using dubious region-pricing to get keys for cheap and then resell them to (You) for cheap(er) than the local price. It's not the devs generating keys (which they are allowed to do) and then selling them for their own benefit while removing steam from the revenue equation.
It does break the ToS, which is why you can have 3rd party site keys blocked by valve at any point.
Then why isn't valve blocking fanatical or gamersgate, they've done bigger discounts than the steam sale before. They only want to enforce it on the actual developers?
they're 3rd party key resellers who exist in a legal grey area. Steam and devs sometimes disable the keys being sold because of it.
There are no "legit keysites" they all operate in a legal grey area.
How many times does this need to be repeated for it to sink through your stupid fricking head? Holy shit. You are the definition of a liar and a shill.
So humble bundle is a shady russian op now? Or amazon? Lots of websites sell steam keys legit.
They make specific deals with the developers and steam, which the key resellers you're attempting to say are the same thing, don't.
They aren't the same, and the way they work isn't the same.
So they are 3rd party key resellers but also they are not 3rd party key resellers? Make up your mind schizo.
Yes, lots of websites sell legit keys. And lots don't. Random 3rd party key sites would also buy up keys from humble bundle then resell them later for a markup. And just because humble bundle strikes a deal directly with the developers trough valve, does not mean that every other site does so as well.
>they're 3rd party key resellers who exist in a legal grey area
Lmao
what about the Humble Store or Green Man Gaming?
Those are legitimate third party stores that buy keys straight from publishers. The same goes for Fanatical.
That guy is full of shit.
notice how they all have the same sale price?
its because they have gotten authorization from the developers and valve
Sometimes they're lower than steam's lowest price
Humble became famous because they sold games ridiculously low priced, via bundles.
You may not remember it, but at the time, the EA bundle was a batshit insane deal, of prices never before seen on Steam
Humble is a charity first and foremost.
they buy the keys and redistribute them in bundles.
It's weird how many people ITT are pretending nothing's ever gone on sale for less than steam's price.
what most companies do
>build a sales & pricing strategy around events, holidays, releases, and other factors
>put stuff on sale in a variety of places with varying sales slowly trending down in price over time on various platforms
>valve doesn't give a frick
what the overgrowth dev did
>wants to put game on
>but not sell through steam
>wants to sell on his on website but still use valves infrastructure for downloading, updating, and hosting
>throws a shitfit when valve tells him its not free and he can frick off if he wants to do that and he signed a contract
>valve graciously terminates his contract and delists his game after he continues flinging shit
>a decade passes and hes still trying to start trouble because hes moronic & greedy
idk why people are defending this spastic and his furgay buddies
>they're 3rd party key resellers who exist in a legal grey area.
no that's g2a, kinguin, etc.
epic shills just repeat this same tired narrative for years on end its pathetic.
>They wanted to sell on steam but then also sell (steam keys) for cheaper on their website
No actually it's worse than that, he wants to be able to sell steam keys but NOT sell the game on Steam. Meaning he wants Valve to host and distribute his game for 100% free because his game could only be sold on his own website where Valve gets no cut of any sale that could ever happen.
They did and then made it open source lol
https://github.com/WolfireGames/overgrowth
no but epic games certainly is trying really hard to build one.
I wonder if one day they'll be sued for it. It can't be fully legal to hoard exclusivity by artifical means.
>Anti-consumer
Valve has done nothing that has been deemed as such under federal law.
>Monopoly
Do you even know what monopoly means? Beyond the board game, I mean.
No.
The USA has refunds law, Valve should have been charge for it but wasn't until AU. This is the USA laws for refund: https://smallbusiness.com/selling/federal-state-return-regulations/
Valve broke all of them, people sold fake games in 2012-2015, not following IRS tax rules on international law, no policies on refund, etc.
Valve is anti-consumer
Valve has many reasons to be consider a Monopoly. The numbers do not lie, more people in gaming community have steam client install than microsoft store that came in default. Business with international government like china, creation of their own physical products, economic impact on gaming sales, game companies not uploading anywhere else, zero damage when sued for X amount for USA gov fees. The list goes on and on but the message is clear, Valve is a Monopoly.
do you know what monopoly means, chink-kun?
chink doesn't really understand english; its a chinese room, he just posts the script he's paid to
Hi timmy!
you can't charge a company for doing something anti-consumer in the past if it's been remedied. also people very much abuse the refund system to hurt small devs so that's probably why they didn't have one in the first place.
AU consumer law doesn't let you get a refund just because you don't like something. It covers you from defects on goods that are not fit for purpose. This gets more grey with video games when it's less of a case of shipping broken -- which plenty of games absolutely do -- and people trying to run it on a bottlenecked toaster and then complaining they don't get a smooth 60FPS.
The current approach to refunds is just Valve making life easier for themselves, rather than some confession. Just means they don't have to frick about working out if the product is truly defective. Just now means people can purchase games as trials and say it's shit and get their money back. Can you imagine if other things were so generous?
Honestly, the way people go on about refunds, I fully expect that when asked "Would you walk out of a movie, say it's shit and expect your money back? Or eat all your meal, claim it was disgusting, and refuse to pay?" to simply reply "Well, yeah!"
just sell the game on your own website then
>May 11
>trying to talk about steam on Ganker
don't bother, this place is pretty much the biggest hive of steam drones on the internet.
I still remember the b***hing and moaning when steam was forced to allow refunds.
easily the biggest corporate bootlickers on here.
what was the last game you pirated?
i don't really remember, sorry. Maybe outer wilds or fear % hunger.
why?
Are the modded civs meant to be balanced at all? I tried some Touhou civs and it was practically a guaranteed culture victory, shitting out Great Works every turn.
>valve does nothing
>still wins
you can't stop the steam
Yes. Imagine thinking developers having to have incredibly high sales volumes in order for pc gaming go be viable is a good thing. If you aren't lucky or the next fotm social credit bandwagon your game will not sell in the time frame that would matter
Sounds like it's a "you" problem
Maybe try making better games
Ok but what does that have to do with valve?
Valve is one of the most natural monopolies out there. They didn't become the largest company by using underhanded anti-competitive tactics but just by providing what their clientele wants. They deserve their position.
They did offer to pay developers to get VR games and only Steam offer VR support. Facebook was a dead market place and other places like PlayStation had almost no customers and no developers, SEGA try to even make Miku Hatsune VR game just to help but still fail, SEGA then brought it to Steam and it saw numbers.
See how wrong you are, Valve is a monoplity, there are too many people in use steam client and too much control on developer profit.
>They did offer to pay developers to get VR games and only Steam offer VR support
source?
https://www.pcgamesn.com/valve-vr-funding
Valve never paid the developers, many where tricked and they uploaded their game thinking they'll get some funding. No one got anything, Valve lied or created exclusive deals because no developer in VR has spoken about it.
reddit post about steam users also agreeing Valve did something bad: https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/cmjk3k/so_what_did_happen_to_valves_vr_game_funding/
>Reddit users agreeing something is bad
Is this the single worst post ever made to Ganker? Do you have any self awareness at all you fricking subhuman
I don't see a single word about Steam VR exclusivity in there.
