Latest Comments by Mal
Valve abusing the market power of Steam on game pricing according to a lawsuit
3 Feb 2021 at 3:49 pm UTC
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.
3 Feb 2021 at 3:49 pm UTC
Quoting: BielFPsYeah, 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.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)
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.
Valve abusing the market power of Steam on game pricing according to a lawsuit
3 Feb 2021 at 1:13 am UTC
3 Feb 2021 at 1:13 am UTC
Quoting: BielFPsImagine for ExamPle If a Competitor make a shady contract with the biggest dev companies, and the next hyped game would cost $40,00 in others stores and $65,00 on steam, where do you think most of the sales would happen?Make it 60$ on other stores and 75$ on Steam and then we have something close to what would actually happen. Once people decided that the game is worth 60$ why would publishers decrease that price? Philantrophy? If anything they will increase it where they want to discourage the sells. In this case people would learn fo the game on Steam, get angry at the price, goodle and then learn that the desired price(sticky price) is available elsewhere.
Valve abusing the market power of Steam on game pricing according to a lawsuit
1 Feb 2021 at 7:26 pm UTC Likes: 1
This article is about a sue being started by unknown people against valve. They claim they abuse their "monopolistic position" to influence prices among the whole market. If they win or not, nothing will change really.
Digital prices are always set to maximize total revenue (units sold * unit price) because they have near 0 fixed costs (it costs nothing to make an additional copy after the first one, and you don't have to rent warehouses to store unsold copies). So, to simplify things, if a publisher thinks he can increase the price of a VG of 20% in Europe and europeans will still buy it, he will increase prices. If he instead thinks that reducing the price 10% will allow him to sell 50% more copies, he will reduce price. In practice publishers kind of do both to maximize revenues: they first sell the VG at full price, then when all people willing to pay full price are done they reduce 10% and they sell all copies they can at that price. Then reduce again and again until they have sold max amount of copies at the max possible price.
Many facts are proof of this: when Steam "invented" digital distribution, prices remained the same even though suddenly distribution fee went from 50% to 30%. Because people thought 60$/€ was a reasonable price, digital or not. When Epic started their 12/88 crusade, prices remained the same. Because people still think 60$/€ is reasonable price. When you buy a game in Russia you pay less than same game in USA (geoblocking, purchasing power). Because people in Russia don't think 60$ is a reasonable price for them. Prices aren't determined by production or distribution costs. Only by how much we are willing to spend. So whatever happens to Steam, rest assured that prices won't change, for sure not in the way you like.
This specific case see a bunch of trolls trying to get some settlement money from Valve to avoid the legal costs or complications of a trial. It's part of a number of legal quarrels we're seeing recently that has been started or fomented by Epic. The issue at hand, once factoring out rethoric, it's purely about who's getting a bigger piece of the cake (digital platforms vs publishers). Not about consumer interests (value/price ratio) and only rarely on developer interests (publishers are almost always contractually stronger than developers, so any money they can absorb from distributors they will keep it and not pass it to devs).
As a gamer one should only take sides when value/price ratio is affected in a pejorative way. Because price is independent (or better, depends only on national avg income that is independent from gaming industry), for us it's only a matter of value. Thus all the hostility of gamers towards EGS, Ubistore and all the other half backed gaming platforms. We don't want to pay the same but start to get less.
1 Feb 2021 at 7:26 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: BasianiGuys, I'm reading your comments and still not understand games prises on Steam goes up or down, if Valve will agree that EU Commission Fine?Commission fine is a separate topic discussed in another article. But if EU wins, prices will remain the same in central Europe (Germany/France) and go up in the periphery (East Europe) to match these.
Not curious question.
chears all ;-)
This article is about a sue being started by unknown people against valve. They claim they abuse their "monopolistic position" to influence prices among the whole market. If they win or not, nothing will change really.
Digital prices are always set to maximize total revenue (units sold * unit price) because they have near 0 fixed costs (it costs nothing to make an additional copy after the first one, and you don't have to rent warehouses to store unsold copies). So, to simplify things, if a publisher thinks he can increase the price of a VG of 20% in Europe and europeans will still buy it, he will increase prices. If he instead thinks that reducing the price 10% will allow him to sell 50% more copies, he will reduce price. In practice publishers kind of do both to maximize revenues: they first sell the VG at full price, then when all people willing to pay full price are done they reduce 10% and they sell all copies they can at that price. Then reduce again and again until they have sold max amount of copies at the max possible price.
