If tomorrow someone made a better Steam, how many years would you have to wait to be reasonably secure that it's not fueled by venture capital and serving as a loss leader foot-in-the-door scheme? It's not impossible that Steam itself would enshittify and open an IPO, but the fact that the option's been on the table for decades and Valve hasn't taken it is better evidence than *any* other platform could muster. Valve has proven that it's profitable and that it doesn't need to care about YoY growth. Let's overestimate their operations costs (CDN, R&D, employee salaries) at 5 billion a year. If they made ten billion in revenue last year and only make seven billion this year, *Valve is fine*. Think about that. Think about what a *sixty percent drop* in profits would do to literally any shareholder-backed company. It'd be apocalyptic. That's the main reason I'll use Steam happily but never install another storefront on my PC. I'll buy games on GOG or Itch as DRM-free installers, and store the installers locally, and I'll buy and play games that distribute without a storefront launcher, but the only "storefront platform" anyone's gonna get me to install in the next decade is Steam. If "better Steam" happens, it needs to demonstrate immunity to being bought out by Microsoft/Elon Musk for eighty morbillion dollars. And that can't be demonstrated in a day. That's without any mention of actual "features" like reviews or remote play or proton or steam input or anything that actually makes Steam as a program good/bad. It's all about the company's refusal to go shareholder-driven. If Gabe sells Valve or his successors do, I'm off the ship and scraping the DRM off of my library. What I won't do if that happens is go to someone else's shareholder-value-generating storefront.

Again, this is not about Steam Keys, it's about Steam using shady contracts to bully developers into price parity on completely unrelated stores. Yes, runescape is cheaper on Epic, the incredibly broad nature of these rules that allows for selective wishy-washy enforcing is also part of the lawsuit. > If you see something I am missing from the lawsuit please let me know, preferably without the hostility if you can manage. The whole thing because you didn't read it and, given that you keep bringing up Steam Keys, which is not what we're talking about, I'm skeptical that you can read at all.

The allegations of the plaintiff are not the written or enforced policies of the defendant. Please consider linking something of substance when accusing others of being un-serious/insincere. You made a claim without linking to it in the first place. Its not my job to substantiate your claims.

Valve will never IPO, why would they? They own a money printing machine that doesn’t need any more capital. They will print money until the heat death of the universe if we let it. I’ve never seen a conceivable scenario where anything else can happen unless Valve does something mental on purpose. Some people here raised they concern that they don’t value Valve input to merit 30% cut and would take lower price if it meant it didn’t have features they don’t use. What’s happening now means there’s no real free market or competition.

> Valve's 30% is a price that a studio *chooses* to pay No its not. Its a fee they **have to pay** because they have no other option, because Steam is a monopoly. Even CDPR, who literally _owns their own game store_, lists their games on Steam, because there's no way they could ever be successful without it.

Ah, the classic spoon-feed me the answer or it doesn't count as a source. Learn to use the internet, you're not a child.

So because Battle.net failed to predict market correctly 100% of PC gamers are stuck with Steam until the end of the world. That doesn’t change the fact that Valve lucked into the position they are in.

So, you think a good way to correct someone is to directly insult them because you find their points unrelated but yours perfect? Rude. And the only thing steam controls via contract is the ability to sell your games via steam keys for price parity. And you misunderstood my point. RuneScape isn't even on the epic game store so you aren't reading my words carefully. You are projecting your own hypocrisy.

You honestly think I didn't do a google search before reading the two relavent articles reachable from the OP? Nothing I found, nor the fact that I regularly buy games/steam!keys cheaper than via steam, meshes with the plaintiff's claims. Calling someone a child while accepting un-founded claims that happen to reflect your argument at face-value. Very Mature.

PC gamers aren't "stuck with Steam," they very much have options. And Steam is likely _way_ better than whatever Battle.net would've become, so I'm quite happy with how things turned out. And yeah, Valve was quite lucky in nailing the timing, however, that was also a very conscious choice since they filled a need they saw. Valve is perhaps the best company you could ask for to have such a dominant position, pretty much any other company would've resulted in a _way_ worse situation for gamers.

