So every company hates Valve because they show us what quality is when all others only produce shit. So they group together and attack Valve in order to make shit the norm, instead of Valve's quality. Man I hope Valve wins this. We deserve quality !
Valve solely RESCUED the pc-gaming platform two decades ago, and now the guys that were saved are attacking their savior, what a hypocritical situation
If valve loses will benefit the consumer a lot as they will be able to get the game for less as valve take a much larger cut from profits than any other game launcher. Game devs could then reduce the price on other platforms such as epic and that gives the incentive for valve to take smaller cuts from the developer making it a more competitive environment for game launchers rather than the almost monopoly that valve have over the pc game industry. So in conclusion it will help mostly consumers as game prices will go down.
Edit: expense, not benefit. @@stevenlee3661so what you are saying is, Valve has to help other companies at its expense, and in a measure that is anticompetitive, to the expense of valve for the same reason valve is on trial for?
@@OfficialLoupak I want anti-competative behavior convicted. The emails seem on the edge and I want it looked into no matter the outcome. But most of it seems baseless.
It's because they don't want to compete, they want to be like every cartel monopoly in the US that focuses on fleecing the costumer than actually creating a viable product.
Yep. Unlike google and such, Valve is not pushing trash while sabotaging their trash-producing competence; they just don't participate in the bad practices of most of their competence. Other companies are just pissed Valve won't join their oligopoly, making it an "unfair" competitor.
Gabe might be one of the most popular billionaires if you count how many people love him versus how many people hate him. The lovers outnumber the haters by a level you don't see with other billionaires.
@@Taxevader-gk9ms Well you can make your company public, as long as you ensure you keep over 51% of the stock in hand. But if you don't need investment money, don't go public. Tons of companies think you NEED to go public to make it big. You don't... You only go public if you need to source money and can't get loans.
I don't hate him, but I am actually siding with Wolfire Games here. The same tactics that Valve uses here to keep prices identical no matter where you buy but have high costs on Steam is not only keeping Steam as the Nr 1 games platform, but also Amazon. And when I criticize Amazon for it but say Steam is fine doing essentially the same, then I would be a hypocrite. I am even on the side of Valve is too big and should be cut into smaller companies, but not before Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix have been split up into smaller companies.
Valve is one of the few (very few!) company in this industry that invests FIRST, than gains money and respect from its costumers based on the quality of its investment. Company like this should be taken as model, not being sued!
@@MasterPJ86 No company should get away with bad behavior. If there is a case against Valve then it should be brought against it. I only see the email being something of interest here.
They should be rewarded for taking a huge cut of of developer income while doing very little to help surface their game? They should be rewarded for giving big publishers discounts while indies pay full price? They should be rewarded for operating a defacto monopoly where Valve defenders attack alternative storefronts with better rates or refuse to buy a game that isn't on steam? Valve has done a lot of things right, but that doesn't mean you should simp for them when they're being anti-consumer and hostile to indies.
@@soviut303 But they are not anti-consumer or hostile to indies. Valve simplifies so much of the process of selling the game and has made indie development viable in modern times. Alternative storefronts suck. I was a PlayStation and PC gamer for a long time. The PS4s user interface was taken over by marketing departments and it was a terrible user experience. Make me scroll through a whole list of ads so i can start the game I have in the blueray drive... no.. no thankyou... i just won't buy games on your platform or buy a PS5. Compare that to the steamdeck where i turn it on and can just start my game. Then you look at all the other game stores and they just haven't even bothered to try. No where near feature parody with steam. Instead of putting money into building a competitive platform epic decided gamers were dumb and could just be bought with free games and paid game developers for game exclusivity. Epic came right out of the gate treating the consumer badly and I am supposed to be happy when Epic and others are using lawsuits like this to try to destroy the one platform that doesn't treat me like crap?
@@soviut303 Why don't they attack every single other store that cut 30% like google and apple then ?? while i agree with some of your takes attacking steam solely because of 30% cut while ignoring the rest is hypocritical. As of now, Steam is clearly the better options than other stores (Aside from GOG which i rarely seen someone attacking them).
This isn't about Valve being unfair. This is all about Valve being pushed to comply. Every other tech company has... *ahem* 'adopted' certain ideologies that Valve has more or less ignored, and because it's a privately owned company they can't exhibit investor pressure on Mr. Newell to fall in line. This is a problem for them, because Valve will continue to allow the sale of certain games that they don't want sold, and the payment processors KNOW that if they try to cut Valve off like they are currently wanting to do with the entire nation of Japan, there WILL be a massive backlash from the Valve userbase, which is significant. The plaintiffs are simply a front. Valve's competitors are a scapegoat. There's some political strings being pulled here. When it comes to which companies I'd rather do business with Valve is one of the few who I still somewhat trust isn't going to go out of its way to screw me over. They're not perfect, and they're not even my first choice of storefront, but they haven't shafted me... yet. That could change in the future, and a lot depending on how much these lawsuits proceed. If Valve starts to lose these suits it will only encourage other rats in the pack to attack. It is better for the consumer that Valve wins. They're after Valve's market dominance, sure, but that market dominance was achieved and maintained by having a generally positive consumer experience. There is literally NO REASON to use any other storefront over Steam from a consumer standpoint with the sole exception of GoG's 'No DRM' policy. Otherwise Valve has an instant framework for community, guides, questions, feedback, and any other aspect that a fan could want right at their fingertips. Don't be fooled. These lawsuits have nothing to do with 'helping the consumer'. If they win, it will only hurt the consumer at the end.
Valves competitors also are not blocked from making their own storefront on PC and charge about the same (except epic which takes a loss on the whole thing)
GOG is also good at both patching games to run on more modern hardware and (as a direct consequence of that 'No DRM' policy) ensuring customers can use the patched games. (This is separately under attack right now; as I understand the basic argument is that allowing consumers access to entertainment that isn't current strangles the marketplace. I'm inclined to be opposed to it on the grounds that we've lost enough of our cultural history to accident and nobody even attempting to preserve it (such as the earliest decades of television); if people can't successfully market a product which money is actually being currently poured into it's not the fault of the consumer but unreasonable expectations by investors.)
From a dev standpoint that is disgraceful that any developer would be behind that. If I put my game on gog or epic I don't receive the same benefits on those platforms as I do on steam, yet they bitch about a 30% cut when they are providing a plethora of features that doesn't come free. This all reminds me of how a child's thought process is regarding how money works.
IMO Valve should allow devs to choose how much of a cut they take, but the lower the cut the less features the game has access to. It becomes less "steam takes too much" to "pay to use steam's features."
@@gustavofoxy1 It's an equal percentage regardless of what they choose so it balances out. Indie games usually have less sales and profit, but also less overhead.
Idk why they are crying over 30% now. I remember when we first started switching from disk/cart to digital and devs were all kinds of circle jerking over how insanely good 30% was vs physical retail.
AAA industry had already reached end-game stage. Graphics and gameplay do not improve at all since it seemingly already peaked and can only be presented in different variations as there is no limit on concrete examples. When you play an incremental/idle game long enough to 100% clear it, all that there is left is to gain as much of the most prestigious currency as possible. Heck, idle game genre was started by accident as a satire to brainless button mashing in game design and giving up WILLINGLY personal information. One can only wander if political agenda is a matter of running out of good and unusual stories, too. Sometimes people are desperate of making their product popular by being outrageous and not just unorthodox.
Doom was sold entirely online in 1993. They did not have to pay a cut to anyone. This whole false history is a myth spread by Valve's marketing department.
Honestly, I'll be selfish here. I'd rather Valve wins cuz there's no benefits to consumers whatsoever if Wolffire wins. It's not like any savings generated will pass on to the consumer (They get more money and prices remain the same or, hell, get even higher)
Wolffire is just mad they are running out of cash for their scam game that will never finish. Instead of doing the work they rather waste even more money on a frivolous lawsuit.
It will benefit the consumer as they will be able to get the game for less as valve take a much larger cut from profits than any other game launcher. Game devs could then reduce the price on other platforms such as epic and that gives the incentive for valve to take smaller cuts from the developer making it a more competitive environment for game launchers rather than the almost monopoly that valve have over the pc game industry. So in conclusion it will help mostly consumers as game prices will go down
@@stevenlee3661No they won't. We've already gone through this multiple times (You want examples? Take a look at what most companies did way back pandemic. They got a tax cut from the government AND increased prices and this will just go the same way)
@@user-jr6fw4qw7s so just a win for the game developer then never mind. Better to have a bigger win for the game developers than valve though providing the game developers keep the prices the same as I cannot think of a reason for them to increase the price if valve let them have more of the profits.
So in short > Developer: "makes a garbage game" > Also developers: "refuse to allow any refunds on their garbage game and be anti-consumer" Steam: "ya no you can't do that, I am going to give customers refunds" > Developers: "Wait no you can't do that, that's anti-consumer!" > "files class action lawsuit" 🤦 How TF is this allowed to make it into court, epic must have pulled some connections or something.
@@rico-fs1crthat wasn't placed by the game devs that was a policy put in place by valve , but some dev's do not want to comply with refunds at all which is the problem and valve isn't having it
Yeah, Valve takes 30%, but only on games bought *through* *steam* *itself.* You can sell Steam keys pretty much anywhere else you want, and they take 0% of any of those sales even though they honor those keys and eat the bandwidth costs themselves. 0% and they still handle all of the downloads and updates at no cost to the seller. You're just not allowed to charge less elsewhere for a Steam key. If you sell somewhere else like Epic or GOG and no Steam key is involved, you can sell the game for whatever you want there. Developers are literally winning 2x over here, and they're still complaining.
Wolfire never even sold Steam keys -- they sold DRM-free downloads directly. The issue isn’t about Steam keys at all; it’s that Valve allegedly prevented them from pricing those DRM-free versions lower than the Steam version. This restriction impacts not just Steam keys but also pricing across the entire PC gaming market, which is a much broader concern.
@@AlexFairmont But they don't do that. They only set limits on how low you can price Steam keys. If there's no Steam key attached, then Valve doesn't care.
@@DC-FGC In their initial statement when filing the case, Wolfire explained they were acting because Valve had threatened to delist their game if it was sold for a lower price on the Epic Games Store or even as a DRM-free version on their own website. Wolfire has since testified to this under oath and successfully compelled Valve to disclose emails showing they enforced similar actions against numerous other developers. The judge specifically cites this fact in his decision to certify the class action.
They take a larger cut, but also give back. The other platforms don't give us any benefits whatsoever: No group chats, no in-game recording, no hardware (Steam Deck, Valve Index, etc.), no community forums, no mod pages, no custom libraries, etc. Like, the difference between Steam and other store-fronts is so vast, you could write an entire book on it. We can clearly see where that 30% cut has gone into. Meanwhile, other companies like Ubisoft, EA, Rockstar, etc. have their own store-fronts to get 100% of the profits, but they're just launchers, they're not platforms like Steam is. It's not even an argument that Valve has contributed more to gaming than any other store-front owner in the history of gaming. They started the wave of handheld products from big companies, bringing gaming to much more people in an accessible and portable form-factor. Like what else do you want? Do they do this for their own benefit? Of course, they do. But the point is that they also benefit us. How many other companies out there make decisions that simultaneously benefits us and them? Not many, at all. I am totally fine with having competition in the store-front side of things, but come on... the other companies are not even trying... It's been years since the Epic Games Launcher came out, it's still just a store-front... P.S. Having said, of course, they shouldn't be able to control the pricing of games on other platforms (if they are). But also, there's no reason for them to lower their cut. It's fair to everyone because of what they offer back to the whole community, specially consumers.
Steam offers a lot, but some of the other stores do offer things steam doesn't (but should). GOG offers offline installers. Ubisoft's achivements lets you unlock content with achievement points, giving you actual rewards for playing instead of useless trading cards. I bring this up to say that there are some stores trying, but are not being given a chance.
@@noboty4168 GOG does more than just offline installers. Steam sells tons of older games with _zero_ regard for how they work on modern operating systems. Oh, you bought a game and it doesn't work? Too bad, go dig through forums to find a solution. GOG will actually package in community mods and other fixes for old games.
@@noboty4168 they only thing you pointed out was GoGs offline installers which is great. The achievement thing is not steam. That's a Dev issue and their own offer. Why would steam offer you rewards for a game that's not theirs? That's the Devs decision to have achievement based awards that any of them can do. Your tying things to steam that are just flat out Not up to steam to make. This is as stupid as the argument of Steam delisting games. They have too. Steam doesn't own the game just like You don't. Steam is legally obligated to remove games if the developers orders it because steam is a store and valve is not the publisher On the other note while steam can also offer offline installers it is Also up to the developer to put it in as well. Valve cannot offer things in place of the developer, Gog does it because that's literally a condition in order to sell on their store, flat out you Must make your game available offline. While Valve doesn't say that and leave it as an option for the developer to make. Most don't of course
@@noboty4168 >giving you actual rewards for playing instead of useless trading cards. thats literally the Dev's choice not Valve its an option for Developer's/ publisher to add trading cards rewards. >Ubisoft's achivements lets you unlock content with achievement points, you mean those useless points that literally unlocks basically nothing burgers? free cosmetics yey at most and most of them are just ugly or just basic recolours.
