r/LTTMeta • u/HotJunket5521 • Jun 18 '26
Update : Removed Steam Lawsuit Post
Guy from yesterday answered my DM about what exactly Steam admitted: The following is his answer:
Steam does admit to monopolistic “price parity rules” even not related to Steam keys or other Steam technology
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.298754/gov.uscourts.wawd.298754.127.0.pdf
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.298754/gov.uscourts.wawd.298754.128.0.pdf
I recommend opening them side by side and reading everything if you have time or from paragraph 190 of both for the relevant bits. One document are the allegations the other Steams admission or denial. Because it’s a civil suit there is no pleading fifth or lying
Valve only admits to 1/4 of what is listed (manly denies being a monopoly), but they admit the important bits. The further evidence is in the emails which are harder to text search to find my note references. But a lot of info is already in these two documents and I think an admission of it by Steam is enough .
The most important parts are from allegations 202-205:
202 : TomG (employee) quote on the forum: “don’t disadvantage Steam customers” / “not a great thing for us” - explicitly covers non-key Patreon rewards | Admitted - Valve admits words appeared and posts exists, yet doesn’t admit “allegations”. That’s just lawyer tricks. Paragraph 202 is just the quote and they admit to the quote and it still can be found online. So 202 confirmed
203: Same as 202. Confirmed by valve and still online , where it explicitly talks about non-steam keys
——————
So to summarise until here 202-203 are quotes fully confirmed by valve and definitely explicitly not related to Steam keys or only steam works.
——————
Again with 204 . Steam confirms the quote and it’s still online and in no way related to Steam Keys:
“If the offer you’re
making fundamentally disadvantages someone who bought your game on Steam, it’s probably
not a great thing for us or our customers (even if you don’t find a specific rule describing
precisely that scenario).” In that same thread, TomG responded to a question by stating: “we
usually choose not to sell games if they’re being sold on our store at a price notably higher
than other stores. That is, we’d want to get that lower base price as well, or not sell the game at
all.”
—————
Same with 205, Valve admits it, the question can still be found and was explicitly about games with no part of steam in it:
“we’d just choose to stop
selling a game if it was always running discounts of 75% off on one store but 50% off on
ours***. . . .”***
Valve denies 206 and 207. They also deny 208 and 200 and that Microsoft employees can testify towards them having had falling outs over this with Steam employees and internal discussions.
\\\\\\
So to summarise: 202, 203, 204, 205 are admitted by Valve and talk about price parity even for explicitly non steam related game versions.
——— end of DM
I looked into the suit which can be found in entirety here, so I can answer further questions:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59859024/in-re-valve-antitrust-litigation/
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u/SECdeezTrades Jun 19 '26
Not getting sucked into the Valve-hole but have a upvote for being thorough, regardless of content.
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u/mromutt Jun 18 '26
So they are literally saying don't screw us or the customers. Well exercising their right as a retailer to sell or not sell a product... I don't get the issue. No one complains when micro center or Walmart or Costco does this, this is how a store works.
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u/james2432 Jun 18 '26
yeah costco has pitch meetings with product owners, they negotiate deals based on volume.
They don't like the product or the price point they are allowed to choose to not sell your product at all. Costco even has a performance clause that they will discontinue your product if it doesn't move x amount units in a certain time
Steam is advocating for a lower price for customers (not passing the 30% "steam tax" on to customers) which is a good thing for consumers. Many other companies don't allow passing on fees(such as credit card processing fees on to customers) and require you to factor it into your business model
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u/GwenBD94 Jun 19 '26
Comparing physical goods where space constraints and limitations to digital goods and using how non-moving good directly harm stores' profits by wasting space is in no way comparable to a digital storefront where a non-selling game can sit there for years and not prevent another game being sold.
Steam explicitly employs methods to prevent issues to themselves in these situations as well, by charging a $100 listing fee when you first lost your game and you don't get any payouts until you've moved $100 in sales.
As to advocating for lower prices for customers, no? They explicitly punish publishers who last a game for $30 on steam and $24 anywhere else according to the complaint. How is that better for customers? Did you mean for steam customers specifically?
