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Gabe Newell ordered to make in-person deposition for Valve v. Wolfire Games lawsuit
(www.gamesindustry.biz)
this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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Fuck this company, I'm glad they've made their name known so I won't buy any games they have anything to do with.
What is wrong with wolfire here?
We'll have to see what evidence they submit. I'm skeptical given that this lawsuit is funded by Epic. I have other skepticisms, but learning that Epic is the root of the lawsuit is what makes me doubt any legitimacy the claimants have. I posted a very long series of thoughts just elsewhere in the thread that goes into more detail. It's mostly nothing though since it's just my thoughts and we can't truly know until the case is settled or releases details.
My opinion, it comes down to Steam's ToS is regarding Steam Keys. Steam Keys sold not on Steam do not get 30% taken by Valve, but Valve still provides its services - cloud saves, forums, per game notes, complete controller remapping support and more. So, for example: A developer sells a game on Epic and generates 1,000 Steam keys - has 500 on Steam and 500 on a 3rd party site. The developer can sell the game on Epic for whatever price they want. $5. $20. $50. Whatever. Steam asks that whatever Steam Key is being sold is priced the same on every store front. No matter what they sell for though, none of that 30% is taken by Valve from the 3rd party sale. The Epic storefront in unaffiliated to the developer since they are not Steam Keys.
500 of those keys are now utilizing Steam's services without any of that sale revenue going to Valve. I have 20gb of Cloud Storage, if every user has that much and there are how many users on Steam... (120 million active users turns into 2 billion 400 million gigabytes, or far over two hundred thousand Terabytes. I think I mathed it right). They must have some serious cloud storage.
With that in mind, it seems reasonable to me that Valve not want developers to advertise other storefronts, nor does it seem unreasonable that they ask to have equitable pricing between store fronts i.e. if it's $5 on Itch then at some point it should go on sale for $5 on Steam.
Out of curiosity, what do you think Wolfire is in the right about? From my understanding, Humble Bundle can do whatever they want within the developers wishes regarding sales, and if they want to continue to sell games then they don't have to sell Steam keys to do it? It seems to me that Humble Bundle is trying to sell games for even cheaper on their storefront, while providing Steam keys which would be actively be putting strain on Valve, while Humble Bundle gets to benefit from the services being provided. What exactly is the issue here? Is it just that Valve is so large? So then at what point have they used their size to prevent games from being sold? I didn't see them during Control, Metro Exodus, Chiv 2, or Kenna or Mechwarriors 5 or really any of the other ~100+ games this has happened to. Or what about when Epic bought Rocket League or Fall Guys and removed it from Steam's storefront? Hm. I guess the video game giant that literally makes the Unreal engines doing far more egregious business is exempt from the same critiques.
I see a lot of instances of $$$ gating games, specifically away from Steam, but I feel like I've yet to see an example where Valve actively restricted the sale of a game from itch.io or Fanatical or quite literally any kind of exclusive whatsoever? So I'm just really curious what merit someone thinks that this suit actually has? It's just that none of what I've seen anywhere puts Valve in a bad light. Funny, the only actual bad court case I can think of was against AUS and resulted in worldwide refunds across the entire platform. Looking at Apple in the EU, I doubt U.S. will have any of those changes come our way. The other lawsuit I'm familiar with Valve is how Corsair is suing them for the bumpers on the Steam Controller. Patent trolls.
Basically, I see nothing to suggest that Steam is using their size to inhibit the sales of games on other platforms, only that they ask that it be equal. I saved the closest I ever came to seeing "some merit" and of course the info is from a now deleted user, so I can't even say what that was anymore. Though I'm sure it will be the evidence provided in court. For posterity, here is what Wolffire has to say about it.
Anyway, like I said I am curious if there is any legitimacy surrounding it, or if there's an aspect that I've been missing. However, I am very skeptical simply because it's being spearheaded by Epic. He straight up is saying in the blog post that "no cheaper game anywhere, not even if they're not Steam keys!" Overgrowth is not some hugely popular game, he was literally doing this move to try and sell more copies of the game. I highly doubt that Valve as a company threw their weight against this guy over this. Especially to the extent of which he claims "it's why all other storefronts have failed*.
