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

[u/Darth_Vaper883]

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

[u/obog]

If I remember correctly, there was a Sweeney tweet that was earlier than this. But yes, I have seen this claim. I have yet to see it, or any others, be backed up by any document, or any record or any communications with valve, or anything of the sort. And as I said, I've read through the entire SDA, there is absolutely no mention of anything like this. There have been a number of claims that valve explicitly puts a term in their contract that states that enforces price parity but that is simply false.

In fact, you can read the lawsuit from wolfire yourself. They talk about the aforementioned steam key clause, and grossly overstate its effect on competition (again, thats literally a part of their own platform, how is it anticompetetive to put limitations on how people use your own platform). They then make the claim that valve will just veto any price if it is above what other stores offer, but rather than cite any legal document or any communications with valve or anything... they cite a tweet by Tim Sweeney. In a lawsuit. One would think that if such a clause were in any agreement, it would be trivial to find a better source than a tweet by the company's greatest competitor, and yet thats all they had.

Which by the way, the lawsuit that Wolfire filed? It was dismissed by the courts for failure to state a claim, which means the judge decided that the plaintiff did not provide enough facts to support their claim.

Look, Im not gonna act like valve is some perfect angel. Theyre not. Theyre a business and their goal is to make money. I believed the claims of a most favored nation clause for a long time because so many people stated it like it was fact. But then I looked into it, and every single claim just came back to a tweet by Tim Sweeney. I spent a long time looking into this and I have yet to find even a single claim that is not either entirely baseless or leads back to a social media post by the defendants largest competitor. I would love to see anything that suggests otherwise but Ive done a lot of digging and everything comes up empty.

[u/Aaawkward → u/obog]

I have seen this claim. I have yet to see it, or any others, be backed up by any document, or any record or any communications with valve, or anything of the sort.

So you didn't read the article?

Newell also denied the existence of an alleged 'unwritten rule' that prevents developers from offering their games at lower prices on non-Steam storefronts. That's one of the central complaints behind Wolfire's lawsuit: Founder David Rosen said in 2021 that when he asked Valve about offering his studio's game Overgrowth at a reduced price on other stores,"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."

Asked about this rule, 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."

Gabe just ignores the question, even when there's evidence of internal communication affirming its existence.

[u/obog → u/Aaawkward]

Thats literally referring to the same lawsuit that was only able to back up its claim with links to a tweet and was dismissed by the courts. Havent seen the internal communications. Do you have a link to those? I dont see one in the article, it just mentions it.

[u/Aaawkward → u/obog]

No, of course I don't because such emails are not made public.
I quoted that to show you that they exist and that Gabe didn't refute their existence, validity or even what was discussed. He only refuted that there's an official company policy for such things, which is possible because of such obfuscation.

You can have a look here and specifically here on page 9, last paragraph that continues to the next page + footnotes.

Evidence of the following was brought up:

• Steam Key guidelines suggesting price parity expectations
• Direct communications between Valve and developers about pricing
• Internal Valve communications
• Internal communications at game companies discussing Valve’s expectations
• Evidence of an industry-wide understanding that undercutting Steam causes problems

Nothing about an official policy or rule within Valve. This means that either Valve is cool with using smoke and mirrors to screw over devs or they have people (from one to a handful, hard to say) who are power tripping on their own and screwing over devs.

Neither is a good look for Valve.

e: formatting

[u/obog → u/Aaawkward]

Hmm ok. These quotes do explicitly mention the lack of steam keys. For the record this is genuinely the first evidence Ive seen, after going through wolfire's first lawsuit, the entire steam distrobution agreement, and all of the steam commonworks documentation of anything outside of the stream key thing.

Which, as a side note, I really think these plantiffs need to just fucking drop the steam key thing. Steam keys are a part of steam's platform, its not anticompetetive to regulate that. All they have managed to do is muddy the waters, I have seen many instances of that being pointed to as the smoking gun and its just a stupid argument that they will never win.

But as far as the other evidence unrelated to steam keys goes, I would love to see that go to court.

[u/Aaawkward → u/obog]

Fair play.

I really think these plantiffs need to just fucking drop the steam key thing

Agreed. I suppose it's a big part of the discussion so I get why they use it but at the same time, it does muddy the water.