I love steam but this isn’t a bad thing at all. It’s about time these storefronts started getting regulated to prevent the monopoly’s they’re trying to achieve. At 30% as well barely leaves any room for devs to lower the price of their games.
This is no different to the cases against Apple preventing other storefronts operating on their devices.
No_Concept_1311 on
> The lawsuit – filed at the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London – alleges Valve “forces” game publishers to sign up to conditions which prevents them from selling their titles earlier or for less on rival platforms.
Kind of weird how there’s a growing overlap between Steam and GOG catalogues then, even with AAA games. Where GOG is lacking is multiplayer games but I suspect that is mostly because developers might be depending on Steam’s architecture and don’t want to develop and maintain multiple backends.
> It claims that as Valve requires users to buy all additional content through Steam, if they’ve bought the initial game through the platform it is essentially “locking in” users to continue making purchases there.
I mean, that’s just how digital platforms and DLC work since the platform manages the installation and updating of the content. It’s like buying a base game on the PS5 and then complain because you can’t purchase and play the DLC for it on Xbox because Microsoft is having a sale.
Gentle_Snail on
I mean I love Steam but its hard to argue their market dominance doesn’t border on the monopoly.Â
The fact 30% of a games cost goes directly to them instead of the developer seems very excessive, but Indi producers are forced to pay because they have almost no other options.
Deervember on
This is the firm that sues Sony /Nintendo/Microsoft/epic/apple every few months. They’ve never won and never will.
Stream doesn’t set prices it’s just a store page, and devs and publishers have lots of choices where to sell games.Â
30% cut is literally industry standard for every business in the world.Â
All they want is for the other company to settle out of court so they get paid. These idiots are in the news every few months doing the same exact thing, just a bunch of conmen.Â
Flashy-Raspberry-131 on
Steam is one of the good ones. They’re not perfect but they’re pretty damn good overall.
Pick your fights people.
JMaths on
If Steam lowered their cut to 1% tomorrow the prices wouldn’t drop a single penny. Even on marketplaces directly owned by the game developers the prices remain the same!
If Ubisoft or anyone else wanted to discourage gamers away from Steam properly they could just sell the game for £10 cheaper on their own site, but that doesn’t happen because this isn’t a real concern.
Plus-Literature-7221 on
Would cost devs/publishers a lot more than the 20-30% comission steam charges to provide everything they offer to consumers.
Mr_Rockmore on
They’ve come for our porn now they’re coming for our video games.
Harilari on
While I agree 30% take seems a bit much given Steam is probably the most firmly established digital game storefront (if not online storefront overall) in the world I can’t help but wince at this.
The last time the Government ended up mucking about with Steam i.e. the OSA, we ended up with a situation where a credit card became mandatory proof of ID to access 18 rated games and content. This despite my own Steam account being old enough to drink, drive and get its own bank account.
To be honest, I don’t think video game prices are excessive, at least on Steam. A few notables aside, they almost inevitably come down to more reasonable prices within a few months to a year.
CianMoriarty on
The point about 30% commission doesn’t really hold water
Most publishers require more than a 30% cut and provide much less value than the steam algorithms and festivals do for game developers.
There are other platforms where there is 0 cut (itch.io) but obviously developers can’t make as much money there.
No one is stopping other store fronts from competing with Steam, they just do it better than anyone does at the moment
I do somewhat agree with the licensing take though, you should be able to download games you own and play them offline forever, only being required to log in to play on steams servers
Source: I make steam games sometimes
AsleepNinja on
Whining that Valve takes a 30% cut is hilarious.
A lot more than 30% of the fee went on physical distribution, shipping etc.
Valve do a lot more than let you just buy some software.
MrBarit on
is this the one with the AI generated “evidence” or is that another?
gpowerf on
Steam is effectively a monopoly, but I do not buy the DLC lock in argument. Steam functions as both a storefront and a dependency manager, and that dual role is not inherently a bad thing.
joeyat on
Does Steam just have a flat rate platform fee? If so, and this goes through, they might drop the % of the fee… but then just break out data hosting for the game data and updates and itemise the data uploads/downloads.. so big and network heavy game get secondary bills for hosting. Not sure the law would have anything they could do about that… as Valve would be recouping costs of business?
