Comment on I hate when a PC game is ONLY available on Epic Games store
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago… That’s not price fixing.
Do companies that don’t use steam offer comensuratelty lower prices?
That would seem to be price fixing by its very definition.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing
manufacturers and retailers may conspire to sell at a common “retail” price; set a common minimum sales price, where sellers agree not to discount the sales price below the agreed-to minimum price
And the question is irrelevant. Other companies can still benefit from external price fixing.
Price fixing is, as your highlighted bit says, a conspiracy to not compete on prices. Valve isn’t conspiring with their competition to fix prices, nor does valve even set the price.
The lawsuit alleges that it’s anticompetitive, not price fixing.
I personally don’t think it’s anticompetitive , given the number of popular games that don’t use steam. I just think that epic has a worse product, which isn’t valves fault.
From the actual lawsuit documents (emphasis is mine):
Valve’s monopolization and attempted monopolization have the purpose and effect of fixing and inflating prices in the relevant market.
indog@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
They don’t offer lower prices on Epic because Valve bullies publishers into matching the price with Steam. Valve threatens to delist the game from Steam if a lower price is available elsewhere, using their market dominance to prevent smaller stores from competing the only way they realistically can – on price.
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I literally said “companies that don’t use steam”. If a publisher opted to not use steam, it should have lower prices, right?
Except we see games not released on steam still selling for the same $60 for a full feature game that we do everywhere.
indog@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
The lawsuit already has several public examples of communications between Valve and publishers where Valve is all “whoah whoah you can’t be selling that cheap on another store!”. Publishers want to offer lower prices. The economics make sense, passing on some of the savings to consumers will result in an increase in revenue, this is also what the expert economists in the lawsuit are going to be testifying.
If you’re big enough to not be using Steam, you’re what, Ubisoft or EA? (and even these are using Steam these days.)
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Or blizzard, riot or epic. All of which are perfectly successful without using steam.
Communication between valve and publishers about TOS violations is only an issue if it’s an anticompetitive clause.
If publishers want to offer lower prices, they can use a different storefront like the others. If they can’t make sufficient revenue without valves advertisement and distribution network, then maybe the service is worth the price valve charges for it.
Valve has done nothing to stop consumers from using other stores, so I’m not particularly sympathetic when the stores are upset about consumer choice.