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.

Yes, Valve enforcing price parity only when it's convenient for them is also addressed in the lawsuit. The rest of your comment refers to Steam Keys. That's literally not what we're talking about.

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.