So if I make a shitty 4 wheel vehicle with a lawn mower motor and a mattress and it doesn't sell for 20k, I can sue Nissan for anti-conpetitive behavior and monopoly because their product sells much better? Good to know!
@@SnoOwTrX_ well it doesn't matter when you claim that steam has the best customer support. you can't freaking tell me that steam is the best when there is plenty of red flags who prove people like you wrong. 7 years of bot problem on their own IP that's embarrassing and the fact that vavle shills claims that steam has the best customer support, yet steam ignores a problem for over 7 years. at this point i can totally believe that the ppl who create those bots in TF2 are working for vavle and there the real reason that players pretend that this is still played game. it's sad that fortnite has a batter customer support and no bot problems
Sweeney is jealous that his storefront doesn't attract the people who want a game-platform... epic is only in it for the money, they don't care at all for the gamers, the ones who give them money... Epic is just another EA, only profit matters, and jealous about valve which is doing the right thing for the gamer.
I don't care if Valve is basically a monopoly on the digital gaming storefront market; literally all (i.e., most, GOG probably isn't) of its competitors are toxic garbage, unlike Valve who puts their consumers first. What do the other gaming corporations do? They put their profits first, and their consumers are very often LAST on their priority list
@SpringySpring04 Start using it then. Nowadays most games end up in there too, baring titles from Atlus and a few other AAA publishers. Once you know that you own what you buy and are not reliant on Valve's server things take a whole other meaning.
@@Rogério_Martins I've seen a video some time ago of a thing Valve has done that's actually really good. So TL;DR they have a side server with all the games from Steam, so if Steam eventually goes away they will launch a last patch so you can continue to play your games even, if Steam stops existing.
@TheTuriam That topic was never openly admitted by Valve but by Gave in passing. What will happen when he is gone many years from now, that's the question. Not to mention that talk is all well and good for titles that only have SteamAPI as any sort of DRM, but what about third-party DRM, Valve can't enforce that practice on those cases if the publishers aren't willing to cooperate.
As Steam indie dev I'll gladly pay 30% to Steam and they can keep their Direct fee if they want, because simply put value steam services bring is totally worth it no other marketplace has fairness and quality and if someone doesn't like it i would like them to thy making their own.
I am boycotting Valve for about half a year now, and let me tell you there is a lot of enjoyment to be had with old games from the 90s and early 2000s. There's a reason these companies are trying to destroy emulation and old games in general.
@@seeibe Since when is Valve destroying emulation??? 🤔🤔 They’re even allowing it on their Steam Deck. Nintendo is the bully here with their emulator take downs and lawsuits not Valve! 🙄🙄
I have hundreds of games on Steam, I bought them all on sale 75%-95% off. If I had to pay full price for a game, I would quit gaming. The prices of "games" these days is insane, they aren't even fun and almost everyone cheats.
I might be wrong here, but I see that fight for the 30% cut as some greedy bullshit from companies. If that 30% goes away, they won't drop their prices and that will just increase their cursed profits, they also do nothing worthwhile with that money like investing on a better product or service. If anything, those percent cuts are usually paid by us, the costumer, and it's not like they give us something back for that extra fee most of the time. At least Valve gives us something meaningful, and while their service is not perfect, it's very good and an example to follow.
Wolfire is not asking for the 30% to be lowered. They are only asking to be allowed to drop their prices on non-Steam-key stores that take a lower cut and for DRM-free direct sales.
@@AlexFairmont This was updated already so if they are not using steam key they can charge whatever they want. Some emails from valve claim the opposite though which is what got them in hot water
@@shadowlordalpha I don’t recall ever seeing an announcement reversing their previous policy. What I did notice were some quiet tweaks to their website, which seemed more like an attempt to cover their tracks than a clear policy reversal.
@@AlexFairmont For one of those emails I get the meaning behind it "Dont charge our Users then give it for free the next week on another platform" that just means people who bought the steam version would feel robbed. Great example being Payday 2 swapping to Epic Servers. Everyone Hated it. and it ran like dogshit.
At 5:59, just reading the highlighted part is disingenuous, if one reads the whole thing one would realize that 1. This has nothing to do with price parity, Valve is saying they would probably not run a discount on a game, nothing to do with forcing the dev to change the price elsewhere 2. Valve is trying not to piss off the consumer in this statement, if you read the other statements, Steam is just saying they won't promote the game if the Steam discount is significantly worse than what the dev is giving elsewhere, so it's on the dev if they want the promotion or not by adjusting prices, Steam is in no obligation to promote any game they are not forcing the dev to change prices, but they are in their right to deny promotion if they feel they are not getting a good deal themselves, which is understandable. Even the last one, if you read carefully, Steam is declining to provide Keys, not declining to sell the game on Steam or preventing the Dev from selling it elsewhere, which is Parity for KEYS not for the game itself.
I don't like most companies but Valve seem genuinely awesome in a lot of ways. They build out Linux support keeping computers open for the public, handle game saves, updates, and sales in a pretty fair way. While I agree forcing everyone to sell things at no lower a price than their price on steam seems a little monopolistic in some ways, it also seems pro consumer by leveling the playing filed. People will often knowingly go for a crappier more malicious form of a product if its cheaper. Ideally the government would defend consumer rights better, but they got gimped by pro deregulation tards, so Valve seems like our only path to salvation now. Idk, Valve seems like the entity we should be championing, not fighting, as the gaming community.
If you think about it from the perspective of traditional retail, Valve is effectively forcing developers to sell to them at a lower wholesale price than any other store. That’s not leveling the playing field-that’s tipping it heavily in their favor.
@@AlexFairmont what? They are saying dont screw their user base and then undercut them on another platform. Imagine you paid for a $25 game on steam and its $10 on another platform. You'd be pissed. With Valve enforcing that it means the price remains the same on both platforms IF its through steam. If you sell it via steamkeys Valve doesnt care because it doesnt come with the Steam Features besides Servers.
@@damiangaming5696 Personally, I’d prefer the choice between paying full price for a Steam version or a lower price for an Epic or DRM-free version. That’s exactly what Wolfire says Valve prevented them from offering. Why would anyone be upset about having more options? It has nothing to do with Steam keys.
@@AlexFairmont Frankly thats just encouraging people to leave steam because "The prices elsewhere are lower" also your idea would just cause them to undercut eachother on prices to force exclusives.
That's the thing, they aren't forcing you to sell lower on steam, just that if you're selling lower elsewhere we won't promote... It's like the rule that if you buy a game, and less than two hours later it goes on sale, they refund you the difference (personal experience). They don't want the buyer to pay more just because...
Because like they actually have a choice. If I publish an indie game on epic then no one will buy it but people will buy it if its on steam as steam is partly anti-competitive and basically have a monopoly over the pc game industry being able to take really high cuts from game developers without any consequences due to peoples loyalty to steam forgetting that they are a company and not there friend
@@stevenlee3661Bro is a it's not Valve's fault that their competitors are so garbage, they should make their platforms much better than whine like you if they want to attract more. The cuts are justified with the amount of Tools, Help and traction you get from publishing it on steam.
I would love Valve to do the opposite regarding the profit percent cut. They should should increase it as profits go up instead of decreasing it. That would help indie devs out a ton and benefit Valve. But big AAA studios would certainly get mad. People often get the impression that making indie games is very lucrative, it used to be before, not really today. The games that people see as successful are really the top 0.1% of indie devs. Also, the term indie is also stretched a lot. I’d say if you have enough money to support a large team to work on a game, it might be carrying the indie dev spirit, but it’s not really an indie dev title at this point (at least by the old definition of it)
My idea was they lower it based on the Steam Deck rating. Not a lot but still lowered. So unsupported or unknown would be the default, playable and verified would be lower. Verified might be even lower.
@@ForOne814 It depends who you ask, if you go with the wikipedia definition of an indie game, that would be: is a video game created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. But if you go with the definition of indie game developpers, then: video game developers who are not owned by nor do they receive significant financial backing from a video game publisher. Independent developers, which can be single individuals, small groups, or large organizations, retain operational control over their organizations and processes. Some self-publish their own games while others work with publishers. Both definitions contradict each other, and I’ve seen a lot of people have different definitions too online. But yeah I do agree kinda with you, it’s just it feels like the term is used on many studios. Like Helldivers 2 for example, the game is great, but I’ve seen so many people call it an indie game despite being funded by Sony and we’ve seen clear evidence that they can add their own things to the game when they want to, like the PSN region block situation
@@drekex6767 that's because those people are not very smart, as Helldivers is not an indie game according to any possible definition. But something like Escape from Tarkov is an indie, despite the budget and the size of the game and the studio.
@@chaosmachines934 Maybe you are right. I mean you are expert on not knowing what you are talking about. But I didnt ask for your expert opinion, go away.
Imagine if Valve sends Michael Shapiro (gman voice actor) in a blue suit with suitcase to the court to represent them. As a developer in the lawsuit I'd be shitting my self for gman not to snap me out of existence and my game off steam :D
if Valve got shut down or messed up so bad that I couldn't use steam anymore I'd start sailing the high seas because the other platforms to buy games on PC suck
If Valve is dead then I'm back to pirating games, I can still download delisted games that I have purchased on ,Steam I'm not spending games that are over hundreds in my country money for a *DIGITAL* game with online DRM.
I've been saying this shit for years now and the brainlets who defend Epic and the "industry" in general still don't get it: Valve's 30% tax is the sole reason I can play on Linux, because they invest in it and all the others don't. Simple as that. If the others want to be considered "competition", the VERY LEAST they have to do is provide NATIVE support for Linux, otherwise all of their complaints are automatically bogus by concept. Valve will win this, I'm pretty sure. Unless a "fraud" happens, like it did back in 2020 and 2022 respectively in both Americas. Which means the only way they can lose this is if the other side straight cheats (like they always do).
Tim Sweeney has made it painfully obvious that he has zero interest in competing. He once talked about "displacing" Steam and his actions prove he wants a monopoly. He's put zero money into making the Fortnight launcher comparable with Steam in favor of squandering it on giveaways and timed exclusivity deals. EGS is also the storefront welcoming NFT games.
@@Mirthful_Midori Let's not forget he spent 3 years to implement a shopping cart. Out of spite. That and being a con man/tax evader with the whole Apple v. Epic lawsuit. The man reeks of evil.
@@supremesonicbrazil His lawsuits against Apple and Google started because he wanted them to host Fortnight for free. Anything else he said was just an excuse to make him look better.
A 30% royalty is fair given all Valve does for game publishers on Steam. Book publishers often take a larger cut than that and even selling Kindle books on Amazon means they take a 30% cut only if you price a certain way...otherwise they take more.
Tinfoil hat time: What if Valve is funding the suit to establish facts and to settle the law by jury as a way of showing their own fairness to the court? Could also be a ploy to get Tim Sweeney to shut up about industry splits if successful.
that's too much effort for valve not because they are "lazy" it just that tim sweeney isn't that much of a threat and also they could get more harm done if exposed.
Gotta love how everyone has cheered on similar legal battles against other companies, but yet the people are in favor of the company on this one. Almost like actually treating your customers as the priority puts them on your side
With how loyal those valve drones are, any attempt to try to put up a competitor is going to fail. That is the biggest problem of the current PC market and that is Valve has been sitting very comfortable in that monopoly position for to long that there is almost 0 chance to redeem a slice of that market. Same goes for instance with social platforms like Facebook. So even if better platforms come around they will not get the traffic they need to make a profit.
@@TheYdyp yeah its freaking sad that valve is the Disney of the video game market. i also start to develop this wired conspiracy that EDI always goes against valve competition but never steam or valve how sus hu. how come sweet baby ink targets companies like epic , ubisoft , EG and so on but never steam or valve
@TheYdyp no better platform will come out anytime soon, i can say that much. heck, i tried the epic games store because free games, shit looked like a bare bones UI, so poorly optimized that i couldn't even download my free games. i'll stick to my built in VC, mods, tutorial, compat layers support. thank you
@@rami-succar7356 spoken like your typical valve shill. epic are not perfect but at least they give regular updates to there own IP. valve ditch his own CSGO , DOTA2 and TF2 steam own UI didn't get any real updates since 2013. csgo - has a illegal gamboling scam problem TF2 - its a 12 year old game who has a bot problem dota2- screws over artist who work in the steam chines workshop. how is steam more consumer friendly again..
