It’s currently in the courts in multiple countries. The accusation is that Valve has an unwritten rule that Steam must have the best retail prices. For example, Ubisoft, who runs their own platform, could not sell Assassin’s Creed on Steam for $60 and on Uplay for $50.
This would make some sense from Ubisoft’s position, as they don’t have to pay anyone a commission on their own store, and customers may be willing to come to them for a lower price than Steam. In this scenario, no Valve infrastructure is used for the Uplay sale.
So, again, the accusation (currently unproven, but alleged in court) is that Valve strong arms others into not being able to do this. Still it for cheaper on your own store or elsewhere that takes a smaller cut? We’re gonna kick you off Steam.
This is believable, because Steam commands a dominating user share. So the threat of losing access to those users is very powerful. It’s also believable because people don’t become billionaires by being ethical.
However, naturally, Valve denies this unwritten policy exists. The cases are ongoing.
Survivorship bias is kind of how capitalism works. The most unscrupulous ways are the easiest and fastest ways to gain money and money-adjacent things. Its not always good for long-term earning, but by that point the capitalists have moves on to something else leaving the workers to shoulder the loss. The less capable capitalists end up sharing that burden with the workers sometimes, meaning they end up not surviving to billionaire-hood.
Basically, to become a billionaire you have to survive all the other people trying to get there as well. Being more ruthless and more conniving, and more willing to throw others under the bus.
We can say there are exceptions, and Gabe and Valve certainly seem like ones… but as others have pointed out, they’ve resorted to less than savory methods on occasion to make sure they come out ahead. Its unlikely that its to an extreme reached by other industries (diamonds and chocolate come to mind first), but that doesn’t mean they have no guilt to bear. Just more forgivable to most in light of alternatives.
There must be more specifics about that too. I know games I backed on patreon needed to make the price for a key higher since steam wouldn’t allow it to be gifted at a lower cost. But Humble Bundle does that, so I’m not sure where the line is.
Can’t find it now but I read that that drama was over the dev using steam servers, then also giving away the game for free on a separate site.
So yeah, no free infrastructure.
It’s currently in the courts in multiple countries. The accusation is that Valve has an unwritten rule that Steam must have the best retail prices. For example, Ubisoft, who runs their own platform, could not sell Assassin’s Creed on Steam for $60 and on Uplay for $50.
This would make some sense from Ubisoft’s position, as they don’t have to pay anyone a commission on their own store, and customers may be willing to come to them for a lower price than Steam. In this scenario, no Valve infrastructure is used for the Uplay sale.
So, again, the accusation (currently unproven, but alleged in court) is that Valve strong arms others into not being able to do this. Still it for cheaper on your own store or elsewhere that takes a smaller cut? We’re gonna kick you off Steam.
This is believable, because Steam commands a dominating user share. So the threat of losing access to those users is very powerful. It’s also believable because people don’t become billionaires by being ethical.
However, naturally, Valve denies this unwritten policy exists. The cases are ongoing.
I always think this because hoard money is unethical, not because cannot earn billion without play dirty.
It’s both.
Is there any proof? Or just survivorship bias?
Survivorship bias is kind of how capitalism works. The most unscrupulous ways are the easiest and fastest ways to gain money and money-adjacent things. Its not always good for long-term earning, but by that point the capitalists have moves on to something else leaving the workers to shoulder the loss. The less capable capitalists end up sharing that burden with the workers sometimes, meaning they end up not surviving to billionaire-hood.
Basically, to become a billionaire you have to survive all the other people trying to get there as well. Being more ruthless and more conniving, and more willing to throw others under the bus.
We can say there are exceptions, and Gabe and Valve certainly seem like ones… but as others have pointed out, they’ve resorted to less than savory methods on occasion to make sure they come out ahead. Its unlikely that its to an extreme reached by other industries (diamonds and chocolate come to mind first), but that doesn’t mean they have no guilt to bear. Just more forgivable to most in light of alternatives.
*when selling steam keys
There must be more specifics about that too. I know games I backed on patreon needed to make the price for a key higher since steam wouldn’t allow it to be gifted at a lower cost. But Humble Bundle does that, so I’m not sure where the line is.