this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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Valve faces a £656 million lawsuit in the UK for 'overcharging 14 million PC gamers' (www.gamingonlinux.com)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 47 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Monopoly, noun: the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service.

Imo this does not apply to Steam. They do not have an exclusive possession or control of the PC gaming market. As is proven in the rest of this thread by just about everyone, there are other online game stores/launchers besides Steam. Literally no one is forcing you to use Steam (because then it would be considered a monopoly), when Epic, GoG, Uplay, Origin, and Rockstar Launchers all exist.

Again, like it was said elsewhere in this thread, they've just crushed the competition so completely that it feels like they have a monopoly.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 5 months ago (1 children)

In the article

  1. Price parity obligation clauses: We say that Valve Corporation imposes price parity clauses that restrict and prevent game developers from offering better prices on PC-games on rival platforms, limiting consumer choice and harming competition.

This seems to be common practice, but is anti competitive. If another platform would charge 20 instead of 30 pct and the publisher would give half this discount to the customers this would be against these clauses. Good that these are looked at.

  1. Tying: We say that the restrictions Valve Corporation imposes, that mean the add-on content for games must also be purchased from Steam, restricts competition in the market.

And vice versa, steam dlc does not work with games on epic. Interesting case here too.

  1. Excessive pricing: We argue that Valve Corporation has imposed an excessive commission, of up to 30%, charged to publishers, that resulted in inflated prices on its Steam platform.

The 30% market standard seems to be under fire across the board, so if there is a solid case to be made that this is excessive, I'm glad the watchdog is trying to make it.

In all good that this is investigated, cause just paying for another yaght or house for Gabe is not nessecary.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It wouldn't be the first time the first point has been brought up. If true it does sound pretty anti competition. But so far there's been no proof valve is actually doing this and I'm skeptical that it's happening at all. If it were happening I don't think we would be getting free games on epic (at least not ones that are also sold on steam). Nor do I think we'd have games on gamepass that are also on steam. I also routinely see sales for games on Green Man Gaming, Humble Bundle, and epic that at the time at least make the games cheaper than they are on steam.

Maybe they have agreements with certain publishers to provide a lower platform fee than 30% in exchange for them not providing the games cheaper on other platforms?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sure it has been brought up. But that's why these investigations are good. If it's true, slap em with a fine, if it's not.. valve can make a victory lap.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Yeah agreed.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

IIRC Steam has used that first clause to limit Steam keys being provided on another store at a cheaper price. I believe devs have been allowed (maybe unofficially) to sell at whatever price they want if there's no steam key being provided.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I thought it was lower retail price not allowed but lower price allowed for discounts?

Pretty much most my Steam games I have bought have been from places like fanatical after taking a look at isthereanydeals to find the lowest price for steam games.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Sometimes, monopoly implicitly means a business that is so much better than the competition that the competition is pretty much irrelevant.

I think that used to apply to Steam.