Well it doesn't matter because Valve lied, there was no VR fund program, there was no submissions for Valve to look through, there was no announcement to the ending to the funding and no free stuff given to smaller developers.
Valve single handly lied to small developers, they never reply back, small developers bet too much on Valve's lies, VR die because Valve made it die. This is why VR sucks now.
And what does any of that have to do with Steam being an anti-consumer monopoly? The only part relevant was them paying people for exclusivity, which you couldn't proof.
What they did was anti-consumer, news outlets from gaming to TV told people about. Valve lied to get people to upload VR games to their platform only. Everyone else like playstation suffer and developers leaving to steam.
You are not a gamer, everyone who used steam before 2010 knows you wont get a refund. You can even look at wayback machine, Valve clearly say sin the User Agreement that you get no refund: https://web.archive.org/web/20080909180028/https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/
yeah they didn't give u a refund
until they introduced the automatic refund system and actually complied with laws after they got sued
I get refunds regardless of my play time as long as I lodge it within a week
iv done it multiple time when my friends get me to buy some garbage to play with them for a few days where I rack up like 20-30 hours then refund it the next weekend
you're fricking moronic and can't even read what I said
they don't have a choice, they have to refund me or I can send an email to fair trading who will send them an email to refund me or they will see them in court because they are legally required to give me a refund
>PlayStation had almost no customers and no developers
6 million headsets sold making it one of the best selling vr products of all time. There are still games being made and updated for it even with its far below standard 2016 tech
No lol. Why do you keep bringing up that absolute homosexual's court case?
because its funny
>keeps game prices artificially high
Yeah, game prices on the Epic store are lower because they take a smaller cut there.
No, it's a "morons can't do it any better for some reason" monopoly
Friendly reminder "Steam is a monopoly" is a literal talking point from Epic Games. Every time one of these threads appears, a shill gets 1 RMB.
>epic removes the middle man
...what?
They always say this shit, there will be always a middle man, no middleman is a homosexual liberal economica fantasy
OH NO NO NO!
Link to full presentation?
>Overgrowth
those were the times
take me back
tuck me in
why is the furry nerd suing valve though
I don't get it
my guess would be either useful idiot for another corp, or insanity, since all furries are quite insane
ok yea you have a point actually its that 2nd one for sure
I've already shared this several times, and I will share it again because it's worth noting...
>Closet furry
>Always kept them at an arm's length
>Go to a local convention because 'why the frick not'
>Check out the 'game room,' because of course they have one
>Playing Smash Bros with randos
>One frick literally goes out of his way to literally name his character HIV+
Arm's length it is!
my condolences. I'm not a furgay, but I know a very good looking one who is single to this day because he avoids degenerate meetups like the plague. he often accompanies me for a few drinks, and cries every time to me how there are no places for people like him to meet people. I wish him all the best, but it really must suck to be a gay on the search for love.
>Go to a local convention
Anon, the frick is wrong with you
are you fricking serious
any other interesting stories when you were in these conventions?
iirc he wants to be able to sell steam codes outside of steam
he wants to be able to sell his game on steam and get the exact same amount of money he would selling it on his website
so $20 on his website, and $30 on steam
but he (willingly) agreed to valves terms that ur not allowed it just straight up sell it cheaper without also selling it cheaper on steam within a certain time frame
hes a whiny b***h in short
Isn't it you can't sell steam keys cheaper than the steam store price?
I believe if he sold its own game launcher without steam features valve won't bat an eye, customers would raise hell though
yeah steam keys specifically
if you want to sell a drm free version of ur game without any steam integration or something off ur website ur gucci
Devs are literally selling Steam keys by the tens to hundreds of thousands to websites like humble constantly
This draconian control by Valve over prices is completely made up
I refuse to believe anyone at Valve gave a shit about what some asshurt furgay does with keys for his game on his own shitty website that nobody visits.
I mean valve just delisted his game because of it and he threw a shit fit
I imagine it went something like this
>be guy who works at valve
>see some game on some dude website, think u might of seen it on steam
>go check and see its way cheaper on his site than steam
>and hes selling steam keys
>go into work next day
>bring it up to coworker
>he brings it to gabe, flat structure after all
>gabe is busy in his sex dungeon and tells him to frick off and just delist the fricker, hes busy
or something like that
I can confirm that this is exactly what happened.
I was in the sex dungeon at the time
It's possible but I also think that it is possible this guy deliberately sabotaged himself because I know for a fact that he is a huge fricking homosexual.
During gamergate or whatever he told anyone who wasn't "with him" that they should just request a refund because he doesn't want anything to do with the wrongthinkers.
He's basically the Kotaku poster child
oh yeah I know
I remember when his game was coming out
he was a massive self important homosexual who thought he was gods gift to the world
fricking delusional furgays
Wouldn't that means most of the cost is covered by humble? Since I don't know if humble buys the key full price or not.I feel like reseller - individual keys or in a bundle - is a grey area where it's kinda touchy and would open a can of worms, so so long as humble or other website like it buys the key with full price, or the dev doesn't caught selling the keys cheaper, valve won't do a thing... Well shit, so long you don't get caught doing it, you might get away with it. Isn't the problem the dev in question asks to valve if it's okay to do shit like that? Had the dev not asked, the dev might get away with it
Humble is a charity drive you fricking idiots, wildfire doesn’t keep that money. They are assblasted that their charity drive makes money that they don’t get to keep
Like I've said, I don't know how humble bundle works, to my understanding, they buy the key legit full price and cover the costs for whatever people are paying the bundles and charities
Feels like humble bundle can use charity as a reason to valve, but yeah, it really does feel like the dev brings this problem to valve and valve said no and remove his game because he got caught doing it before asking
No, publishers donate the keys and all proceeds are donated to charity. The publishers write off the keys as donation and it helps their taxes at the end of the year. It is not just some nice guy buying expensive keys and giving them away for less, and that idea is so fricking moronic i can’t believe it’s what you thought
Like I've said
>I don't understand how humble bundle works
Basically the rules are there, but not really strongly enforced unless you got caught doing it, basically
They don't pay full price and Valve doesn't care just like they basically never care unless people are gaming the system super hard.
Which I find it hard to believe that they would go after whiny faildev #13514 doing some shit on his obscure website that had less impact on their bottom line than a drop in the ocean
The wolfire dev(s) created Humble Bundle.
Damn, I didn't know that either. Small world.
>yiffe
gets me every time
>the work of one who consorts with beasts
Every fricking time
Haven't seen this in forever
>yiffe
every goddamn time
the blatant valve worship on this board is ironic. Imagine being a "PC master race" yet being as cucked, if not MORE cucked than console fans.
Valve has:
>Completely ruined the physical disc market
>Make players RENT game on their servers
>Introduce and create loot boxes & other horrible monetization tactics
>Sponser fricking gambling
>Make hardware promises that fall flat every time
PC fans are cucked little homosexuals.
>Imagine paying a console maker for the privilege to use your own internet, which you already pay an ISP for, to play an online game with other people.
Consoles have addled your brain anon.
>The flailing around trying to cope with being BTFO.
At least browsers on the console are free to use, right anon?
Despite all of that the platform they have is leagues better.
Its not hard for a big company to beat Steam. Just do everything steam does except the shit people hate(minus drm because big game companies love drm). But no company wants to do that because they are all greedy b***hes.