Many facts are proof of this: when Steam "invented" digital distribution, prices remained the same even though suddenly distribution fee went from 50% to 30%. Because people thought 60$/€ was a reasonable price, digital or not. When Epic started their 12/88 crusade, prices remained the same. Because people still think 60$/€ is reasonable price. When you buy a game in Russia you pay less than same game in USA (geoblocking, purchasing power). Because people in Russia don't think 60$ is a reasonable price for them. Prices aren't determined by production or distribution costs. Only by how much we are willing to spend. So whatever happens to Steam, rest assured that prices won't change, for sure not in the way you like.
This specific case see a bunch of trolls trying to get some settlement money from Valve to avoid the legal costs or complications of a trial. It's part of a number of legal quarrels we're seeing recently that has been started or fomented by Epic. The issue at hand, once factoring out rethoric, it's purely about who's getting a bigger piece of the cake (digital platforms vs publishers). Not about consumer interests (value/price ratio) and only rarely on developer interests (publishers are almost always contractually stronger than developers, so any money they can absorb from distributors they will keep it and not pass it to devs).
As a gamer one should only take sides when value/price ratio is affected in a pejorative way. Because price is independent (or better, depends only on national avg income that is independent from gaming industry), for us it's only a matter of value. Thus all the hostility of gamers towards EGS, Ubistore and all the other half backed gaming platforms. We don't want to pay the same but start to get less.
Valve abusing the market power of Steam on game pricing according to a lawsuit
1 Feb 2021 at 3:01 pm UTC Likes: 12
1 Feb 2021 at 3:01 pm UTC Likes: 12
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.
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.
Valve and others fined by the European Commission for 'geo-blocking' (updated)
25 Jan 2021 at 5:57 pm UTC
Then if you talk about Utopia, an EU where very people can self determine, keep its identity and local interests while being part of a bigger federation, like a super Switzerland, well I'm all for that. But that's not the foundation of present day EU so everyone should know that this is not where we are going (nor where anti-europeans are going too). Not without a revolution first.
Today as Europeans we came to believe that economic interests are the only thing that matters for peace and stability because being part of USA hegemony/empire/sphere of influence whatever one wants to call it, this is the only thing our governments are allowed to pursue under their umbrella (thus we vote politicians to be good at these and mostly only these). When a capital tries to extend its power pojection outiside pure conomic interests, that always irritates Washington (usually it's Paris starting wars or "destabilizing areas" on its own, less frequently London). At the same time the USA trade a lot of their economic interests for other advantages in Europe, like influence or military power presence/projection. And for us as individuals citizens it's not that bad. We have peace and a good life style. US citizens have their hegemony. I don't see how changing the status quo will result to a better life to me or my beloved ones. For what I read on history books Europe has never been a better place to live before. Not saying it's a perfect world. Just that now, in my opinion, there are no winds pushing the ship toward a better one.
25 Jan 2021 at 5:57 pm UTC
Quoting: minfaerI don't see how the USA not working in the background to the detriment of all involved EU-countries would cause a nightmare.Because without them keeping the balance, eventually one capital will rise to rule the others (today that would be Berlin, in a few years Paris, London just went seppuku). And given last 100 years of history (during but most alarmingly after WW2) I don't trust any of the existing EU capitals (mine included) to build an hegemony that is a better world to live in than what Washington built. It's as simple as that. When I think to Catalan or Greek crysis I'm horrified at the idea of a EU army.
Then if you talk about Utopia, an EU where very people can self determine, keep its identity and local interests while being part of a bigger federation, like a super Switzerland, well I'm all for that. But that's not the foundation of present day EU so everyone should know that this is not where we are going (nor where anti-europeans are going too). Not without a revolution first.
