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Valve are in the legal spotlight again following the EU Commission Fine with a few more Steam troubles, as a new lawsuit has emerged with a claim about an "abuse" of their market power.

First picked up by the Hollywood Reporter, which has the full document showing the lawsuit was filed on January 28, was filed by 5 people together and doesn't appear to have any major companies backing it. The suit mentions how Valve require developers to sign an agreement that contains a "Most Favored Nations" provision to have developers keep the price of their games the same on Steam as other platforms. To be clear, they're talking about the Steam Distribution Agreement which isn't public and not what we can all see in the Steamworks documentation which talks about keys.

This means (if the claim is actually true) that developers cannot have their game on itch, GOG, Humble or anywhere else at a lower price, and so the lawsuit claims that other platforms are unable to compete on pricing "thereby insulating the Steam platform from competition" and that it "acts as an artificial barrier to entry by potential rival platforms and as higher prices lead to less sales of PC Games".

As part of the lawsuit it also names CD Projekt, Ubisoft, Devolver Digital and others.

It argues that if developers could legitimately set their own prices across different stores, they could lower their prices on stores that take a lower cut and "generate the same or even greater revenue per game as a result of the lower commissions, while lowering prices to consumers". They even directly bring up posts on Twitter from the Epic Games CEO, Tim Sweeney, like this one from 2019:

Steam has veto power over prices, so if a multi-store developer wishes to sell their game for a lower price on the Epic Games store than Steam, then: 1) Valve can simply say “no” 2) Pricing disparity would likely anger Steam users, leading to review bombing, etc

What are your thoughts on this? Should Valve be forced to allow developers to set their own prices, and not require their price to be the same as other stores?

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Misc, Steam, Valve
19 Likes
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Mohandevir Feb 1, 2021
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: CatKiller
Quoting: ZlopezThey are saying that you can't have different prices on different platforms. So they actually dictate the price you need to have elsewhere. So if you have a game on Steam and GOG and there is GOG sale going on, you need to lower price on Steam too.

They don't.

A game dev can sell their game anywhere, at any price they want. No skin off Valve's nose.

If a game dev sells Steam keys (which Valve generates for free, just for the asking) through a store that isn't Steam, at a lower price than they sell them on Steam, then they also need to sell them on Steam at that price at some point. So, as an example, a lot of the games sold in the recent Humble sale were distributed as Steam keys at a lower price than they were going for on Steam; those prices then got lowered on Steam itself once Humble's sale was over.
The lawsuit is talking about the main Steam distribution agreement though, not the Steamworks Steam Keys agreement. They're two different things. As far as I can tell, the Distribution Agreement is confidential and so we cannot see it. This is where the MFN clause is contained.

Are you saying that there are workarounds for the MFN?
kuhpunkt Feb 1, 2021
Quoting: TheSHEEEPwhich I still think is unlikely because why make an entirely baseless claim to waste your time and money (lawyers, etc.) with?

https://heelbynature.com/wrestling-news/wwe-news/judge-dismisses-frivolous-lawsuit-against-wwe-filed-by-fan/

And again, there are flaws in the lawsuit, like the Microsoft Store claim, which is just wrong. If they can't even get something as simple as this right...?
Mal Feb 1, 2021
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Lol. What's happening to the world? Ever since Tim Sweeney decided that play store and ios store are monopolies people see monopolies everywhere.

Soon somebody will sue GamingOnLinux for monopolizing its pages and preventing writers from posting about windows and not allowing other news providers to host their own comments section under the articles.

But of course not before I sue myself for monopolizing the space of this post.
x_wing Feb 1, 2021
Quoting: TheSHEEEPI don't see how I minimize other practices. I just explained how as a developer, you do what you have to in order to stay afloat.

The practice of Steam of not allowing lower prices on other stores, if true, is what I criticize.

What examples of lower prices are you talking about?
If it is about Steam keys, those are excempt from the contract if I understood that correctly.
If there are more than those, then it is quite possible Steam didn't "catch" those (not all contractually "illegal" things are brought to court, after all) or the claim is indeed baseless - which I still think is unlikely because why make an entirely baseless claim to waste your time and money (lawyers, etc.) with?

Well, in the moment you accept that devs following other anti-consumer practices it's okay because they need the extra money you're minimizing those practices.

Regarding some examples (Using US prices):
https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/football-manager-2021-touch/home
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1263860/Football_Manager_2021_Touch/

But you have to pay the same price for the FM2021 regular edition. Either way, there are many examples of price difference between GOG, Steam and Epic.
Koopacabras Feb 1, 2021
So "corporate tagging" your prices seems anticonsumer... and what about exclusives, when corporations screw all together the little man and prevent him from choosing the store he wants?
Beamboom Feb 1, 2021
Quoting: TheSHEEEPCustomers get screwed

... Or the opposite - that it ensures that Steam users are getting a lower price than they would if not.
I mean, it could easily go both ways, that devs would be adding the Valve cut on Steam (40% isn't it?), while operating with a different price elsewhere.
kuhpunkt Feb 1, 2021
Quoting: Beamboom
Quoting: TheSHEEEPCustomers get screwed

... Or the opposite - that it ensures that Steam users are getting a lower price than they would if not.
I mean, it could easily go both ways, that devs would be adding the Valve cut on Steam (40% isn't it?), while operating with a different price elsewhere.

It's 20-30%, depending on the revenue that's been generated.
BielFPs Feb 1, 2021
Quoting: MalBut of course not before I sue myself for monopolizing the space of this post.

Tell Sweeney this space also belongs to steam, and he'll help you with the proce$$
TheSHEEEP Feb 1, 2021
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Quoting: x_wingWell, in the moment you accept that devs following other anti-consumer practices it's okay because they need the extra money you're minimizing those practices.
There is a VERY large difference between selling your game on a store that everyone can use (hell, even we can by now via some frontends) with the only inconvenience being that you have to use something other than Steam for up to one year if you really want that game right now on one hand.
And on the other hand you have the practice of forcing developers to ask the same prices everywhere, even on places where you could ask for less due to a lower cut (or maybe because you want to push that other platform).

One is a minor to medium inconvenience for customers (and not even illegal), the other (again, if true) a serious misuse of market power that could prevent a gain of profit especially for smaller developers.
As well as artificially trying to uphold a monopoly-like market position - which is almost certainly illegal in itself.

Apples and oranges.

Quoting: BeamboomOr the opposite - that it ensures that Steam users are getting a lower price than they would if not.
I mean, it could easily go both ways, that devs would be adding the Valve cut on Steam (40% isn't it?), while operating with a different price elsewhere.
That's a very far-fetched theory. I don't see any reason to expect that developers would suddenly raise their prices on one platform because they can lower their prices on another.

It's not like Valve increases their cut - if they did, that would lead to higher prices on Steam.

Most likely scenario is no price changes for the most part with a few devs or publishers lowering prices on platforms with a lower cut.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 1 February 2021 at 4:01 pm UTC
Koopacabras Feb 1, 2021
the problem with this suit and why I think that is BS... is that it tries to force the state into "price controlling", price controlling in the long run does more harm that it benefits.
If u want an example of a price controlled market just look at the Oil market!


Last edited by Koopacabras on 1 February 2021 at 4:13 pm UTC
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