Comment on I hate when a PC game is ONLY available on Epic Games store

• ricecake@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Valve not letting you use their advertisement and distribution network at the same time you undercut them on sales elsewhere doesn’t feel anticompetitive to me.

  Some games choose to skip steam and use epic. Epic pays them to do so, and the publisher doesn’t lower prices.

  If you’re a publisher, why would you want to offer a lower price elsewhere? The appeal to a lower cut to you is higher revenue, not equivalent revenue.

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  • indog@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Some games choose to skip steam and use epic. Epic pays them to do so, and the publisher doesn’t lower prices.

    Evidence? Even if we went down the list of launch Epic exclusives and somehow determined that the price is equivalent to what it would launch at on Steam, the economics of an exclusive launch on a smaller platform are going to be completely different.

    If you’re a publisher, why would you want to offer a lower price elsewhere?

    Maybe ask the publishers who got together to sue Valve for the ability to do this, and check their many examples of comms with Valve where Valve was upset that publishers were offering lower prices on other platforms.

    The appeal to a lower cut to you is higher revenue, not equivalent revenue.

    There is a phenomenon called price elasticity. Example, a 5% price cut might result in 10% more units sold, giving you higher revenue.

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    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      How much does Diablo cost? How much did StarCraft 2 cost? Alan wake 2 ? Every Nintendo game? PlayStation or Xbox console exclusives?

      It’s trivially easy to find full featured games that didn’t launch on steam and have the same price point as a full featured game on steam.

      I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “the economics of an exclusive launch on a smaller platform are going to be completely different”.
      Isn’t your whole point that the smaller platform can compete by taking a smaller cut and allowing developers to offer lower prices for the same revenue?
      How does developers not doing that become irrelevant?

      And it’s two small publishers who had their remaining claims joined by the court after variously having them dismissed and reframing them. Class action doesn’t mean that a large number of publishers have actually made the complaint.

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      • indog@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        How much does Diablo cost? How much did StarCraft 2 cost? Alan wake 2 ? Every Nintendo game? PlayStation or Xbox console exclusives?

        I don’t know. Do you want me to do your research for you? Interesting that you list Nintendo and consoles who take 30% cuts from their monopoly stores.

        But checking your example of Alan Wake 2, looks like it launched at $60 on consoles (30% cut) and $50 on Epic (12% cut). Huh, funny how that works.

        Here’s an example of a communication from a court document:

        A Valve employee informs [redacted] in an email that Valve will be delisting one of its games due to discrepancies between Steam and other platforms. When describing Valve’s decision, Valve states, "Ultimately [redacted] retail strategy is yours to control in whatever way you see fit. However, it is our job as stewards of the platform is [sic] to protect Steam customers and to ensure that they are being treated fairly. We will not knowingly invite customer regret by offering your game at a premium to other retailers.

        There are dozens of examples like this. This is not behavior of a company that’s not price fixing. courtlistener.com/…/wolfire-games-llc-v-valve-cor…

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