While he’s there under oath, can they get some HL3 info out of him?
“Objection, this has nothing to do with the case.”
“Overruled, the public needs to hear this”
“It has already been released. It has been released for thousands of years. Humanity simply needs to reach a point of true understanding to see it.”
Gabe disappears in a flash of light.
They’ll never release HL3. They are not a developer anymore. They are just a game store/directory. HL3 has been overhyped so much that anything released would be a disappointment. The gaming market has changed too much from when they made a game engine and released half life to showcase that game engine.
I can probably list a million more reasons why they’ll never release, but those are the big points.
Half-life Alyx was HL3, just it was better to name it not HL3, because fans would lose their minds.
They are not a developer anymore. They are just a game store/directory.
CSGO 2 would like a word with you
On the one hand, yeah. On the other hand, HL:A ended with an obvious sequel hook, and that hook was the ending of HL2:E2. Spoilers, I guess, but the game’s been out for a while.
Of course, that doesn’t mean another game is coming, but it does mean that HL:A doesn’t mean another game isn’t coming, either.
I don’t know whether valve has violated anti-trust law or not, and I certainly don’t think gaben deserves any more protection from covid than the general public but;
this is a stupid ruling. Why on earth can’t he appear remotely, as he requested? They can’t “adequately assess his credibility”? Are they gonna have an FBI body language expert on hand? Check his forehead for sweat droplets? There’s nothing they can ask him in person that they can’t ask him over a camera.
Feels like the plaintiffs are doing some kind of lowkey spite thing here, and I’m surprised the judge played along.
don’t think gaben deserves any more protection from covid than the general public
I think gaben deserves the world’s sickest powered respirator with RGB lights and holographic Team Fortress 2 unusual hat visual effects.
Glad to hear the court will require N95s at least.
Most courtroom bullshit like this boil down to people who probably shouldn’t be in power powertripping.
It’s a fucking stupid lawsuit in the first place. I can think of at least 5 different pc game storefronts anybody can use
Can you provide a real-world example of what constitutes a monopoly in your eyes?
Locked down App Store on iOS (EU is trustbusting this one)
Locked down PlayStation ecosystem
Locked down Xbox ecosystem
Locked down Switch ecosystem
Regional monopolies by ISPs
So they are still not absolute in that the users still get to buy a PC or an Android phone or get satellite connectivity via a global ISP, which boils the issue down to inconvenience/cost/hardship, not the absence of alternatives.
They are all monopolies in their ecosystem.
(Satellite Internet doesn’t reach everywhere.)
You got a list of monopolies, stop trying to move goalposts in order to slam Valve and defend a bunch of anti-consumer publicly traded companies.
Standard Oil was a monopoly, but using your logic there wasn’t because there was an alternative of not using oil-based fuels.
An example of a company that actually fits your definition of a pseudo-monopoly would be Nvidia in the GPU market.
It’s the logic of the comment I responded to. The existence of this upcoming trial alone is proof that the mere presence of alternatives is not enough to claim there’s no monopoly in the relevant market.
The (my) comment that you responded to presented you a list of actual monopolies that have no alternatives on their platform. There was no “logic” presented, it was a statement of observation.
The existence of the lawsuit does not mean there is proof, it means that Wolfire has enough of a case to begin discovery on two of their claims that the court is interested to find out more. That’s it.
One of the claims is also very weird and I can’t actually find any information corroborating the claim besides the claim itself (re: Valve acquiring and shutting down World Opponent Network). The only thing I see is that Sierra was acquired by Havas who made WON into it’s own entity, then merged it with PrizeCentral under the name Flipside.com and the last WON game was released in 2006.
The only thing relating to Valve I can see is that Valve announced Steam in 2002 and then they removed WON from their own games, which they had every right to do so.
WG’s strongest claim is the MFN clause, and they actually have to prove that it’s for anticompetitiveness.
They did meet him in the middle, though. Everyone in court has to wear a mask when he’s there, and he only has to take it off when he’s speaking.
This is not how the masks work though. If I were honestly concerned about my health I’d take this as an insult.
