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.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Mohandevir Feb 3, 2021
Funny... Thinking about it... 5 "random" (Yeah right!) gamers that seem to be unable to correctly read a EULA learned of the MFN which is closed behind an NDA between developpers and Valve... Who broke the NDA then? Will the plantiffs be able to produce the proof of the MFN without compromising the identity of the NDA leaker(s)? Because that could legally cost them a lot. Like it was said... Follow the money.
Did I get something wrong?
Last edited by Mohandevir on 3 February 2021 at 1:51 pm UTC
Did I get something wrong?
Last edited by Mohandevir on 3 February 2021 at 1:51 pm UTC
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Quoting: MalIf anything they will increase it where they want to discourage the sells.
That was my point with my post (I don't know if it was clear)
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Quoting: kuhpunktYou don't even know if Valve is actually doing this.
You don't know either, I'm only saying what I think about this case, based on
hypothesis that such a clause exists
Quoting: BielFPsPersonally I think
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Quoting: BielFPsQuoting: MalIf anything they will increase it where they want to discourage the sells.
That was my point with my post (I don't know if it was clear)
Yeah, but the standard, typical, universally agreed fair price is that an AAA game costs 60. What they costs now, costed yesterday and will cost tomorrow (unless horrible avg income crisis happen). So when you say 65 on Steam and 40 on else, without specifing the context, it looks like you're impling that prices are going to diminish outside Steam, with benefits for consumers.
I guess your example was on an indie title, where yeah 40 or 30 are typically accepted as fair prices. In that case yeah, the example makes sense. But imho an example is more effective if it's simple.
Last edited by Mal on 3 February 2021 at 3:51 pm UTC
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Quoting: MalYeah, but the standard, typical, universally agreed fair price is that an AAA game costs 60. What they costs now, costed yesterday and will cost tomorrow (unless horrible avg income crisis happen). So when you say 65 on Steam and 40 on else, without specifing the context, it looks like you're impling that prices are going to diminish outside Steam, with benefits for consumers.
I guess your example was on an indie title, where yeah 40 or 30 are typically accepted as fair prices. In that case yeah, the example makes sense. But imho an example is more effective if it's simple.
I gave $60 as an example, I don't know the standard price for AAA games in North America and Europe, since I don't live in neither (all I know is that they're relatively cheap)
I'll try again: Let's say hypothetically Epic, EA, Ubisoft, Activision, Bethesda, Rockstar, Microsoft and Satan wants to make some kind of "informal cartel" with the purpose of undermining the monopoly of Steam, by selling their games at lower price in their stores and more expensive (on purpose) at Steam.
If they want to do something similar to this, they can't because hypothetically Valve has a clause in the contract preventing their prices to be higher than those other stores.
Of course you can ask "but if they simply stop to sell their games at steam, wouldn't be easier?"
the funny thing about the consumers, is that if you simply remove the games from steam, they'll complain about not been available there and a lot of them probably wouldn't buy anyway in protest (depending of the game of course).
But if they're available at steam (being more expensive) and cheaper in other stores, a lot of people would prefer the other stores (depending of the difference)
At long term, this could make an impression that steam is "the most expensive store" resulting in a considerable lost of steam only costumers and fragmentation of available games through stores
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Quoting: MohandevirFunny... Thinking about it... 5 "random" (Yeah right!) gamers that seem to be unable to correctly read a EULA learned of the MFN which is closed behind an NDA between developpers and Valve... Who broke the NDA then? Will the plantiffs be able to produce the proof of the MFN without compromising the identity of the NDA leaker(s)? Because that could legally cost them a lot. Like it was said... Follow the money.
Did I get something wrong?
That one thing is no problem for the plaintiffs, if this goes to court then Valve will be forced to disclose the MFN to the court and to the plaintiffs during the discovery phase. So there is no need to produce who was the leaker, however the court could of course deem that this whole affair is nothing more than a fishing expedition to make the MFN public so the whole thing can die right there.
