accideath

I do know more than one people

I don’t know any people who still buy digital music. Most have streaming services and those who don’t either rip CDs or have a collection of YouTube downloads.

I don’t dislike valve. I do enjoy and regularly use their services.
But valve is still like any other company out there. For the time being, they (and in turn we) profit from them being in private hands. But that likely won’t last forever, Gabe is already 63.

And forced price parity is a bad thing because it takes away choice from consumers: Do I want the product including great service on one platform, or do I not care about that service and buy it cheaper on another service.

Forcing price parity is an Apple AppStore type move. Subscription services, for example, according to Apple’s terms n service, are not allowed to be more expensive in the AppStore, where Apple takes a 30% cut for providing payment services, etc., than they are when directly subscribing through a service’s website. That’s forcing devs to either take a loss on Apple devices or overcharge customers everywhere else.

And it’s the exact same thing with valve. A: you’re not gonna go somewhere else with less convenient service if it’s not cheaper on there (which makes it harder for competitors to invest in their infrastructure to make up for the huge lead valve has over time) and B: It takes away your ability to chose between a better service and a better price, which, looking at the current rise in game prices, could make a meaningful difference for a lot of gamers.

Also, in any industry, where you’re dealing with physical goods, the manufacturer sells a product to the store for a given price and the store then decides their markup. That’s why the same graphics card can be one price at Amazon while having another on mindfactory or on newegg. The manufacturer still sells their product to those retailers for the exact same money (unless specifically negotiated otherwise). It’s your decision whether to pay more for better service or less for less.

That doesn’t matter though. It’s a win for steam, sure, 20 years ago. But it’s not about historical developments. It’s about the current state of the market. And there valve is using their market share to stifle competition.

Yes and it all gets beaten sooner or later regardless

Man y‘all are getting really defensive when it comes to your favourite multi billion dollar company.

I like the service steam provides but they’re not your friend. They’re still a profit oriented company.

And just because valve’s competition are incompetent and/or assholes doesn’t mean valve’s not anti competitive.

It’s not about a dev selling a game cheaper on another platform once it becomes popular, it’s about valve forbidding them to sell it cheaper somewhere else at release. Them using their 80-90% market share to forcing developers to either comply or get locked out of more than three quarters of the market is the essence of anti competitive behavior. Doesn’t matter if it’s Ubisoft who’s complaining (fuck ubisoft). It’s monopolistic.

Also didn’t valve very recently state that they’re gonna enforce their terms of service more strictly in regards to keys sold on other platforms?

And Microsoft and itch.io.

So, only gog is as expensive for devs on PC as Steam.

And of course they would ask as much as steam would, if they were in valve’s position. But they aren’t and valve is actively using their position of power to keep them there (besides the stores being worse, feature wise, but a lot of people would ignore that for 20% cheaper games on epic, for example).

They aren’t a monopoly. But they are monopolistic. They have a market share of 80-90% and are using that power to make it harder for competitors to gain market share (for example by pressuring developers to not lower their prices on platforms with lower fees).

But doesn’t gog especially show, that you can do completely without drm and not have any issues?

Steam is doing a lot right, don’t get me wrong.

But, there are enough other platforms who are trying to get a foothold and valve doesn’t exactly make it easy for them.
They’re currently being sued for anti competitive behaviour by pressuring devs into not offering cheaper prices on platforms with lower fees.

People still use iTunes?

No one is expecting them to work for free. But they’re expected to not use their market dominance to collect significantly higher fees than the competition, while pressuring game devs to not make their games cheaper on platforms with lower fees, which is something they’re currently being sued over.

That’s why I said „de facto“. They have the power of a monopoly. They can do whatever the fuck they want, like charging developers more fees than almost any other PC games storefront. Because what can the devs do? Not use steam? Who’s gonna play the games then?

And valve is currently getting sued for abusing their market dominance for anti competitive behavior, pressuring devs into not offering their games for cheaper on other platforms, which do offer a lower cut, for example.

So yea, they aren’t a monopoly. But, at least within the PC games market, they do act monopolistic.

I‘m not saying there isn’t a reason they’re in the position they’re in. They provide a good service and – so far – haven’t made a notable faux-pas. But I‘d still rather buy a game on gog than on steam.

A digital marketplace for games existing is indeed in no way a bad thing.
Neither is Steam, per se. I use it myself happily and valve has done a lot of good for gamers, even more so as someone gaming on Linux.

However: That doesn‘t make it better that they’re still at least partially responsible for online drm (although ea, ubisoft and microsoft aren’t exactly innocent either).

Platforms like gog, which sells games without drm, get way more goodwill from me though.

Also, I find it a bit naïve to think that steam singlehandedly made PC gaming popular. There were a lot of AAA games, even well into the 2010s, that used either disc based drm, no drm or – starting around 2010 – other, non steam online drm.
I didn‘t have the need for a steam account with more than goat simulator until like 2016 or 17 and I did play a lot of games.

What I do give steam credit for is making indie games popular. Prior, those just weren’t really a big thing. Thanks to steam, you didn’t need a big publisher.

Also: I do have gripes with the gaming community hating drm and other game launchers (and especially here on Lemmy being anti capitalist and anti billionaire) but then pulling out the pitchforks of anyone points out that Valve maybe isn’t perfect either…

They‘re a de facto monopoly, and they pretty much started the whole drm protected license tied to account thing for video games. They also charge quite some fees for devs.

But they haven’t been in the news for anything specific lately, besides maybe the price of the stream machine, which definitely isn’t their fault.