EGS tried to buy its way to the top with a shitty platform and failed.
GOG serves a niche of pc gamers that hate drm games above all else and old games
Dlsite is for weebs
Based. Frick Seam. All pcgays should hate Steam too for turning pc gaming into a normalgay streamerbait platform with no huge exciting exclusives anymore.
>exclusives
frick off
>pcgays have become so dumbed down and moronic that they actually prefer the low effort indieshit and asset flips over the ACTUAL good exclusives that pc used to have like Deus Ex and Planescape: Torment
You know what? Fine. I'll frick off and leave you to your dogshit future, homosexual.
>Used to
They still are. Go play Deus Ex or Planescape on a PS5, now.
>not wanting exclusives means only wanting low effort indieshit
Guess completely making up arguments and connecting points that don't make sense is the only way your dumbshit take can work, huh? Fricking idiots on this board, jesus christ.
>exciting exclusives
...what? is this consolespeak?
The funny thing is, PC still has a shitton of great exclusives. Just not AAA sloppa.
I have no idea what is exclusive and what isn't. I recently reinstalled Civ VI (it still sucks, don't bother) only to learn from various forum searches about a bug that it's also on xbox and even switch.
It's kinda baffling that anyone would care if a title is exclusive to any system. They are fricking video games and not some high end mafia clubs for the country's elite.
Depends on the perspective--Epic is definitely trying to, but it's only Valve that gets majority of the attention because they're literally the biggest client out there.
But keep in mind, both Ubosoft, EA, and especially Epic have exclusives to their own clients. I would still go after Epic first since they're actively bribing companies with their frick-you-Tencent/China-money...
The apple trial flat out stated otherwise, and this case was already falling apart.
Also dont forget timmy said, flat out, that he wouldve had a special deal with apple if he could- in a court of law. So basically he's bullshiting for money with his crusade.
frick off Black personhomosexual. I dont give a shit.
No.
It's a pro-consumer monopoly
Why isn't overgrowth on GOG if wolfire hates valve so much?
Because they are morons. If they don’t agree with steam, they can sell the game in other places. If they want to sell it for $20 on their website, they can do that too. They are literally b***hing that steam won’t show ads for their game while they sell it elsewhere for less, which makes perfect sense.
I don't know if it's anti-consumer or not but it's certainly not a monopoly.
They're a 'monopoly' in the sense that their store is so successful and good at what it does nobody else can compete with it.
Literally the only other store able to stay in the game is Good Old Gamers, by offering something Steam doesn't - which is no DRM and the ability to download the game and store it whatever way you want.
Which isn't good enough for the publishers conspiring together to increase prices.
That's why they're funding the anti-gog website and astroturfing against steam and gog 24/7 on every forum
Didn’t they start allowing DRM? I’ve read it somewhere before but never bothered face checking it
They have their own launcher which acts as DRM but you can still download and play games off the website if you don't want to use it.
Has almost no market share outside of Japan.
I don't even understand wtf Epic is doing. They can just copy the Steam store and offer better terms for developers. Instead they keep their store features at moron levels (they don't even have per-game community boards and that is 1990s level technology).
Epic's failures are its own fault, not Valves.
They would only be considered a monopoly due to others' laziness.
Through the years valve has been gathering a massive userbase.
It now uses that userbase as a huge potential market for devs/publishers to sell to easily.
You put a game on steam, you instantly have your game in the eyes of 120+million people.
To do that previously you'd need to have millions spent on billboards, TV adverts and shit (what they still have to do for console games)
Steam has just been building that userbase through first party games like TF2, CS, HL and portal and offering huge discounts earlier (early days 90% flash sales on great games)
That's the work gabe and valve have put in.
Yeah, it has put them in a comfortable position.
But it's by no means a monopoly, Epic games are currently building their userbase (which is the exact same people that already have steam accounts).
For a game to release and not use steam they just need to accept that they are actually going to have to work to get their game out there and seen by PC gamers.
what the lawsuit is is literally;
>Waaah steam is an easy convenient way to get games to millions of people, we wanna do that but keep more money.
Nothing is stopping them from not using steam to distribute their game.
They could make their own website and organise the downloads/payments themselves and keep 100%.
Why won't they do that? Laziness.
Well laziness is the 30% you pay to steam for doing all that shit for you.
Rimworld devs tried all of that while still selling Steam keys to their game but guess what, they eventually gave up when they got tired of getting bombarded by endless fraudulent purchases and having to do things like filing taxes for all the regional pricing manually
30% for someone to do all that for them seems a little more of a reasonable cut doesn't it?
>They're a 'monopoly' in the sense that their store is so successful and good at what it does nobody else can compete with it
So it's not Steam's fault. They're either really good or the competition is really shit. It's not illegal to be good at a market.
In simpler terms: the competition needs to GIT GUD
gaben is a fat Black person
Being a monopoly requires you to take actual anticompetetive measures, not simply being the biggest fish in the pond because you were the first there.
Epic epic bribing publishers to host their games nowhere else is the definition of anticompetetive.
Lmao, try that a few years ago, might have worked. Now you had timmy boy and gog as large enough competition.
it's a pro-consumer monopoly
Yes, because Linux is anti-user instead.
gnu devs are anti-user
linux itself is user agnostic
anti moron, you mean
Fix the fricking "remember me" button, god damn it Valve, it's been over a year
reminder Valve wanted to get rid of steam keys more than a decade ago, but were too lazy.
And look where they are now
All Valve has to do is point to EGS and talk about how well they're doing to win this
Will the furries be able to take down GABEN?
How do you stop a Gaben?
maybe it's hidden in this 10 hour tutorial video
>valve is anti-consumer
>valve it too pro consumer and causing indie game artisans to starve
Which one is it?
How is blocking lower sales "pro consumer"?
Huh?
Pretty sure they cried, pissed and shat when Valve introduced 2 hour refunds because it would mean their shitty <2 hour "games" couldn't sell anymore
But also how exactly are they blocking lower sales?
Humble Bundle and countless other websites are constantly selling at a lower price than Steam
>Humble Bundle and countless other websites are constantly selling at a lower price than Steam
Yeah, they get to do it but the actual makers of the game don't. That's the issue.
Just sell your game DRM free, why do you need steam integration if you don’t want to sell on steam? Or is DRM free to scary for people these days
It's the only way to keep their games from being pirated, since no one is going to bother cracking shitty indie games.
>is DRM free to scary for people these days
It clearly is. Look how angry everyone gets every time some dev doesn't want to pay the valve tax.
Is this corroborated by anyone who isn't a seething faildev?
Yeah, it's pretty funny how melodramatic devs can be.
>Big corps dont give a shit and want all your money.
>Little indies give a shit but still want all your money.
Its the same picture.
>Melodramatic
Frick off. His game was priced on par for its duration as any game on steam and yet because the sight unseen refunds people who play it and even rate it well can get a refund because the system is moronic. Just teaches people to aimlessly pad their games out to avoid this shit
How is some homosexual indie dev trying to undercut a storefront “pro consumer”? It doesn’t help me at all
And don’t say they would sell it for less, because they could have sold it for less without steam but they would never choose that
They would sell it for less. Since they don't have to give valve 30%, they take that amount off the price and make the same amount of money.