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Quoting: F.UltraThis is not accurate. There is no "MFN". An "MFN" isn't a contract in and of itself. There is a contractual agreement with an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) between Valve and the publisher. This may or may not be introduced, but it isn't an absolute given and the plaintiffs don't necessarily have the ability to include that. The fact that they didn't include it in the complaint, and the implication behind that, was discussed in the video.Quoting: MohandevirFunny... Thinking about it... 5 "random" (Yeah right!) gamers that seem to be unable to correctly read a EULA learned of the MFN which is closed behind an NDA between developpers and Valve... Who broke the NDA then? Will the plantiffs be able to produce the proof of the MFN without compromising the identity of the NDA leaker(s)? Because that could legally cost them a lot. Like it was said... Follow the money.
Did I get something wrong?
That one thing is no problem for the plaintiffs, if this goes to court then Valve will be forced to disclose the MFN to the court and to the plaintiffs during the discovery phase. So there is no need to produce who was the leaker, however the court could of course deem that this whole affair is nothing more than a fishing expedition to make the MFN public so the whole thing can die right there.
The contract between Valve and the publishers/developers may have clauses or stipulations which give an "MFN" status and that has to be determined during the hearing. And then it has to be proven to be proven unfavorable to consumers. And then they have to prove that Valve and those publishers colluded to set prices to the detriment of the public while also harming those publishers who colluded to set prices.
The video linked earlier in the article is really worth watching. It helps clarify a lot and can eliminate some of our lay assumptions and understandings. A lot of the comments in this thread are emotionally based on what posters think should happen, but the court proceedings will be based on law and precedence.
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Quoting: randylQuoting: F.UltraThis is not accurate. There is no "MFN". An "MFN" isn't a contract in and of itself. There is a contractual agreement with an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) between Valve and the publisher. This may or may not be introduced, but it isn't an absolute given and the plaintiffs don't necessarily have the ability to include that. The fact that they didn't include it in the complaint, and the implication behind that, was discussed in the video.Quoting: MohandevirFunny... Thinking about it... 5 "random" (Yeah right!) gamers that seem to be unable to correctly read a EULA learned of the MFN which is closed behind an NDA between developpers and Valve... Who broke the NDA then? Will the plantiffs be able to produce the proof of the MFN without compromising the identity of the NDA leaker(s)? Because that could legally cost them a lot. Like it was said... Follow the money.
Did I get something wrong?
That one thing is no problem for the plaintiffs, if this goes to court then Valve will be forced to disclose the MFN to the court and to the plaintiffs during the discovery phase. So there is no need to produce who was the leaker, however the court could of course deem that this whole affair is nothing more than a fishing expedition to make the MFN public so the whole thing can die right there.
The contract between Valve and the publishers/developers may have clauses or stipulations which give an "MFN" status and that has to be determined during the hearing. And then it has to be proven to be proven unfavorable to consumers. And then they have to prove that Valve and those publishers colluded to set prices to the detriment of the public while also harming those publishers who colluded to set prices.
The video linked earlier in the article is really worth watching. It helps clarify a lot and can eliminate some of our lay assumptions and understandings. A lot of the comments in this thread are emotionally based on what posters think should happen, but the court proceedings will be based on law and precedence.
I fail to see how you contradict me in any way?
edit: sounds like you have a problem with me using "MFN" for the Valve vs Developer agreement, I simply used that in haste due to the post that I quoted, the context should IMHO be clear however.
Last edited by F.Ultra on 4 February 2021 at 5:40 pm UTC
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Mohandevir Feb 4, 2021
Quoting: randylThe contract between Valve and the publishers/developers may have clauses or stipulations which give an "MFN" status and that has to be determined during the hearing.
Aaaah! MFN is a term used to qualify a situation... They want to convince the court that some part of Valve's contract acts like a MFN. Is that so?
Edit: For the record... Don't know why I haven't tought about that in the first place:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_favoured_nation
Last edited by Mohandevir on 4 February 2021 at 6:46 pm UTC
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Quoting: TermyWhats the fuss about? Steam is giving out free keys to the devs with the only catch that they may not sell them lower than they do on steam (with details on sales etc) - while steam still has the same infrastructure-costs for those keys.As expected. I thought I was going to agree with this article but it seems it's same old swine wanting to have his apple and eat it too.
I really wouldn't be surprised if Sweeny "motivated" those 5 guys to initiate such a dumb lawsuit that costs us taxpayers unnecessary money -.-
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