Having everyone in court wear masks absolutely does help protect him. However, what would protect everyone better is proper ventilation systems - but that would cost businesses money, rather than passing the cost and responsibility onto individuals.
Leaving the mask on the entire time is the only way it works. If everyone is taking it off to talk, they’re gonna be spreading shit around every time they talk. What state is this court in? Texas?
Everyone leaving their mask on the entire time is the most effective way it works. The judge is seeking a compromise, presumably with the intent of being able to clearly hear him speak and see his facial expressions. I don’t think anyone else will be taking their masks off, not even the lawyer asking him questions, so in that regard Gabe will still be somewhat protected.
Like I say though there are far more effective measures involving good ventillation. If you spend a long enough time in a sealed room with someone infected, even the mask won’t be enough protection, but if there is good ventillation then you won’t be breathing in anywhere near as much of other peoples’ germs.
The case is being heard in Seattle, Washington. This is the specific order: https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/washington/wawdce/2:2021cv00563/298754/170/0.pdf
Accordingly, Mr. Newell is ORDERED to attend the deposition in person as noticed. (See Dkt. No. 165-2.) In hopes of alleviating Mr. Newell’s health concerns, the Court mandates the following additional health measures: all participants (including questioning counsel) must wear a tightly fitting certified N95, KF94, or KN95 face mask throughout the deposition. At his discretion, Mr. Newell may provide those certified masks to participants. But Mr. Newell shall remove his mask when responding to questions from Plaintiffs’ counsel.
The bit about Gabe providing the masks makes me raise my eyebrow a little, but I think everyone would still be required to wear a mask regardless of whether or not Gabe hands them out at his own expense - I think it’s just so that Gabe can be sure everyone’s mask is up to snuff, if he’s concerned about that.
You’re going to need a lot more than just I’m afraid of covid to get out of being in person for a trial. People with actual fears of being killed for testimony, still appear in person. At this point with vaccines making any serious complications nearly impossible for covid, it’s a really desperate attempt to avoid attending.
I was a juror last year for a civil case, half the witnesses were cross examined over zoom before the days of the trial and played back for us. The judge made it explicitly clear that we were to take remote testimony the same as any others done in person
This isn’t a criminal trial with Gabe Newell as the defendant, it’s a civil trial against the company Valve.
True, but Gabe is CEO and owner of Valve.
True, but Gabe is CEO and owner of Valve.
How should that change the legal process/expectations?
I own a '92 Ford ranger, what legal structure changes for me considering I own that?
Because you would expect the people in charge of the company to answer questions regarding the actions of the company.
If you were driving your truck and crashed into a traffic light, and it was caught on camera, you would be expected to answer questions about that. Even if you weren’t driving, as the registered owner you’re still going to be asked about it, or at the very least to identify who was driving.
Gabe isn’t just a tertiary witness, he has direct responsibility. Not that I think he’s done anything wrong here, I’m just saying it makes sense to have him answer questions live in court, rather than give a pre-recorded interview. Doing it live but remote invites other issues, such as poor connection quality, which would rather be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
Another thing with the trial I was a jury member on was the plaintiff themselves were not always present, most days it was just their lawyer and paralegal. The judge reminded us each day that we can’t hold their physical presence or lack thereof for or against them.
I’m no lawyer, but if neither the plaintiff nor the witnesses needed to be physically present I don’t see how they can justify forcing Gabe Newell to be. Despite being CEO he’s still not the defendant.
I mean he is pretty close to being the defendant, up to the limited liability of the company he owns and operates.
It’s also a fact that different courts, and even different judges, may treat things differently. I have no idea how Seattle handles things, but I reckon this is in line with other cases they’ve heard.
I appreciate requiring everyone wearing a good mask while he’s in the courtroom, but I don’t understand how having him in the room to testify would be substantially different from an online appearance.
Same energy as CEOs demanding workers return to the office
It’s probably a huge mistake for the plaintiffs. Imagine inviting in gaben so he can steal everyone’s hearts.
Also that he has to take off his mask while testifying. seriously wtf that shit is in the air in a closed room.