You mean like how games are cheaper on Epic since they only take a 12% cut?
Oh wait.
The ghostrunner devs tried to make it cheaper on epic but all the steam zealots complained and made them equalize the higher pricing, instead of just buying it for lower.
>source: my ass.
Is it really hard to imagine customers want to buy shit in the place of their choice? And their choice is steam, yeah they could buy it on epic for lower price but they want to buy it on steam instead. The cheaper price on epic actually hurts the game values and makes a demand for the game to have the same price on epic, but instead they raise the epic price to steam price
Can't really blame steam if your sales got hurt because of it when the customer already perceived your game value is not worth the asking price
Then they should do that, and not sell me a steam key. For $20 a drm free exe would be cool
But if they want it on steam then they pay the steam tax
>They would sell it for less
they would sell it for the price that people will buy their games at. aka likely the same price it is on steam.
Which they are already allowed to do. This is just some insane indie dev.
valve is not a monopoly neither it has control if a developer wants to sell their game in other places, the lawsuit is complete moronic, but who cares about the truth anyway, this gay earth is full of homosexuals that are burning it down anyway
i hope microsoft and epic become the shitstandard for game stores and US and China governments use it for their own gay purposes so the whole industry becomes unberable propagandized more then its already is
Just distribute through GoG if you don't want to use Steam.
If I knew the answer to that I'd be making six figures working on the case and not shitposting on Ganker.
>Monopolies are bad because everybody else says they are
>May 11, 2022
The balls on this homosexual to say the 30% cut is to blame for artificially hight prices at the same time that AAA games have become $70 and are full of in-game purchases regardless.
I'm not interested about the French ruling from 2 years ago. What happened to the appeal?
Nothing yet. Courts are slow as frick so don't expect anything for a year or 2.
It's probably not a high priority case either with all the bullshit that is going on lately.
The results could change digital distribution forever, I have to see it.
>The results could change digital distribution forever, I have to see it.
No, they will just make software vendors cease operations in France. No lost revenue from 1 country is worth ending digital distribution forever by abiding by that moronation.
A used copy of a digital product is 100% identical to a new one. There is no wear and tear, there is no damage, there is not lost parts, there is absolutely zero disincentivization to purchase used. Even a 1 penny discount from resale is 1 penny saved. There is 0 measure and value in ever buying a new version over a used one, it's a moronic idea. No company will ever do business in a place like this.
France is a special case because it's part of the EU. The results of the case are likely to have ramifications.
Also, don't forget that other forms of digital media have come under scrutiny in the past. If consumer right groups are smart they'll spring to action like rabid animals.
they fricked me by taking down that steam mod downloader website, i already had my isaac and rimworld mods downloaded but if i want new ones im gonna have to buy those games
>Epictrannies still coping their store sucks ass
Lol and dare I say, lmao
The steamcult always gets riled up anytime papa Gaben is threatened
Nope, it's neither anti-consumer nor is it a monopoly.
>developers get a higher percentage cut of the cash from sales on epic
>but the games are also cheaper there
Don't they basically end up making the same as if they were selling their games on steam?
>Games are cheaper
This whole case falls apart because this isn't true.
So what were the alterations? Is this a meaningul case or just "They aren't doing anything illegal but we'll MAKE what they're doing illegal" that'll get laughed out as soon as the bureaucracy progresses enough that it can be laughed out?
Steam isn't a monopoly. It's the biggest because its the best. If there was anything better, people would say what it is, but there isn't.
So wait, how exactly does this "can't sell steam keys that are lower than steam prices" rule work? I've bought keys that were way cheaper than steam prices, Bamco has been selling discounted keys for years.
If you don't like it then make a better product, people use steam because it works and it has nice features.
What are they going to do? Force millions of people to stop using steam? I don't get the point of this lawsuit
You can buy games from other distributors already, steam is merely the most popular of them
>What are they going to do
get removed from steam, start the Humble Storefront, and subsequently go bankrupt
And it's popular because it offers features other stores do not offer and from the shared features they have they're superior in every single way. It was why Epic had to literally buy exclusivity to make it worth it for the devs - because stream is just the better platform.
yes
You literally RENT games. If Valve decides you're a naughty boy they can prohibit you from playing them and lock your account
Nope.
https://github.com/oureveryday/Steam-auto-crack
>Wolfire
More like Die-in-a-fire.
They effectively ran Humble into the ground even before IGN took over.
IGN was just the clear-cut tombstone.
this guy is going to get trucked in court because he won't even define the word monopoly. Good fricking luck.
The problem with valve isn't that they have a monopoly on the market, it's that they have a brainwashed following of people who breakout in hives at the mere thought of having to access a second launcher.
i cant believe I only now realized you're a troll. have a nice day stop replying to people
meds
>want to make 20$ profit per unit of my game
>Steam gets 30%
>Do some rough math and decide that 26$ base will net me the profits I want
>Sell the game on steam for 30 to cover other costs and still meet my profit goal
>Sell the game off of my own site for 30 to cover what is taken by steam
Fricking wowie that was tough
>Monopoly
not really
>Anti-Consumer
Yes DRM and the fact you can't give "your" digital licenses to your friends or strangers like you can with physical games.
Valve has never stopped anyone from competing with them, ever. In fact, it's hilarious how little they've done despite the competition from EGS and such and is still coming out on top. EGS literally gives you like free games every week but the market has decided that they'd rather pay for games on a superior service than get free games on a shit one.
it would probably help if those free games weren't decade old shovelware and micro-transaction farms like GTAV
I think they gift too many free games. There's no way you are beating a game per week, why pay for even more shit?
They know people aren't even playing most of these games, they just want them getting used to opening up the store and putting things in their cart every week. Repetition training, like with dogs.
or gacha players.
I think you mean "operant conditioning".
Yeah this. Valve is only a "monopoly" in the sense that any competition will have to be as good or better than Steam to even stand a chance and that's really unlikely. Offering a superior product shouldn't be a punishable offense. They played fair and they're just better than everyone else.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/monopoly.asp
The Pure Monopoly
A company with a "pure" monopoly is the only seller in a market with no other close substitutes. For many years, Microsoft Corporation had a virtual monopoly on personal computer operating systems. As of July 2021, its desktop Windows software still had a market share of about 73%,1 down from about 97% in 2006.
Anyone claiming current steam store is not a monopoly is a massive fricking liar
They fulfill the market share condition, but there are substitutes. Furthermore, they haven't abused their position in any significant way.
Remember, monopolies aren't even illegal, monopolistic abuses are.
it is a monopoly, and that's a good thing.
I'd much rather have this private company, unbeholden to investors, bound only by the whims of the actual programmers who work there, than fricking Timmy TENCENT have controlling market share.
I really fear the day gabe dies. everything's going to go to shit fast.
>microsoft pushes out any competition using predatory tactics to maintain its dominance
>valve does nothing and wins because its competitors are that garbage
On the contrary, Valve has done a lot to serve under served minority platforms that its smaller competitors have completely ignored.
Even though while proportionally the number of paying customers on a platform like GNU/Linux makes up only 1.18% on Steam, that 1.65 million users would more substantially increase the number of paying customers on a platform like EGS.
