This BS again. "In exchange for selling Steam Keys of your game on the internet (using steam as the vendor for your game), you, the developer agree to sell those steam keys at the cheapest price you offer. Steam doesn’t set the price, takes the same cut from each key sold as almost every other platform including Nintendo, Epic, PS, Xbox, and GOG.
So I am struggling to understand what is anti-competitve about this.
The practice I’ve found the most concerning is the alleged “most-favored nation” clause/provision in the Steam Distribution Agreement. I haven’t been able to actually find the actual Steam Distribution Agreement anywhere, which itself is concerning. I just see it mentioned alongside an NDA that must be signed.
The MFN basically requires that Valve never be undercut in any way, whether or not the game is distributed elsewhere using a Steam Key or not.
No discount. No bonus content. No perks. Steam key or direct download from your own website without any involvement of Valve whatsoever - it doesn’t matter.
Edit: It seems it was not explicit in the agreement regarding non-key sales, but allegedly threatened and possibly enforced in practice.
When new video game stores were opening that charged much lower commissions than Valve, I decided that I would provide my game “Overgrowth” at a lower price to take advantage of the lower commission rates. I intended to write a blog post about the results.
But when I asked Valve about this plan, they replied that they would remove Overgrowth from Steam if I allowed it to be sold at a lower price anywhere, even from my own website without Steam keys and without Steam’s DRM. This would make it impossible for me, or any game developer, to determine whether or not Steam is earning their commission. I believe that other developers who charged lower prices on other stores have been contacted by Valve, telling them that their games will be removed from Steam if they did not raise their prices on competing stores.
I have never seen and nobody has ever provided proven that Steam requires price parity for electronic game keys or physical copies that are not steam keys.
As far as I understand it, Steam only requires that you sell your game for the same price on other marketplaces if you’re selling Steam keys. If you’re selling a non-Steam license then you don’t have to match prices at all and can sell for cheaper on Epic, Itch, GoG, etc.
I also want to point out that I believe if you sell steam keys anywhere else except the steam platform you get to keep 100% of those sales. Steam only takes a 30% cut from steam key sales sold on their own store front.
When new video game stores were opening that charged much lower commissions than Valve, I decided that I would provide my game “Overgrowth” at a lower price to take advantage of the lower commission rates. I intended to write a blog post about the results.
But when I asked Valve about this plan, they replied that they would remove Overgrowth from Steam if I allowed it to be sold at a lower price anywhere, even from my own website without Steam keys and without Steam’s DRM. This would make it impossible for me, or any game developer, to determine whether or not Steam is earning their commission. I believe that other developers who charged lower prices on other stores have been contacted by Valve, telling them that their games will be removed from Steam if they did not raise their prices on competing stores.
Yep. I read the original statement from the original game dev that sued. Their lawsuit was unsuccessful and they decided to refile it as a class action as a result. Which is why in my original comment I said “This BS again”, and “This has been alleged before”.
Still it seems like no other devs are actually alleging this except 1-2 others. Out of thousands of game devs. Seems suspect.
They have the highest market share because every other platform has been shit (until gog), and customers voted with their wallet. They aren’t squeezing competition out, everyone else needs to suck less.
If you think removing those abusive clauses will have an impact on the market you’re delusional.
Third party sellers have no reason to have a lower price on a different store, unless the store itself is paying them the offset of a lower price. That’s only going to suffocate smaller stores that don’t have money to burn.
And the stores with first party games can already create a bigger incentive for their store by keeping their games store exclusive because it would be the only place to play that particular game (it’s why streaming services have gone down the route of exclusivity). Also having the game with a higher price point on Steam would just lead to a controversy which will hurts sales and damage the reputation of the company.
You mean that people who came up with those laws, as a consequence of monopolies abusing their power, were delusional. Take a step back to think what’s more likely.
In case you were not paying attention you said Valve has to remove abusive clauses, which there is only one in question here and that’s about price parity, so other stores could compete. At not point did you mention any actual laws and at no point did I mention anything remotely related to laws. I said you thinking that removing that one clause will make other stores competitive is delusional thinking.
EDIT: And I got blocked. I guess that says all there is to say about OP.
So sell epic keys or some other store fronts keys and move on with your life? There are other digital store keys they could sell at literally any price they want. And that’s why this is bogus.
They don’t have to sell their game digitally with steam keys. They can create keys on other platforms to sell their game.
I don’t think that word means what you think it means. Market share has nothing to do with this.
Allegedly they can’t because confidential agreement prevents them. And they won’t move away from Steam because it’s a monopoly. Which is why this is illegal.
First filed back in 2024 by Vicki Shotbolt, the lawsuit claims that Valve charges “excessive commission charges” that lead to “an unfair price which is then passed on to consumers”.
These fees are 30% cut of profits per game key sold, not an extra fee on top of that. So selling the steam key costs the same amount and nets about the same profit as selling a PlayStation or Nintendo key.
