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$843 million lawsuit against Valve already has its own website: "The Steam Claim" accuses the biggest store in PC gaming of "overcharging" players (www.gamesradar.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 2 months ago (9 children)

I see what Vicky is attempting to do. But there's nothing stopping publishers from going over to the Epic Games Store for example and selling their content there. Valve does nothing to suppress competition (it can't really either), the competition is just bad.

[+] [email protected] -12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Valve does nothing to suppress competition (it can't really either)

They at least used to have a rule that publishers can't sell cheaper on other platforms (outside of timed sales that is), meaning that consumers can't get a better price on other storefronts even when those platforms would take a smaller cut. That was very much suppressing the competition as them taking smaller cuts can't transfer into cheaper prices if the publisher also wanted to sell on Steam.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My understanding is that valve says publishers can't sell their games steam keys cheaper on other platforms but can charge whatever they want if steam is not the one providing the download. Network infrastructure isn't free and if steam is the one actually facilitating the download they get to take their share.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I'm not too familiar with the details but there is this excerpt from a blog post by Wolfire Games from 2021 where they say this wasn't the case. Haven't checked it's validity or if it's relevant information to this case, but it is something

When new video game stores were opening that charged much lower commissions than Valve, I decided that I would provide my game "Overgrowth" at a lower price to take advantage of the lower commission rates. I intended to write a blog post about the results.

But when I asked Valve about this plan, they replied that they would remove Overgrowth from Steam if I allowed it to be sold at a lower price anywhere, even from my own website without Steam keys and without Steam’s DRM.

http://blog.wolfire.com/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-class-action

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