Clarine87 on
>The gaming giant is being accused of abusing its market dominance by imposing restrictive terms on game publishers and **locking players** into using Steam, the world’s largest distribution platform for PC gaming.
Really, locking into steam when no one else wants to make a better product?
>The legal action was brought by digital rights campaigner Vicki Shotbolt in 2024 on behalf of up to 14 million Steam users across the UK, who could be in line for compensation if she wins.
Don’t want it.
>This, Ms Shotbolt argues, has enabled Steam to charge an “excessive commission of up to 30%”, making UK consumers pay too much for purchasing PC games and add-on content.
If commission affected the final price, why are games so cheap (compared with inflation)?
LegitimateCompote377 on
This is nonsense in my opinion. I buy stuff on the Epic Game store sometimes purely because there are som genuine steals on that launcher, but usually avoid it because Steam provides a much better experience. Epic Games despite its issues and how many make fun of it I see a lot of people use mostly by those who spend their money well. Steam is not a monopoly and never will be.
Yes they charge 30% but that’s not because they hold a monopoly, it’s because their competition is bad. The 12% from Epic Games causes so many games to go on sale and developers do often prefer it, and that holds an advantage, but Steam does not have a monopoly, it just has better UI, better user agreements and better help to developers that puts it on top.
Apple, Sony, Nintendo etc all hold monopolies and charge 30%. Nintendo and Sony there isn’t even a workaround for that isn’t illegal. This is who regulators should be going after, because these guys are truly anti competition, outside of the console itself. Once you own the console you’re locked in, forcing these companies to allow Steam or others to make their own stores or lower their stake would be way more beneficial and productive.
parrotanalogies on
The fact Steam takes 30% of revenue (unless you’re a massive AAA and then you can get a cushy deal) is pretty appalling. Games would go down in price if platform holders didn’t skim so much off the top.
Case1987 on
I doubt anything will come of this,as they would have to go after Microsoft and Sony who also take 30% commission
McLeod3577 on
Does Ms Shotbolt not wait for the Steam sales like everybody else?
22 commenti
Oh ffs. They better not screw Steam up. It’s great.
If this stops me from getting a gabecube I’m going on hunger strike
The UK here is “digital rights campaigner Vicki Shotbolt [in 2024](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpwwyj6v24xo) on behalf of up to 14 million Steam users across the UK”.
Shit headline.
I love steam but this isn’t a bad thing at all. It’s about time these storefronts started getting regulated to prevent the monopoly’s they’re trying to achieve. At 30% as well barely leaves any room for devs to lower the price of their games.
This is no different to the cases against Apple preventing other storefronts operating on their devices.
> The lawsuit – filed at the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London – alleges Valve “forces” game publishers to sign up to conditions which prevents them from selling their titles earlier or for less on rival platforms.
Kind of weird how there’s a growing overlap between Steam and GOG catalogues then, even with AAA games. Where GOG is lacking is multiplayer games but I suspect that is mostly because developers might be depending on Steam’s architecture and don’t want to develop and maintain multiple backends.
> It claims that as Valve requires users to buy all additional content through Steam, if they’ve bought the initial game through the platform it is essentially “locking in” users to continue making purchases there.
I mean, that’s just how digital platforms and DLC work since the platform manages the installation and updating of the content. It’s like buying a base game on the PS5 and then complain because you can’t purchase and play the DLC for it on Xbox because Microsoft is having a sale.
I mean I love Steam but its hard to argue their market dominance doesn’t border on the monopoly.Â
The fact 30% of a games cost goes directly to them instead of the developer seems very excessive, but Indi producers are forced to pay because they have almost no other options.
This is the firm that sues Sony /Nintendo/Microsoft/epic/apple every few months. They’ve never won and never will.
Stream doesn’t set prices it’s just a store page, and devs and publishers have lots of choices where to sell games.Â
30% cut is literally industry standard for every business in the world.Â
All they want is for the other company to settle out of court so they get paid. These idiots are in the news every few months doing the same exact thing, just a bunch of conmen.Â
Steam is one of the good ones. They’re not perfect but they’re pretty damn good overall.
