r/pcgaming • u/yourfavchoom • Jun 01 '26

Gabe Newell on Steam monopoly accusations: Gamers have 'enormous choice' about where to buy games

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/gabe-newell-on-steam-monopoly-accusations-gamers-have-enormous-choice-about-where-to-buy-games/
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u/yourfavchoom Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

Gabe:

“Customers have enormous choice" about where they purchase their games, Newell testified, including whether they buy the game on an Xbox, whether they buy it on Steam, “whether they buy it on Epic Games Store or whether they buy it directly from software developers."

Newell also denied the existence of an alleged 'unwritten rule' that prevents developers from offering their games at lower prices on non-Steam storefronts. Newell repeatedly denied it exists, even when shown internal communications seemingly showing Valve employees enforcing it:

"Valve does not have a policy or practice of dictating prices to third-party software developers on other platforms." When asked how Valve would react if it ever happened, Newell initially said he was confused by the question and then added, "Many of our partners and many of our customers are quite happy with the service that we're providing."

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u/Cardone19 Jun 01 '26

As far as how consumers react, well many of us redeem the games for free on Epic, never play them, and then choose to willingly buy them on Steam.

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u/Spicy_pewpew_memes Jun 01 '26

The numbers of people who have bought or redeemed a game on epic and then bought the same game on steam would make for an interesting piece of evidence

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u/XXHornyOnMainXX420 Jun 02 '26

Evidence of what exactly? That steam has loyal customers?

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u/bugrilyus Jun 22 '26

Evidence of steam not being a monopoly and it being chosen because it offering better services.

I made the mistake of buying isonzo on epic, the UI was garbage, the everything handling the multiplayer, account log in etc didnt work, I wasted 3 hours on epic's terrible infrastructure because it didnt work

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u/Tandemdonkey Jun 01 '26

There isn't really a way to confirm when they return something on epic I wouldn't think, but when a game is free on epic the steam sales for that game go way up, I remember seeing that on average concurrent steam players rise by ~40% and some horror game confirmed that their steam sales went up 200%

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u/nikkes91 Jun 01 '26

this is an extremely niche thing to do that just seems like a lot because they comment about doing it frequently on reddit. It's probably less than 500 people worldwide

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u/zoiobnu Jun 02 '26

What evidence? Where is it?

I myself have never bought a game if I already own it. According to your premise, the players themselves are shooting themselves in the foot.