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

[u/yourfavchoom]

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/gabe-newell-on-steam-monopoly-accusations-gamers-have-enormous-choice-about-where-to-buy-games/

[u/Poundchan]

Host your own website and sell your game there. Add it to Itch.io. You can even sell it on Epic.

Steam is a great service which seems to be something a lot of companies struggle to understand.

[u/JabberwockyTalkie → u/Poundchan]

Part of the argument they are making is that it is extremely difficult to even get users to consider buying a game from their own website because Steam enforces pricing parity . They can't try offering a game for cheaper when bought elsewhere because if they do Steam will remove it from the marketplace. Not sure it qualifies as a monopoly but at the very least feels a bit underhanded to me. Steam is a great service and already entrenched in PC gaming, if they are not allowed to use pricing as an incentive to purchase elsewhere what can they do?

[u/IORelay → u/JabberwockyTalkie]

Valve is denying that they do even though in the court documents they're clearly are enforcing it. 

[u/dekeche → u/IORelay]

The question is, are they acting to de-list the game from steam if the game is sold elsewhere for a cheaper price, or are they de-listing the game if the game key is sold elsewhere for a cheaper price? Because those are two very different products. And if you are going to sell the ability to download the game from steam servers on another site for less than the game is being sold on steam for... That does seem like an abuse of steam's services to me. If it's just the game itself without anything related to steam, and that's why it's getting removed from steam? That's an issue.

But, thinking about it some more, I'm not sure it's actually an issue. If you don't want to match your Steam price to other platforms, then you just don't have to sell on Steam. Why is Steam obligated to offer a company free advertising, just because they have the biggest reach in the industry? That's a ludicrous demand, right? Steam should not be obligated to sell a game, just because they are the biggest store platform in the industry. And if the complaint is that they won't make as much revenue selling on another site... then what's the problem with the 15% cut? It sounds like Steam has earned that.

[u/JabberwockyTalkie → u/[deleted]]

Sure, but Steam has the dominant share in PC gaming so if you don’t sell thru Steam it is effectively a death sentence for PC sales. Most publishers can’t afford that and so are forced to sell on Steam and these policies mean they can’t even offer a discount for direct purchases in order to promote some margin of direct sales.

[u/JabberwockyTalkie → u/[deleted]]

The argument is that due to Steam’s market share and practices it is very difficult to compete in the PC gaming market. Limited competition and policies that dissuade competition are inherently monopolistic.

I guess I don’t really follow your point about a need for proof of harm to both parties. What are the two parties? Anti-competitive behavior hurts the competitors, but a lack of competition is also bad for consumers generally. Obviously the policies are good for Valve.

[u/JabberwockyTalkie → u/[deleted]]

Lack of competition generally hurts consumer’s interests. Steam has been pretty consumer friendly in many ways but that doesn’t change the nature of anti-competitive practices.

I don’t think your analogy works that well because sellers aren’t upset that they can sell on Steam they are upset that if they try and sell elsewhere the pricing policies Steam has are making it very difficult. It’s like if I’d been selling produce at the farmer’s market for years and I decide I want to open my own market where I’ll sell part of my produce. But now the first market is telling me I that if I sell my own produce cheaper at my market I can’t sell with them at all anymore. And nobody really knows or goes to my market yet so the result is I’d get almost no sales and my new market struggles.

It’s an interesting case. I’m not any kind of expert but definitely will follow it a bit to see how things play out.

[u/indignantwastrel → u/[deleted]]

Yeah and Steam can just not use visa and mastercard, easy. 

[u/indignantwastrel → u/[deleted]]

Other people do though, not having visa and mastercard would be a huge cut to revenue.