Even if the most favored nation clause does exist, all it takes is a quick look at https://isthereanydeal.com/ for nearly any game to confirm that it isn’t actually enforced. Games go on sale on platforms other than Steam all the time when they aren’t on sale on Steam.
It’s not sale prices, it’s the regular price which is required. Steam has to have the lowest available regular non sale price (can be tied). This means that even if you sell on a site with a lower store cut, your price still has to reflect Steam’s 30% cut.
This artificially drives up prices across the board.
Let’s engage in a thought experiment. Let’s assume Steam were to offer 2 options:
- 30% cut of sales, all current services as they exist today.
- 8% cut of sales, but your game will never be featured on the front page of the store, can’t participate in sales, cannot be wishlisted, won’t show up in recommendations or ‘similar to games you play’ lists, will not be promoted at all. Can’t participate in community features or use the workshop. It’s still on steam; anyone who searches for it can find it, you can freely advertise it yourself and list it elsewhere and all of that, and you’re free to sell it anywhere else at any price.
How do you think that second option would work out for developers? Anyone who wouldn’t take that option is admitting that the services Steam is offering are worth the price of admission. By your logic, it should result in a 22% reduction in the cost of games; I doubt that would be the case.
Every developer is paying the same cut regardless if their game gets featured or not. So that’s a disingenuous argument. Devs aren’t paying for a service. They’re having their revenue garnished in exchange for a marketing lottery ticket
Valve is already incentivized to make games with popularity potential more visible, because it makes THEM money. Like every store in existence does.
Even if it is a monopoly, it’s not the one I would start with.
The problem is not gamers but game developers/publishers.
I found myself a handful of times trying to get a game from GOG or Itch.io before realising I wasn’t writing the game’s name wrong, just that they didn’t bother publishing it in other platforms but Steam.
Except if you are a Linux user and lazy like I am. Then there basically is only 1 option.
I sometimes use GOG, but unfortunately WineHQ doesn’t work very well anymore, and it’s not always that something that works with proton also is easy to get to work with vanilla Wine.So for me I generally choose Steam, even if the game is available on GOG.
What? Steam certainly has Monopoly, you can buy it for $50