They get him on the stand and the judge says " so Mr Newell, remembering you are under oath, when is Half Life 3 being released?"
*Gabe starts gesturing to his lawyer to do something*
“Just answer the question.”
I mean the simple response from the lawyer is, “Objection, relevance,” and the question gets tossed out.
I demand accuracy in my jokes, even if it kills them.
“Objection, relevance?”
“Public interest.”
(Though in my joke I meant his lawyer, instead of objecting, would entreat his client to answer the question)
Ah, I understand now. [MODIFYING JOKE MATRIX TO ACCOMMODATE NEW INFORMATION]
“Your honor, I need to fire my lawyer.”
“Mr Newell, no competent lawyer in this country would defend you on this point. If you do not answer the question I will hold you in contempt.”
“Bailiff, seize him.”
*Half Life 3 drops from his pocket*
“THAT’S NOT MINE”
“It’s actually all of yours. Check you computers, they all have Half Life 3 installed.”
Gabe puts on a top hat, pulls out an umbrella and floats away.
This is how we win
Lmao this is great
Gaben will then slowly drop his head and whisper into the microphone with a wry chuckle - “You fool. You have just activated my trap card.”
Immediately, the Half Life 3 release will drop. Gaben has been holding it back, continuously updating for decades, awaiting exactly this moment. The judge, completely flabbergasted at the proceedings will immediately declare a mistrial. Legal scholars will then study the “Gaben defense” for decades.
No comment.
Does “no comment” count as an answer?
“There is no Half-Life 3, there will be no Half-Life 3.”
Half life alyx was hl3
Forget HL3; where’s HL2: Episode 3? I wanna know what the fuck happened to that garden gnome I carried all the way from the beginning to the rocket at the end.
If this happened I think Gabe would just say “it’s not happening, not at least the way you all want” and then we get some half life cyberchip augmented reality game in another 15 years (it is good though)
So is the allegation just that Steam is too successful?
Yes. They sued Valve with allegation that they are too successful by providing good service. Sure 30% is too much for some developers, but solution is quite simple… don’t sell on Steam. Problem solved. Go to Epic, GoG, bunch of others. Hell every company now has its own launcher and store.
Nah, it’s mean old valve making it so people aren’t flocking to publish their games on UPlay.
What’s saddest of all is the fact they are willing to throw millions on this litigation instead of spending that money on improving the service. They claim it’s for the good of all users, but their actions tell different story.
Or even just make it more expensive on steam, if you really want 100% of the revenue for every sale. Pass the cost of using steam on to the user and offer the game on other (worse) markets at a markdown.
There could be a clause in terms of use that Steam won’t allow developers to make their games most expensive on Steam, or at least cheaper than elsewhere.
Developers already do that fairly often. Typically indie devs. They will sell their game directly for lower prices than listed on steam.
Pretty much. Meanwhile other stores engage in actual behaviour that deserves an anti-trust lawsuit like buying up developer studio’s and making their games exclusive to their own platforms. Or paying devs to make games exclusive to their store temporarily. You know, things that actually screw the consumer over.
How’s In the Valley of Gods doing?
Lmao Valve made a service so good at what it does, it’s fucking over all these other business ghouls like Tim Sweemey who are actively trying to dominate the market without actually competing; just look at Epic’s store, it’s d o g s h i t. They give out free games and still no one I know wants to use it. It’s the same across the board, these companies do not want to make good services, they want to legally strongarm the consumer.
I’ll tell you a secret) nowadays ALMOST all corporations regardless of what they make business into wanna strongarm the consumer, for quick example look up denuvo and baldurs gate, if product is good then people will buy and denuvo won’t be needed
GOG has shown that drms are never needed. More often than not, denuvo causes issues to the player, and gets bypassed by a pirate easily. It is simply there because gamedev companies think they get something out of it, when in reality they don’t.
Denuvo isn’t easily bypassed, unfortunately. I think there’s still only like two people cracking Denuvo and one of them is batshit insane.
Could you elaborate on that?