Pick your fights people.
If Steam lowered their cut to 1% tomorrow the prices wouldn’t drop a single penny. Even on marketplaces directly owned by the game developers the prices remain the same!
If Ubisoft or anyone else wanted to discourage gamers away from Steam properly they could just sell the game for £10 cheaper on their own site, but that doesn’t happen because this isn’t a real concern.
Would cost devs/publishers a lot more than the 20-30% comission steam charges to provide everything they offer to consumers.
They’ve come for our porn now they’re coming for our video games.
While I agree 30% take seems a bit much given Steam is probably the most firmly established digital game storefront (if not online storefront overall) in the world I can’t help but wince at this.
The last time the Government ended up mucking about with Steam i.e. the OSA, we ended up with a situation where a credit card became mandatory proof of ID to access 18 rated games and content. This despite my own Steam account being old enough to drink, drive and get its own bank account.
To be honest, I don’t think video game prices are excessive, at least on Steam. A few notables aside, they almost inevitably come down to more reasonable prices within a few months to a year.
The point about 30% commission doesn’t really hold water
Most publishers require more than a 30% cut and provide much less value than the steam algorithms and festivals do for game developers.
There are other platforms where there is 0 cut (itch.io) but obviously developers can’t make as much money there.
No one is stopping other store fronts from competing with Steam, they just do it better than anyone does at the moment
I do somewhat agree with the licensing take though, you should be able to download games you own and play them offline forever, only being required to log in to play on steams servers
Source: I make steam games sometimes
Whining that Valve takes a 30% cut is hilarious.
A lot more than 30% of the fee went on physical distribution, shipping etc.
Valve do a lot more than let you just buy some software.
is this the one with the AI generated “evidence” or is that another?
Steam is effectively a monopoly, but I do not buy the DLC lock in argument. Steam functions as both a storefront and a dependency manager, and that dual role is not inherently a bad thing.
Does Steam just have a flat rate platform fee? If so, and this goes through, they might drop the % of the fee… but then just break out data hosting for the game data and updates and itemise the data uploads/downloads.. so big and network heavy game get secondary bills for hosting. Not sure the law would have anything they could do about that… as Valve would be recouping costs of business?
>The gaming giant is being accused of abusing its market dominance by imposing restrictive terms on game publishers and **locking players** into using Steam, the world’s largest distribution platform for PC gaming.
Really, locking into steam when no one else wants to make a better product?
>The legal action was brought by digital rights campaigner Vicki Shotbolt in 2024 on behalf of up to 14 million Steam users across the UK, who could be in line for compensation if she wins.
Don’t want it.
>This, Ms Shotbolt argues, has enabled Steam to charge an “excessive commission of up to 30%”, making UK consumers pay too much for purchasing PC games and add-on content.
If commission affected the final price, why are games so cheap (compared with inflation)?
This is nonsense in my opinion. I buy stuff on the Epic Game store sometimes purely because there are som genuine steals on that launcher, but usually avoid it because Steam provides a much better experience. Epic Games despite its issues and how many make fun of it I see a lot of people use mostly by those who spend their money well. Steam is not a monopoly and never will be.
Yes they charge 30% but that’s not because they hold a monopoly, it’s because their competition is bad. The 12% from Epic Games causes so many games to go on sale and developers do often prefer it, and that holds an advantage, but Steam does not have a monopoly, it just has better UI, better user agreements and better help to developers that puts it on top.
Apple, Sony, Nintendo etc all hold monopolies and charge 30%. Nintendo and Sony there isn’t even a workaround for that isn’t illegal. This is who regulators should be going after, because these guys are truly anti competition, outside of the console itself. Once you own the console you’re locked in, forcing these companies to allow Steam or others to make their own stores or lower their stake would be way more beneficial and productive.
The fact Steam takes 30% of revenue (unless you’re a massive AAA and then you can get a cushy deal) is pretty appalling. Games would go down in price if platform holders didn’t skim so much off the top.
I doubt anything will come of this,as they would have to go after Microsoft and Sony who also take 30% commission
Does Ms Shotbolt not wait for the Steam sales like everybody else?