Comment

Comment on

realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

30% cut was fine when infrastructure was just not there yet, but 64GB HDD no longer costs 100€ and internet is not metered in megabytes.

Steam isn’t just storing stuff and letting people download it. They’re an entire distribution network. There’s not just the tech (which is already expensive in itself), but also the entire legal stuff. Invoicing, legal compliance, fraud prevention, chargeback processing, the customer support (which actually got fairly helpful in the last 2 years) etc.

If you genuinely think Valve and Gabe’s fleet of Yachts is not monopolistic squeezing/pricing

It’s not. Valve has not adjusted their pricing once, at least not upwards. They have reduced the pricing for extremely high-grossing games, but other than that, the price has stuck at 30%. How is that squeezing? Wouldn’t that make them INCREASE the percentage point instead of leaving it where it is?

Also, it’s funny that you talk about “monopolistic”, because epic has probably engaged in more monopolistic behavior with the EGS than steam ever has. And if we compare the features of the EGS (which didn’t even have a shopping cart for the first year of it’s existence) with the feature set of steam, I can absolutely see that a 30% cut is fine.

Now, could they lower it? Probably. But 30% is still worth it for any indie dev and significantly less than any other entity with the size and reach of steam would take for all their services.

source

Sort:hotnew top

REDACTED@infosec.pub ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Also, it’s funny that you talk about “monopolistic”, because epic has probably engaged in more monopolistic behavior with the EGS than steam ever has

This is stupid. Valve telling developers “you can’t sell your game cheaper on other platforms than on steam” is taking the cake away alone. Textbook anti-trust lawsuit (which might be already happening?)

You somehow keep ignoring the fact that valve makes more money than any other corporation per employee. They are clearly over-charging and you cannot argue against this. Stop defending meg corporations.

source
- realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  This is stupid. Valve telling developers “you can’t sell your game cheaper on other platforms than on steam” is taking the cake away alone.
  
  First of all, that’s not entirely true - valve is demanding price parity, meaning long-term undercutting steam is not allowed (something absolutely normal in almost any larger e-commerce scenario btw), but they have no problem if you have sales or value-added offers on other platforms. Now, you can think about price parity what you think, I’m not the biggest fan of it either, but it’s a very common practice, not exclusive to steam and has nothing to do with anti-trust.
  
  You somehow keep ignoring the fact that valve makes more money than any other corporation per employee. They are clearly over-charging and you cannot argue against this
  
  I ignored it because it’s a retarded metric. Yeah, guess what, if you automate a lot, you’re going to need less employees. I have no clue how that has any relevance in if a product is worth it or not. I’m pretty sure the v-servers I’m renting from hetzner involve nobody, it’s all automated, from purchase to setup - should I get it for free now? Would it be fine to have a 30% cut if valve employed like 1000 more people or what is the logic here?
  
  Stop defending megacorporations.
  
  I’m not defending megacorporations, I just don’t agree with your at all. Fundamentally, you are saying “making money bad” which is just a naive and highly uneducated argument to have.
  
  source
  - REDACTED@infosec.pub ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    
    Fundamentally, you are saying “making money bad” which is just a naive and highly uneducated argument to have.
    
    Yup, you missed my point, but I really don’t think I’m capable of better explaining how what is valve doing is possible only because they essentially have PC monopoly.
    
    source
    realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    👍
    
    source