Bloomberg cites two high-profile cases referenced in the ongoing lawsuit, one involving Ubisoft, and another Warner Bros.
First of all, I trust Ubi and WB way less than valve.
Valve allegedly threatened to delist all editions of Rainbow Six Siege after Ubisoft offered a cheaper option on its Uplay store.
Yeah.
Because it violates their policy. That’s not a “threat”, those are the terms of the contract Ubi and WB agreed to. Terms that everyone has to follow.
Heck, Ubi and WB should be hit with a counter suit for trying to leverage their market position to exert control over valve and getting unusually favorable terms.
Clown suit. Ubi and WB are mad they can’t break their contract with valve in a one sided way.
edit: I forgot some context:
The deal between valve and a publisher or dev is: they can sell on steam and elsewhere if steam is at least tied in price, or cheaper, but when they sell somewhere else, that includes the steam key and access to steam and steam’s distribution at no cost.
What the devs and publishers wanted to do was leverage other features of steam and the steam ecosystem, while undercutting steam’s price.
They are always free to just not sell on steam for a cheaper price. That’s not what this is about.
Valve allegedly threatened to delist all editions of Rainbow Six Siege after Ubisoft offered a cheaper option on its Uplay store.
Yeah.
Because it violates their policy.
And that policy only exists because monopoly enables them to set anti-trust/anti-competitive practices and further cement their position by ruining competition’s chances.
Imagine there’s a huge fuel station that’s so big they essentially set rules towards suppliers that they can’t offer their gas to other stations at a cheaper price otherwise they can’t sell it in their station with 95% market share.
If you don’t see a problem with this as a customer, then don’t forget to support your local billionaire by paying a 30% fee for each game purchase (and that 30% cut also exists due to no one being able to take on steam, ridiculous amount of money).
I’m slowly getting tires of gamers defending Gabe like he’s Jesus when in reality valve is a corporation doing corporation things.
First of all, I trust Ubi and WB way less than valve.
Yeah.
Because it violates their policy. That’s not a “threat”, those are the terms of the contract Ubi and WB agreed to. Terms that everyone has to follow.
Heck, Ubi and WB should be hit with a counter suit for trying to leverage their market position to exert control over valve and getting unusually favorable terms.
Clown suit. Ubi and WB are mad they can’t break their contract with valve in a one sided way.
edit: I forgot some context:
The deal between valve and a publisher or dev is: they can sell on steam and elsewhere if steam is at least tied in price, or cheaper, but when they sell somewhere else, that includes the steam key and access to steam and steam’s distribution at no cost.
What the devs and publishers wanted to do was leverage other features of steam and the steam ecosystem, while undercutting steam’s price.
They are always free to just not sell on steam for a cheaper price. That’s not what this is about.
You shouldn’t trust any of them. No billionaire has your best interests at heart. Even Gabe.
That is true, definitely a “lesser evil” situation.
Username checks out
No love for those companies but just because you agreed to a contract doesn’t mean the clauses of the contract are legal or enforceable.
True, but this deal is that companies stick to the terms and in turn they get access to steams shop, implicitly the community.
They don’t have some unalienable right to access another company’s customers.
You don’t have a “right” to go into a BurgerKing and advertise and sell your burgers there.
… and in a country with rule of law whether a contractual clause is legal would be decided by a court, no?
Yeah, isn’t that the point of the lawsuit? That this exact clause is challenged in court?
And that policy only exists because monopoly enables them to set anti-trust/anti-competitive practices and further cement their position by ruining competition’s chances.
Imagine there’s a huge fuel station that’s so big they essentially set rules towards suppliers that they can’t offer their gas to other stations at a cheaper price otherwise they can’t sell it in their station with 95% market share.
If you don’t see a problem with this as a customer, then don’t forget to support your local billionaire by paying a 30% fee for each game purchase (and that 30% cut also exists due to no one being able to take on steam, ridiculous amount of money).
I’m slowly getting tires of gamers defending Gabe like he’s Jesus when in reality valve is a corporation doing corporation things.
40% of the market is not a monopoly.
Monopoly implies there are no alternatives. There are plenty of alternatives. People just choose Steam because the other ones are (mostly) crap.