Probably referring to Empress
Empress, right? I’ve seen some things from her (if Empress indeed is a chick) that I thought really couldn’t be meant seriously.
Yeah. I don’t even know that much about the whole thing, just what I learned when going to look for a game a while back, and even from that little it was like, wtf is with this person?
Only Empress left now I think, the other one who cracked sports games called it quits, or so i’ve heard
Never had an issue pirating a denuvo game.
Bingo.
I recently got Alan wake 2 on EGS because I’m a huge Remedy head and huge fan of the first game and couldn’t contain my excitement to wait for a steam release and potentially see spoilers, and damn dude that store really is the most bare bones half assed thing ever. Even EAs store on their launcher is nicer.
Alan Wake 2 was a great game at least.
I’m stoked to play it, but I’m waiting for some other store front first. Sigh.
this is very true, its not like they saying no to other stores like apple for example, they just cant compete so they sue instead, really show how pathetic they are.
This lawsuit is specifically about Steam threatening to delist games if the creator tries to sell them at lower price than is listed on Steam.
Tries to sell steam keys at a lower price on other platforms than listed on Steam and not planning on giving the same rebate for Steam customers
Doesn’t matter how good the service is if they break consumer laws.
Valve shouldn’t be able to control the prices on other storefronts. That is out of their jurisdiction.
So there is an anti-trust lawsuit against steam, but not apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft… Etc of those giant companies who literally destroy everything in their way? Please tell me they’re next?
Good. Thank you for sharing.
DoJ is currently in a lawsuit against Google for search monopoly. Been going on for a while now.
Good. Other giant ones need to be next.
EDIT: If it’s true that Valve is also refusing to sell games that are sold for a lower price in other stores where steam keys are not being sold then I think there’s definitely a case here. I didn’t understand that was their policy but if so it sucks and I take back anything good I said about them being permissive. Thanks to this comment for finding the exact language in the lawsuit that alleges this.
I’d be interested to see what Wolfire’s case is, if there’s more to it that I don’t know about I’d love to understand, but if the article is characterising their case accurately…
claiming that Valve suppresses competition in the PC gaming market through the dominance of Steam, while using it to extract “an extraordinarily high cut from nearly every sale that passes through its store.”
…then I don’t think this will work out because Valve hasn’t engaged in monopolistic behaviour.
This is mainly because of their extremely permissive approach to game keys. The way it works is, a developer can generate as many keys as they want, give them out for free, sell them on other stores or their own site, for any discount, whatever, and Steam will honour those keys and serve up the data to all customers no questions asked. The only real stipulation for all of this is that the game must also be available for sale on the Steam storefront where a 30% cut is taken for any sale. That’s it.
Whilst they might theoretically have a monopoly based on market share, as long as they continue to allow other parties to trade in their keys, they aren’t suppressing competition. I think this policy is largely responsible for the existence of storefronts like Humble, Fanatical, Green Man Gaming and quite a number of others. If they changed this policy or started to enshittify things, the game distribution landscape would change overnight. The reason they haven’t enshittified for so long is probably because they don’t have public shareholders.
To be clear I’m against capitalism and capitalists, even the non-publicly-traded non-corporate type like Valve. I am in fact a bit embarrassed of my take on reddit about 7 or 8 years ago that they were special because they were “private and not public”. Ew, I mean even if Gabe is some special perfect unicorn billionaire that would never do any wrong, when he’s gone Valve will go to someone who might cave to the temptation to go public. I honestly think copyright in general should be abolished. As long as copyright exists I’d love to see better laws around digital copies that allow people to truly own and trade their copies for instance, and not just perpetually rent them. I just don’t see this case achieving much.
I’m so worried about what will happen to Steam when Gabe dies. I really hope he has a successor picked out who is as ideologically stringent. Otherwise I’m going to lose a huge library.
I was under the impression that the policy required a game’s price to be the same on all marketplaces, even if it’s not a steam key being purchased. I.e. a $60 game on steam must sell for $60 off-platform, including on the publisher’s own launcher.