@Fetchdafish I could see an argument that the enforcement of price parity is like "we'll match or beat a price you find anywhere else" But I can also see that as anti-competative if you're the dominant provider. Update: and it falls apart if you still do a 30% cut.
Price parity for, and this is the important part, *Steam keys* being sold elsewhere. They don't enforce price parity between, for instance the same game sold on Steam vs. GOG vs. Epic, etc. That's just the video game industry, and anyone deluding themselves into thinking a lower cut going to Valve would result in developers/publishers lowering game prices to consumers is...well, delusional. If that were going to happen at all, digital game prices would have already been lower than physical game prices. BUT if you as a developer/publisher, want to sell your game on Steam but go through a 3rd party storefront like Green Man Gaming, Humble Bundle, etc. where you are exporting Steam keys to sell on those other stores that may or may not have a lower cut, that is where Valve says you can't sell that key for less on another store than you have it on Steam for. And that is completely reasonable since Valve gets 0% of that cut.
@@8BitCerberus Wouldn't Humble Bundle be proof against price parity. They come with Steam Keys and your getting a bundle of games for way less usually than even one of those games cost on Steam, and no one better say because of charity, last time I bought a bundle, Humble had removed the option to choose where my money went and I believe it had numbers like 90% going to Dev, 7% to Humble, and 3% to charity. Also, Epic already proves that devs aren't charging less when they have lower cuts to pay, games cost the same from both Steam and Epic but Steam takes a 30% cut vs Epic's 12%.
@@stevecole90099 the bundles are technically a charity event, so they're technically not selling the games. You're donating to charity and getting some games in return for your donation. It's thin justification, but it's technically correct. Where the price party for the Steam keys happens is on Humble's store itself, though. Humble is an interesting one, too, because they also resell keys for GOG and Epic (and a few others too, including Nintendo) and whenever a game is available on Steam AND GOG AND Epic, etc. when you go to buy that game from Humble, you're asked to specify which store you want to purchase the key for. You can't just buy it once on Humble and then unlock it on every store it's available on, for example.
and before valve released steam there where how many indie devs making money??? It's thanks to steam that indies are where they are now, but yes, greed creates jealousy...
@@BoGy1980 bigs facts I ever heard, 99% of the indie games in my 300+ game catalog on steam only made it to my library due to steam marketing the games on front page/recommending them.
But Steam doesn't have content parity with other stores. GOG has plenty of games that are updated and works there but not on Steam, Alpha Protocol for an example has a remaster exclusive to GOG. And l do agree with Cary as just like him most of my Steam keys are bought outside of Steam for far cheaper then I would have gotten them using Steam. The trade off was always the lack or more difficult refund process. I just feel like what is being said and what I have personally experienced and seen vary widely.
not to mention that steam keys acquired outside of the Steam store doesn't count towards the game collector badges. Also, GOG's 30 day refund policy makes me so much more willing to buy games from them than Steam, it pains me how few indie devs release their games on GOG.
@@ForOne814 i'm sure they have some playtime limits, they're not going to refund someone who has put 200 hours into the game in 29 days their refund policy allows them to refuse even within the first 30 days if the request seems to be done in bad faith
Here's the important question though, would you even buy the game on those other stores if what was being sold to you wasn't a Steam key, but was instead a download service hosted by them? There are a few good stores, like GOG, where they offer a special service that isn't available on Steam and provide a compelling reason to buy, but I would bet that the majority of those stores where you get games cheaper wouldn't earn your purchase if you were buying their service and not Steam.
I hope Valve win it. this specific case does very little for the end consumer. I'd rather valve just continue on with what it is doing, Its store is great, the steamdeck kicked off an new race in the practically dead, handheld pc market and their work on steamOS/proton, is so interesting, it may finally give me an alternative to using windows for everything.
Thanks for covering this! Valve has made the ease of PC gaming what it is today. The other big 3 make you pay for services that Valve gives its customers for free. Sounds like the lawsuit is from butt hurt. I'm on team Valve. 😀
the context at 5:55 could be used by steam as in "we don't support such anti-consumer actions to scam out our customers by offering visibility to a game that can be purchased for free"
Hi, my account owns over 7 games which have been pulled off steam over various reasons. Over a decade later these games are still on my account and downloadable. I wouldn’t fret
Anytime I hear "Humidifier", I am reminded of "South Korean humidifier disinfectant case". For those who won't look any further: just make sure you clean your humidifiers properly. No shortcuts.
You'll still have Steam, but other stores will have a better fighting chance of getting your attention. Indies often complain how they'd like to sell for cheap on itchio, but selling on Steam would ruin their ability to join in with Itch's many great bundles for charity. This is clearly a bad thing that they are doing. You can be a fan of Valve, and still criticise them when they're wrong.
@@PomuLeafEverydayidk how it stops them if I saw many games sell for less... Also they can just lower temporary price on steam when they are selling for charity.
@@PomuLeafEverydaythis is called free market , you are free to not sell your game on steam at all , just don't complain when your numbers are not too high ...
@@zbigniew2628 Why should they need Valve's permission? Publix can't stop Walmart from selling the exact same cheese for cheaper, so why can Steam dictate prices like that?
@@s.gilbertdyer8683 It is what they decided. They appear to have made this decision because if you are using steam keys you are not utilizing their marketing. It is an interesting choice since they are distributing the game too.
@@danthebee27 Devs can use Steam to make keys. They also don't take a cut from Steam keys because people can sell/give away unlimited keys. So any keys sold elsewhere (like Humble) Steam takes no cut of, just stuff sold IN Steam.
@@danthebee27 Thor uses a third-party service to _distribute_ keys for things like previews, but I'm pretty sure he himself is the one that requests and generates the Steam keys that the service uses, and he simply provides the keys to the service. The reason for that is being able to avoid all the direct work of coordinating and distributing the keys to potentially hundreds of people, plus being able to avoid the work of tracking down those keys if they get somewhere unwanted. The example he gave was someone selling one of his preview keys, that he only gave out through that distributor, on something like G2A. The distributor went and got that key, found out whose key it was, banned them, and told Thor which key it was so he could deactivate it. There's a lot of work needed to do all that, that Thor got to avoid doing himself by having the third-party company do it for him.
Wonder why everyone ignores the fact that the 30% commission rate is lower than the 35% average markup of groceries. Pretty sure I read that stores like Walmart pay only 60% to 70% of a games price that they then sell for full price.
if you claim not having a refunds police till 2015 consumer friendly, running an illegal gamboling like SCGO and you cant use you prize money you collected from CSGO skins out side of steam. taxing game devs 30% + the 100 up front payments, using a subscription licence on games you don't even own but rant,+ valve is holding you account hostage anyway. paying for a Netro rip off or even paying to level up you account. abusing artist to get paid only 12% for there hard works on doing skins and other stuff like in Dota 2 while valve takes all the money from there works. how long till half-life3 so far most consumer friendly platform period!! then you my friend must be a crypto scammer at this point. how is valve the guy again. if valve can put an a registration fee to sing in into steam they will do it
Amazing, people say you are wrong but give no other option and list evidence like those same points aren't true for literally every single PC market. How many other marketplaces are out there forcing Devs to be honest about DLC, forcing them to refund if they fail to deliver on their promises? How many other marketplaces are out there improving linux gaming so you don't have to pay $140 for Windows or $2000 for a Macbook? How many other marketplaces are out their releasing budget friendly hardware forcing the industry to follow suit? How many companies sold Steamdeck like devices before Valve and at what price point? How many sell them now and for around the same price as a decent laptop? Valve is being targeted because all other companies look horrible by comparison and they'd rather throw money to lawyers to hurt Valve then to spend money on improving their own platform.
@@godkekliveshere431wow your aren’t very smart. First of all a lot of CSGO Gambling was done through 3rd party websites which valve has taken measures to fight against. And even the with the official cases while I agree they aren’t the best way to obtain skin but they can allow people to buy cheap skins on the market place. And with child gambling parents should be able to stop kids from doing it. Obviously they can’t always be there but the kids have to get money some way for it. Also the 30% cut is a standard and with that amount devs can get their games published on the front page through up and coming, steam provides tools to help market and they run their own servers. Also a pro consumer thing valve has done is be transparent about DRM and kernel level anti cheat. (Also steam isn’t a DRM it’s self, there is a steam DRM but it’s weak and can be bypassed easily). Valve has been really huge in Linux support with proton and has allowed forks such as northstar proton and Proton GE. while valve isn’t perfect (nothing is) we should be happy they are on the top of PC Gaming and not some shitty company like epic who is far more anti-consumer than valve. And how not releasing games frequently anti consumer??? Valve games are some of the best and I’d rather wait a long time for a banger than more frequent releases that are unfinished slop games.
@@godkekliveshere431You do know that at one point valve was considering having online fees similar to console right? This was a few years ago and they have an FAQ page where they state that they want online to be free and they aren’t gonna charge it. Clearly your being Skizo about it Because they lead the market and could easily do it if they want to.
@@godkekliveshere431 uh no lol they won't. Hell they don't even tax me now for a military address....they didn't have to do that they chose not too weirdo.
@@merculese001 what part of my comment from IF statement didn't you get. also playing SCGO money scam games doesn't = you did actual military job. if you can't even read a basic comment yet you claim that you did work for the military then i don't think that you're a real adult.
30% is what valve has decided it costs to keep their independence from investment vultures. And they deserve every cent of it! Finance bros are frothing at the mouth because they’re not allowed to ruin it for short term profits.
Here's a question I've yet to hear. What happens when Gaben is gone? Is there something that will continue to protect the customer base? To protect the sellers? Or will that all be gone along with Gaben?
Valve has made numerous attempts to appear to defend consumer rights, Right to repair, fair refunds on digital content, pushing development of Proton to broaden the user base that can play games on more platforms than just windows, pricing competitively/aggressively against other online storefronts, etc. so that generates brand loyalty, stuff most of the other game companies have been losing steadily. There's still a lot more they could be doing to change the sorry state of gaming though.
They made the proton compatibility layer. Valve is actually breaking the monopoly called Windows and giving alternative operating systems a fighting chance in the desktop market
@@TheRealAlpha2 While Valve does have a command of the market of pc gaming, they don't have the ability to affect much outside of that. Let's not pretend that they have near the influence of Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo in the entire gaming market nor will they unless pc gaming miraculously becomes cheaper up front.
@@Phantom-ph6xg They have plenty of influence as arguably the largest online provider of PC game licenses. You can try to sell your game elsewhere online but you'll never make as much potential cash as you would on steam. They're the go to place the first day you get a PC for gaming.
@@Phantom-ph6xg The point is there are significantly more PC's than all consoles combined world wide. If you want a game on PC your first stop is Steam. It's as simple as that,
You know an industry has gone down the toilet when a company is being sued for just having a good product and not actually doing any anti competitive practices.
They could lower their commission, but as a big user of Steam, I feel that they have earned their premium. In any case, it should never be part of a legal system to try to determine what is "fair" between voluntary actors.
Well the difference is you;re in a class action suit with literally millions of other people so you slice of the pie is way smaller. For devs it could mean thousands if not hundreds of thousands. Even if they win it means nothing to the consumer though. It might improve the viability of a very small developer but consumers will never see that money in any form.
if valve lowered their commission rate to like 20% for everybody, they might be called anti-competitive. because that will tighten the 'competition' even more as that move would attract devs and publishers.
That makes no sense. They've already got a captive market. Unless you're a giant like Ubisoft or EA, anybody publishing on PC is basically forced to publish on Steam or face backlash from Steam "fans".
@@soviut303 then why do most other storefronts not have even half the capabilities of valve's steam end and act extremely anti-customer? [ie timed exclusives, removing games, predatory dlc/mtx behavior, that whole nine yards.]
หลายเดือนก่อน +3
Steam's commission policy ranges from 70/30, 75/25, to 80/20. Depending on the sales your product generates, the higher the sales, the more the publisher benefits from the revenue share. People and those greedy developers often forget this.
@@soviut303 Maybe those big publishers should put some ACTUAL WORK INTO THEIR LAUNCHERS instead of the broken slop that they release (looking at you ubisoft). They let Valve have such a market share by being trash companies who couldn't make a store front if their existence depended on it
No matter what happens at the end of the day its the consumers who decide this. You can try to do whatever you want for valve but it will only anger the users. Valve has just recently helped its users with the stupid season passes and DLC. They need to understand that if any developer joins this suit there is a very high chance that they will lose a lot of sales in the future.
it's over 20-year-old meme. dude i finish freaking college 6 years ago and were still on title only no demo no nothing don't let me start on left 4 dead 3 , dota 3 , VR half-life part 3 people love to trash on AAA pushing slops but at least they release the damn thing
Valve is the America of gaming. We do the same thing with the dollar, and it's the reason it's remained the world reserve currency. Everyone complains about it, but no other country is willing to take the economic hit for the benefits it provides.
