That lawsuit against Steam’s 30% cut of game sales is now a class action, meaning many other developers could benefit

30% is the industry standard across the board, with the exception of Epic which takes 12%. However, Epic has already shown that it's ready to dump loads of money into store exclusivity deals and tons of free games, so I will argue it's for the sake of growing the number of users and developers using their platform.

But do they, or any other competitor or similar store, offer the same functionality as Steam? rtxn already mentioned some. And there's more. And then there's the fact that Valve is using all that money not only to stuff the pockets of alread rich people (not that Gabe isn't a multi-millionaire if not billionaire, idk), but actually puts it back into the industry: Their own store, Linux/Proton (you may not care, but Microsoft becoming a monopoly in PC gaming is no good), and hardware (with their Steam Deck handheld, and VR stuffs).

Steam might be the biggest player when it comes to storefronts, but it's because they've actually earned it. And they're not actively preventing other competitors from entering the scene (other than existing). In fact, they keep trying, and keep failing, and then going back to Steam.

I'm not opposed to more money going to developers, but let's not single out Steam, who (perhaps besides GOG? I am not familiar enough with it) is doing the most for users and develpers.

Epic is in stage 1 of enshittification. They will offer a great deal (at their economic expense) to capture users and providers.
- It isn't enshittification because they never had a high-quality product to offer.
- That's just called capitalism. And yes, it makes everything shit.
- I wonder who are the people buying games from the epic game store over Steam or gog.
The EU has a term for what steam is: a gatekeeper. Sure our current overlord is mostly benign, but at the end of the day that doesn't mean they should be allowed free reign.
- "On 6 September 2023 the European Commission designated for the first time six gatekeepers - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft. In total, 22 core platform services provided by those gatekeepers have been designated."
  
  That's a direct quote from their website. Perhaps you can elaborate on what specifically makes Valve a gatekeeper in this space, and why they have not been labeled one under EU law by the Digital Markets Act and those who enforce it?
  
  I'm especially curious about how you came to this conclusion. I'm also curious about the do's and don't section of this article and what you might feel Valve has fallen afoul of as their obligations to the public and their competitors under this law.
  
  The source: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digital-markets-act-ensuring-fair-and-open-digital-markets_en
And they're not actively preventing other competitors from entering the scene

Doesn't Steam also mandate that a game on Steam that's also on other platforms MUST have the lowest price on Steam? So if a game goes on sale on another store, the Steam version must also match that sale within a given time period.

That's a pretty big road block, especially if a developer might be willing to sell for a lower price on another storefront that takes another cut.

THAT is actively blocking competition.
- That requirement only exists when you also offer a Steam key for the game that's being sold. So Valve is actually the good guy here: You can sell on another store, where Steam doesn't get any money, and give the user a Steam key, provided by Steam for free, and the only thing they ask is to match the price on Steam.
  
  Don't offer a Steam key, and you can pick any price.
  
  That is my understanding of the issue.
  
  There is a claim by some developers that Valve was pressuring them behind the scenes ("don't offer your game for cheaper elsewhere or else we'll take it down from our store") a while ago, but I've never seen appropriate proof of it, and that was part of (an earlier?) lawsuit.
- They don't and it would be faster to fact check yourself than spreading this misinformation further.
- The other comment points out that it's only a case of selling steam keys where steam must have the lowest price.
  
  I released a game a while back and while reading the terms it sounded like I couldn't link my Steam store page to another storefront where the game was available cheaper. Which, honestly, also kind of fair.
  
  But again, I think that's really only if you're selling steam keys. If you sold the game DRM-free on your own website, I can't imagine they'd take down your company website.
  
  If you link to an Itch page or something similar that might be a thornier issue because they're primarily a storefront.
  
  I'm of the opinion that my game costs X unless it's discounted to Y. I don't see the appeal to the end user of having a dozen different prices on a dozen different storefronts.
  
  I could see a situation where a developer wants to always earn, say, $10 from their game. So on Steam it might sell for $13, on another platform it might be $11 to show the difference in platform fees. But I wouldn't do that because it's putting me before my players, and that's not why I make games.

