Monopolies that were broken down this way were private companies. You’re making an argument against something that’s proven to work. You don’t really support it well (or at all). How do you know Humble gets any discount?

You are acting like a bully because you are upset about something and have decided to take it out on the largest target you could find and anyone that doesn't agree with you, or your method of acting like a bully.

People talk about the "features" epic is missing but honestly the vast majority of those features are kinda pointless? I don't like epic's store because the layout is annoying and it likes to send me ads in the bottom right corner. It's not that complicated.

Consider me not in your head to understand your perspective and try to get it across clearly to me. No sarcasm or condescending tone. I do not see how these are comparable and don't think of steam as a utility that owns the singular option for infrastructure as it's a digital service that others can and will spin up to avoid using Steams backend. They literally don't have to. And sure I am welcome to information if it is accurate and you have it.

You have a whole Wikipedia article that describes this into detail. I’m making an effort, you’re making none. Looks like sealioning to me.

I am asking you to explain your point. You can not rely on making others do your work for you. That is you obstructing your point through others. Make your point and make it clearly since you seem insistent on doing so.

I mean there's still no user review system lol. That is storefront 101 and they still don't have it. Congratulations for not using the other systems they have I guess? Many of steams users engage at least a little with a lot of what steam offers. Hell steam has integrated VR support, steam link for remote play, and fantastic 2FA account protection. Epic is way behind

Sealion.

Right. Ok then. You have wasted enough of your time. I hope you figure out how to make your life less miserable through actions rather than complaints.

I’m having fun because I don’t need to make up things to compensate for debilitating cognitive dissonance.

Nobody said anything about Steam keys. They don't let you sell games at lower prices, period. > Also, there is no mention of said policy in either the OP article, nor the separate article about the lawsuit it links to. Are you being serious, right now? The source isn't 2 clicks away so therefore it doesn't exist? Lawsuits are literally public knowledge. You should inform yourself about a topic before you get into a conversation about it. [Here.](https://www.classaction.org/media/wolfire-games-llc-et-al-v-valve-corporation.pdf) Perhaps you can stop defending the billion dollar company now.

> Only if you are selling a steam key elsewhere No. That's not true. You're spreading misinformation. Read the fucking lawsuit.

turns out if you skew definitions enough, *anything* can be the truth!

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys That's the policy on steam keys. If you are not using their steam keys it's not covered by their contract agreement at least. The lawsuit is not yet finished and while we can take their complaints into account we can't take them for fact. The case was already dismissed once because they argued the 30% was controlling the market but it's been there since day 1 of their storefront and has not changed to force game price changes. Beyond that they argue that Valve bought servers to take them offline to push players to them but... That's not really on this point of price controlling or the ability sell non steam keys. Literally RuneScape does this by offering memberships not available on steam. If you see something I am missing from the lawsuit please let me know, preferably without the hostility if you can manage.

It is true. Valve does not enforce price parity for non Steam keys. Here is an example where the dev says that they are offering a better price on EGS because of the better cut: https://twitter.com/HeardOfTheStory/status/1700066610302603405 https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/heard-of-the-story-ff3758 https://store.steampowered.com/app/1881940/Heard_of_the_Story/ Pretty clear example of the same game having a lower base price on Epic than on Steam. Wolfire *claiming* Valve does this is something different from Valve actually doing it, and that's where the dispute lies. According to Valve, Wolfire's explanation of the price parity policy is incorrect. Here's the policy itself: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys#3 > You should use Steam Keys to sell your game on other stores in a similar way to how you sell your game on Steam. **It is important that you don’t give Steam customers a worse deal than Steam Key purchasers. ** The policy is pretty leanient regarding the "worse deal" aspect. You're allowed to have a sale on one platform but not on Steam, as long as you offer "something similar" at a different moment to Steam users too. > It's OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time. Even if you violate this policy, Valve will still sell your game, they may just stop providing you with Steam keys to sell. I don't see Wolfire winning this tbh.

*huge laugh from the audience*

Yes. That is exactly the issue. It's not only Steam Keys either as some of the cultists would have you believe. Valve does require you to offer Steam Keys on other stores at the same price that you offer the game on Steam but, while they don't specifically forbid you to offer different prices on stores that have nothing to do with Steam, they do *reserve the right* (do whatever the hell you want with this one simple trick!) to veto pricing on Steam for any reason. This has been historically used by Valve to block games that offer better pricing on competing stores. It goes something like this: 1. I make a game and decide I want to make $7 per sale so I publish it on my site at $7. 2. I want the game to be accessible to a wider audience so I publish it on other stores. 3. Epic takes 12% so I price it at $8 there in order to keep making $7 per sale 4. Steam takes 30% so I price it at $10 there for the same reason. 5. Valve says $10 isn't a fair price and refuses to elaborate why, reminding me that they *reserve the right* to veto *any* price on Steam for *any* reason. 6. I make my game $10 on all other stores 7. Valve magically decides $10 was actually a fair price all along and finally publishes the game on Steam.

You’re still hung up that there’s consensus on anarchism and libertarianism being so generic terms that they’re near synonymous? I mean, if you made some arguments to the contrary then this comment would carry some weight. Other than that, please see comment you responded to again, it’s applicable to you too.

The PC is an open platform. Even more so with Linux. Steam doesn't force exclusivity, you're free to host your game on Steam for discoverability while also self-distributing or using other storefronts. Valve's 30% is a price that a studio *chooses* to pay, because they know that a ton of PC gamers *like buying games on Steam*. If all you want out of a storefront is a payment processor, CDN, and possibly DRM, you can release on Steam, Epic, Itch, GOG, or all at once. You pick Steam (or Steam+others) instead of others because you know that enough PC gamers are *willing to pay for your game* on Steam, because *they like Steam*. Epic can tout its small cuts or exclusivity bonuses or "zero percent cuts on the first $x" deals, but game devs know that 100% of revenue on an Epic launch week is going to be a lower absolute number than 70% of revenue on a Steam one.

[It was proposed](https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/oof-years-before-steam-a-blizzard-engineer-wanted-to-turn-battle-net-into-a-third-party-game-store-but-was-reportedly-turned-down/), but Blizzard rejected it: > Schreier reports in the book that a few years before Steam launched, a group of employees pitched the company on a plan "to turn Battle.net into a digital store for a variety of PC games." Battle.net basically approached the same problem as Steam but from the multiplayer side, whereas Steam approached from the distribution side. > Valve supports Linux just to safeguard their monopoly. I wouldn't put it like that. They support Linux to safeguard against Microsoft pushing _their_ monopoly, and they _did_ seem to be gearing up to do just that. Epic had similar concerns, hence the lawsuits against Google and Apple. > All of this is pointless for most of the How is Linux support pointless? Having _more_ options to play your games is a good thing! I don't think Heroic would've had as much of an impact w/o Valve's investment into Proton/WINE, and that gives customers a choice on which platform to buy and play their games on. It also allowed for the Steam OS market, and competitors are absolutely welcome to create their own spin with their own store, they just don't for whatever reason. Downloading and updating games, for me, is actually the least important part of what Steam offers. I care _far_ more about Linux support (I was a Linux user before I was a Steam user), Steam Input (Steam Deck, and I prefer controller on PC), and consolidating sales to one store. Whether I need to launch it separately or whatever isn't a big deal.