PC gamers are stuck because Steam is a self-perpetuating monopoly. If your entire library is on Steam, and Steam has almost all of the games you’ll just keep on buying there for convenience. Alan Wake 2 wasn’t profitable until EGS exclusivity expired because they’d rather wait than buy this gem of a game on a different platform that gives away games like candy btw. Even if you think that Valve are just the best, aren’t you worried that having one good option is being one good option away from having no good options?

But that is what the *policy* is about. Steam doesn't have a price parity policy regarding general game sales.

No, I think you deserve to be insulted because you are talking out of your ass about something you didn't read. Again, *this is about the price veto policy. This is not about Steam Keys* (here's me hoping italics help with your dyslexia). And yeah, I thought you meant runescape on the EGS not on their site. It doesn't matter because it has zero bearing on the discussion, I only addressed it because *you didn't read the thing you're talking about.*

CDPR judges that selling on Steam is enough of a boost that it's worth the cost. Riot (for example) doesn't. If you think every game company or indie studio feels *mandated* to use Steam, that's a hugely consolebrained take. Nintendo has a monopoly. Want your game on Switch? Follow Nintendo's terms and list on Nintendo's store. Apple has a monopoly, challenged recently. Want your app on iPhone? Follow Apple's terms and list on Apple's store. Want your game on Windows PC? Upload an EXE somewhere. Sell a disc. Run your own launcher. Or license out to Steam/Epic/whoever. The only reason you get more sales on Steam is because the PC gaming userbase overwhelmingly prefers Steam. Hell, I play Guild Wars 2, a 12 year old MMO that "launched" on Steam a couple years ago. You can still buy and play that game without any third parties getting involved at all, and always could. It doesn't have any Steam achievements, doesn't benefit from any Steam features, and has a decade old community in spaces other than Steam ones. ArenaNet decided that exposure via Steam recommendations was worth losing $x/player to list on Steam.

> CDPR judges that selling on Steam is enough of a boost that it's worth the cost. I literally just explained this in the comment you just replied to. > Want your game on Windows PC? Upload an EXE somewhere. Sell a disc. Run your own launcher. Or license out to Steam/Epic/whoever. You can upload it wherever you want and create whatever launcher you want, you will be unsuccessful. Fucking EA did this for 8 years, failed, and went back to Steam. As did Ubisoft. You simply won't be successful without Steam. *That's what a monopoly is.*

I know you didn't google anything or you would have said "nothing I found substantiates your point" instead of "these specific two articles don't say what you said". But let's assume you're not lying and you did look up the situation. What's your claim then? That Steam has no price veto policy or that they don't abuse it? Because one is wrong and the other is *incredibly* naive. Talk about taking unfounded claims at face value. Also, what do you keep bringing up Steam Keys? That has nothing to do with anything. Focus.

No, it's not. That's an entirely different policy that you keep bringing up for no reason. That policy is also anti-consumer bullshit but I digress. What I'm referring to is the following shady wording: > Initial pricing as well as proposed pricing adjustments will be reviewed by Valve

You started in with being extremely rude so I'm just gonna move to ignoring your other commentary now. Shocking I know.

You don't know shit. My search turned up nothing more concrete than your own apeing of the plaintiff's claims as though those were evidence, so I didn't bother. Meanwhile, the subject at hand quite literally revolves around Steam and Steam-Keys. We don't even have to get into third-party distribution *without* Steam-Keys to disprove your argument, although that market also remains alive and well as ever. The rest was just me matching your energy, but I'm not exaggerating when I say I should have just blocked your belligerent ass a while ago. You can't be bothered to prove your own points, yet keep pretending to be the most "mature" and "focused" person here. It's painful to watch the trolling this far off the rails.

It’s maybe a poor example, but it is what the plaintiff is alleging, so I think it is a good analogy