Quoting: minfaerPeace and stability come from the aligned economic interests as well as a certain level of education, in my opinion, but not from the dysfunctionality in the representation of interests. Increasing economic entanglement makes conflict inherently lossy for all.That would be very nice. But that is also naive. That's very OT for a linux forum but whatever. You should know that economic interests are not the end goal of foreign policies. Power, in its broad definition, is. Economic interests are just one aspect of power, and they can be "traded" for any other advantage in other areas that result in an overall growth of power. It happened and happens all the time. Wars pretty much always result in a worsening of economic interests, but they have always been fought anyway. Democracies or not. Wasn't in USA/GB/Netherlands economic interest to continue sell raw materials to Japan and make money, instead of give them no other option than to get these by force in 1941? Or Hitler to continue trade raw materials with Stalin instead of backstab him? Yes it was. Those guys not only went against their economic interest but triggered wars with different luck. But in a bigger picture, what they did was to trade their economic advantages to stop the power growth of a counterpart that was already set to outgrow them in power, before it was to late or to late anyway in these examples. That factoring out ideologies, it would have worked the same way even by swapping these.
Today as Europeans we came to believe that economic interests are the only thing that matters for peace and stability because being part of USA hegemony/empire/sphere of influence whatever one wants to call it, this is the only thing our governments are allowed to pursue under their umbrella (thus we vote politicians to be good at these and mostly only these). When a capital tries to extend its power pojection outiside pure conomic interests, that always irritates Washington (usually it's Paris starting wars or "destabilizing areas" on its own, less frequently London). At the same time the USA trade a lot of their economic interests for other advantages in Europe, like influence or military power presence/projection. And for us as individuals citizens it's not that bad. We have peace and a good life style. US citizens have their hegemony. I don't see how changing the status quo will result to a better life to me or my beloved ones. For what I read on history books Europe has never been a better place to live before. Not saying it's a perfect world. Just that now, in my opinion, there are no winds pushing the ship toward a better one.
Valve and others fined by the European Commission for 'geo-blocking' (updated)
22 Jan 2021 at 9:40 pm UTC Likes: 2
22 Jan 2021 at 9:40 pm UTC Likes: 2
Quoting: shorbergFor anyone unfamiliar with EU, a lot of the mess comes from it being a democracy. Don't get me wrong though, democracy while not perfect is the best we got or as Churchill put it [i]'Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.'As for everything, there are different shades of gray also democracy. The issue with EU democracy is that it's a very indirect democracy. The parlament is mostly fine. But for the government it wouldn't hurt to have less interference from national governments and more direct relationship with the voters. Yet (and this is true geopolitics) the EU is just another playfield for single EU capitals to subdue and/or excert their influence over the others. So I guess it cannot be helped. It would be a nightmare if not for the USA working hidden in the background to prevent anyone to have to much success. So, as far as I'm concerned, given the last century of peace I don't dislike the disfunctional status quo to much. As long there is no Frenxit or Germanexit, we should all be safe. :wink:
Valve and others fined by the European Commission for 'geo-blocking' (updated)
22 Jan 2021 at 8:19 pm UTC Likes: 1
22 Jan 2021 at 8:19 pm UTC Likes: 1
Honestly as a European I don't dislike the single market. The implementation though is sloppy in multiple ways. But it would be unfair to deny that it improved over the years and it will likely improve more in future.
Currently my biggest complaint is more about digital content than for physical objects. Geoblocking was forbidden like 3 tears ago, but only for physical goods. In this case VGs are treated like physical objects (don't ask me why) so in Bruxelles they are adamant with their stance (and it makes sense: phisycal stuff has to be shipped and this levels the field. Only that VGs are not shipped at all). But actual digital content is infact still exempted from geo-blocking within the EU (which is nuts if you think about it). So for example on German Netflix you won't be able to see Spanish or French Netflix stuff and viceversa. Which for me, personally, sucks a lot. So yeah, my biggest issue right now is more about "availability of content" rather than mere price. The same way I purchase abroad what I don't find in the national shops. It's the usual copyright bullshit the EU is in love to. :grin: Remember the meme thing?