@@crueltysquadagent5499 They all think itll be the Chinese Currency. Yknow even though Investments in China are decreasing due to Tofu Dreg Construction, Lack of Blue Collar Workers, and a Heightened Tech Focus.
Remember, corporations are not your friends. Even though Valve is a darling amongst PC gamers, they're still a very wealthy company who got that way on the backs of other developers. A reduction in their cut is not going to hurt Valve in any meaningful way, but it WILL help a lot of indie developers break even. Developers literally have no choice but to publish on Steam or face the wrath of Valve stans. Again, corporations do not need you defending them; indie devs and consumers do.
Litterally this. It's crazy to see so many people cheer for a large corporations. They are there for profit. Not for you. They may be one of the 'good' ones now that wine and dine you while fucking you but they're still fucking you. What happens if old gabe dies and the successor says actually I'd rather not do this and they get a gremlin. As much as I like steam as a company it's insane to me that the 30% is still held over game devs from the old brick and mortar days, at least that made some sense as it was a physical store being used to sell their game. Most devs don't release a game that goes viral so can't take steam up on that sliding scale offered by them and one comment acted like it's the devs fault for not being viral or not appealing to a wide enough audience. I'm sorry WHAT? Do you not want more devs in the space creating great games and art that we love? I'd love for them to actually understand how truely precarious of a job being a game dev is. People are so bizarre sometimes, voting against their own interests or cheering on the bulldozer that's in their path.
They get a lot of their money by holding onto devs payments until they meet a certain threshold. What's all that money doing? Sitting in a savings account generating interest for them. Free money by not paying people even though they owe people.
The issue here is that even if that's the case, this is basically a Corpo vs Corpo battle, so why are you siding with the other Corpos? Are you deluded thinking games will become suddenly cheaper of they win? What will happen is that Valve, a company known to be pro consumer will receive less money and the other corpos mostly anti-consumer goons will get more money, prices on Valve will stay the same, but will probably increase everywhere else as Valve might start charging devs for Keys.
Oh I know Valve isn't my friend. But do you know who also isn't my friend? The one who is doing this law suit. And other storefront. Now let me tell you what will happen if Steam keep losing those lawsuit. First, with their profit shaved off, there will be less fund to their R&D to improve the platform. Next, they will cut off features because the cost of running them aren't worth the return because, surprise surprise, their earning aren't worth enough to justify keeping them. And at last, they are going to tighten their belt and strike down all the Steam key selling outside Steam. After all that, do you know who is the ultimate loser in this shitshow? The consumer. Because as you said, companies aren't your friend. They are not going to sacrifice their benefit for you. Steam is only as pro-consumer as they are now because they have the money to afford that. And that come from the 30% cut. Of course the reduction on their cut are not going to hurt Valve in any way, because they are going to hurt *you* instead.
Honestly reading the comment section here makes me sad, as it's so clear this channel has become a hub for fanboyism without critical thought. Ironically this makes me fear for the future of Valve and my games library more, not less, as when a company is defended at every turn and can do no wrong in the eyes of its customers, that's when they will be able to make decisions that will hurt the company in the long run with no pushback.
Valve is in the same WEF Vampire Agenda of "YOU'LL OWN NOTHING and RENT EVERYTHING" as all other Corpos. Later you won't even be able to get the Files downloaded in your PC.
I don't get it... Any game developer can create their own web server and sell their game from there. Frontier does that, and I'm sure, a lot of others.
Valves commission tate is so high because when you sell through valve you get more support than any kther retailer, online or otherwise. Steam servers, workshop support, near instantaneous update pipelines, early access options, multi version branch hosting, all that requires manpower and hardware to run constantly at the scale valve operates on. Everyone who publishes on steam is supporting those features and support for eachother by paying that 30% commission. If they dont like that then they are free to publish on GOG or Epic or host game files on their own independent website.
The question isn't whether Valve is utilizing the money for consumers but if Valve is being anti-competative. Those emails to the devs about price parody are the most concerning. It seems fine if Valve doesn't promote a game sale if there is a better offer elsewhere. But explaining to the devs you don't like their price difference is a bullying tactic when you control things like this.
I agree! It will benefit the consumer if valve loses as they will be able to get the game for less as valve take a much larger cut from profits than any other game launcher. Game devs could then reduce the price on other platforms such as epic and that gives the incentive for valve to take smaller cuts from the developer making it a more competitive environment for game launchers rather than the almost monopoly that valve have over the pc game industry. So in conclusion it will help mostly consumers as game prices will go down. 30% cut is only acceptable if you get a physical copy of a game as it cost money to obviously make the hardware
@stevenlee3661 I'm glad you agree, but I don't. Valve should be called out for this communication, but I worry they will be punished in an unrelated way. Games devs don't care what store their game sells on (some will for ideology), the dev wants to make money and while you'll have some devs willing to drop price from a smaller cut, most will be status quo and pocket the profit (which is fine). But to think the consumer will see lower prices if Valve lowers their cut is laughable. When games are priced cheaper on Epic (consistently, not just sales) then I'll believe you, and that is the only thing I see this lawsuit establishing, Valve can't take action against games that do this (it is already allowed within Valve's own terms)
@@stevenlee3661 Tell me, does every game released on Epic cost at least 18% less than it does on Steam? Epic only takes a 12% cut and yet all those games are just as expensive as they are on Steam. If Valve loses it is just going to make the environment worse from them no longer investing in improving it. They already have everyone's loyalty, they don't need to be out there forcing Devs to be honest about game releases or improving linux gaming, they could just stop doing all of that and just be a store and still rake in the same cash they are already making and pocketing all of it, instead they are actually putting that money back into the environment to improve things that helps devs, help consumers, and yes, helps Valve continue to exist and do what they do. The only thing Valve losing will improve is the amount of money that greedy ass devs get to pocket. If Valve's 30% cut was actually hurting any devs they wouldn't be a Steam. They'd be on Epic, or Itch, or GOG, or the MS Store, or self host. They aren't forced to choose Steam, they do it because being on Steam is worth the cost. The same reason people buy games on Steam, not because it is the cheapest option, but because its the most value for your money, especially when every where else charges the same with no extra value.
@@stevecole90099 "Tell me, does every game released on Epic cost at least 18% less than it does on Steam? Epic only takes a 12% cut and yet all those games are just as expensive as they are on Steam." Isn't the whole point of the case that Valve did not allow Wolfire to lower their price on Epic? The case is about forcing Valve to let them do that.
The argument that "we're a monopoly because everyone who's tried to compete just sucks" didn't work for Microsoft in a dozen similar anti-monopoly lawsuits.
The same Microsoft that's actively buying out as many large publishing companies as they can vs Valve who just runs the most consumer friendly store on the pc gaming market and hasn't actively been forcing these other stores out. Not exactly equivalent there, pal.
"Your honor, competition is welcome. It's not our fault they suck and nobody wants to use them."
"how can we be anticompetition if there isn't any competition"
suffering from success
Oh nooo valve is too comptetitive wont someone please help the anti competitive lower quality launchers?
Imagine declaring you want to fight, but you're too strong and everyone is too scared to fight you.
@@rickrogan2355 Solo Valveling
So every company hates Valve because they show us what quality is when all others only produce shit. So they group together and attack Valve in order to make shit the norm, instead of Valve's quality. Man I hope Valve wins this. We deserve quality !
Valve solely RESCUED the pc-gaming platform two decades ago, and now the guys that were saved are attacking their savior, what a hypocritical situation
Yup. It's known as a crab bucket mentality. You only catch Flak when over the 🎯
If valve loses will benefit the consumer a lot as they will be able to get the game for less as valve take a much larger cut from profits than any other game launcher. Game devs could then reduce the price on other platforms such as epic and that gives the incentive for valve to take smaller cuts from the developer making it a more competitive environment for game launchers rather than the almost monopoly that valve have over the pc game industry. So in conclusion it will help mostly consumers as game prices will go down.
Edit: expense, not benefit.
@@stevenlee3661so what you are saying is, Valve has to help other companies at its expense, and in a measure that is anticompetitive, to the expense of valve for the same reason valve is on trial for?
@@OfficialLoupak I want anti-competative behavior convicted. The emails seem on the edge and I want it looked into no matter the outcome. But most of it seems baseless.
Always remember, it's not a monopoly if the reason something is the standard is because the competition doesn't even try to make a good product
It's because they don't want to compete, they want to be like every cartel monopoly in the US that focuses on fleecing the costumer than actually creating a viable product.
Yep. Unlike google and such, Valve is not pushing trash while sabotaging their trash-producing competence; they just don't participate in the bad practices of most of their competence. Other companies are just pissed Valve won't join their oligopoly, making it an "unfair" competitor.
No, that's still a monopoly. It's just a legal monopoly, because it isn't actively anti-competitive.
And, in the case of Valve, keeps going out of their way to shoot themselves in the foot.
Gabe might be one of the most popular billionaires if you count how many people love him versus how many people hate him. The lovers outnumber the haters by a level you don't see with other billionaires.
He's the only reason Steam is so good because he keeps it privately owned
Grand Wizard Gaben is the Gandalf of our time and place.
@@Taxevader-gk9ms Well you can make your company public, as long as you ensure you keep over 51% of the stock in hand.
But if you don't need investment money, don't go public. Tons of companies think you NEED to go public to make it big.
You don't... You only go public if you need to source money and can't get loans.
I don't hate him, but I am actually siding with Wolfire Games here. The same tactics that Valve uses here to keep prices identical no matter where you buy but have high costs on Steam is not only keeping Steam as the Nr 1 games platform, but also Amazon. And when I criticize Amazon for it but say Steam is fine doing essentially the same, then I would be a hypocrite. I am even on the side of Valve is too big and should be cut into smaller companies, but not before Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix have been split up into smaller companies.
@@Taxevader-gk9ms Yeah, I am fairly scared of what will happen when Gabe will no longer be able to lead the company. He's not getting any younger
Valve is one of the few (very few!) company in this industry that invests FIRST, than gains money and respect from its costumers based on the quality of its investment. Company like this should be taken as model, not being sued!
@@MasterPJ86 No company should get away with bad behavior. If there is a case against Valve then it should be brought against it.
I only see the email being something of interest here.
They should be rewarded for taking a huge cut of of developer income while doing very little to help surface their game? They should be rewarded for giving big publishers discounts while indies pay full price? They should be rewarded for operating a defacto monopoly where Valve defenders attack alternative storefronts with better rates or refuse to buy a game that isn't on steam? Valve has done a lot of things right, but that doesn't mean you should simp for them when they're being anti-consumer and hostile to indies.
@@soviut303 But they are not anti-consumer or hostile to indies. Valve simplifies so much of the process of selling the game and has made indie development viable in modern times. Alternative storefronts suck. I was a PlayStation and PC gamer for a long time. The PS4s user interface was taken over by marketing departments and it was a terrible user experience. Make me scroll through a whole list of ads so i can start the game I have in the blueray drive... no.. no thankyou... i just won't buy games on your platform or buy a PS5. Compare that to the steamdeck where i turn it on and can just start my game. Then you look at all the other game stores and they just haven't even bothered to try. No where near feature parody with steam. Instead of putting money into building a competitive platform epic decided gamers were dumb and could just be bought with free games and paid game developers for game exclusivity. Epic came right out of the gate treating the consumer badly and I am supposed to be happy when Epic and others are using lawsuits like this to try to destroy the one platform that doesn't treat me like crap?
@soviut303 I don't think they should do anything anti-consumer. Can you give examples, the items presented aren't focused on the consumer.
@@soviut303 Why don't they attack every single other store that cut 30% like google and apple then ?? while i agree with some of your takes attacking steam solely because of 30% cut while ignoring the rest is hypocritical. As of now, Steam is clearly the better options than other stores (Aside from GOG which i rarely seen someone attacking them).
This isn't about Valve being unfair.
This is all about Valve being pushed to comply. Every other tech company has... *ahem* 'adopted' certain ideologies that Valve has more or less ignored, and because it's a privately owned company they can't exhibit investor pressure on Mr. Newell to fall in line. This is a problem for them, because Valve will continue to allow the sale of certain games that they don't want sold, and the payment processors KNOW that if they try to cut Valve off like they are currently wanting to do with the entire nation of Japan, there WILL be a massive backlash from the Valve userbase, which is significant.
The plaintiffs are simply a front. Valve's competitors are a scapegoat. There's some political strings being pulled here. When it comes to which companies I'd rather do business with Valve is one of the few who I still somewhat trust isn't going to go out of its way to screw me over. They're not perfect, and they're not even my first choice of storefront, but they haven't shafted me... yet.