I just went to double check my interpretation, but the case brief by Mason LLP’s site doesn’t really specify.
If it only applies to steam keys, as you say, then I agree they don’t really have a case since it’s Steam that must supply distribution and other services.
But, if the policy applies to independent marketplaces, then it should be obvious that it is anticompetitive. The price on every platform is driven up to compensate for Steam’s 30% fees, even if that particular platform doesn’t attempt to provide services equivalent to Steam.
According to a Valve quote from the complaint (p. 55), it applies to everything:
In response to one inquiry from a game publisher, in another example, Valve explained: “We basically see any selling of the game on PC, Steam key or not, as a part of the same shared PC market- so even if you weren’t using Steam keys, we’d just choose to stop selling a game if it was always running discounts of 75% off on one store but 50% off on ours. . . .”
Wow, that’s some good research! I’ll edit my comment about this, I don’t think my glowing description of their policy should stand without this info.
Thanks, that clears it up. So yeah, I think Wolfire has a case to make, then.
Does it though? It seems like Valve is targetting the fact, that you can’t run the same game on a different platform for different amounts. So if Valve gets 30%, and some other store gets less, then they ask you to not run it cheaper. I.e. you can’t sell on both stores for $40, and then set a permanent -30% sale there.
What right does valve have to discriminate against devs and publishers who are selling their game on other platforms? They have to compete for their business, not punish them for having a game that is more successful on another store that gives a higher revenue cut to the dev and a lower price to the customer.
I think the reason why valve is doing this is because people might buy a game at a higher price, either on Steam or another storefront, and then complain that it was cheaper on Steam or another storefront and start demanding refunds or demand that Valve reduce the game’s price on steam.
What do you do then?
If you don’t address it, you’re automatically seen as the asshole even if it was the developer’s choice.
You can give out refunds, which makes you look like the good guy, but that also looks bad to companies like Visa or PayPal (my understanding is that large numbers of refunds tend to look bad to payment processors, even if the refund was initiated from the company and not the consumer). Granted, Valve is a big enough company that they shouldn’t have issues with that kinda thing, especially since they already offer refunds, but my understanding is that it still doesn’t look good to payment processors and can make them upset.
You can ask the developer to reduce the price on steam, but what if the dev says no?
You can force the dev to reduce the price, but now you’re even more of an asshole.
You can lower the cost on your storefront and cover the difference yourself, but now you’re potentially losing money. That, if I’m not mistaken, is actually anti-competative from a legal standpoint.
You’re kinda screwed if you’re trying to be the good guy.
That’s not even getting into how bad it looks if it’s cheaper on steam than somewhere else when you have a marketshare as large as Valve’s.
So what? Who cares if it “looks bad”? They have to compete on service. They need to find out why devs want to sell on steam at a higher price.
If other platforms want to compete in ways that make prices lower for customers lower for customers, so be it.
The same right as epic games has to prevent a game from going on Steam, or anywhere else, for the first year.
They usually sign an exclusivity deal in exchange for funding the development of the game. David is alleging that steam pressured him in ways not covered by steam ToS. It’s not like valve funded development of receiver.
Yes, that is problematic. Not by itself, but coupled with a large captive userbase it is. As an example:
Let’s say you want to start a game marketplace, which simply runs a storefront and content distribution—you specifically don’t want to run a workshop, friends network, video streaming, or peer multiplayer. Because you don’t offer these other services, you keep costs down, and can charge a 5% fee instead of a 30%.
With Steam’s policy, publishers may choose to:
- List on your platform at $45, and forego the userbase of Steam
- List on Steam and your platform at $60, and forego the reduced costs your platform could offer
Obviously, pricing is much more sophisticated than this. You’d have to account for change in sales volume and all. Point is, though, that publishers (and consumers!) cannot take advantage of alternative marketplaces that offer fewer services at lower cost.
The question the court has to answer is whether the userbase/market share captured by Steam causes choice (2) to be de-facto necessary for a game to succeed commercially. If so, then the policy would be the misuse of market dominance to stifle competition.
And I think Wolfire might be able to successfully argue that.