Regarding the price issue (which is also a very real issue), in theory this should be fixed by better redistributing the wealth among the union. There are purchasing power regional differences in every market yet uniformed prices work anyway. Just because of this. But the country with "The Positive Trade Balance" tm is very receptive on several fairness topics but not this one. So I don't see the EU changing their policies anytime soon. Shame. This considered, regional prices are imho a kind of a necessary adjustment for fairness until the real issue isn't properly addressed. Again, take Netflix as an example. Since they are currently exempt from geoblocking they do use regional pricing in EU and it works wonders: they're unreasonably overpriced everywhere... but in a proportional manner. So it sucks for everybody in the same way. :grin:
Currently my biggest complaint is more about digital content than for physical objects. Geoblocking was forbidden like 3 tears ago, but only for physical goods. In this case VGs are treated like physical objects (don't ask me why) so in Bruxelles they are adamant with their stance (and it makes sense: phisycal stuff has to be shipped and this levels the field. Only that VGs are not shipped at all). But actual digital content is infact still exempted from geo-blocking within the EU (which is nuts if you think about it). So for example on German Netflix you won't be able to see Spanish or French Netflix stuff and viceversa. Which for me, personally, sucks a lot. So yeah, my biggest issue right now is more about "availability of content" rather than mere price. The same way I purchase abroad what I don't find in the national shops. It's the usual copyright bullshit the EU is in love to. :grin: Remember the meme thing?
Regarding the price issue (which is also a very real issue), in theory this should be fixed by better redistributing the wealth among the union. There are purchasing power regional differences in every market yet uniformed prices work anyway. Just because of this. But the country with "The Positive Trade Balance" tm is very receptive on several fairness topics but not this one. So I don't see the EU changing their policies anytime soon. Shame. This considered, regional prices are imho a kind of a necessary adjustment for fairness until the real issue isn't properly addressed. Again, take Netflix as an example. Since they are currently exempt from geoblocking they do use regional pricing in EU and it works wonders: they're unreasonably overpriced everywhere... but in a proportional manner. So it sucks for everybody in the same way. :grin:
According to a Stadia developer, streamers should be paying publishers and it backfired
23 Oct 2020 at 6:42 pm UTC Likes: 1
23 Oct 2020 at 6:42 pm UTC Likes: 1
You know guys for legal topics regarding gaming and entertainment in general there is this [External Link] (imho very) interesting channel on youtube where an actual and competent US lawyer discuss and explains topics like this. At least for me it was enlightening regarding a lot of US legal disputes regarding videogame topics (like Epic vs Apple). I'd wish there was something like this for IT legal matters in general outside pure entertainment.
Anyway regarding this subject he explains how there is a lot of intellectual dishonesty from Google and publishers in general. Alex Hutchinson is correct when he says streamers don't have the rights to do what they do. And that they are the total mercy of publishers. The fact that publishers (so far) always decided to not enforce the terms of use they themselves conceived and imposed to their users (including streamers) doesn't change that a streamer today has 0 power to defend his job should a publisher decide that it don't like him anymore. The whole point of EULAs is that they can (eventually?) be enforced, that's why people take the hassle to write them.
There would be a healthier and more honest relationship between streamers and publishers if EULAs explicitly allowed for streaming.
Anyway regarding this subject he explains how there is a lot of intellectual dishonesty from Google and publishers in general. Alex Hutchinson is correct when he says streamers don't have the rights to do what they do. And that they are the total mercy of publishers. The fact that publishers (so far) always decided to not enforce the terms of use they themselves conceived and imposed to their users (including streamers) doesn't change that a streamer today has 0 power to defend his job should a publisher decide that it don't like him anymore. The whole point of EULAs is that they can (eventually?) be enforced, that's why people take the hassle to write them.
There would be a healthier and more honest relationship between streamers and publishers if EULAs explicitly allowed for streaming.
A bit like Stardew in space, One Lonely Outpost is fully funded and on the way to Linux
30 Sep 2020 at 1:57 pm UTC
30 Sep 2020 at 1:57 pm UTC
Nice. I would have love to pledge them but these days with the EGS uncertainty around I couldn't find the determination to do it.
Still it's good for them that they managed to do it. I'll likely buy the game when it done.:grin:
Still it's good for them that they managed to do it. I'll likely buy the game when it done.:grin:
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is out today, some details for you (plus new driver release)
17 Sep 2020 at 9:11 pm UTC Likes: 1
17 Sep 2020 at 9:11 pm UTC Likes: 1
Poor xbox. And poor ps5. Brutalized even before leaving the womb.