That could change in the future, and a lot depending on how much these lawsuits proceed. If Valve starts to lose these suits it will only encourage other rats in the pack to attack. It is better for the consumer that Valve wins. They're after Valve's market dominance, sure, but that market dominance was achieved and maintained by having a generally positive consumer experience. There is literally NO REASON to use any other storefront over Steam from a consumer standpoint with the sole exception of GoG's 'No DRM' policy. Otherwise Valve has an instant framework for community, guides, questions, feedback, and any other aspect that a fan could want right at their fingertips.
Don't be fooled. These lawsuits have nothing to do with 'helping the consumer'. If they win, it will only hurt the consumer at the end.
Valves competitors also are not blocked from making their own storefront on PC and charge about the same (except epic which takes a loss on the whole thing)
you can't point this out!
GOG is also good at both patching games to run on more modern hardware and (as a direct consequence of that 'No DRM' policy) ensuring customers can use the patched games.
(This is separately under attack right now; as I understand the basic argument is that allowing consumers access to entertainment that isn't current strangles the marketplace. I'm inclined to be opposed to it on the grounds that we've lost enough of our cultural history to accident and nobody even attempting to preserve it (such as the earliest decades of television); if people can't successfully market a product which money is actually being currently poured into it's not the fault of the consumer but unreasonable expectations by investors.)
Ngl, didnt think of this before, but this does make sense.
Also, can you explain about the japan thing please? Or point me to an article?
@@CentreMetre Visa/Mastercard is deciding which companies can receive payment in Japan, essentially bankrupting them over trying to force behaviour.
From a dev standpoint that is disgraceful that any developer would be behind that. If I put my game on gog or epic I don't receive the same benefits on those platforms as I do on steam, yet they bitch about a 30% cut when they are providing a plethora of features that doesn't come free. This all reminds me of how a child's thought process is regarding how money works.
IMO Valve should allow devs to choose how much of a cut they take, but the lower the cut the less features the game has access to. It becomes less "steam takes too much" to "pay to use steam's features."
@@DrRussianbut then they would complain that this system is anti-indie games, as it is better for the people that have a lot of money to spend.
@@DrRussian
But then the people who get screwed over are the customers when the game has no forums, workshop etc.
@@gustavofoxy1 It's an equal percentage regardless of what they choose so it balances out. Indie games usually have less sales and profit, but also less overhead.
@@Neonagi Indie games are the only ones that pay 30%. AAA usually qualify for the 20% cut, or even have special sweetheart deals.
Idk why they are crying over 30% now. I remember when we first started switching from disk/cart to digital and devs were all kinds of circle jerking over how insanely good 30% was vs physical retail.
Greed...
AAA industry had already reached end-game stage. Graphics and gameplay do not improve at all since it seemingly already peaked and can only be presented in different variations as there is no limit on concrete examples. When you play an incremental/idle game long enough to 100% clear it, all that there is left is to gain as much of the most prestigious currency as possible. Heck, idle game genre was started by accident as a satire to brainless button mashing in game design and giving up WILLINGLY personal information. One can only wander if political agenda is a matter of running out of good and unusual stories, too. Sometimes people are desperate of making their product popular by being outrageous and not just unorthodox.
Yeah valve also does remote play. Good Service you can do everything in steam
Doom was sold entirely online in 1993. They did not have to pay a cut to anyone. This whole false history is a myth spread by Valve's marketing department.
@@AlexFairmont Nobody is stopping developers from selling their game with its own separate launcher like games in older times.
i think we need to make a list of publishers who join this lawsuit and boycott them and make it clear with emails thats what is happening
Absolutely agree
yeah
"We tried making competitors to Steam and it was hard! So just make them worse instead of us having to make ours better."
True, hopefully valve wins or gaming is going to be a whole lot worse.
Honestly, I'll be selfish here. I'd rather Valve wins cuz there's no benefits to consumers whatsoever if Wolffire wins. It's not like any savings generated will pass on to the consumer (They get more money and prices remain the same or, hell, get even higher)
Wolffire is just mad they are running out of cash for their scam game that will never finish. Instead of doing the work they rather waste even more money on a frivolous lawsuit.
It will benefit the consumer as they will be able to get the game for less as valve take a much larger cut from profits than any other game launcher. Game devs could then reduce the price on other platforms such as epic and that gives the incentive for valve to take smaller cuts from the developer making it a more competitive environment for game launchers rather than the almost monopoly that valve have over the pc game industry. So in conclusion it will help mostly consumers as game prices will go down
@@stevenlee3661No they won't. We've already gone through this multiple times (You want examples? Take a look at what most companies did way back pandemic. They got a tax cut from the government AND increased prices and this will just go the same way)
@@user-jr6fw4qw7s so just a win for the game developer then never mind. Better to have a bigger win for the game developers than valve though providing the game developers keep the prices the same as I cannot think of a reason for them to increase the price if valve let them have more of the profits.
ur not being selfish here. everyone's on your side on that one. Valve has not done ANYTHING wrong.
So in short > Developer: "makes a garbage game" > Also developers: "refuse to allow any refunds on their garbage game and be anti-consumer"
Steam: "ya no you can't do that, I am going to give customers refunds" > Developers: "Wait no you can't do that, that's anti-consumer!" > "files class action lawsuit"
🤦 How TF is this allowed to make it into court, epic must have pulled some connections or something.
Oh man, everyone is having dementia when it's convinient. I guess it doesn't matter that refunds are allowed if game is played less than 2 hours.
Im pretty sure every dev knows the 2 hour policy.
@@rico-fs1cr that's what valve says, but some game devs refuse to do comply with this
Valve used to be against it, i don't remember if it was the EU or some other similar influences that made them add it. @@rico-fs1cr
@@rico-fs1crthat wasn't placed by the game devs that was a policy put in place by valve , but some dev's do not want to comply with refunds at all which is the problem and valve isn't having it
Yeah, Valve takes 30%, but only on games bought *through* *steam* *itself.* You can sell Steam keys pretty much anywhere else you want, and they take 0% of any of those sales even though they honor those keys and eat the bandwidth costs themselves. 0% and they still handle all of the downloads and updates at no cost to the seller. You're just not allowed to charge less elsewhere for a Steam key. If you sell somewhere else like Epic or GOG and no Steam key is involved, you can sell the game for whatever you want there. Developers are literally winning 2x over here, and they're still complaining.
Thats how i read it as well, though the issue is the email that came out which is really bad for them
Wolfire never even sold Steam keys -- they sold DRM-free downloads directly. The issue isn’t about Steam keys at all; it’s that Valve allegedly prevented them from pricing those DRM-free versions lower than the Steam version. This restriction impacts not just Steam keys but also pricing across the entire PC gaming market, which is a much broader concern.
@@AlexFairmont But they don't do that. They only set limits on how low you can price Steam keys. If there's no Steam key attached, then Valve doesn't care.
@@DC-FGC In their initial statement when filing the case, Wolfire explained they were acting because Valve had threatened to delist their game if it was sold for a lower price on the Epic Games Store or even as a DRM-free version on their own website. Wolfire has since testified to this under oath and successfully compelled Valve to disclose emails showing they enforced similar actions against numerous other developers. The judge specifically cites this fact in his decision to certify the class action.
@@AlexFairmont Well, crap. They're not supposed to do that. It goes against their own TOS.
They take a larger cut, but also give back. The other platforms don't give us any benefits whatsoever: No group chats, no in-game recording, no hardware (Steam Deck, Valve Index, etc.), no community forums, no mod pages, no custom libraries, etc. Like, the difference between Steam and other store-fronts is so vast, you could write an entire book on it. We can clearly see where that 30% cut has gone into. Meanwhile, other companies like Ubisoft, EA, Rockstar, etc. have their own store-fronts to get 100% of the profits, but they're just launchers, they're not platforms like Steam is. It's not even an argument that Valve has contributed more to gaming than any other store-front owner in the history of gaming. They started the wave of handheld products from big companies, bringing gaming to much more people in an accessible and portable form-factor. Like what else do you want? Do they do this for their own benefit? Of course, they do. But the point is that they also benefit us. How many other companies out there make decisions that simultaneously benefits us and them? Not many, at all. I am totally fine with having competition in the store-front side of things, but come on... the other companies are not even trying... It's been years since the Epic Games Launcher came out, it's still just a store-front...
P.S. Having said, of course, they shouldn't be able to control the pricing of games on other platforms (if they are). But also, there's no reason for them to lower their cut. It's fair to everyone because of what they offer back to the whole community, specially consumers.
Steam offers a lot, but some of the other stores do offer things steam doesn't (but should). GOG offers offline installers. Ubisoft's achivements lets you unlock content with achievement points, giving you actual rewards for playing instead of useless trading cards. I bring this up to say that there are some stores trying, but are not being given a chance.
@@noboty4168 GOG does more than just offline installers. Steam sells tons of older games with _zero_ regard for how they work on modern operating systems. Oh, you bought a game and it doesn't work? Too bad, go dig through forums to find a solution. GOG will actually package in community mods and other fixes for old games.
@@noboty4168 they only thing you pointed out was GoGs offline installers which is great.
The achievement thing is not steam. That's a Dev issue and their own offer. Why would steam offer you rewards for a game that's not theirs? That's the Devs decision to have achievement based awards that any of them can do.
Your tying things to steam that are just flat out Not up to steam to make.
This is as stupid as the argument of Steam delisting games. They have too. Steam doesn't own the game just like You don't. Steam is legally obligated to remove games if the developers orders it because steam is a store and valve is not the publisher
On the other note while steam can also offer offline installers it is Also up to the developer to put it in as well. Valve cannot offer things in place of the developer,
Gog does it because that's literally a condition in order to sell on their store, flat out you Must make your game available offline. While Valve doesn't say that and leave it as an option for the developer to make. Most don't of course
@@noboty4168 >giving you actual rewards for playing instead of useless trading cards.
thats literally the Dev's choice not Valve its an option for Developer's/ publisher to add trading cards rewards.
>Ubisoft's achivements lets you unlock content with achievement points,
you mean those useless points that literally unlocks basically nothing burgers? free cosmetics yey at most and most of them are just ugly or just basic recolours.
And you have to pay to play online but not on Steam. Valve is one of the only pro consumer companies in the world and other companies hate that.
I remember getting an ad asking if I'd like to jokn a lawsuit to sue valve for exploiting gaming addiction lmao.
i bet you run an illegal scam on steam for sure.
@@godkekliveshere431???
@@danthebee27 welp valve shill confirmed.
@danthebee27 yeah man, I've got no idea what that guy is going on about lol
@@godkekliveshere431 Did you even watch the video 😭
So if I make a shitty 4 wheel vehicle with a lawn mower motor and a mattress and it doesn't sell for 20k, I can sue Nissan for anti-conpetitive behavior and monopoly because their product sells much better? Good to know!
can you say it again
when TF2 didn't get any updates for over 7 years
yet even overwatch has batter updates then TF2.
@@chaosmachines934 Are Valve obligated to continuously support a game that came out in 2007?
@@darylatkinson4192 but what happened with steam having the best customer support ever.
TF2 has a bot problem for over 7 years..
@@chaosmachines934 It's TF2, no one cares.
@@SnoOwTrX_ well it doesn't matter when you claim that steam has the best customer support.
you can't freaking tell me that steam is the best
when there is plenty of red flags who prove people like you wrong.
7 years of bot problem on their own IP
that's embarrassing
and the fact that vavle shills claims that steam has the best customer support, yet steam ignores a problem for over 7 years.
at this point i can totally believe that the ppl who create those bots in TF2 are working for vavle and there the real reason that players pretend that this is still played game.
it's sad that fortnite has a batter customer support and no bot problems
You best bet Sweeney is padding the wallets of those dev lawyers.
Sweeney is jealous that his storefront doesn't attract the people who want a game-platform... epic is only in it for the money, they don't care at all for the gamers, the ones who give them money... Epic is just another EA, only profit matters, and jealous about valve which is doing the right thing for the gamer.
Tim is definitely stroking it to this lawsuit
@@Dipper1459but instead of using tissue, he’s using 100$ bills
Sweeney & Epic Games are toxic and I've always boycotted them.
The senator who brought up the ADL report is coincidentally affiliated with Epic Games. Huh...
If this doesn't get thrown out, the average IQ in the legal realm could not even melt water.
I think its the opposite, they are so rotten. They're willing to process any stupid lawsuit, as long they get paid.