So its not so much that Valve did nothing, because they've actually done quite a bit. It their competitors who have flatly refused to attempt to serve the customers that Valve serves. Even if only a small percentage of Steam users run GNU/Linux today, that number is almost certain to increase over time as Microsoft continues to seek new anti-consumer ways to profit off their dwindling marketshare (29% and falling), and Valve's user base is aware of that.
Anti consumer like Ubisoft closing down their online network and preventing you playing games you've paid for?
Yeah, no.
These people need to concentrate on shit like that. There should be a law against it. I'm not stupid enough to have supported that but its happened before and it will happen again. Epic is bound to follow suit and others.
As much as I hate what valve has become, cutting them down to size is not a good idea. If valve is kill in its current form things will get much worse. They can at least get a lower cut from selling games though.
nothing will happen. this is like a third party seller suing amazon for their goods not selling fast enough because amazon won't put their stuff on the front page and you have to sell through because they're the most popular e-tailer
Anti-consumer? Yes. A Monopoly? No.
>wolfire
is this indie people that got mad at valve because their game wasn't advertised enough among the sky high mountains of other indie trash and further got mad because they won't sell on any other store because "you have to sell on steam because its popular so its a monopoly"
yeah thats that furgay and his furgay brother and furgay friend
I think it's more of a pro-consumer monopoly in a way, Not intentionally but since every single competitor they've ever had has been far worse and more shit and anti-consumer than they've ever been. It's a unique situation really.
How does Valve suppress competition? They do no promotions, they don't advertise, they take bigger cuts than the competitors and don't pay off publishers for exclusivity. They do literally nothing but provide a better service for the users.
Yeah but that's not faaaaaaaaaair. It was funny when Epic game stores lower cut is supposed to be good for developers. Why the frick would anyone give a shit who aren't the developers?
Also : Developers! Developers! Developers!
Nah, there's no gaming monopoly
Epic's trying, though
so by tim's logic should gamers rise up and declare unreal engine a monopoly because its popular?
monopoly is good when timmy does it
>file a lawsuit because you're getting btfo way too hard
>2000's to 2010s
>tons of companies down right hostile towards pc gamers
>refused to even put alot of games on pc
>any games that do usually got slim pickings of awful ports
>completely leaves the entire pc market to valve
>fricking pioneers digital downloads of video games
>tons of added benefits for the consumer
>early 2010's
>companies seeing dwindling sales of consoles
>sees Valve doing tremendously well with Steam
>decides to make their own
>still hostile towards the consumers
Yeah, frick the entire market. I will forever use steam. They completely have the right to be as successful as they are.
>I will forever use steam
Even when they're bought by microsoft or tencent?
why the frick would that ever happen, Valve is far too profitable as a private company to do a sale like that
Everyone has a price. MS and Tencent can both offer more money than Valve's profits would make them. If they want the company, they'll get it.
>Everyone has a price
While that's true, the price would be waaaay too fricking high for anyone to seriously consider
>more money than Valve's profits would make them
literally not true. Valve is a more profitable venture than either of those listed companies gaming divisions. they may be close to tencent but that doesnt mean a sale would make sense for either party
Never forget that Microsoft has tried to buy out Valve in 2012. That's the whole reason that Valve started treating dependent on Microsoft's platform as their #1 threat and started investing in GNU/Linux.
This is also the reason why Valve is privately held. They're extremely robust against any attempt to stage a hostile takeover.
What I don't understand is Microsoft chumming up to Valve lately.
Listing a ton of games. Praising the steamdeck. Future plans for more listings.
I'm sure they get a good discount on the % take but they're just making themselves more reliant on steam. And Gabens doing all he can to not be reliant on Microsoft and windows.
Its the Microsoft business plan
Embrace
Extend
Extinguish
Sometimes they'll shift back to previous stages, 10 years ago they were at the 'extinguish' phase when it came to Valve. Today they're back to 'Embrace'.
Essentially today Microsoft knows they're on their way out of the consumer software market. They also know that Valve has won the enthusiast market for the next decade or so as they're really the only company in a good position for the post-Windows world and so they're playing nice, at least for the moment.
However their plan is to 'extend' Steam by requiring players to purchase their subscription service if they want online or certain features.
With the plan to extinguish now simply being streaming games to the mass market audience on phones who vastly outnumber players on traditional open platforms.
They're just waiting for Gaben to die.
Microsoft is genuinely just waiting to snatch up Valve and Steam.
Isn't Steam/Valve going straight to his son who also has the same distaste towards Microsoft?
There's a board of directors, investors, shareholders, etc... it's not just a king passing on his kingdom.
You can give your shares to next of kin in your will, anon. Since Gaben is the majority shareholder and the company is private, it is like a kingdom.
Either way, kingdoms get invaded and conquered all the time. When microsoft wants valve, they'll buy valve. This notion of Gaben or his family having "enough" money is childish nonsense.
Do you not know how private companies operate?
he doesn't know how any company operates and merely spews buzzwords he has heard others mention in other scenarios
except valve isn't like most large public facing companies who make stuff, since its private
so it really outs the morons who have no idea what they are talking about.
gaben can fricking close valve if he wants, its all up to him
You're invested in valve's continued independence, you don't want to believe it's possible they could sell out.
how is a hostile takeover the same as selling out
It's the same outcome. Someone else owns valve. It doesn't matter how it's done, someone else will own it one day, probably not too far off.
Yeah, his son will own it.
And everything will be peachy and nothing will ever change, we understand how you think. It's a fantasy you want to come true.
>we
Are you ok anon?
i dont know why you are so personally invested in the idea of Newell selling the company. there is no indication that it would happen, his son might one day sell it but thats a pretty long way off realistically
Valve is structured to specifically prevent enough shareholders from selling their stock to Microsoft to enable a hostile takeover.
Private companies can have rules about who can own shares, and how much they're allowed to own.
Even if Microsoft were to get a Stephen Elop style trojan horse in the door at Valve after Gaben checks out of the company, it would be extremely difficult for such a bad actor to run the company into the ground and sell off all the IP to Microsoft at a fire sale like what happened to Nokia.
Even if they did, that wouldn't really stop PC gaming, everything important Valve has done for the last decade is in the open. In the extremely unlikely event of a successful hostile takeover, there is basically nothing to prevent all of the important employees at the company from just moving across the street, and continuing to maintain everything Valve was doing.
MS doesn't have to do anything complicated, they could simply do what apple is doing and demand a cut of everything sold on windows. How do you think that would affect steam? That's a takeover without ever taking it over.
that would be the worst idea for them fricking ever, and affect so much more than video game sales. why even say this, are you thinking before typing?
If you think microsoft could get away with that you're stone cold moronic
>apple
calm down Timmy
>they could simply do what apple is doing and demand a cut of everything sold on windows.
Long term that is almost certainly what is going to happen, including blocking third-party stores. Its why the Epic lawsuits against Google and Apple happened. Note that they didn't sue Microsoft who also owns a platform and a store. That's because Microsoft and Tencent are in bed.
The most fricked up thing is that Microsoft probably wanted Epic to lose. They wanted the precedent that going closed platform is legal.