Literally every other online store (Epic, GOG, Xbox, PlayStation, …) does the exact same thing when it comes to both game keys and DLCs. Seems frivolous on that point at least.
This has been alleged before. And it was a nothing burger then. There’s a whole pictograph floating around comparing the cut that other game sale platforms take and I think only like 2 of them take a smaller than 30% cut.
This compares physical games to electronic keys, and that’s also a nothing burger. The cost will be higher with those on the manufacturing side because of the cost of materials to make the physical copies, the logistics of delivery to retailers, and the cost of manufacturing them.
Steam isn’t a monopoly. You keep using that word but it has a very finite legal definition. That definition provides that through practices of the company that are anti-consumer or anti-competitve, or both, the company retains a significant majority of the market share.
So again I’m not even suggesting that these devs leave steam. But the crux of the matter is that they want to use steam keys on other store fronts etc and don’t want to pay steam 30% for the use of those steam keys. They can use a different store front with a different store front’s game keys and still provide steam keys through steam. They are not required to use steam keys on their own website or other digital store fronts.
You also aren’t required to launch games from or use steam for anything except downloading the game. You can launch them, update them, modify them, etc without even having steam running.
As I said before, DLC being tied to the store front that supplied the key makes sense and is a normal standard business practice.
If what you allege is true then literally no exclusive games on the Epic store could every be made available on steam (after the exclusivity contracted time ends), because I think what you’re trying to suggest is that Steam (through confidential agreement) is forcing these devs to only provide steam keys. Which is a pretty bogus claim.
Valve can’t enforce prices across other store by mandating they can’t be cheaper because they’re a monopolist. If this part of their agreement is true then they are out of the line, in breach of law, and should be punished. Being a monopoly isn’t illegal, how Valve got there doesn’t matter. Their behaviour as a monopolist matters. It’s literally the law in most civilised countries and those laws come from the times when people didn’t simp for monopolies.
Valve can for the keys that they provide. The keys they provide are free. Their agreement only is valid for Steam Keys. Those are freely generated Steam licenses of the game for the game dev to sell on other store fronts. For which the developer gets 100% of profits.
And steam is not a monopoly. I will not continue to reiterate the legal definition of that.
Steam keys means everything still happens in their store, with users attached to the platform without a way out. This is not a serious answer.
Steam is a monopoly because of their massive market share, that’s all there is to it, having irrelevant competition doesn’t matter in this case. You think monopoly = bad and therefore Steam can’t be a monopoly. That’s not how it works.
This BS again. "In exchange for selling Steam Keys of your game on the internet (using steam as the vendor for your game), you, the developer agree to sell those steam keys at the cheapest price you offer. Steam doesn’t set the price, takes the same cut from each key sold as almost every other platform including Nintendo, Epic, PS, Xbox, and GOG.
So I am struggling to understand what is anti-competitve about this.
https://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2019/09/GameRetailerCuts_infographic-1.png
https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut-is-actually-the-industry-standard
That is just blatantly wrong. Steam takes 30%, Epic takes 12% after the first $1M.
I just wanted to point out that from the article they linked Valves cut of profits also drop by a certain amount per game sold.
And Epic also notoriously reduced their cut of profits under 1 million just last year.
I agree with you though.
*“almost” *. missed a word. Will update the comment.
The practice I’ve found the most concerning is the alleged “most-favored nation” clause/provision in the Steam Distribution Agreement. I haven’t been able to actually find the actual Steam Distribution Agreement anywhere, which itself is concerning. I just see it mentioned alongside an NDA that must be signed.
The MFN basically requires that Valve never be undercut in any way, whether or not the game is distributed elsewhere using a Steam Key or not.
No discount. No bonus content. No perks. Steam key or direct download from your own website without any involvement of Valve whatsoever - it doesn’t matter.
Edit: It seems it was not explicit in the agreement regarding non-key sales, but allegedly threatened and possibly enforced in practice.
https://www.wolfire.com/blog/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-class-action/
Where did you get this information?
I have never seen and nobody has ever
providedproven that Steam requires price parity for electronic game keys or physical copies that are not steam keys.As far as I understand it, Steam only requires that you sell your game for the same price on other marketplaces if you’re selling Steam keys. If you’re selling a non-Steam license then you don’t have to match prices at all and can sell for cheaper on Epic, Itch, GoG, etc.
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys#3
I also want to point out that I believe if you sell steam keys anywhere else except the steam platform you get to keep 100% of those sales. Steam only takes a 30% cut from steam key sales sold on their own store front.
https://www.wolfire.com/blog/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-class-action/
It seems it was not explicit in the agreement regarding non-key sales, but allegedly threatened and possibly enforced in practice.
Yep. I read the original statement from the original game dev that sued. Their lawsuit was unsuccessful and they decided to refile it as a class action as a result. Which is why in my original comment I said “This BS again”, and “This has been alleged before”.