The closing "Thank you" at the end of your talk sounded like you was talking in a court, presenting all the evidence. lol
🤣
I don't care if Valve is basically a monopoly on the digital gaming storefront market; literally all (i.e., most, GOG probably isn't) of its competitors are toxic garbage, unlike Valve who puts their consumers first. What do the other gaming corporations do? They put their profits first, and their consumers are very often LAST on their priority list
GOG isn't, they charge the same thing though for their store and do their own thing
@@shadowlordalpha well that is one exception I suppose. I don't use GOG so I wouldn't really know anything about it
@SpringySpring04 Start using it then. Nowadays most games end up in there too, baring titles from Atlus and a few other AAA publishers. Once you know that you own what you buy and are not reliant on Valve's server things take a whole other meaning.
@@Rogério_Martins I've seen a video some time ago of a thing Valve has done that's actually really good. So TL;DR they have a side server with all the games from Steam, so if Steam eventually goes away they will launch a last patch so you can continue to play your games even, if Steam stops existing.
@TheTuriam That topic was never openly admitted by Valve but by Gave in passing. What will happen when he is gone many years from now, that's the question.
Not to mention that talk is all well and good for titles that only have SteamAPI as any sort of DRM, but what about third-party DRM, Valve can't enforce that practice on those cases if the publishers aren't willing to cooperate.
As Steam indie dev I'll gladly pay 30% to Steam and they can keep their Direct fee if they want, because simply put value steam services bring is totally worth it no other marketplace has fairness and quality and if someone doesn't like it i would like them to thy making their own.
If Valve didn’t exist, maybe I wouldn’t love gaming anymore.
Same here. I would have probably quit years ago...
@@thedutchfisherman7078 Exactly
I am boycotting Valve for about half a year now, and let me tell you there is a lot of enjoyment to be had with old games from the 90s and early 2000s. There's a reason these companies are trying to destroy emulation and old games in general.
@@seeibe Since when is Valve destroying emulation??? 🤔🤔
They’re even allowing it on their Steam Deck. Nintendo is the bully here with their emulator take downs and lawsuits not Valve! 🙄🙄
Imagine trying to use origin as your main gaming store...
I would legitimately be a console gamer if that was a case. XD
I have hundreds of games on Steam, I bought them all on sale 75%-95% off. If I had to pay full price for a game, I would quit gaming. The prices of "games" these days is insane, they aren't even fun and almost everyone cheats.
I might be wrong here, but I see that fight for the 30% cut as some greedy bullshit from companies. If that 30% goes away, they won't drop their prices and that will just increase their cursed profits, they also do nothing worthwhile with that money like investing on a better product or service.
If anything, those percent cuts are usually paid by us, the costumer, and it's not like they give us something back for that extra fee most of the time. At least Valve gives us something meaningful, and while their service is not perfect, it's very good and an example to follow.
Wolfire is not asking for the 30% to be lowered. They are only asking to be allowed to drop their prices on non-Steam-key stores that take a lower cut and for DRM-free direct sales.
@@AlexFairmont This was updated already so if they are not using steam key they can charge whatever they want. Some emails from valve claim the opposite though which is what got them in hot water
@@shadowlordalpha I don’t recall ever seeing an announcement reversing their previous policy. What I did notice were some quiet tweaks to their website, which seemed more like an attempt to cover their tracks than a clear policy reversal.
@@AlexFairmontI hope wolfire sees this bro
@@AlexFairmont For one of those emails I get the meaning behind it "Dont charge our Users then give it for free the next week on another platform" that just means people who bought the steam version would feel robbed. Great example being Payday 2 swapping to Epic Servers. Everyone Hated it. and it ran like dogshit.
At 5:59, just reading the highlighted part is disingenuous, if one reads the whole thing one would realize that
1. This has nothing to do with price parity, Valve is saying they would probably not run a discount on a game, nothing to do with forcing the dev to change the price elsewhere
2. Valve is trying not to piss off the consumer in this statement, if you read the other statements, Steam is just saying they won't promote the game if the Steam discount is significantly worse than what the dev is giving elsewhere, so it's on the dev if they want the promotion or not by adjusting prices, Steam is in no obligation to promote any game they are not forcing the dev to change prices, but they are in their right to deny promotion if they feel they are not getting a good deal themselves, which is understandable.
Even the last one, if you read carefully, Steam is declining to provide Keys, not declining to sell the game on Steam or preventing the Dev from selling it elsewhere, which is Parity for KEYS not for the game itself.
I don't like most companies but Valve seem genuinely awesome in a lot of ways. They build out Linux support keeping computers open for the public, handle game saves, updates, and sales in a pretty fair way. While I agree forcing everyone to sell things at no lower a price than their price on steam seems a little monopolistic in some ways, it also seems pro consumer by leveling the playing filed. People will often knowingly go for a crappier more malicious form of a product if its cheaper. Ideally the government would defend consumer rights better, but they got gimped by pro deregulation tards, so Valve seems like our only path to salvation now. Idk, Valve seems like the entity we should be championing, not fighting, as the gaming community.
If you think about it from the perspective of traditional retail, Valve is effectively forcing developers to sell to them at a lower wholesale price than any other store. That’s not leveling the playing field-that’s tipping it heavily in their favor.
@@AlexFairmont what? They are saying dont screw their user base and then undercut them on another platform. Imagine you paid for a $25 game on steam and its $10 on another platform. You'd be pissed. With Valve enforcing that it means the price remains the same on both platforms IF its through steam. If you sell it via steamkeys Valve doesnt care because it doesnt come with the Steam Features besides Servers.
@@damiangaming5696 Personally, I’d prefer the choice between paying full price for a Steam version or a lower price for an Epic or DRM-free version. That’s exactly what Wolfire says Valve prevented them from offering. Why would anyone be upset about having more options? It has nothing to do with Steam keys.
@@AlexFairmont Frankly thats just encouraging people to leave steam because "The prices elsewhere are lower" also your idea would just cause them to undercut eachother on prices to force exclusives.
That's the thing, they aren't forcing you to sell lower on steam, just that if you're selling lower elsewhere we won't promote... It's like the rule that if you buy a game, and less than two hours later it goes on sale, they refund you the difference (personal experience). They don't want the buyer to pay more just because...
All of this while Wolfire STILL sells their games on Steam.
all of this while Wolfire STILL won't finish a single game
Because like they actually have a choice. If I publish an indie game on epic then no one will buy it but people will buy it if its on steam as steam is partly anti-competitive and basically have a monopoly over the pc game industry being able to take really high cuts from game developers without any consequences due to peoples loyalty to steam forgetting that they are a company and not there friend
@@stevenlee3661dude you are everywhere on the chat, shill much?
@@hodumx he's an epic games shill, so yes he's in every thread copy and pasting the same comment
@@stevenlee3661Bro is a it's not Valve's fault that their competitors are so garbage, they should make their platforms much better than whine like you if they want to attract more.
The cuts are justified with the amount of Tools, Help and traction you get from publishing it on steam.
I would love Valve to do the opposite regarding the profit percent cut. They should should increase it as profits go up instead of decreasing it. That would help indie devs out a ton and benefit Valve. But big AAA studios would certainly get mad.
People often get the impression that making indie games is very lucrative, it used to be before, not really today. The games that people see as successful are really the top 0.1% of indie devs. Also, the term indie is also stretched a lot. I’d say if you have enough money to support a large team to work on a game, it might be carrying the indie dev spirit, but it’s not really an indie dev title at this point (at least by the old definition of it)
Indie means independent. If your studio isn't owned by any larger company, you're indie. It doesn't mean a small development team.
My idea was they lower it based on the Steam Deck rating. Not a lot but still lowered. So unsupported or unknown would be the default, playable and verified would be lower. Verified might be even lower.
@@ForOne814 It depends who you ask, if you go with the wikipedia definition of an indie game, that would be: is a video game created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games.
But if you go with the definition of indie game developpers, then: video game developers who are not owned by nor do they receive significant financial backing from a video game publisher. Independent developers, which can be single individuals, small groups, or large organizations, retain operational control over their organizations and processes. Some self-publish their own games while others work with publishers.
Both definitions contradict each other, and I’ve seen a lot of people have different definitions too online. But yeah I do agree kinda with you, it’s just it feels like the term is used on many studios. Like Helldivers 2 for example, the game is great, but I’ve seen so many people call it an indie game despite being funded by Sony and we’ve seen clear evidence that they can add their own things to the game when they want to, like the PSN region block situation
@@Butterscotch_96 that would be a cool idea and incentive for all developpers to support the steam deck
@@drekex6767 that's because those people are not very smart, as Helldivers is not an indie game according to any possible definition. But something like Escape from Tarkov is an indie, despite the budget and the size of the game and the studio.
If Valve looses it will set up a precedence that providing good service is actually breaching anti competitive law. This must not happen.
you have no idea what you are talking about.
@@chaosmachines934 Maybe you are right. I mean you are expert on not knowing what you are talking about. But I didnt ask for your expert opinion, go away.
@@jaxirraywhisper741 yeah i will not take finance advice from children who love to waist money on stuff they don't own..
@@chaosmachines934 says the person wasting money on things he doesnt own
@@phiality9070 are you projecting
i use ichio for most of my stuff and fab.
Imagine if Valve sends Michael Shapiro (gman voice actor) in a blue suit with suitcase to the court to represent them. As a developer in the lawsuit I'd be shitting my self for gman not to snap me out of existence and my game off steam :D
Nice avatar.
It's time to choose... It's time to choose.
It'd be cool, but that'd not sit well with the judge since it might be interpreted as mockery
@@jagd_official Plus, Michael Shapiro is an actor, not a lawyer, so he'd need a script written for him by a lawyer.
@@dogman15 that wouldn't work since a lawyer's job is reactionary. Reality is often disappointing, isn't it
if Valve got shut down or messed up so bad that I couldn't use steam anymore I'd start sailing the high seas because the other platforms to buy games on PC suck
GOG is alright ive heard. Id probably move there.
If Valve is dead then I'm back to pirating games,
I can still download delisted games that I have purchased on ,Steam
I'm not spending games that are over hundreds in my country money for a *DIGITAL* game with online DRM.
I've been saying this shit for years now and the brainlets who defend Epic and the "industry" in general still don't get it: Valve's 30% tax is the sole reason I can play on Linux, because they invest in it and all the others don't. Simple as that.
If the others want to be considered "competition", the VERY LEAST they have to do is provide NATIVE support for Linux, otherwise all of their complaints are automatically bogus by concept.
Valve will win this, I'm pretty sure. Unless a "fraud" happens, like it did back in 2020 and 2022 respectively in both Americas. Which means the only way they can lose this is if the other side straight cheats (like they always do).
Tim Sweeney has made it painfully obvious that he has zero interest in competing. He once talked about "displacing" Steam and his actions prove he wants a monopoly. He's put zero money into making the Fortnight launcher comparable with Steam in favor of squandering it on giveaways and timed exclusivity deals. EGS is also the storefront welcoming NFT games.
@@Mirthful_Midori Let's not forget he spent 3 years to implement a shopping cart. Out of spite. That and being a con man/tax evader with the whole Apple v. Epic lawsuit. The man reeks of evil.
@@supremesonicbrazil His lawsuits against Apple and Google started because he wanted them to host Fortnight for free. Anything else he said was just an excuse to make him look better.
A 30% royalty is fair given all Valve does for game publishers on Steam. Book publishers often take a larger cut than that and even selling Kindle books on Amazon means they take a 30% cut only if you price a certain way...otherwise they take more.
Tinfoil hat time: What if Valve is funding the suit to establish facts and to settle the law by jury as a way of showing their own fairness to the court? Could also be a ploy to get Tim Sweeney to shut up about industry splits if successful.
that's too much effort for valve not because they are "lazy" it just that tim sweeney isn't that much of a threat and also they could get more harm done if exposed.
@@marwan7614 you know not the pettiness of an engineer and their willingness to make a point to their opposition
@@SeaYogurt15 Hey buddy, look, engineers solve practical problems, they don't create impractical ones
Gotta love how everyone has cheered on similar legal battles against other companies, but yet the people are in favor of the company on this one. Almost like actually treating your customers as the priority puts them on your side
Happy customers is great for PR it seems.
So not sucking is "competing unfairly", ok...
All this legal stuff goes right over my head (as most things do), but you make it easy to understand. Thanks buddy!
other companies try and make a higer quality store challenge (impossible)
With how loyal those valve drones are, any attempt to try to put up a competitor is going to fail. That is the biggest problem of the current PC market and that is Valve has been sitting very comfortable in that monopoly position for to long that there is almost 0 chance to redeem a slice of that market. Same goes for instance with social platforms like Facebook.
So even if better platforms come around they will not get the traffic they need to make a profit.