Yeah they can, they just don’t have to sell on steam.
Steam runs weekly deals and daily sales all the time. I doubt they have to check with gog.
This… misses the point? Of course the can not sell on Steam. That’s always an option.
The antitrust aspect of all of this is that Steam is the de-facto marketplace, consumers are stubborn and habitual and aren’t as likely purchase games less-known platforms, and that a publisher opting not to sell on Steam might have a negative influence on the games success.
If that consumer inertia gives Steam an undue advantage that wouldn’t be present in a properly competitive market, then it there is an antitrust case to be made, full stop. At this point, the court will decide if the advantage is significant enough to warrant any action, so there’s really no need for us to argue further.
But I really don’t like seeing Wolfire—which is a great pro-consumer and pro-open-source studio—having their reputation tarnished just because Lemmyites have a knee-jerk reaction to bend over and take it from Valve just because Steam is a good platform.
This is kind of necessary. You could open a store just selling Steam keys. You get Steam’s software distribution, installed user base, networking for free and pay nothing to them. Steam is selling all of those services for a 30% cut. Since your overhead is $0, you can take just a 1% fee and still turn a profit because Valve is covering 99% of your costs.
Steam could disable keys or start charging fees for them. As long as they’re being this ridiculously generous and permitting publishers to have them for free, some limitation makes sense.
I’m dubious, though. There must be a provision for promotional pricing. I’ve definitely bought keys for less than Steam prices.
As I said, Steam would be in their rights to enforce that pricing policy for Steam keys, because they provide distribution and platform services for that product after it sells.
But as @Rose clarified, it applies to not just Steam keys, but any game copy sold and distributed by an independent platform. Steam should not have any legitimate claim to determining the pricing within another platform.
David said in a blog post that the suit is specifically alleging price fixing tactics for other platforms that aren’t key sellers, but sell the whole game. Whether that holds up in court - we will see.
Come on, not every guy with a beard is–
“Hi this is Gaben”
OOOOOOHHHH MA GAWD
Thats: gayben@valvesoftware.com
For those being happy that valve is in this position, don’t. Any company that gets into a monopoly position, accidentally or not, will turn. Google too had “do no evil” in their manifest, until they didn’t
While I agree, it is important to note that Valve is a private company. When you don’t have to please shareholders and do absolutely everything to increase revenue, there is possibility for a level-headed leader that keeps the company customer friendly.
But if anything changes (greed takes over or leadership changes), it could still turn.
Valve is a private company right now. But Gaben is 61 and it goes without saying that Valve is at the top of every predatory tech capitalist’s wishlist. Can you even imagine what Microsoft or Google or Meta would pay for Valve? Steam is great, but that probably won’t last forever. GOG is waiting in the wings if Steam ever becomes enshittified, but most of your library cannot be transferred over.
Yeah. I don’t have a lot of negative things to say about Steam, and there’s a lot of high-value stuff. The mod workshop is great. Linux support is top-tier. There’s a lot of good stuff. The only major bad thing from my point of view is lock-in. Having a vast library of games tied to one account isn’t great. And having publishers and mod-makers etc essentially forced to rely on that platform is not good. Steam itself is good - but consolidation of power is generally a bad thing.
For that reason, most of my new games have been coming from GOG over the last couple of years. GOG’s DRM free policy means there’s basically no lock-in effect. That’s a major strength, even if some of their other features aren’t as strong as Steam.
I have mixed feelings on GOG. I want to like them, but the lack of Linux support is a real thorn in my side… Having DRM free stuff is great and I’d love if more games had DRM free versions, but currently steam actually supports me and GOG wants to pretend I don’t exist… And realistically, I’m not totally sold on GOGs promise of always having access to your games… If GOG explodes you’re probably going to lose access to your games too? I mean, of course it’s easier to archive a game for yourself if it doesn’t have DRM, but unless you do that religiously for each game on GOG you won’t be able to acquire them after GOG hypothetically explodes either… Hopefully you get enough warning to archive what you care about, I guess?