Steam singlehandedly stopped piracy overnight for me.

Developers were getting $0 from me before steam, and thousands of $$$ from me after steam.

The 30% cut is well worth it for developers, plus all the other services steam provides. Kids have no idea how buying, installing, modding, patching games used to be like.

You cant compare this to the apple app store

Name another platform that has gone 20 years without completely enshittifying itself.

We can start shitting on steam when they turn evil

Name another platform that has gone 20 years without completely enshittifying itself.

Wik*pedia?
- I mean a for-profit corporation owned by an ex-microsoft employee...
  
  Everything about that screams enshittification, but they've done a pretty good job to be relatively consumer friendly.
Steam singlehandedly stopped piracy overnight for me.

This is similar to what Netflix did to their part of the industry for a time. Everyone I knew who pirated just got a Netflix subscription. Fast forward to now and the movie industry is manning the cannons to try and take on the pirates instead of realising it was content fracturing and profiteering that brought the pirates back.
You cant compare this to the apple app store

True. Almost none of the iOS games I bought run anymore. It is why I stopped buying apps, specifically games, on iOS years ago. But others did a good job maintaining backwards compatibility whether through hardware or software.
That's like saying "the landlord fixing my plumbing, so I'm thankful he's charging me so much in rent." Fuck no. I like Steam and what they've done, but I'd rather more money go to the people actually creating the content. Steam is useful, but they aren't doing 30% of the work of game development, so they shouldn't get 30% of the cut.
- They're doing 100% of the distribution though. And some of the marketing, when they promote a trending game or feature one in a collection.
  
  I don't know if a 30% cut is fair, but from my perspective, it seems to be working.
- Then stop complaining and go buy the game directly off the developer's website. Many large publishers have their own storefront. Or you can tell your favourite Indie dev that they can set up a virtual storefront (with diacoverability so users find their game), distribution service with CDNs, support forums, online user reviews, customer support, and who knows what else for their own game. If this sounds like a lot of work, that's because it is. Alternatively, they are allowed to pay someone in the form of profit sharing for all of this if they want to. But no one is forcing you to use Steam.
  
  It just seams the majority of pc gamers find the service useful, so they tend to buy the games there.
- I’d rather more money go to the people actually creating the content
  
  This was the argument when EGS came, and it's been known for a long time that for the most part devs don't see a cent from that extra cut, the publishers keep it. Unless they self-publish, of course.
- Valve's role is more that of a custodian I'd say. And one that is really competent.
The 30% cut is well worth it for developers, plus all the other services steam provides. Kids have no idea how buying, installing, modding, patching games used to be like.

You cant compare this to the apple app store

As a mobile app developer who has been in the business since before the iPhone was even announced, this is hilarious.

No, you can’t compare it to the App Store. With the Apple App Store you get so much more for that 30% cut than you get with Steam, it’s not even close. You kids have no idea how bad it was in the before times.
- Can I ask what you get? I'd like to understand what steam provides for a 30% cut vs what app stores like Google or Apple provide and what you value more from one vs the other.

This seems like such a nothing case. Steam is optional. It's optional for publishers to use, it's optional for users to install. Steam provides many many benefits for even free games or games not purchased on the Steam store.

Any publisher can publish their game on their own site, on other stores, on physical media. Even though Steam is dominant, you can buy games somewhere else as easily as you can download and install Steam itself.

I hope this case gets thrown out.