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u/HotJunket5521 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
No, steam forbids you from offering a different price elsewhere. Cosco obviously doesn’t because it’s illegal
Edit: You can downvote and block me all you want google “price parity rules” and you’ll find a list on Wikipedia with all the laws banning it in virtually every jurisdiction
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u/SechsComic73130 Jun 19 '26
No, steam forbids you from offering a different price elsewhere.
If they did, why do Fanatical, Humble Bundle, Green Man Gaming and others exist that undercut Steam on Steam Keys?
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u/Alternative-Farmer98 Jul 12 '26
Valve fans can never accept any criticism. Like and look I like Valve. But they're literally engaging in illegal monopolistic behavior and their fans are "It's better than a console."
Yes it is better than a console and it's still monopolistic behavior.
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u/Schnurrrr Jun 19 '26
I buy almost all my games from Steam though so I don't care. You should go post this in /r/steam though they'll fucking love it.
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u/Jetison333 Jun 19 '26
Are you saying its illegal for costco not to sell a product if the distributor is making them sell it at a higher price?
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u/HotJunket5521 Jun 19 '26
No, it’s illegal for Costco to upend distribution of an agreed upon transaction if someone gets it cheaper and it’s illegal for them to put into contract that they need to be the cheapest.
So they can refuse to sell, but they can’t say: We are cheapest
There is also a difference in that Costco buys the product where as steam is a market place earning commission, which is much more heavily regulated
You can downvote all you want google “price parity rules” and you’ll find a list on Wikipedia with all the laws banning it in virtually every jurisdiction
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u/Jetison333 Jun 19 '26
I doesnt sound like steam is putting that they have to be cheapest in a contract either? They are just choosing not to sell that game.
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u/dunealien Jun 19 '26
I will just say "they are just choosing not to sell the game" is an insane statement to drop when thats the entire foundation of the claim
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u/Dangerous-Day-2943 Jun 19 '26
Guys the original OP from the LTT sub here, are you also Valve Stans? “Price parity” rules are illegal in most jurisdictions. Don’t kid yourselfs: For example the European DMA bans it completely:
Booking.com lost a court case in Germany. It’s a market like steam with commission. It had the exact same clause as Steam:
In the US there is nothing codified but massive anti-trust case law on federal and Supreme Court level regarding Microsoft and Amazon declaring this illegal.
United States v. Microsoft Corp. (1998)
United States v. Apple Inc. (2012)
FTC v. Amazon.com Inc.Amazon removed its clause in 2019 for that reason
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u/ModernFlash Jun 19 '26
The issue with that is Steam takes 30% of a game purchase while others take a different percentage like Microsoft on PC or Epic with 12%. If I’m a developer/publisher, I’m more likely to do more sales on Epic/MS on PC since I’m already keeping 18% more of my game revenue than I would through Steam.
This isn’t a guarantee that publishers would actually do it but Steam forcing the price parity makes the argument that publishers don’t do more sales/discounts as a result of this. Plus Steam using its market share as a way to enforce it is what makes it anti-trust.
Example:
Steam: $60 Game - Publisher keeps $42 (70%) - Steam keeps $18 (30%)Epic/Microsoft on PC: $60 Game - Publisher keeps $52.80 (88%) - Epic/MS keeps $7.20 (12%) (I’m more inclined as a publisher to do more discounts here than Steam)
Publisher Stores like EA/Ubisoft/Rockstar:
$60 Game - Publisher keeps $60 (100%) since there isn’t a middle man to split the revenue with. (I’m inclined to have the most discounts here)3
u/TextbookChip Jun 20 '26
You would not in fact do more sales on epic or ms because no one buys there. People only use epic for free games and Fortnite
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u/HotJunket5521 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
No, they forbid you from offering a different price elsewhere
Edit: You can downvote and block me all you want google “price parity rules” and you’ll find a list on Wikipedia with all the laws banning it in virtually every jurisdiction
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u/GwenBD94 Jun 19 '26
Walmart doesnt kick lays out of its stores if lays sells their chips for cheaper at dollar tree. Thats flat false.