Why do you think Valve refused to sell to Microsoft ten years ago, and why they've spent all their time and energy since then in turning GNU/Linux into a viable PC gaming platform?
Yes Valve is going to take a big hit when that happens, but they're prepared for it and betting on the enthusiast market shifting to GNU/Linux.
>Long term that is almost certainly what is going to happen, including blocking third-party stores
At that point valve would be begging to sell.
This is straight up why Valve is pushing Linux so hard.
They know it's coming and want to be prepared.
>At that point valve would be begging to sell.
Yet when Microsoft told them that 10 years ago Gaben laughed at them.
Then spent the last decade preparing for the post-Windows world.
>hostile takeovers are literally like invasions between countries
DUUUUUUH DUUUUUUURRRRRR FRICK IM SO FRICKING moronic UUUUUUUUUUGHGHGH
Everyone in this thread lavishing praise on steam will never see it coming, too. They're too personally invested in valve's independence.
Microsoft is past wanting to acquire Valve, they really don't care that much about users playing games on open platform AMD64 PCs.
Their plan is to essentially push the enthusiast market who want to play on local hardware into a corner by themselves, while they take the broader market of streaming games to mass market devices and closed platforms.
If there's one thing that the last couple of years has taught Microsoft its that having to sell users an Xbox or a high end GPU before they can buy your game is inconvenient for users if you can't meet supply.
Better to have a big distributed cloud of gaming capable hardware, and then when demand for games is high use it for games, and when its not in demand use it for other services.
Its like how there's this small sub culture of people who buy vinyl records, or get movies on disc, but the big money in those markets is in streaming to the masses who don't care as much about quality and just want convenience above all else.
You are right but it's a gamble. In favour of streaming but I'm not sure.
That's assuming Valve's investment in wine, vulkan, dxvk, and lutrix won't pay off. MS is fricking scared of PC gamers abandoning Windows.
I think Microsoft is past being afraid or bargaining when it comes to the end of Windows as a platform for making money off of end users.
They're fully into acceptance and moving on.
They're more than willing to let Valve have win32. Valve's income and growth potential is small potatoes to them. Especially as open platform hardware increasingly becomes something only an enthusiast minority cares about.
Small potatoes in grand MS scale, but still a market. Win11 proves they still want desktop/laptop market. Imagine a world where most gamer PCs are sold as a linuxbox with steam preinstalled. That's a big cut.
>Valve's income and growth potential is small potatoes to them.
what kind of cope is this kek
then its time for allah ackbar
maybe if PCgays weren't poor Black folk pirating every game under the sun
maybe if games came with demos or were actually worth buying
But how can Valve be literally the most profitable compagny by only selling other's dev game if PC player only pirate?
How come the fastest selling game on PC is one that came with absolutelly 0 protection against piracy?
something doesn't add up here
its almost like there are far far far more people who play games on PC than anything else
and even if a huge amount of people pirate games, the sheer size of the market makes them be able to buy massive amounts of games
oh whats that? piracy actually makes people buy more games in the future and helps developers and publishers?
well lets sweep that under the rug and keep complaining about it
I don't think piracy had any role to play in the success of the fastest selling game on PC, which sold millions of units on Steam (but also on others platforms) in less than a week
a lot of people pirate first then buy later.
When i was a poorgay i pirated a lot of games then when i was well off i started buying them because i felt like it.
Im certain that there are other people like me too.
Yeah probably, most likely even.
But here, they bought the game faster than they could have pirated it
the shills seethe when confronted with the truth gaben spoke about piracy being an issue of service, not price
they made steam mandatory for their games, then they made contract with other devs, like fireaxis with civ 5 which could not be played without steam
>its steams fault the dev's put their game on steam
yeah it's valve fault if said game can't be played without steam even with a physical copy you inbred illiterate moron
I didn't know gabe sent people into the dev's office and held them at gun point to make it only playable on steam, at least I truly see its valves fault the devs made the game the way they did and not the dev's free choice
>But how can Valve be literally the most profitable compagny by only selling other's dev game if PC player only pirate?
because they offered a storefront and services that nobody else did. brick and mortar stores charge similar stocking fees, and on top of that you have to deal with overhead, packaging, shipping, and printing. digital distribution has a significantly lower footprint and a much easier method to distribute. valve offers basically an A-Z plan, in addition to SDK, workshop, and a bunch of other both developer and consumer friendly deals.
its funny because valves 30% is significantly lower than most physical stores
and this was never an issue until epic started clamoring about how 30% is too much
because they were still by far the lowest at 30% with the best service, and actually offered a lot for that 30%
30% is the industry standard for digital storefront.
Steam isn't the lowest, there just the same as other digital storefront (PSN, Xbox store, eShop, Origin, Google store...).
Digital being the keyword, physical duistribution will always take a higher cut from the dev, simply because physical distribution is more expensive as a whole
>everyone else uses 30% too!
>so they aren't the lowest, see!!!!
thats what lowest means
and I was talking about the time valve started selling other games on steam instead of just a distribution platform for themselves
when they were competing pretty much only with physical stores or at least online stores who sold physical games
in which case, they were the lowest
learn to read
Sales used to be much more diverse/better overall. Once publishers realized they can sell product on their own service (Similar to how everyone ripped their stuff off Netflix and now there's a million subscription services) the offerings haven't been entirely the same.
it's obvious to anyone who sold games on the platform that the 30% isn't just some arbitrary cost to use the marketplace, they offer way more tools that offset that cost (CDN, keygen, developer tools and much more) . even higher selling games are eligible for a lower percentage cut to Valve.
like everything Timmy does, it's always a false equivalence. he's basically trying to stir up dissent to draw eyes to his platform. people use valve because it's just a superior platform. GOG had offered a viable alternative and was as close to a best competitor as the market had seen.
Timmy managed to convince swathes of people he was fighting against a monopoly while he spends millions trying to bring a console-war exclusivity to PC and it fricking sucks
you can tell the people that are both underaged, and/or uneducated when they call it a monopoly.
getting patches in the early days of the internet meant you had to go into babbages/eb and get the patch disks at the counter, or actually hunt to find them (on usenet if you were smart enough, or on random forums). there was no universal marketplace to both buy games and receive patches and mods. almost every game had its own site and many of them were written by some idiot who just started learning HTML.
so you are a steam zoomie that probably never went to moddb or stuff like that, got it
moddb wasn't even a site until like 2003, just around when broadband started to become prevalent for most of the country.
and i forgot magazines also used to do the cd/diskette thing too.
do they know that being the most popular option automatically make you a monopoly? should someone tell them?
Steam is definitely a monopoly, otherwise you wouldn't have to wait months/years to buy a game on sale. I don't even think steam sales are gonna exist 10 years from now.
now do CDkeys for any game that isn't CODWAW
I keep doing this, they are all the same price as steam.
https://www.cdkeys.com/pc/sonic-generations-collection-pc-ww-steam
>$30 on steam
>$6 on cdkeys
>OOPS it's out of stock
>$30 on cdkeys
I didn't know about this, but apparently Steam has rules regarding how often a game can go on sale.