I do totally respect that DRM free copies can make a big difference but everybody argues that GOG means you’ll always have access to your games, and I’m not sure it’s substantially different than steam in that respect for “normal” people, you know? If either store kicks the bucket people are going to be out of luck. I kind of just want to throw Steam and GOG in a closest until they make out, though. Would be nice to get the best of both worlds.
Lombardi is still second in command, right? If Gabe died tomorrow, who would control Valve?
deleted by creator
When you don’t have to please shareholders
Where did this rumor come from? Private companies have shareholders, too, and they have as much say in the profit direction of the company as the shareholders of any public company.
Shares ≠ stocks
You’re not wrong, but shareholders look at their investment very differently than stockholders. Private shareholders can’t necessarily cash out whenever they want because the sale of private equity is usually tightly controlled by the company. This means they need to be interested in long-term growth and success. While public stockholders can also hold their shares for a long time, there’s much more ability and incentive to buy and sell quickly to make a quick profit.
Anecdotally, I worked for a publicly traded company for 6 years before they got bought and taken private by a private equity group. The way profitability and trends are measured is night and day. As a public company, everything was hyper focused on quarter by quarter results. One underperforming quarter meant a tank in stock prices, hiring freezes, and a general sentiment to the employees of “quit spending money on expenses if you want to have a job next quarter”. Being controlled by private equity, they’re most concerned with year over year growth and the long-term stability of our operations.
The only time when I’m concerned that Valve will grow rotten is if Gabe leaves.
Valve has been the market leader for years and still hasn’t let the consumer down. Their business strategy comes down to offering us the best possible service. Meanwhile crappy stores like Epic Games try to lure you in with free games and timed exclusives and I still gave up on their featureless mess of a platform.
Just don’t expect him a 3rd time.
I’m out of the loop, can someone reply what’s going on? I’ll leave this comment for those like me who curious what happened
David Rosen of Wolfire Games (Receiver, Overgrowth, Lugaru) is alleging that steam reps have threatened to de-list his game if he lists it as less expensive on other platforms. Specifically not just steam keys but other distribution platforms.
Which is hard to believe, considering how many times I’ve bought steam games on other (legitimate) platforms that were cheaper than on steam, that are still on steam today and werent removed for being cheaper on another platform.
Sure, but Valve essentially reserve the right to no longer sell your game if it’s offered cheaper elsewhere. See the quotes on pages 54 through 56 of the complaint.
Which is a dick move on valves part.
Remember folks, Valve isnt the peoples company.
All the good things it does, it does only because of regulation pressure or lost lawsuits.
Remember folks, Valve isnt the peoples company.
No corporation is “the peoples corporation”, but some corporations treat their customers with a lot more respect and fairness in pricing/policies than others.
Yes, but people have to be reminded of that with “sweetheart” companies like AMD and Valve, because they get too deep in the koolaid and forget it.
It isn’t the peoples’ company, but nor is it a publicly traded company that is obligated to pursue profits above all else. It’s Gabe’s company, and he gets to run it as he sees fit.
Ultimately Wolfire’s argument falls apart not because Valve is setting the terms, but because their claims about Valve’s position in the industry and supposed abuse of power don’t hold much water.
Fyi I like valve but im in no way sworn to them.
I think the justification would probably be that if they continued listing the item:
- It maybe mislead consumers into paying more for the same thing
- The reason why people pay more in that scenario is for convenience (IE all games in the same place) but that would be exersizing valves monopoly, so it may be safer to just remove to reduce complaints to steam about the higher pricing because there will be operational cost to processing those support requests and complaints
I don’t feel like valve does everything because of lawsuits. Open sourcing proton wasn’t due to a lawsuit. Releasing Cs2 as a free upgrade to csgo wasn’t due to a lawsuit.
On the other hand and in response to your comment, I think the regulatory fix is that platforms must display their platform fee clearly and separately to the publishers price.
Open sourcing proton wasn’t due to a lawsuit.
Wine and dxvk was already opensource. They couldn’t have closed it even if they wanted to.
