A new Dutch class action has been filed against Valve Corporation, the company behind Steam. The case is brought by the Stichting Consumenten Competition Claims (CCC), which has launched the proceedings under the name GameClaim. The foundation acts on behalf of all Dutch PC gamers who have purchased games through Steam or other PC distribution platforms since 2013, IGN Benelux reports.
It’s not the gamers, it’s a commission and there is a lot of misinformation on their website (it can be viewed in English). https://gameclaim.consumercompetitionclaims.com/
Also tweakers.net a Dutch tech enthusiast website had a good post about it, most of the commenters do not agree with this as well https://tweakers.net/nieuws/249010/steam-laat-klanten-te-veel-betalen-voor-games-volgens-nederlandse-massaclaim.html (Dutch only so you’ll have to use a translator if you want to read it)
People keep forgetting that in the olden days, the left over cut for the publisher was about 40% of the game value, the rest went to warehouse, shipping, and the retailer all got something. The rough estimate left over cut for the developer was 10~15%.
Now a days as a developer you can sell directly to the customer through Steam, and you don’t need a publisher or a network if you only sell on Steam. So that 10~15% cut went to 70% (till x amount of revenue and then it gets lower).
Next to Steam not being a monopoly and Valve providing all the other companies the blueprint for a success in the PC market, none of the competitors follows it, or compare to the customer service of Steam. And it seems that none of those other billion dollar competitors (Microsoft, Amazon and Epic) wants to invest in a solid platform to stand up to Steam.
Not even a commission (which would be governmental), it’s purely litigational… See my other comment on who is behind it…