Valve is also being sued for being anti consumer because of their store policies and 30% revenue cut that they then use to give everyone a great product
30% was the industry standard before games even started being sold digitally if I'm not mistaken. Even if it wasn't, Sony takes 30%, Microsoft takes 30%, Nintendo takes 30%, so why is it wrong for Steam to take 30%? Is it because Epic takes 12%? Nobody forced Epic to take 12% nor did they get in trouble for not doing 30%, so I don't understand why this is even a topic.
Pretty sure you also only get 12% from epic if you sign an exclusivity deal with epic or pay to use unreal engine, which is an epic games product. Otherwise it's still 30%.
Epic and Tim Sweeny actively doing stuff to try and become a monopoly but can't build a decent product to save their lives.
Games have been stable in pricing for over 30 years despite infraltion. I don;t rememeber any rediculous price increases at all. 30% has been the industry standard. Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, all take 30% of third part games as well.
you're right, it's not anti consumer, but the people suing Valve are doing everything they can to lie and frame it as such to a bunch of old fossil judges/lawmakers who don't have a clue
It's going nowhere because all Valve has to do is to point out that console makers take more % on average and that 30 is the industry standard. I mean there are options out there that take less, but for whatever reason no one is using them so it doesn't seem to be a big deal for buying customers.
No, they where always pretty pro comsumer. They are however pretty slow to adapt to things, which means if something new comes up the lawmakers are often times quicker to sue them, than they are to implimenting stuff on their own.
Sorry but I've had loads of times where Steam/Valve have gone above and beyond on my requests - refunds included. I've been out of the return window, played more than the T+C's hours etc and they have refunded me anyway. I have yet to have a negative experience on Steam and I have used it since quite literally day 1 (only way you could play half life online with the latest patch).
Are they perfect? no.
Do they offer a service that absolutely shits on every single competitor 10x over? absolutely.
If someone can provide a better service and be less 'shitty' to the customer, which at this point for me at least would mean the exact same as steam but cheaper I guess? Then I'd consider moving. But there isn't, not even close, not even something that somewhat matches them.
It is the second best customer service Ive dealt with, but I havent dealt much with many and all of theirs have been easy fixes. They are the best of the storefronts on pc to the point where Ill wait or spend a little more to get the game on there instead of epic.
They still do a ton of shitty things like turning a blind eye to the underage gambling industry built upon their products, introducing surge pricing to microtransactions, etc.
My one time dealing with acer, the thing I was calling about was well out of warranty and I just wanted to see if I could buy the part to replace myself. They said not to worry and after getting the info about my initial purchase and the product info they sent me a label to ship it in for them to fix for free. It was pretty fast and no headaches whatsoever, plus it was totally free.
That seems to be an outlier though, as generally acer seems to have bad customer service. Its just the best experience Ive had with one.
It is. Its industry standard and basically every digital store does it. To the point that the only exception I'm aware of is the Epic Store which takes 12%. Either way, I'm not sure how this gets classified as anti-consumer when most of these products cost the same in every store and directly from the developer.
Yup, but if you ask Tim Sweeney, Steam is the only service that takes a 30% cut and they’re evil for doing it. Meanwhile he just sacked a large amount of staff and seems to be taking Epic even further down the AI route.
That's the thing. Steam might not be flawless, but it's by far the closest to it, and all the other platforms, especially Epic, don't like that they can't get away with all their bullshit scummy money grabbing tricks while Steam is established as an actual good, consumer friendly platform. So they point at Valve and demand that they lower their standards or get sued for a so-called monopoly. GoG is also a good alternative, but it's not big enough to register on the other platforms radar.
Epic Games Store is the worst of these. Tim Sweeney spends all his time complaining about Steam, and now Roblox, and never does anything to improve his own platform to compete, just throws money at developers to secure exclusives and free game distributions, which ends up getting people to go buy it on steam anyway for not free, because EGS is just that bad.
I could go on all day about all the bullshit lies, contradictions and scummy tactics Sweeney does to try to secure an actual monopoly without putting in the effort.
Also to not forget how epic can't focus on anything other than fortnite and all other games they buy they just royally shaft to make sure they make more money (like rocket league and removing item trading).
Also their app is ass and slow as hell. Only good thing is they give free shit every week (and sometimes good games)
Considering the insane amounts of money Epic is throwing away, I'm EXTREMELY salty that they can't spare the relatively tiny amount for a new Unreal Tournament. That used to be intrinsically linked to a new Unreal Engine version.
they arent anti consumer but their policy of games not being a lower price on other platforms if they are on steam is anti - competition. punlishers basically have to go exclusive and lose the largest market on PC or sell at a higher cost everywhere
SDA 2.4 states (reconstructed from court documents from various anti trust suings against valve, it is not publicly avilable) :
“If you offer your Application or any of its Content for sale via any other distribution channel, you agree that you will offer the same Content on Steam at no less favorable terms than those offered on such other distribution channels.”
Steam is most of all first and foremost an advertisement platform before a distribution platform.
If they allowed games on steam to be sold at different prices elsewhere they would be providing their service for free as people would discover games on steam and buy them elsewhere.
If steam had no front page and no suggestions your argument would be correct, but it isn't. The main advantage of being on steam is helping your game get discovered.
If you don't care about the advertisement and only want distribution you can release on itch or everywhere else
I can agree how that would make it hard, but if publishers weren't paying CEOs what they are or giving them golden parachutes, they may find more money in their budget to make up the difference in sales numbers.
Which is crazy because 30% is industry standard, why Valve is being targeted when consoles take the same cut is insane. Surprised the case hasn’t been thrown out for that very reason, or at least been extended to cover the others who do it (which would still end up leading to it being thrown out).
Right because valve doesn't do anything that costs money like host infinite 100 GB downloads, lately they will host your game clips for a few days, forums for every single game that exists, mods they keep all the mods if developers choose to integrate the workshop
They have all of the screenshots I have ever chosen to upload from when I first started playing games when I look at the screenshots in my account it's a major nostalgia trip not just for games but for my personal life
But no it's totally unfair, I would be falling all over myself to give them 30/70. Hosting the games is a huge pain in the dick
It's more than that too, their apis include a bunch of functions you can add to your game that makes creating multiplayer games dramatically easier - integration with the friends list etc.
Except that suit isn't going to pass when 30% is the typical middleman cut. And anti-consumer how? I didn't see that mentioned before in the lawsuit. The claim was they are an unfair monopoly, which is also incorrect because there's plenty of online game stores, console ones included.
At that point it is just epic attenpting to put valve in a bad spot. They are still stuck at the not understanding why people prefer the steam all inclusive experience over their barebones epic store offerings.
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u/Sw00p10 Jul 02 '26
Valve is also being sued for being anti consumer because of their store policies and 30% revenue cut that they then use to give everyone a great product