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$843 million lawsuit against Valve already has its own website: "The Steam Claim" accuses the biggest store in PC gaming of "overcharging" players (www.gamesradar.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I think that is the main point of the lawsuit, if developers sell their game on Steam they can't sell it cheaper somewhere else. If Value gets 30% the developer has to raise the price a bit to compensate and they have to raise it everywhere. Outside of sales I don't think most games that are not on Steam are much cheaper elsewhere, so not sure how this plays out.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So don't sell the game on Steam? Either the huge boost in visibility is worth a 30% cut or it's not.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

If you have a point to make about why Valves is not abusing it's monopoly position make it. Otherwise no one wants to hear your dumb 'but the free market is always right' statement.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

As far as I know, this only applies to Steam keys: developers are allowed to generate Steam keys for free to sell on their website (Valve does not get 30% of these sales either) with the restriction being they cannot be cheaper than the price on Steam

I don't think there's ever actually been any proof that Valve disallows selling games for cheaper elsewhere as long as you're not selling those freely generated Steam keys

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Proof? What would proof look like?

Do you expect companies to just leak contracts they signed while under NDA?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Not the companies. But some anonymous whistleblower? Sure

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Like the anonymous whistleblower who went to a lawyer and triggered this lawsuit?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This suit seems to just be vaguely, "30% is too high", along with requiring that DLC for a game bought on Steam also be bought on Steam, it was the Wolfire case back in 2021 that alleged they're not allowed to sell their game for cheaper on other platforms

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

According to Shotbolt, the developer and digital distribution company is "shutting out" all competition in the PC gaming market as it "forces" game publishers to sign off on price parity obligations - supposedly preventing them from going on to offer lower prices on other platforms.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This is true and public knowledge though as I said (details seen here in the "Steam Key Rules and Guidelines" section), if anything Valve is giving devs a lot of leeway by allowing them to do that at all, not only are they giving up their 30% cut but are also then distributing and committing to updating those copies of the game for free

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The allegation says nothing about steam keys. The lawsuit is alleging that they are contractually prevented from selling the game cheaper elsewhere.