You can also use steam as a distribution platform completely free of the 30% cut by selling steam keys through your own site. Steam specifically gives developers unlimited free steam keys and games no cut from the sale of said keys. And it's not even a work around, it is intentional.
- Indeed, the only limitation is to not sell the keys for less than Steam sell them for.
How the fuck is it optional? You mean like in the sense I don't need games to live, I assume? Because it's not optional otherwise.
- It's optional for publisher to put their games on Steam. Games like Starsector seem to do ok not on Steam. Helps if the game is really good.
- Put down the games and pick up a reading comprehension lesson
I don't have a problem with Steam but if they lose, games can get cheaper, and/or game development becomes more lucrative. You can't lose by looking into the case and not throwing it out.
- You can look at literally any other storefront that takes 10% less than Valve does with Steam and see they're not 10% cheaper. Which is also one of many ways you can tell this case is bullshit.
- That's naive. People already pay 80$-90$, publishers will pocket the cut and keep the price the same.
- What substantiates the claim that games will become cheaper? We already know games are one of the few commodities that are getting cheaper over time when taking inflation into account. I've seen this claim everywhere but I don't understand what makes people think it's true and nobody has been able to show me the logic or reasoning of it. Also, you claim that game development becomes more lucrative. It only becomes lucrative at all with a return on investment which requires that a developer be able to afford to make the game, market it, advertise it, and sell it to a wide audience all while handling the financial side of things (licensing agreements, handling the financial details of consumers in a secure fashion, providing refunds within the constraints of laws worldwide, etc).
  
  These cases and the litigation process also cost money. You absolutely can lose by looking into it.
- I'm happy to pay a premium for convenience. Steam is a great product that saves me from having 20 different store-fronts clogging up my computer, most of which wouldn't have proper Linux support. If developers don't like Steam's terms of use then don't use it, and best of luck selling your game that nobody ever sees.
- games can get cheaper,
  
  Hahahahahahahahaha
- When was the last time since you actually saw something get cheaper?
- Epic Games promise cheaper games with 12% cut, but most of them have same price as Steam or even console release.
- I bet you believe in "free market" as well huh

free market mfs when consumers choose the option that doesn't shit on them:

Doesn't shit on them... for now.
"Exactly! Simply do that for every product you need to live."

It's kinda funny to read through this thread ngl.

Everyone claiming: "OH WOW PRICES WILL BE LOWER" or "OH MAN DEVS WILL PROFIT SO MUCH MORE!!!!!"

You know who profits? Publishers. The ones already taking 80 - 90% of a games revenue. Devs don't see shit of that. And for indie devs that don't have a publisher, the 30% cut is a godsend considering that steam is handling everything in the distribution chain.

You guys are fighting for corpos that want to buy their 5th luxury yacht.

People who genuinely believe game prices will get lowered if stores take a smaller cut are delusional. You can literally look at the Epic Game Store and see that it isn't even remotely true. The only games on there that are cheaper than on Steam are the ones Epic invested in specifically to entice developers/gamers to use their services. The ones that don't have exclusivity deals are the same as on Steam.

Edit: changed "take a cut" to "take a smaller cut".
- IMO the only way game prices will get lower is if people just stop buying them at the higher prices. If the price of a game goes from $60 to $100 and people complain but still buy the game, then the next one's going to be $100 too (or more.)
- Bingo. We even saw price increases on the EGS instead of reductions lmao.
  
  People are coping so badly because they want to hate valve or something, idk. It's cringe beyond believe. Of all the shitty semi-monopolistic companies you could hate, valve is at the bottom of the list.
- Tbf, any game that's on both steam and Epic Game Store will be priced the same, because anything other than steam having the lowest available price is against Steam's terms of service. You cannot be priced lower on another platform. GOG and a few others like it get around this by selling steam keys.
  
  While that's in place, you definitely can not see prices go lower.
- You are in the wrong here, Steam have a term where you can't mark the sale cheaper on any other place, including your own website as you can generate your product keys.
To be fair, Gaben himself already has a ton of luxury yachts.
- Taking money away from one billionaire and giving it to another billionaire is completely irrelevant.
  
  Also, of all the billionaires we have, gaben is one of the few I like. Steam has brought linux gaming ahead like nobody else ever did before, and there was no profit incentive until the steam deck which was like 5 years after the first release of proton, and that's something I'm genuinely thankful for.
The solution is the same as every other industry IMO.

Worker owned and operated cooperatives that are integrated throughout their respective industries by a organization such as Mondragon.
- Worker-owned businesses do not work on a large scale. If it would, more people would do it.
  