I will say, I could understand more an employee mis-speaking or a miscommunication, but then to take what a random employee person allegedly said to court... Furthermore it goes onto say that developers are afraid if they don't sell on Steam then they will lose a majority of revenue... It has no acknowledgement of why that may be, like say the value of services that are provided by Steam? That whole cabal of devs could happily go to Epic or Itch or the Nintendo Switch. Only a fear of losing revenue for not supporting a platform because of the immense value it provides.
Literally, if it were any other series of storefronts - like if Fanatical, GMG, Itch.io all came together with a civil suit then I'd hear the fuck out of that antitrust case.
But... Humble Bundle complaining and Epic funding it? Hard pass, pass so hard I didn't even hit it pass. If Humble Bundle has an issue they are in a fine position to no longer sell Steam keys and that solves their problem. I don't think there is much merit in "I lose revenue because I chose not to sell my game on Steam.". About as much merit as making that argument for any console.
I mean, seriously! Just think of how many sales were lost by Wolffire just because they chose not to port the game to Switch PS4 and XBOX!
I don't really see a difference between the two, and I definitely do not see a monopoly or antitrust where Valve meddling in store sale pricing affects the success of competing stores. For one, price parity is standard everywhere - whether that's wrong or not is irrelevant, it's the reality that the case is ignoring. For two, as I said it completely ignores the services Steam provides which in my opinion are far more likely reasons for why people continue to use Steam. Steam gets us with the extreme sales and keeps us with the stellar services. Other store fronts are free to have those sales, but if they do not succeed I doubt it's due to price meddling and has far more to do with the services that are missing.
sigh sorry, I didn't mean for it to get this long. Especially since I just posted another comment about this length. However, I do feel this one does a better job explaining my understanding of the situation so... lol
From my understanding of the now deleted price parity clause was that any storefront selling your game, regardless of Steam keys being sold, had to have price parity with Steam's price. This was how it was back in 2015-2016 when I signed the agreement and had discord messages stating that to my team. That said, I recently pulled up the same steam agreement and there is no longer any price parity on the agreement. It seems like Steam is quietly trying to remove it.
Does that change your stance? If price parity doesn't depend on steam keys?
Also afaik, no, the wording said price parity to the exact price and time of each platform. So if it was 5 dollars on Itch, then it needed to be 5 dollars on Steam, at that same moment. Regardless of sale times between platforms being different. This is something they loosely enforced because the enforcement of this sort of thing would be insanely difficult.
Regarding your last point, that is not what Steam T.O.S nor the blog post from 2 years ago specify, it said "within a reasonable amount of time" which has been what I've been familiar with, releasing a SteamPlay title back in 2012. Fairly, that could have been within the time period of it just being changed (after, I think my time) However...
Yes, it has been about price parity from the beginning. If parity didn't depend on Steam keys, that doesn't make sense. For Valve to try and use that pull against Ubisoft/EA, and more recently Epic. They were they only doing it to indie? And that affected these indie stores so heavily they failed? Okay.... They still exist and have devs selling on them. Selling.. .steam keys.. so if it were an issue, don't use steam keys?
If they were failing, why would they continue to sell on Steam? Until they felt safe enough to be protected by... Epic money? That seems laughable. So Valve has been actively inhibiting sales towards Fanatical, Itch, and Humble Bundle but allowing Ubi/EA/Epic whatever they want? If the evidence shows it, okay sure I'm game. Evidence. Please?
Like I said, if small devs came together with some kind of class action or similar antitrust, but the Wolffire case from the start seems to be pretty much composed of Epic has been-exclusive signers - that is to say more clearly, the nameless "group of devs" Wolffire mentioned in their blog have since yet to have show their support to the case. I'm not sure if I mentioned this here but I genuinely loved Lugaru and the 24-Jam Receiver - but I always was unable to buy Overgrowth because of how highly priced it was. Come to learn that Wolffire then led to HB before being bought out by IGN. I've been a HB subscriber from very early on and have had it going for a long, long time as active (only until recently due to personal fund prioritization).