The limit was once every 6 weeks. However, recently the restriction was lowered to 28 days.
yeah they don't do permanent sales but that doesn't mean stuff doesn't go on sale, or there are other places you can buy steam keys where its on sale
>team is definitely a monopoly, otherwise you wouldn't have to wait months/years to buy a game on sale.
The frick has one thing to do with the other?
>physical console version, in USD, on sale
>deluxe digital PC edition, in CAD, not on sale
The console version is the deluxe version as it includes the same DLC's as the $90 version.
I don't see how this lawsuit can even go through when Epic literally holds games hostage and "supresses competition" with exclusivity contracts. Just look at what happened recently with Fall Guys as just one example of many.
>monopoly
they don't force people to use it, and devs can sell keys for 100% profit off of it.
nothing about it is anti-trust, they just have a superior product to the rest of the market. people choose to use it because of what it offers in comparison to everyone else.
timmy thinks he can force people into using epic by hoarding exclusives. took them five years to make a fricking shopping cart.
>anti-consumer
Pro:
lets you buy games
refund shitty ones
sales
workshop
streaming to friends so they can check it out
family sharing
user reviews with histogram to filter out review bombing
drm so weak a drop in .dll can bypass it
steamworks support for multiplayer
cons:
allows denuvo to exist on their storefront
allows devs to sell DLC while still in early access
allows other launchers on top of theirs
attempted paid mods with bethesda
flip flops on whats allowed nudity-wise(instead of creating another platform for it entirely called steamy. you cant ignore my emails forever gay BEN)
so overall no
>monopoly
nope.avi
I agree with you expect for one thing.
Family sharing is trash. It was only done to ease tension Valve was getting because you cant let friends borrow your games.
Valve doesnt want the sell or borrowing of "used games" on steam. When we should have that.
ah yes time to buy fall guys from steam
>cant anymore because epic literally paid to get it removed
I wonder who is behind this post
Why should consumers care about what tax are the publishers getting?
No.
>monopoly is when most of your competition is moronic and chases customers away
>steam
>suppressing competition
What? Steam has been the best PC game launcher for a reason. The other attempts at competition fricking failed. And we have stuff like Epic Game Store and GOG. How is Steam causing a monopoly?
Valve will not be bought by anyone as long as Gabe and Scott live
Why not? Valve will be purchased at some point, it's inevitable.
because they don't want to sell it, and have been adamant about that fact since the beginning. why is that hard to understand? one day they will die or retire, and the new owners probably will sell it. not until then though
Other people have been adamant about not selling their baby, too. Remember Minecraft? Gabe's a businessman, not some valiant protector of gaming. He has a price like anyone else.
I'm saying he's a human man with billions of dollers. he doesn't need more. when he dies, his successor may want a 50B payday for no reason, but Steam will make that in a few years anyway. I don't know what this "has a price" idea is when the person in question is so wealthy. do you think Bill Gates has a price too?
>he's a human man with billions of dollers. he doesn't need more
Cause if there's one thing billionaires are known for, it's not being greedy
would you also expect someone to buy out SpaceX for the right price? single time payouts are not as good as continuing profits, especially for a smart business person
nah it's based gaben, he's rich enough and he's making linux gayming viable so it's /our guy/
>furgays are israelites
If they hate Steam so much then why are they continuing to do business with them? If they are not forced to do business with them, then this blows the frick out of any antitrust lawsuit.
>bro just lose 90% of exposure
>they are not forced tho
so you pay 30% for exposure and server hosting, or you send demos to every shit website until they write stories about your gay indie game and sell it wherever you want. nobody is forced, that hasnt changed
>90% of exposure
Not an argument when Microsoft exists and has a dedicated storefront for games.
nobody gives a frick about microsoft store, xbox live only exists to serve forza and halo
How many people have Windows 10 installed compared to Steam?
>what about this other store
>NOOOOOO NOT LIKE THAT
>90% of exposure
exposure from what, the front page? no amount of begging valve to to put your game on the front page is going to help when customers can control what they see and have whatever genre your game is filtered out.
how the frick does valve use its power to suppress other pc markets, they literally don't do anything but sell games.
There's nothing stopping any developer or publisher from selling a game directly off their own website, like their own little version of itch.io.
No.
People being lazy doesn't mean something is a monopoly. Multiple storefronts exist. You not using them doesn't make someone a monopoly.
Wolfire games the troony furry moron liars
>all these valve bootlickers ITT
what happened to Ganker
nobody gives a frick about a company's well being but calling steam a monopoly is factually incorrect
>thread about supposed anti consumerism
>its literally nothing about that but complaining about dev tax because they are hosting the game for you
frick off Black person, make your own site or face the tax
>seething morons gets BTFO
Its such a shame valve didn't let you rip off the majority of your potential customers, cope dogfricker
>Chinese bots start reeeeing about steam
>Sensible people point out the flaws in their arguments
>"wtf valve bootlickers this is a safe space for me what are you doing"
Ganker is filled with underage/easily manipulated idiots. You can make fake screencaps for thread and actually have people fall for it and even spread around the fake info for you free of charge. The replies you just got right now is just even more proof. Valve has done a lot of shit that PC gamers have ignored or defended because of the "good guy valve/gabe" propaganda. Anything screaming about MUH CHING CHONG AND FURRY TRANNIES is just butthurt morons that have no argument.
cope dogfricker, don't come near to my house
This is a lot of words to admit you have no way of arguing that steam is a monopoly
Furgay is mad that valve didn't let him use their infrastructure for free and ceased doing business with him
Whatever helps you sleep at night corporate bootlicker. Can't imagine being so cucked that you defend a corporation.
you are a zoophile so I doubt you are in position to judge ANYONE lmao
not all zoophiles are bad
have a nice day.
zoophiles take care of animals better than average pet owners
You sexually abuse them, no, you objectively take worse care of them.
Yeah, that's why mares still kill stallions more than humans.
Animals can consent, are smart, and know what they're doing. We aren't the only species who have sex for pleasure.
gays like Kero are instantly shunned when found out. necrogays and sadists always get the rope, meanwhile, you don't actually give a shit about animals or even children, simply brainwashed by Abrahamic religions while letting them break their own rules
moralgays get the rope
Animals can never consent with a person. I hope you go to jail.
They can.
also legal here and in a lot of places.
You simply refuse the biological evidence when it is given to you
>also legal here
oh no no no dont just outright admit to being a subhuman jesus christ anon
nearly every continent has a country/state where its legal, are you claiming everyone is subhuman?
legal in the united states except Oregon, legal in several European countries, legal in several asian countries.
You are subhuman, taking out your sick desires on things that cannot understand everything you can. There's no purpose to it except you coping for failing to frick consenting humans of proper age. You belong in a cell, maybe you can be made the plaything of someone bigger and stronger yourself. You deserve to be made sport of.
You are a moralgay, the ultimate subhuman
Morals elevate humanity, having no morals makes you sub-everything.
>be pro morals
>while wanting to genocide blacks and israelites
>everyone on Ganker is 1 person
yeah OK m8.