  Please go back to lemmy.ml

My extremely Baby's First Monopoly take is that whatever your feelings about specific aspects of Steam's service, or Valve in general, no individual company should exert this much power over the fortunes and overall culture of an artform. As such, I welcome efforts such as Wolfire's to challenge Valve and Steam, even if I may not agree with the detail of the suit in question.

What a stupid take. Valve isn't doing anything anti competitive, they just provide an objectively better service which is why everyone uses it. Anyone can put their game up on Steam, Gog, Epic, Uplay, and Origin at the same time. Valve doesn't own the space, and tbh we're probably getting the best deal we can get with them being the top dog, cuz you know Microsoft and the like would never treat us that well.

The closest thing I can think of wrt competitive rules is their price parity rule, where if you sell your steam keys (note that. not epic or uplay, just steam.) yourself, the price can't be noticeably lower (or a sale can't happen) without a comparable discount/sale on Steam within a reasonable timeframe.

The closest thing I can think of wrt competitive rules is their price parity rule, where if you sell your steam keys (note that. not epic or uplay, just steam.) yourself, the price can't be noticeably lower (or a sale can't happen) without a comparable discount/sale on Steam within a reasonable timeframe.

That's pretty anti-competitive, unless I'm misunderstanding it.

If Epic takes a smaller cut, a developer might be willing to sell it at a lower price than on Steam. But if Steam says that the sale on Steam needs to be the same, then that means the developer can't put out the same sale on Steam (since Steam takes a bigger cut).

So instead, they'd have to make the sale price equal to the price they'd be willing to accept after taking Steam's cut into consideration...which would be higher than the price they'd be willing to sell for on Epic.

That's bad for developers AND consumers.
- it's only applicable if you sell steam keys.
- You are misunderstanding it, and it’s been explained to you so many times that I feel I have to imply that you are misunderstanding it on purpose
- It's specifically Steam keys, even says so in the quote. If they sell it on Epic for a lower price and it doesn't come with a Steam key then there are no restrictions on the price.

They can use alternative stores if they want. Its not our fault the alternatves bar gog are shit and anti consumer. Valve is the only one supporting linux so I'm buying my games there to support that effort.

Also steam has a lot more than just the store. The chats, the media sharing, the forums, cloud saves and input profiles. Epic can't even show you a list of games in your library when you log in. I claim the free games each week but ive never even bothered to play them as with steam I can just click play and get on with it. As a long time linux user I value the just works approach and the work that wine and valve have put in.

I won't use GOG till they make Linux use easy.
Bought Skyrim and Doom II then proceeded to spend 45 minutes struggling to getting them to work. Decided that it wasnt worth the effort when Steam just works™️ and bought them there.

Id prefer if valve took less from developers but I value being able to actually play my games more than I value a couple bucks. Also their cloud saves make multi device gaming so much better. If steam eventually enshittifies and takes my games away I'll just pirate them and struggle with 'Wine' then.
- Heroic Games Launcher and/or Lutris are what you're looking for on Linux.
  
  With HGL it's simply login and install GOG, Epic Games and Amazon Games games like Steam games. No huge issues I've ever really run into.
- for GOG Games you can use the process i described here; just download the offline installers and go from there.
  
  (just a small remark: lutris sometimes chooses the wrong executable to run, especially with unity games (it tends to select the crashhandler instead of the game exe) - if you run the game and nothing happens, check the settings.
itch.io isn't anti consumer! It's a good store. (Not a lot of big brand games there though.)
Don't take this as me supporting epic, but the game launcher has a full tab for your library. The idea it doesn't is insane. I've never seen a version of epic that doesn't have this.
- Sorry I was talking about the site specifically. I should have clarified that.

lol, replace Valve with Apple and Steam with App Store and everyone would have a very different tone on here despite the fact that they both charge 30%.