It seems like since that acquisition in 2017 Wolffire's.existence has been ever so slightly involved in post HB transition and, now seemingly since 2021 about 2 years after that has been trying to make excuses to "lost sales" on their overpriced game (funny how only Overgrowth is the only game ever mentioned) by going after Valve for the... 3rd time now? There was the one filed April 2021 (dismissed afaik), the one in August 2021 (blog post and dismissed) and the recent February 2023. All funded by a certain T.S. of E.G. would you guess??
Why would these devs Wolffire mentioned not actively and vocally boycott Steam? Oh man! Valve totally shut down our only chance, I guess now we're forever relegated to Steam! ...as if GOG and Epic don't exist?
At this point, I just want some legitimacy behind a Valve lawsuit if they're going to happen, but from my understanding this ain't it, nor is Corsairs scuff bullshit. If you're going to take on a giant , have some merit.
Why go after the platform that is providing so much to its users? Why side with the Epic platform that came out swinging with a whole lot of nothing in 2018 and have since literally been pushing money and litigation while providing gamers with absolutely jack shit? Frankly, I will never understand siding with Epic (though crazier things have happened in my lifetime).
Look - I admit I am pro Valve, but I feel this way because they have proven to me they are pro service when they were the only storefront outside of Mac-specific ones to support OSX (SteamPlay Titles). Did it take a court case to make them more pro-consumer? Yes, unfortunately. And look at where we are, with Steam now known as the storefront that provides a safety net for gamers that until that case nowhere was able to provide, something that happened globally, not just rolled out to a single or small set of countries. In terms of hardware I have gotten replacements for my steam controller and steam link and valve index at the drop of hat free shipping no charge, The first two years after they had stopped officially supporting these devices.
I would feel different if Epic had even attempted a sliver of what Valve delivers. They do not. They have actively shown they care otherwise with their timed exclusives paid off to devs and free games that only pay devs per-install, not per claim, and have actively removed support for games - Paragon and Rocket Linux to name a pair. I am anti-Epic because the CEO is a vocal nutjob who is all too happy to work with Tencent (though I'll admit, at least it's in the open - the one good thing) who is all too happy to try and utilize the features of Steam when they can (proton) all while undercutting the actual developers - short term payments are not long term support. We.know this because the 2019-2021 Epic exclusives had no advertising, save for Metro, why would they, Epic paid them for their games.
Tim Sweeny takes any kick at Valve he can and I simply have yet to see any validity to the case to prove this isn't more of that. I'd be interested in seeing any of the developers Wolffire mentioned and I've been following these cases closely. With all this in mind to me it seems this remote deposition is nothing more than an attempt to bring discomfort to Newell who has shown to be not particularly open to public showings outside his will (like his medical showings).
Anyway again, like I said, should any evidence or congregation of devs come to light condemning valve then I am more than on board, I have no love for any corporation that pervas evil but at the moment with the options available, no vocal, no believe. Why not GOG? Why not Epic? No itch? No indiegala or GMG? Not good enough to be bought by EA/Ubi? Hm, that's a lot of options that don't provide nearly as many services as Steam and yet are all clearly viable storefronts that aren't providing the same service.
To me, it seems kind of unfair to generate some ~5000 steam keys then expect that even the half 2,500 utilize Steam services while Valve gets no portion. But maybe to some it's what Valve deserves for offering so much and subsequently being successful. Surely, they only could make that by being shitty (lootboxes not withstanding here, lol), definitely not by providing a litany of services everywhere else seemingly refuses to.
I don't think Valve is perfect nor exempt from critique. If anything, I hope this makes them more pro consumer regardless of the outcome. However, none of what I have seen from any of this makes me feel angry at Valve, it only makes me disappointed in a developer I previously believed in.
Of course, my mind is open.