@@TheYdyp yeah its freaking sad that valve is the Disney of the video game market.
i also start to develop this wired conspiracy that EDI always goes against valve competition
but never steam or valve how sus hu.
how come sweet baby ink targets companies like epic , ubisoft , EG and so on
but never steam or valve
@TheYdyp no better platform will come out anytime soon, i can say that much.
heck, i tried the epic games store because free games, shit looked like a bare bones UI, so poorly optimized that i couldn't even download my free games.
i'll stick to my built in VC, mods, tutorial, compat layers support. thank you
@@rami-succar7356 spoken like your typical valve shill.
epic are not perfect but at least they give regular updates to there own IP.
valve ditch his own CSGO , DOTA2 and TF2
steam own UI didn't get any real updates since 2013.
csgo - has a illegal gamboling scam problem
TF2 - its a 12 year old game who has a bot problem
dota2- screws over artist who work in the steam chines workshop.
how is steam more consumer friendly again..
@@rami-succar7356 spoken like you typical valve shill.
Very interesting to see what firms are repping the parties in this case. Some heavy hitters on the plaintiff side.
I thought it was common knowledge that valve enforced price parity. I’ve never seen GOG sell their games for cheaper than Steam.
@Fetchdafish I could see an argument that the enforcement of price parity is like "we'll match or beat a price you find anywhere else"
But I can also see that as anti-competative if you're the dominant provider.
Update: and it falls apart if you still do a 30% cut.
Price parity for, and this is the important part, *Steam keys* being sold elsewhere. They don't enforce price parity between, for instance the same game sold on Steam vs. GOG vs. Epic, etc. That's just the video game industry, and anyone deluding themselves into thinking a lower cut going to Valve would result in developers/publishers lowering game prices to consumers is...well, delusional. If that were going to happen at all, digital game prices would have already been lower than physical game prices.
BUT if you as a developer/publisher, want to sell your game on Steam but go through a 3rd party storefront like Green Man Gaming, Humble Bundle, etc. where you are exporting Steam keys to sell on those other stores that may or may not have a lower cut, that is where Valve says you can't sell that key for less on another store than you have it on Steam for. And that is completely reasonable since Valve gets 0% of that cut.
@@8BitCerberus Wouldn't Humble Bundle be proof against price parity. They come with Steam Keys and your getting a bundle of games for way less usually than even one of those games cost on Steam, and no one better say because of charity, last time I bought a bundle, Humble had removed the option to choose where my money went and I believe it had numbers like 90% going to Dev, 7% to Humble, and 3% to charity. Also, Epic already proves that devs aren't charging less when they have lower cuts to pay, games cost the same from both Steam and Epic but Steam takes a 30% cut vs Epic's 12%.
@@stevecole90099 the bundles are technically a charity event, so they're technically not selling the games. You're donating to charity and getting some games in return for your donation. It's thin justification, but it's technically correct.
Where the price party for the Steam keys happens is on Humble's store itself, though.
Humble is an interesting one, too, because they also resell keys for GOG and Epic (and a few others too, including Nintendo) and whenever a game is available on Steam AND GOG AND Epic, etc. when you go to buy that game from Humble, you're asked to specify which store you want to purchase the key for. You can't just buy it once on Humble and then unlock it on every store it's available on, for example.
@8BitCerberus there terms state price parody for steam keys, but those emails to developers could be problematic. I think that should be investigated.
If I get picked for jury duty I'm gonna say they're innocent.
valve giving special profit share benefits to big publishers instead of the indies that actually need it always felt like a pretty sad move.
and before valve released steam there where how many indie devs making money??? It's thanks to steam that indies are where they are now, but yes, greed creates jealousy...
@@BoGy1980 True but they still could be more flexible with them
@@BoGy1980 bigs facts I ever heard, 99% of the indie games in my 300+ game catalog on steam only made it to my library due to steam marketing the games on front page/recommending them.
@@BoGy1980 True. The visibility and free advertising valve provides through recommendations and such helps indies a lot.
Was it only to publishers? I thought it was just based on number of copies sold.
THANK YOU!
I haven't heard ANYONE covering this story in detail... EXCEPT YOU!
So thank you bruvah!
But Steam doesn't have content parity with other stores.
GOG has plenty of games that are updated and works there but not on Steam, Alpha Protocol for an example has a remaster exclusive to GOG.
And l do agree with Cary as just like him most of my Steam keys are bought outside of Steam for far cheaper then I would have gotten them using Steam.
The trade off was always the lack or more difficult refund process.
I just feel like what is being said and what I have personally experienced and seen vary widely.
not to mention that steam keys acquired outside of the Steam store doesn't count towards the game collector badges.
Also, GOG's 30 day refund policy makes me so much more willing to buy games from them than Steam, it pains me how few indie devs release their games on GOG.
@@ArtificialDjDAGX I mean, as a dev, why would I release games on a platform that provides 30 day refund policy? For the dev, it sucks.
@@ForOne814 i'm sure they have some playtime limits, they're not going to refund someone who has put 200 hours into the game in 29 days
their refund policy allows them to refuse even within the first 30 days if the request seems to be done in bad faith
@@ForOne814 If you're confident in your product, the refund policy shouldn't worry you.
Here's the important question though, would you even buy the game on those other stores if what was being sold to you wasn't a Steam key, but was instead a download service hosted by them? There are a few good stores, like GOG, where they offer a special service that isn't available on Steam and provide a compelling reason to buy, but I would bet that the majority of those stores where you get games cheaper wouldn't earn your purchase if you were buying their service and not Steam.
I would like to know who the plaintiffs are so I can avoid buying anything from them.
I hope Valve win it. this specific case does very little for the end consumer. I'd rather valve just continue on with what it is doing, Its store is great, the steamdeck kicked off an new race in the practically dead, handheld pc market and their work on steamOS/proton, is so interesting, it may finally give me an alternative to using windows for everything.
So, who is getting added to the "avoid with a 100ft barge pole" list?
Thanks for covering this! Valve has made the ease of PC gaming what it is today. The other big 3 make you pay for services that Valve gives its customers for free. Sounds like the lawsuit is from butt hurt. I'm on team Valve. 😀
I hope Gabe is doing okay, he’s a bit older and shouldn’t be stressed out. We need him around as long as possible, steam is already perfect.
I see it as malicious lawfare attacks to Valve, they should focus on making games people want to play and support instead of this sh*t
the context at 5:55 could be used by steam as in "we don't support such anti-consumer actions to scam out our customers by offering visibility to a game that can be purchased for free"
Only thing I care about is their ability to delete games I have paid for from my PC.
Hi, my account owns over 7 games which have been pulled off steam over various reasons. Over a decade later these games are still on my account and downloadable. I wouldn’t fret
this has literally never happened in the history of steam.
Anytime I hear "Humidifier", I am reminded of "South Korean humidifier disinfectant case".
For those who won't look any further: just make sure you clean your humidifiers properly. No shortcuts.
Nice to see a video this early
Good coverage, keep it up.
If valve loses I'm tracking down them devs
You'll still have Steam, but other stores will have a better fighting chance of getting your attention. Indies often complain how they'd like to sell for cheap on itchio, but selling on Steam would ruin their ability to join in with Itch's many great bundles for charity. This is clearly a bad thing that they are doing. You can be a fan of Valve, and still criticise them when they're wrong.
@@PomuLeafEverydayidk how it stops them if I saw many games sell for less... Also they can just lower temporary price on steam when they are selling for charity.
@@PomuLeafEverydaythis is called free market , you are free to not sell your game on steam at all , just don't complain when your numbers are not too high ...
@@zbigniew2628 Why should they need Valve's permission? Publix can't stop Walmart from selling the exact same cheese for cheaper, so why can Steam dictate prices like that?
@@PomuLeafEverydayif valve goes negative, we riot. Lol
Tell the community your greedy without telling the community your greed
Why doesn't Valve get their cut through Steam Keys instead?
@@s.gilbertdyer8683 It is what they decided. They appear to have made this decision because if you are using steam keys you are not utilizing their marketing. It is an interesting choice since they are distributing the game too.
I don't know maybe only developers are able creating steam keys?
@@zperdekI’m pretty sure the way devs make keys is through a third party program. Pretty sure Thor from pirate software made a video about it.
@@danthebee27 Devs can use Steam to make keys. They also don't take a cut from Steam keys because people can sell/give away unlimited keys. So any keys sold elsewhere (like Humble) Steam takes no cut of, just stuff sold IN Steam.
@@danthebee27 Thor uses a third-party service to _distribute_ keys for things like previews, but I'm pretty sure he himself is the one that requests and generates the Steam keys that the service uses, and he simply provides the keys to the service.
The reason for that is being able to avoid all the direct work of coordinating and distributing the keys to potentially hundreds of people, plus being able to avoid the work of tracking down those keys if they get somewhere unwanted.
The example he gave was someone selling one of his preview keys, that he only gave out through that distributor, on something like G2A. The distributor went and got that key, found out whose key it was, banned them, and told Thor which key it was so he could deactivate it. There's a lot of work needed to do all that, that Thor got to avoid doing himself by having the third-party company do it for him.
Wonder why everyone ignores the fact that the 30% commission rate is lower than the 35% average markup of groceries. Pretty sure I read that stores like Walmart pay only 60% to 70% of a games price that they then sell for full price.
In the end what matters is this;:
Steam is most consumer friendly platform period!!
if you claim
not having a refunds police till 2015 consumer friendly, running an illegal gamboling like SCGO and you cant use you prize money you collected from CSGO skins out side of steam.
taxing game devs 30% + the 100 up front payments, using a subscription licence on games you don't even own but rant,+ valve is holding you account hostage anyway.
paying for a Netro rip off or even paying to level up you account.
abusing artist to get paid only 12% for there hard works on doing skins and other stuff like in Dota 2 while valve takes all the money from there works.
how long till half-life3 so far
most consumer friendly platform period!! then you my friend must be a crypto scammer at this point.
how is valve the guy again.
if valve can put an a registration fee to sing in into steam they will do it
the tone deaf on comments like this always blows my mind
Amazing, people say you are wrong but give no other option and list evidence like those same points aren't true for literally every single PC market. How many other marketplaces are out there forcing Devs to be honest about DLC, forcing them to refund if they fail to deliver on their promises? How many other marketplaces are out there improving linux gaming so you don't have to pay $140 for Windows or $2000 for a Macbook? How many other marketplaces are out their releasing budget friendly hardware forcing the industry to follow suit? How many companies sold Steamdeck like devices before Valve and at what price point? How many sell them now and for around the same price as a decent laptop?
Valve is being targeted because all other companies look horrible by comparison and they'd rather throw money to lawyers to hurt Valve then to spend money on improving their own platform.
@@godkekliveshere431wow your aren’t very smart. First of all a lot of CSGO Gambling was done through 3rd party websites which valve has taken measures to fight against. And even the with the official cases while I agree they aren’t the best way to obtain skin but they can allow people to buy cheap skins on the market place. And with child gambling parents should be able to stop kids from doing it. Obviously they can’t always be there but the kids have to get money some way for it. Also the 30% cut is a standard and with that amount devs can get their games published on the front page through up and coming, steam provides tools to help market and they run their own servers. Also a pro consumer thing valve has done is be transparent about DRM and kernel level anti cheat. (Also steam isn’t a DRM it’s self, there is a steam DRM but it’s weak and can be bypassed easily). Valve has been really huge in Linux support with proton and has allowed forks such as northstar proton and Proton GE. while valve isn’t perfect (nothing is) we should be happy they are on the top of PC Gaming and not some shitty company like epic who is far more anti-consumer than valve. And how not releasing games frequently anti consumer??? Valve games are some of the best and I’d rather wait a long time for a banger than more frequent releases that are unfinished slop games.
>GoG
If serving comsumers with fairness and transparency is illegal, then Piracy isn't theft.
Lol the Gabe Game 😅
What is that game?
Crawl 😅
@@goodBEan game is called Crawl, it's actually $3 on steam right now
Crawl* It's good, and it's not just about Gabe, he's only a rare "enemy"
Using an £1100 per hour doctor in your fight against over charging...
I hope Valve wins. The only other platform I'd have any interest in is GoG.
why are you voting for vavle if he can find a way to tax you account he will
@@godkekliveshere431You do know that at one point valve was considering having online fees similar to console right? This was a few years ago and they have an FAQ page where they state that they want online to be free and they aren’t gonna charge it. Clearly your being Skizo about it Because they lead the market and could easily do it if they want to.
@@godkekliveshere431 uh no lol they won't. Hell they don't even tax me now for a military address....they didn't have to do that they chose not too weirdo.
@@merculese001 what part of my comment from IF statement didn't you get.
also playing SCGO money scam games doesn't = you did actual military job.
if you can't even read a basic comment yet you claim that you did work for the military
then i don't think that you're a real adult.
30% is what valve has decided it costs to keep their independence from investment vultures. And they deserve every cent of it! Finance bros are frothing at the mouth because they’re not allowed to ruin it for short term profits.
Did the developers and polishers of games not realize that if they do this then they're only screwing themselves over in the end right?
you don't even make games let along publish theme.
