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I think what you’re saying is that they are a natural monopoly , which isn’t nefarious or illegal. But is still a monopoly.
Steam is not a natural monopoly.
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Agreed. The Steam platform has so much value for developers and yet they still complain about the 30%. To put into perspective, when Epic only takes 15%. They themselves admitted that is not a sustainable thing. EGS is constantly losing money. So now I invite everyone to gauge just how "big" the EGS is. How many "features" they offer etc. This platform in so much smaller than Steam and even they state that a 15% cut…
30% on mobile platforms if generally frowned upon as source of massive overcharging compared to actual costs (since its a massive revenue & income stream for their owners), but somehow for Steam its fine because... they also generate keys? Or what should be the magical justfication. No its not fine, its a cash cow milking customers. Valve may be better than their competition but they are not saints (same company basi…
If Microsoft charged every program you download 30% of gross Windows proceeds, that would be inappropriate. If Apple allowed a free tier where you get 0 marketing power but you can link from your website to the ios store for a downloadable app, and charge what you want, it would be another matter.
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you are not allowed to sell cd keys cheaper than on steam
Do you have a source for that? I only know this [1] site laying out distribution of Steam keys [1] https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
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How much do you think they should take? Steam is the most dominant because of their extremely customer friendly policies, their insane price crashes and the ease of publishing and installing games from the platform. If other platforms are able to provide all of that, with a commission below 30%, I'm sure they could easily take over. But turns out, neither Epic nor EA are interested in serving the customer.
>Steam is the most dominant because of their ... insane price crashes Are steam deals really better than on other platforms? They might have better deals compared to brick and mortar retailers but publishers generally have price parity across various digital storefronts (eg. epic vs steam), so attributing low prices to steam doesn't really make much sense. If anything steam is actually more expensive if you factor in…
I've never seen any platform go that low on price except for Humble Bundle maybe. And even then, Steam has an EXTREMELY generous refund policy compared to any other platform.
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How much do you think they should take? Steam is the most dominant because of their extremely customer friendly policies, their insane price crashes and the ease of publishing and installing games from the platform. If other platforms are able to provide all of that, with a commission below 30%, I'm sure they could easily take over. But turns out, neither Epic nor EA are interested in serving the customer.
> How much do you think they should take? A 15–20% fee would be much fairer in my opinion. They’d still be making plenty of money while letting developers keep more of what they earn through their hard work. At the very least, they should differentiate between big players and smaller indie developers.
Honestly, I think 15-20% is doable, if they make money in other ways. CS skins, new game releases from inhouse, etc.
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Do you have a source for that? I only know this [1] site laying out distribution of Steam keys [1] https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
"You should use Steam Keys to sell your game on other stores in a similar way to how you sell your game on Steam. It is important that you don’t give Steam customers a worse deal than Steam Key purchasers." https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
Key distinctions between Steam and similar contenders in other spaces (google play store, the apple app store) are that: 1. Steam isn't bundled with the OS, it must be installed. 2. Steam isn't a gatekeeper to installing software (as the app store is and in a somewhat different way as google has proposed doing with their plans to require app signing). At least the US, and I assume most legal schemes, require an attem…
Valve has market power though, which is a key part of a monopoly. If tomorrow Steam decided to charge 30% extra to developers with the stipulation that sticker price must equal that of outside Steam, developers wouldn't have much of a choice but to eat the cost, because PC gamers are extremely reluctant to leave their Steam library and features. A good example of market power is Apple vs Spotify. When Apple launched…
THIS. Valve I trust to be a good entity for as long as Gabe leads it. As soon as he's gone, Valve will be taken over by some accountant CEO and will abuse their market position (functional monopoly).
I kinda hope Gabe pulls a Patagonia and leaves Steam to some impenetrable legal entity that runs it for the good of the users.
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I didn't. I asked where are these basic features. Two separate parts to my comment. The user hostile comes from Tim Sweeneys Twitter account where he openly mocks users who ask questions.
>The user hostile comes from Tim Sweeneys Twitter account where he openly mocks users who ask questions. link?
Besides that though Sweeney has pretty consistently been hostile to linux and it's users in the past, from discontinuing support after buying native linux games to disparaging it online. https://x.com/timsweeneyepic/status/964284402741149698?lang=... > Installing Linux is sort of the equivalent of moving to Canada when one doesn’t like US political trends. > Nope, we’ve got to fight for the freedoms we have today, where we have them today.
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>Steam is the most dominant because of their ... insane price crashes Are steam deals really better than on other platforms? They might have better deals compared to brick and mortar retailers but publishers generally have price parity across various digital storefronts (eg. epic vs steam), so attributing low prices to steam doesn't really make much sense. If anything steam is actually more expensive if you factor in…
Three words, Steam Summer Sales. I've never seen any platform go that low on price except for Humble Bundle maybe. And even then, Steam has an EXTREMELY generous refund policy compared to any other platform.
IME they're matched by other platforms. If Cyberpunk is discounted for a steam summer sale, it's similarly discounted on Epic or GOG as well. It's not a Steam exclusive, and therefore can't be cited as an advantage.
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>The user hostile comes from Tim Sweeneys Twitter account where he openly mocks users who ask questions. link?
This might be an example of what the OP was describing: https://i.redd.it/ua8lmu38f7k81.png Besides that though Sweeney has pretty consistently been hostile to linux and it's users in the past, from discontinuing support after buying native linux games to disparaging it online. https://x.com/timsweeneyepic/status/964284402741149698?lang=... > Installing Linux is sort of the equivalent of moving to Canada when one doe…
That counts as "mocking"? You might not agree with Sweeney or think he has a good point, but it's not remotely "mocking". Are Steam supporters really that thin skinned?