Yeah m8 you totally don't have hatred against homosexuals and trannies
actual moralgays aren't Stormfront Black folk and since this site has a lot of newhomosexuals that align with /misc/ views, you have no right to a moral pedestal while being associated with someone who would exterminate non-whites
>you totally don't have hatred against homosexuals and trannies
I disagree with their morals, doesn't mean I want them dead. You fricking psycho dog fricker
>someone who would exterminate non-whites
anon you're making the mistake in thinking /misc/ types have any real convictions or beliefs.
you dont need to be a moralgay to not frick dogs jesus christ dude how fargone are you? would you ever admit this shit to your parents, or do you just pretend to be proud of it anonymously online
and talk about killing everyone but whites while claiming the moral highground
i dont understand this , are you implying the only two options is bestiality or /misc/?
did you yell at your teachers when they corrected you too?
those education bootlickers
Again, calling people out for being moronic Black folk and not understanding what a word actually means does not equal defending said entity. You acting like this is mutually exclusive shows that you are a fricking moron double Black person.
Prove you're not a bot by answering this question like a normal human being: why is pointing out a factually incorrect statement so upsetting to you? You don't need to feel passionate lust for something to be able to comprehend when someone says something untrue.
>bootlickers
>explaining what a monopoly is to morons means you are defending valve
you are fricking clueless
He's not clueless, he's a shill. He knows what's wrong with what he has said but he's not paid to care.
sorry im not moronic
if valve is a monopoly then why isn't youtube or twitter?
they are too
then why not go after them instead?
Youtube is also a natural monopoly. However, unlike Steam, it bleeds money, but Google keeps pumping resources into it because they want to corner the market.
Also, unlike Steam (again), they have serious competitors. Tik Tok is becoming a serious threat to them.
they are, but as another poster said, it's a natural monopoly. a lot of newer startups are using this model where they offer a product free for an indeterminate amount of time, and then introduce pricing models/tiers/subscriptions in hopes of capturing their (hopefully) significant install base. soundcloud was one I used from not long after it was introduced that I saw this sort of trend.
why an antitrust lawsuit against valve of all corporations?
They are genuinely moronic, that's why.
shady lawyers like these take money from morons all the time. guarantee this isn't some "pay if you win" contract.
Customers overwhelmingly preferring one business out of many, doesn't make it a monopoly. Blame the stupid fricking gamers for this. I have games on gog, steam, epic, origin and ubishit but I prefer steam for multiplayer games because that's where all my friends get their games, so steam is a given for mp stuff. If everyone consciously decide that steam is their shit and that they only want to get games on steam, then that's their prerogative, as they say. How many game stores are there on the internet? There are dozens, right? But there are only two or three really big ones, with steam being the absolute king. I don't really understand why timmy boy keeps going on about this, he is a 100 percent going to lose if he tries to argue that steam is a monopoly. No sane court on the planet is ever going to argue in his favour, how can they?
>case is literally the same bullshit Tim Weeney tried to sue Apple over and lost
lol, lmao even. Furgays and Epic shills on suicide watch.
The only billion dollar corporation I've dealt with that doesn't feel like it's fricked me in the ass.
if you don't feel like fricked in the ass by a billion dollar company, you are prolly fricked in the ass and deluded by valve reputation
?
t. dota artifact poster
it goes to show how fricking stupid a portion of the population truly is
They have very good PR.
then explain this to me
Their good PR is limited PR honestly. Their Twitter just calls out deals and shit. They rarely get political or send me "we think you might like this game..." with some gay video game attached, like Hulu constantly suggests for TV shows for me despite never watching gay shit.
Though they did have a blunder jumping on the "Latinx sale" train, and paid mods were pretty bad. But they didn't personally target me.
Paid mods was ultimately more of bethesda thing and they went with it
They still werent wrong about paid mods tbh. Just look at present day where modders endlessly beg for patreonbux and "donations".
Well, I'm not paying haha. Haha, it's just how it is, but, haha, I won't pay haha.
well they are just the middleman and their business model is simply and straight forward.
theres no real way for them to frick you over
if people weren't braindead they'd realize DRM isn't mandatory, and a lot of games don't have it.
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam
>Total number of DRM-free games: 797 out of 40,178 games in total
thats nearly 5%, so 1/20 games has no DRM. still proof its not mandatory
so the DRM are in fact not mandatory, even Valve games are DRM free (I agree that the other guy is a moron for callin 800 games "a lot")
>https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam
https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
This seems to be more updated/accurate. The number is over 3000, just from the launcher-free list.
I'll be dead before steam dies so I don't really care
>Is Valve anti-consumer
All large companies are anti-consumer, and you are delusional if you think otherwise
>Is Valve a monopoly
no
>Valve lootboxes
>Marketplace money laundering
I sleep
>Valve doesn't let me price gouge on their platform
OY VEY
Yes, and it's clear by how they treat their 1st party products.
>tf2 and hl abandoned
>dota 2 and csgo on minimal support
>shartifact and blunderlords dead
>kills off their hardware projects shortly after release
They've realized just how profitable the app store model is and are content with that alone.
No, valve gets unfairly targeted by courts over the way they run their business because powerful entities are upset they aren't publicly traded
>game prices artificially high
>epic doesnt undercut them
>if they did people might actually use their store and they wouldnt have to cry about steam in court
Nah.
Timmy made a store right?
It's got fortnite
and some of those zoom zoom riot and gacha games
how can steam be a monopoly if it don't have those games?
I don't see gaben out on the streets begging people to put their games on steam for 40 mil
Bro Genshin and Valorant on EGS is literally just a download link for their actual launcher. I dont even know the point of them being there outside of shallow bragging rights.
What people need to watch out for is fricking Microsoft that Gamepass deal where you unlock all the chara ters in Riot games is crazy. Imagine if they had a Ge shit deal as well ehere players got a set amount of wishes every month. Like people have said, it's not epic Valve should look out for but Microsoft.
Ye, I know.
Riot and Genshin's deal is still on FOMO tho, same for Ebin so they don't really care too much about that shit.
The riot one should be a lot bigger for disreputable players getting easy access to everything but they bank on players being upset over losing cosmetics they charge out the ass for.
A sad time.
>It's not epic Valve should look out for but Microsoft.
Epic is acting like a Microsoft sock puppet in a lot of ways just like SCO did back in the day, and Valve has been acutely aware of and ready to defend against attacks by Microsoft for a decade.
That's the whole reason they have their GNU/Linux initiative, and its why they're working on being entirely self hosted with the Steam Deck. Valve's game store, running on Valve's OS, on Valve's hardware.
Doesnt steam take the same as nintendo, microsoft and sony?
Also the humble bundle is full of israelites. Remember when it was pay what you want? They have been increasing the price constantly
'rember when wolfire was known for making Lugaru and kickstarting Overgrowth? Yeah me neither.
not a fan of steam but just off the top of my head you got
>Epic Games Store
>GOG
>Origin
>Microsoft Store
>Uplay
How the frick can steam be considered a monopoly?
>"b-but all those other stores are bad"
irrelevant
Valve is the most consumer friendly business i deal with, prices arent dictated by them either, but do slash them off in my country by a lot
Its a private company so thats why its always attacked
The sensation rides on Steam being most popular, therefore also an advertisement, platform and israelitey shits being angry with that. I personally don't really like that Steam is the hegemon but no one ever provides substantial arguements against it.
Just a shout out to all nerds writing GNU/Linux instead of just Linux. You're alright.