That'd be false equivalence. Valve doesn't own the platform in which they distribute games. Valve doesn't own Windows, macOS, or Linux, and to my knowledge they don't enforce any platform-specific restrictions like Apple does. Not sure why you'd swap the two with regards to this case.
- Yeah, it's also ignoring that the issue with Apple's "30% cut" isn't that they take 30% of game sales. It's that they're forcing you to use their payment processing service to put an app on the store, and then they take a 30% cut out of that, even though third-party payment processing providers take much smaller cuts than that.
  
  Physical stores also took a 30% sales cut, because there's value in getting people to see your product. It's literally been the standard storefront cut for decades. Microsoft and Sony take the same cuts for their console sales/transactions.
  
  Valve does a lot more for companies than just put eyes on their games, too. They're pushing for Linux-compatibility with Proton, they provide you with networking libraries and infrastructure for multiplayer servers if you use SteamWorks, Steam will optionally update your game's SDL libraries so you have up-to-date controller bindings, etc. It's not like they're sitting there twiddling their thumbs and taking 30% of your money for nothing.
  
  I'd argue Microsoft and Sony do comparable work for devs on their platforms too.
  
  The whole argument against the 30% cut is so fucking dumb.
- Do you need to own a platform to have a de facto grip on game distribution? I like Steam as much as the next guy, but it’s totally douchey the way nerds fall all over themselves to shit on Apple, but not Valve for charging the same thing. But, I guess not “owning” a platform makes you immune from criticism. Glad to know where the arbitrary line has been drawn. Given that “owning” the platform is the problem, then I’m hoping to see an equal amount of rage at Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft for their online stores that charge 30% to distribute games.
This will always be funny to me. In no other aspect of my life do I even know the charge of distributors or shops is, and I dont give a fuck. I still don't know why I as a consumer should give a fuck because that aint my problem.

I go where the best service and the best options for me are. In terms of digital games stores, Steam is easily that platform. In terms of phone platforms, for me it is easily not apple, I coule not care how much people charge to sell in their stores.

I do care about dumb monopolistic limitations though, things like apple forcing browsers to use webkit. That would be like steam forcing all games to use the source engine. Apple not allowing people to install their own store fronts, Google making that more difficult, Steam not allowing you to install Epic... oh wait.
- Steam is a DRM system. It's amazing to hear people profess their horniness for a DRM system.
one of those cares about its customers, another doesnt. But which is which?
- Delusional to thing one cares. We live in a capitalist civilization. No one gives a flying fuck about us.
- I didn't learn things but I can count two sides which, since they are sides, that means they're the same.
  
  /s
it's almost like these 2 companies have wildly different practices regarding how they treat their customers and business partners.

Didn't the Epic lawsuits against Apple and Google end up showing Valves Steam cut ended up working out to something closer to 20% after all the key sales and whatever other factors. Plus EGS already does less than 20% cut and it's been like 6+ years and that client is still bare bones and they don't even do gift cards or price lower. Same for Microsofts store which I believe is lower on PC while still 30% on console.

Regardless at best this lawsuit would just mean an end to 3rd party steam key sales or Valve taking a 30% cut on those too. At best a victory against Valve would mean more expensive games with the loss of keysite stores pricing advantage

Also games used to MSRP $10 cheaper on Steam when there was an argument that going digital was a major cost savings compared to physical products/packaging, shipping, and retailler cut. Eventually publishers stopped caring and made physical and digital prices the same while adding an assortment of DLC and subscriptions

Comment sections under these articles are always filled with two kinds of people:

Ones who won't miss the water until the well runs dry.
Ones who understand what it means to have a well.

I am now confused, not sure if because I can't recognize the well or I am too thirsty.
- Just remember to stay moist.

Does this mean cheaper games on the Steam store? Might be good for indie developers, but I bet most publishers will pocket the difference.

In the same way that applying tarrifs will reduce the price of goods.

I'd love to see valve just blacklist devs who are on this lawsuit :D Go back to epic ig you care about your cut and not your customers.

Irrational steam fanboys are funny
- it would be funny though. They shouldn't do it, but it would be funny if they did.

