But that’s the whole point of this. Why should steam have a say in it, how expensive or cheap different games are sold on different platforms. They basically prevent price competition. To be fair in this case selling the starter pack only on Ubisoft Connect (exclusivity) is also anti competitive and worth investigating, but the point stands. Why should steam have the power to force Gamedevs to have price parity with other stores, if the versions of the other stores don’t have anything to do with steam? Why can’t some games be cheaper in other stores, where the stores take a smaller cut of the profits?
Yes Ubisoft is evil, but that doesn’t make Valve the good ones.
Yes Steam has more and better features, but that doesn’t mean other stores should be prohibited to compete on price.
Yes Steam has the largest Playerbase by far, but how many people would switch if games where just always 20% cheaper on other platforms? This price competition seems to be the exact thing that Valve tries to block.
And this is not about keys at all. Steam has of course the right to set the price for their steam keys, because they provide the servers, interfaces, etc.
Steam is choosing not to distribute the game at a significantly higher price than elsewhere if the publisher is choosing that pricing structure. The publisher can either choose to distribute on steam with a comparable (not identical) price on steam or not distribute on steam.
Steam isn’t making the publisher do anything on other storefronts and as you pointed out what Ubi was doing was anticompetitive.
But that’s the whole point of this. Why should steam have a say in it, how expensive or cheap different games are sold on different platforms. They basically prevent price competition. To be fair in this case selling the starter pack only on Ubisoft Connect (exclusivity) is also anti competitive and worth investigating, but the point stands. Why should steam have the power to force Gamedevs to have price parity with other stores, if the versions of the other stores don’t have anything to do with steam? Why can’t some games be cheaper in other stores, where the stores take a smaller cut of the profits?
Yes Ubisoft is evil, but that doesn’t make Valve the good ones.
Yes Steam has more and better features, but that doesn’t mean other stores should be prohibited to compete on price.
Yes Steam has the largest Playerbase by far, but how many people would switch if games where just always 20% cheaper on other platforms? This price competition seems to be the exact thing that Valve tries to block.
And this is not about keys at all. Steam has of course the right to set the price for their steam keys, because they provide the servers, interfaces, etc.
Steam is choosing not to distribute the game at a significantly higher price than elsewhere if the publisher is choosing that pricing structure. The publisher can either choose to distribute on steam with a comparable (not identical) price on steam or not distribute on steam.
Steam isn’t making the publisher do anything on other storefronts and as you pointed out what Ubi was doing was anticompetitive.