Still it seems like no other devs are actually alleging this except 1-2 others. Out of thousands of game devs. Seems suspect.
It’s anticompetitive when you have 90% market share and you do this. Monopolies are generally legal but can’t do certain things regular companies can.
They have the highest market share because every other platform has been shit (until gog), and customers voted with their wallet. They aren’t squeezing competition out, everyone else needs to suck less.
And Valve has to remove abusive clauses from their agreements with the devs so that it can actually happen, yes.
If you think removing those abusive clauses will have an impact on the market you’re delusional.
Third party sellers have no reason to have a lower price on a different store, unless the store itself is paying them the offset of a lower price. That’s only going to suffocate smaller stores that don’t have money to burn.
And the stores with first party games can already create a bigger incentive for their store by keeping their games store exclusive because it would be the only place to play that particular game (it’s why streaming services have gone down the route of exclusivity). Also having the game with a higher price point on Steam would just lead to a controversy which will hurts sales and damage the reputation of the company.
Removing the price parity clause will do nothing.
You mean that people who came up with those laws, as a consequence of monopolies abusing their power, were delusional. Take a step back to think what’s more likely.
In case you were not paying attention you said Valve has to remove abusive clauses, which there is only one in question here and that’s about price parity, so other stores could compete. At not point did you mention any actual laws and at no point did I mention anything remotely related to laws. I said you thinking that removing that one clause will make other stores competitive is delusional thinking.
EDIT: And I got blocked. I guess that says all there is to say about OP.
Go gaslight someone else.
So sell epic keys or some other store fronts keys and move on with your life? There are other digital store keys they could sell at literally any price they want. And that’s why this is bogus.
They don’t have to sell their game digitally with steam keys. They can create keys on other platforms to sell their game.
I don’t think that word means what you think it means. Market share has nothing to do with this.
Allegedly they can’t because confidential agreement prevents them. And they won’t move away from Steam because it’s a monopoly. Which is why this is illegal.
These fees are 30% cut of profits per game key sold, not an extra fee on top of that. So selling the steam key costs the same amount and nets about the same profit as selling a PlayStation or Nintendo key.
Literally every other online store (Epic, GOG, Xbox, PlayStation, …) does the exact same thing when it comes to both game keys and DLCs. Seems frivolous on that point at least.
This has been alleged before. And it was a nothing burger then. There’s a whole pictograph floating around comparing the cut that other game sale platforms take and I think only like 2 of them take a smaller than 30% cut.
This compares physical games to electronic keys, and that’s also a nothing burger. The cost will be higher with those on the manufacturing side because of the cost of materials to make the physical copies, the logistics of delivery to retailers, and the cost of manufacturing them.
Steam isn’t a monopoly. You keep using that word but it has a very finite legal definition. That definition provides that through practices of the company that are anti-consumer or anti-competitve, or both, the company retains a significant majority of the market share.
So again I’m not even suggesting that these devs leave steam. But the crux of the matter is that they want to use steam keys on other store fronts etc and don’t want to pay steam 30% for the use of those steam keys. They can use a different store front with a different store front’s game keys and still provide steam keys through steam. They are not required to use steam keys on their own website or other digital store fronts.
You also aren’t required to launch games from or use steam for anything except downloading the game. You can launch them, update them, modify them, etc without even having steam running.
As I said before, DLC being tied to the store front that supplied the key makes sense and is a normal standard business practice.
If what you allege is true then literally no exclusive games on the Epic store could every be made available on steam (after the exclusivity contracted time ends), because I think what you’re trying to suggest is that Steam (through confidential agreement) is forcing these devs to only provide steam keys. Which is a pretty bogus claim.
You’re missing the point.
Valve can’t enforce prices across other store by mandating they can’t be cheaper because they’re a monopolist. If this part of their agreement is true then they are out of the line, in breach of law, and should be punished. Being a monopoly isn’t illegal, how Valve got there doesn’t matter. Their behaviour as a monopolist matters. It’s literally the law in most civilised countries and those laws come from the times when people didn’t simp for monopolies.
Valve can for the keys that they provide. The keys they provide are free. Their agreement only is valid for Steam Keys. Those are freely generated Steam licenses of the game for the game dev to sell on other store fronts. For which the developer gets 100% of profits.
And steam is not a monopoly. I will not continue to reiterate the legal definition of that.
Steam keys means everything still happens in their store, with users attached to the platform without a way out. This is not a serious answer.
Steam is a monopoly because of their massive market share, that’s all there is to it, having irrelevant competition doesn’t matter in this case. You think monopoly = bad and therefore Steam can’t be a monopoly. That’s not how it works.
So use other licenses not provided by steam (epic for instance). That’s the point of what I said.
You think monopoly = illegal and what I’m saying is that it doesn’t meet the legal requirement to be a monopoly. This was never about good or bad.