Comment on $843 million lawsuit against Valve already has its own website: "The Steam Claim" accuses the biggest store in PC gaming of "overcharging" players

• Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  If games on Steam were 30% more expensive than anywhere else, you might have had a point.

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  • magi@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    [deleted]

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    • Nibodhika@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Steam also enforce a strict key price parity.

      No it doesn’t. The price parity thing is only if you are selling the game on Steam platform, i.e. selling a steam key, it’s essentially a way to allow publishers to sell the game on their own website, without paying the 30% to steam, but don’t allow them to undercut steam entirely while still taking advantage of their platform.

      Games on GoG, itch, Epic store, etc, can have any price they want, as long as they don’t give away a steam key valve doesn’t care what price you sell your game elsewhere.

      This is one of the most annoying fake news out there, Valve are going above and beyond what any other store is doing, and they get bad rep from people who have never read their policy, published a game there, or talked to anyone who has.

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      • crossmr@kbin.run ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        They do prevent you from linking to your own store within your Steam game though. Even though they don't provide a complete solution for things like microtransactions and DLC.

        How it works on Steam:

        1. User makes an in-app purchase using the steam wallet integration
        2. Steam processes the payment taking 30% and gives you a reference number for that transaction
        3. You query that transaction every time the player logs in to see if they've refunded it or not. That transaction doesn't actually contain any information about what they bought though.
        4. You then maintain a separate purchasing server whose whole job it is is to keep a record of what the player purchased in reference to that transaction number.

        For that Valve wants 30% of in-app/DLC purchases. At that point it's stripe and nothing more. Unlike standalone DLC Or expansions, these unlock purchases don't come with serving any additional content in the form of downloads.

        If you make your own service to handle these transactions (with only a 3-4% transaction rate) Valve will prevent you from linking to it, or mentioning it anywhere on your page, forums or within the game itself. You need to direct players elsewhere and then mention it. Even for cross-platform games where having Steam maintain a transaction list for a portion of the users is just a needless additional layer.

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    • stardust@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Steam also enforce a strict key price parity.

      Do they?

      isthereanydeal.com/game/helldivers-2/info/

      if you think a 30% cut doesn’t reflect on the cost a player is paying, you’re out of your mind. This is business 101.

      Isn’t business 101 charging as much as possible and not passing on savings to customers, and trying to capture as much high paying consumers as possible before being forced to start capturing price sensitive consumers?

      Price of games that didn’t release on Steam seem to reflect that. Even games released by platform owners like Sony first party exclusives and the beloved Blizzard. Isn’t that strategy of pricing business 101 as opposed to this belief that savings pass onto consumers?

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      • Kayana@ttrpg.network ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        As far as I know, they do - for Steam keys. If you’re selling your game through other stores, not just a Steam key, there aren’t any demands placed upon you. The OC might’ve been talking about that.

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      • ashok36@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Yes. You understand how pricing works. The stores charge what the market will bear. That’s why games had been stuck at $60 since the 360/PS3 era.

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• Carighan@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Certainly not the players, given current costs - where Steam is virtually always cheaper than elsewhere.

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