Minor note about only a single point here
CS2 as an “upgrade” to CSGO has been less than well received from what I can tell. If they wanted it to be free it should have been a new game and left CS:GO in place. Removing a game many of us paid for in favor of a newer, different game isn’t something that should be praised, and should be called out as the anti-consumer move it was.
They also make nice hardware, but they don’t do that out of the goodness of their hearts of course
TIL: valve is run by robots.
All those Humble Bundles for a start.
I believe it is in the Steam marketplace agreement, and applies to all games. Are you referring to sales on other platforms, or to the full listed price?
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That hasn’t been my experience, could be a regional pricing thing.
HumbleBundle…
Not only that, but games you’ve actually heard of, too
Oh shit. I love David Rosen. I also live GabeN…
I should be the judge.
Yeah, it sucks when mommy and daddy fight.
Valve is trying to escape Microsoft’s monopolistic practices with Linux while out performing their competition in a fair market. I like competition but I don’t get what advantage steam has that their competition doesn’t. Even with the steam deck they’re using standardized hardware and open source software to make a competitive product leaving room for competition to create their own versions.
One can appreciate Valve’s contributions to Linux gaming without idealizing them. The likely reason they went for Linux is that they would have to pay Microsoft to use Windows.
This is true that it is a likely reason. It is also possible that Gabe Newell runs his company in a very deliberate way because he thinks it’s a net benefit to both his company and gaming in general. From what I have heard, which of course may be a flawed understanding of the man, it seems like he has certain principles. I guess the question is whether or not a person believes intent matters or only the end result.
Their VR is all open as well for the good of the universe. Perhaps have a little deeper look.
I don’t idealize them, I use the other storefronts (gog epic) potentially more because they often don’t sell games with any form of drm. I just don’t get it because as far as my experience goes they’re all about the same minus more jank on the other two.
I’ve actually spent the most time with Rockstar games launcher thanks to GTA V and RDR2 and that one is a real piece of work tbh.
Steam has a large userbase, which offers a lot of consumer inertia to prefer games on Steam. They also have a policy where game pricing on other platforms cannot undercut Steam.
The main complaint is that this pricing policy coupled with the consumer inertia makes it difficult for other gaming marketplaces to enter the market. You cannot undercut steam unless a publisher wants to not put their game on Steam at all (which would be suicide for anything but the largest titles), so you have to sell at Steam’s price point. Few platforms could match Steams’ established workshop, multiplayer, streaming, and social services; all of which benefit from costs at scale and the established user content.
Imagine trying to convince a user: “Buy your game here instead. It will cost the same as on Steam. No, you won’t have access to the existing Workshop. No, you won’t have in-platform multiplayer with your Steam friends.” Even if you had feature parity, people would prefer Steam since that’s where their existing games and friends are.
Note that the main argument Wolfire is making is that game marketplaces (buy/download the game) and game platforms (online features, mod distribution, social pages) need to be decoupled. By integrating the two, Steam is vertically integrating, amortizing the cost, and then forcing every other marketplace to bear the cost of a platform in their pricing.
If you bought a game and paid for platform services separately, then competition can better exist for both of those roles. Which is good for consumers.
I’m going to be real, the seperatization might be good technically from a consumer standpoint, but mostly will just prove to make consumers lives harder for no reason. One of the major benefits of Steam is that it handles everything, and isn’t something I, or anyone else, would be happy to give up.
I typically try to buy games from gog if available and on epic if not and steam if it’s on sale. The only harm I see is how janky the other storefronts are and how frequently they break or refuse to load and that’s not steams fault. I don’t play a lot of online games but epic and gog are my primary platforms to play on.
I’m not defending steam but I also don’t see how the advantage a platform like steam has is a direct result of any anti consumer practices. Honestly I prefer a storefront over rootkits and heavy handed drm any day not to mention downloading gamepatches directly from the publishers website.
Years of experience. It’s like wow. When your audienfe is so entrenched other MMOs can’t compete
Really? Steam? With all those EGS, GOG and Origins? Is it Apple’s trolling?
Oh lawd he comin
Half Life 3 has been delayed by another three months.