Watch out for valve pr team shilling online

The only actually decent big company I can think of with a decent product and a track record of investing in open source and consumer benefiting solutions is being defended online. Shock.
- Private companies, for better or worse, are beholden only to the boss. No shareholder value to worry about.
  
  That's the only reason steam hasn't been turning the thumbscrews on developers for stage 3 enshittification profit seeking.
- The only actually decent big company I can think of with a decent product
  
  A company that promotes gambling to underage kids with a proprietary third party launcher.
  
  What are you doing on dbzer0 btw?

The rent seeking on platforms like Steam, the Apple App Store, and Google Play is absolutely gross considering how little value they actually provide. I'll be very glad to see them forced to reduce it to somewhere similar to a card transaction fee.

Here we go again. Armchair economists bleating "why everything cost money, corporate bad" with no actual expertise to back it up. Steam is not a parasitic middle man, it is a collection of services that would have to be provisioned and operated by the developer otherwise.

A massive infrastructure to store and deliver the game and its updates, worldwide, and at an acceptable bandwidth that Valve operates

A storefront that enables monetizing the game

The audience and discoverability that would not exist otherwise

The Steam API, achievements, cloud saves

The client itself, content management, validation, and Linux compatibility tools

Network and operational security

(edit) Also keep in mind that Steam and its services are operated by experts. A game developer would have to hire the experts or get training.

That's where the cut goes.
- People should really read the Steamworks documentation to get an idea of the absurd amount of services Steam offers https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/home
- Yeah, I think the big difference between Steam and Google Play and the App Store is that Steam does not own Windows and has actual competition.
  
  I think asking for a cut just because you own the OS is despicable, but Steam is actually providing a service.
- And all the community features for the consumers.
- You forget to mention the cut that goes into the ceo billion dollar worth fleet of mega yachts
  
  https://luxurylaunches.com/transport/gabe-newell-luxury-yachts.php
- That's all nice, but you're dreaming if you think any of that adds up to 30% of the value of a video game.
I am one to always call out rent seeking where I see it... But I don't really see how Steam fits in there. Some of us are old enough to remember when HL2 came out, and things began transitioning from physical media to Steam. No dev was forced to do anything, and for years most people still bought physical games for everything other than Valve games.

The reason other devs started switching over, and it became dominant, is because it's just a damn good service (and also because broadband just started getting more affordable).
We can always go back to the old ways of having a download from the company website and downloading directly from them. What? Nobody wants to pay for bandwidth? Nobody wants to have to pay for secure management of credentials and billing? :O
- Those days didn't even exist (or if they did, they were very short). I feel like Steam came out just before the broadband boom (when they released HL2, it was still on five CDs). And by the time other devs started switching, most of them just went to Steam.
  
  However, re: the broadband thing, they could distribute with bittorrent, kind of like how linux distros do it.
- For bandwidth, it'd absolutely make sense if a game that's 10GiB+ because uncompressed audio and pre-rendered cutscenes (and likely huge day-1 updates) had to pay more of a cut to its platform than a 200MiB (or less) game. Particularly if the smaller game doesn't even have multi-player.
- Nobody wants to pay for bandwidth? Nobody wants to have to pay for secure management of credentials and billing? :O
  
  They absolutely would if it didn't mean getting deprioritized on Steam. Those things aren't that difficult or expensive these days. I could have secure management of credentials and billing up in a weekend if I needed it (correctly), and I'm a single developer.
  
  Steam is better than Microsoft, Apple, Google and Tencent. Using monopoly power to maintain the 30% standard is still a problem.
Do you wish to collect games on dvd again?
Eh, there's more involved with a full storefront and content delivery compared to just a card transaction. But it's definitely not 30% worth of additional value.
- But it's definitely not 30% worth of additional value.
  
  They're actually claiming to be adding almost 50% (43%, to be precise) in value, since that's how much more you have to add to end up at 30% of the final value. (By analogy, imagine they took a 50% cut. That would be claiming to double the value. Something that used to be worth $10 is now going to cost $20 if the original wants to maintain the same cut.)