The ones who are funding this lawsuit are the lawfirms themselves. They're the ones who get the biggest piece of the pie in a Class Action suit.
Enlightening, to see the glassdoor reviews for the companies staging this little gambit.
What do they say?
@@AlexFairmont Google 'em. They're uh
not flattering.
@@btango7029 I can't find any. The ones for Valve are fascinating, though, thanks!
I bet this lawsuit was funded by Epic, Tencent, and Microsoft
Valve needs to win, and Nintendo needs to lose.
Here's a question I've yet to hear. What happens when Gaben is gone? Is there something that will continue to protect the customer base? To protect the sellers? Or will that all be gone along with Gaben?
Its wild how defended Valve is from their customers, we like them. We feel like they mostly treat us well.
Valve has made numerous attempts to appear to defend consumer rights, Right to repair, fair refunds on digital content, pushing development of Proton to broaden the user base that can play games on more platforms than just windows, pricing competitively/aggressively against other online storefronts, etc. so that generates brand loyalty, stuff most of the other game companies have been losing steadily. There's still a lot more they could be doing to change the sorry state of gaming though.
They made the proton compatibility layer. Valve is actually breaking the monopoly called Windows and giving alternative operating systems a fighting chance in the desktop market
@@TheRealAlpha2 While Valve does have a command of the market of pc gaming, they don't have the ability to affect much outside of that. Let's not pretend that they have near the influence of Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo in the entire gaming market nor will they unless pc gaming miraculously becomes cheaper up front.
@@Phantom-ph6xg They have plenty of influence as arguably the largest online provider of PC game licenses. You can try to sell your game elsewhere online but you'll never make as much potential cash as you would on steam. They're the go to place the first day you get a PC for gaming.
@@Phantom-ph6xg The point is there are significantly more PC's than all consoles combined world wide. If you want a game on PC your first stop is Steam. It's as simple as that,
Valve could also say it was standard market practice to charge the fee they were charging.
Can the world please stop suing THE ONE good company and focus on the problematic ones instead?
valve / steam its far from being a" good company ".
@@chaosmachines934 You Support Epic you are not the Expert here.
@@damiangaming5696 how am i supporting epic.
when i said in my other comments that if you don't like epic go to ichio or gog.
and my comments get removed by valve shill channels
how is epic the bad guys again when you guys' can't even handle any form of criticism like adults.
@@chaosmachines934 Maybe it's cause your criticism falls flat when you Epic Shill?
You know an industry has gone down the toilet when a company is being sued for just having a good product and not actually doing any anti competitive practices.
They could lower their commission, but as a big user of Steam, I feel that they have earned their premium. In any case, it should never be part of a legal system to try to determine what is "fair" between voluntary actors.
That premium is industry standard. Even Epic admitted that you cannot go lower and their low cut is due to it being propped by fortnite bucks
* Blesses Valve with a hero *
When I'm in a class action lawsuit I didn't get shit so I can't imagine this helping the devs
Well the difference is you;re in a class action suit with literally millions of other people so you slice of the pie is way smaller. For devs it could mean thousands if not hundreds of thousands. Even if they win it means nothing to the consumer though. It might improve the viability of a very small developer but consumers will never see that money in any form.
Developers pay 30% cut so that Valve has capital to mass refund games when developers scam the customers.
Falsehood bound to perish.
if Valve on the Right side, then they will win this battle easily.
We're going to move to a future where Valve stops supporting steam keys.
I don't get it. They don't HAVE to publish their games on Steam. The fact that they want to pretty much proves that it's worth it, right?
Thank you for the deep dive!
If the dev can generate and sell keys keeping 100% revenue at whatever price they want, how is valve allegedly blocking lower prices?
aw boy you never read the steam contract when you publish on steam right
It felt like playing ace attorney when you went back back-and-forth about what steam would say versus the doctor
if valve lowered their commission rate to like 20% for everybody, they might be called anti-competitive.
because that will tighten the 'competition' even more as that move would attract devs and publishers.
That makes no sense. They've already got a captive market. Unless you're a giant like Ubisoft or EA, anybody publishing on PC is basically forced to publish on Steam or face backlash from Steam "fans".
@@soviut303 then why do most other storefronts not have even half the capabilities of valve's steam end and act extremely anti-customer? [ie timed exclusives, removing games, predatory dlc/mtx behavior, that whole nine yards.]
Steam's commission policy ranges from 70/30, 75/25, to 80/20. Depending on the sales your product generates, the higher the sales, the more the publisher benefits from the revenue share. People and those greedy developers often forget this.
@@soviut303 Maybe those big publishers should put some ACTUAL WORK INTO THEIR LAUNCHERS instead of the broken slop that they release (looking at you ubisoft). They let Valve have such a market share by being trash companies who couldn't make a store front if their existence depended on it
No matter what happens at the end of the day its the consumers who decide this. You can try to do whatever you want for valve but it will only anger the users. Valve has just recently helped its users with the stupid season passes and DLC. They need to understand that if any developer joins this suit there is a very high chance that they will lose a lot of sales in the future.
I'm already planning a permanent boycott for any company that joins in
"Half Life 3" Yeah... we'll see if that ever makes it to release. It's a meme for a reason.
it's over 20-year-old meme.
dude i finish freaking college 6 years ago and were still on title only
no demo no nothing
don't let me start on left 4 dead 3 , dota 3 , VR half-life part 3 people love to trash on AAA pushing slops but at least they release the damn thing
Take notes, gamers, find out who is suing Valve, and never support them again.
Hope Valve refuses business with that game developer that sued them 😂
Wolfire?
Good, nothing of value will be lost. They are mediocre developer with near slop asset swap level of games.
Valve is the America of gaming.
We do the same thing with the dollar, and it's the reason it's remained the world reserve currency.
Everyone complains about it, but no other country is willing to take the economic hit for the benefits it provides.
Which is ending now.
@@Dowlphin and what will it be?
@@crueltysquadagent5499 They all think itll be the Chinese Currency. Yknow even though Investments in China are decreasing due to Tofu Dreg Construction, Lack of Blue Collar Workers, and a Heightened Tech Focus.
Remember, corporations are not your friends. Even though Valve is a darling amongst PC gamers, they're still a very wealthy company who got that way on the backs of other developers. A reduction in their cut is not going to hurt Valve in any meaningful way, but it WILL help a lot of indie developers break even. Developers literally have no choice but to publish on Steam or face the wrath of Valve stans. Again, corporations do not need you defending them; indie devs and consumers do.
Litterally this. It's crazy to see so many people cheer for a large corporations. They are there for profit. Not for you. They may be one of the 'good' ones now that wine and dine you while fucking you but they're still fucking you. What happens if old gabe dies and the successor says actually I'd rather not do this and they get a gremlin.
As much as I like steam as a company it's insane to me that the 30% is still held over game devs from the old brick and mortar days, at least that made some sense as it was a physical store being used to sell their game. Most devs don't release a game that goes viral so can't take steam up on that sliding scale offered by them and one comment acted like it's the devs fault for not being viral or not appealing to a wide enough audience. I'm sorry WHAT? Do you not want more devs in the space creating great games and art that we love? I'd love for them to actually understand how truely precarious of a job being a game dev is.
People are so bizarre sometimes, voting against their own interests or cheering on the bulldozer that's in their path.
They get a lot of their money by holding onto devs payments until they meet a certain threshold. What's all that money doing? Sitting in a savings account generating interest for them. Free money by not paying people even though they owe people.
The issue here is that even if that's the case, this is basically a Corpo vs Corpo battle, so why are you siding with the other Corpos? Are you deluded thinking games will become suddenly cheaper of they win? What will happen is that Valve, a company known to be pro consumer will receive less money and the other corpos mostly anti-consumer goons will get more money, prices on Valve will stay the same, but will probably increase everywhere else as Valve might start charging devs for Keys.
And yet indie's use said platforms to promote their products lol
Oh I know Valve isn't my friend. But do you know who also isn't my friend? The one who is doing this law suit. And other storefront. Now let me tell you what will happen if Steam keep losing those lawsuit.
First, with their profit shaved off, there will be less fund to their R&D to improve the platform.
Next, they will cut off features because the cost of running them aren't worth the return because, surprise surprise, their earning aren't worth enough to justify keeping them.
And at last, they are going to tighten their belt and strike down all the Steam key selling outside Steam.
After all that, do you know who is the ultimate loser in this shitshow?
The consumer. Because as you said, companies aren't your friend. They are not going to sacrifice their benefit for you. Steam is only as pro-consumer as they are now because they have the money to afford that. And that come from the 30% cut. Of course the reduction on their cut are not going to hurt Valve in any way, because they are going to hurt *you* instead.
The "if it's gonna be free in a week we won't push it" makes so much sense tbh... cus that's just disrespecting the consumer...
Honestly reading the comment section here makes me sad, as it's so clear this channel has become a hub for fanboyism without critical thought. Ironically this makes me fear for the future of Valve and my games library more, not less, as when a company is defended at every turn and can do no wrong in the eyes of its customers, that's when they will be able to make decisions that will hurt the company in the long run with no pushback.
Valve is in the same WEF Vampire Agenda of "YOU'LL OWN NOTHING and RENT EVERYTHING" as all other Corpos. Later you won't even be able to get the Files downloaded in your PC.
So the war officely begins
I don't get it... Any game developer can create their own web server and sell their game from there. Frontier does that, and I'm sure, a lot of others.
Valves commission tate is so high because when you sell through valve you get more support than any kther retailer, online or otherwise.
Steam servers, workshop support, near instantaneous update pipelines, early access options, multi version branch hosting, all that requires manpower and hardware to run constantly at the scale valve operates on.
Everyone who publishes on steam is supporting those features and support for eachother by paying that 30% commission.
If they dont like that then they are free to publish on GOG or Epic or host game files on their own independent website.
The question isn't whether Valve is utilizing the money for consumers but if Valve is being anti-competative.
Those emails to the devs about price parody are the most concerning. It seems fine if Valve doesn't promote a game sale if there is a better offer elsewhere. But explaining to the devs you don't like their price difference is a bullying tactic when you control things like this.
I agree! It will benefit the consumer if valve loses as they will be able to get the game for less as valve take a much larger cut from profits than any other game launcher. Game devs could then reduce the price on other platforms such as epic and that gives the incentive for valve to take smaller cuts from the developer making it a more competitive environment for game launchers rather than the almost monopoly that valve have over the pc game industry. So in conclusion it will help mostly consumers as game prices will go down. 30% cut is only acceptable if you get a physical copy of a game as it cost money to obviously make the hardware
@stevenlee3661 I'm glad you agree, but I don't. Valve should be called out for this communication, but I worry they will be punished in an unrelated way.
Games devs don't care what store their game sells on (some will for ideology), the dev wants to make money and while you'll have some devs willing to drop price from a smaller cut, most will be status quo and pocket the profit (which is fine). But to think the consumer will see lower prices if Valve lowers their cut is laughable.
When games are priced cheaper on Epic (consistently, not just sales) then I'll believe you, and that is the only thing I see this lawsuit establishing, Valve can't take action against games that do this (it is already allowed within Valve's own terms)
@@stevenlee3661 Tell me, does every game released on Epic cost at least 18% less than it does on Steam? Epic only takes a 12% cut and yet all those games are just as expensive as they are on Steam. If Valve loses it is just going to make the environment worse from them no longer investing in improving it. They already have everyone's loyalty, they don't need to be out there forcing Devs to be honest about game releases or improving linux gaming, they could just stop doing all of that and just be a store and still rake in the same cash they are already making and pocketing all of it, instead they are actually putting that money back into the environment to improve things that helps devs, help consumers, and yes, helps Valve continue to exist and do what they do. The only thing Valve losing will improve is the amount of money that greedy ass devs get to pocket. If Valve's 30% cut was actually hurting any devs they wouldn't be a Steam. They'd be on Epic, or Itch, or GOG, or the MS Store, or self host. They aren't forced to choose Steam, they do it because being on Steam is worth the cost. The same reason people buy games on Steam, not because it is the cheapest option, but because its the most value for your money, especially when every where else charges the same with no extra value.
@@stevecole90099 "Tell me, does every game released on Epic cost at least 18% less than it does on Steam? Epic only takes a 12% cut and yet all those games are just as expensive as they are on Steam."
Isn't the whole point of the case that Valve did not allow Wolfire to lower their price on Epic? The case is about forcing Valve to let them do that.
The argument that "we're a monopoly because everyone who's tried to compete just sucks" didn't work for Microsoft in a dozen similar anti-monopoly lawsuits.
The same Microsoft that's actively buying out as many large publishing companies as they can vs Valve who just runs the most consumer friendly store on the pc gaming market and hasn't actively been forcing these other stores out. Not exactly equivalent there, pal.