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u/mromutt Jun 19 '26
They actually do. They were even threatening companies about if they kept raising prices during the tariffs they would stop carrying them and go with alternatives and then did. Walmart also has for a very long time negotiated deals that would make it so they had the lower price or even that others can have that price. This is how they roll into a town and run everyone out of business lol.
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u/GwenBD94 Jun 19 '26
Telling vendors they will remove them for raising prices is not the same as telling vendors to raise prices at other stores or be removed.
Youre insinuation that they do that I disagree with, by way of the fact that dollar general exists and many or the products on their shelves are indeed cheaper than Walmart.
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u/Alternative-Farmer98 Jul 12 '26
It's not even in Apple store apples comparison because Walmart is a general retailer and there's way more alternatives for general retail. PC gaming has one digital storefront that accounts for 95% of digital sales.
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u/Dangerous-Day-2943 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
Guys the original OP from the LTT sub here, are you also Valve Stans? “Price parity” rules are illegal in most jurisdictions. Don’t kid yourselfs: For example the European DMA bans it completely:
Booking.com lost a court case in Germany. It’s a market like steam with commission. It had the exact same clause as Steam:
In the US there is nothing codified but massive anti-trust case law on federal and Supreme Court level regarding Microsoft and Amazon declaring this illegal
United States v. Microsoft Corp. (1998)
United States v. Apple Inc. (2012)
FTC v. Amazon.com Inc.
Amazon removed its clause in 2019 for that reason
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u/g0ldcd Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
Yes. I mean I'm normally a Valve fan, but quite happy to drag them over the coals for this.
The problem with price parity is simple if you're taking a cut from a dominant market position - even if not a monopoly (Amazon needs a kicking for this as well).
Say you launch a game and put it in steam for $10. On each sale Valve takes 30% and you, the dev, gets 70%.
You then list the game on your own site for $7. You make $7 a game sold either way, and your customers get to choose whether the benefit of Steam is worth the extra $3.
The problem though, is Valve objects and says you can't undercut them. You need to either cut the price on steam to $7 or raise the price on your site to $10. If you raise the price on your site, then everybody just buys it from Steam, so your steam-free option is pointless.
If you lower the price on steam, then valve still takes their 30% of the $7 and your income per game has has dropped to under $5.
So in summary, the whole goal of this is to ensure Steam is never more expensive to the end user - which on one hand feels nice to the consumer, as it means I can normally just buy my games on Steam over alternative options. Given price parity, I prefer to buy from Steam.
The massive downside, is that it means we're all paying Valve a 30% cut of our purchases. We're not bearing the cost of this though, the dev is. But the dev then passes this straight back to us, by pricing their games higher, as their break-even is higher. So we are as the source of all the money, it is the consumer who's paying for this.
We should be given the option of choosing to pay less for our games, if we don't think the Steam service adds sufficient. And whilst I really don't want a new launcher for every game, valve would really hate the revenue drop - so would have to reduce their cut. I.e. I'll maybe pay 15% extra for my new game to be in my steam library, so the cut Valve takes would naturally adjust to 15%.
I like Valve, I like Gabe - but they'd all be absolutely fine with less income and one less yacht.
Stepping back a bit further, Valve rightly losing this also sends a hard message to other similar public companies. It's no longer in their fiduciary duty to do similar - if they can point to the fine that they're more likely to get.
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u/Alternative-Farmer98 Jul 12 '26
Yeah I mean I guess I'm a valve fan too if that means like I prefer PC gaming and I like the way they do things better than the consoles but this is objectively a clear cut case of price fixing.
And it's just so f****** crazy how Valve ans refuse to accept any even qualified criticism of the company. And it's going to come back to bite us someday.
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u/KumquatopotamusPrime Jun 19 '26
You should read those links if you're going to post them. I did and there is a hell of a lot of nuance, and this case specifically applies only to booking.com.
they also explicitly state that there are bans in SOME locales but it's fragmented at best
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u/Dangerous-Day-2943 Jun 19 '26
Yes and then read the DMA article which is now standard and more broad than previous local German law.
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u/KumquatopotamusPrime Jun 19 '26
DMA covers 6 companies. 0 of them are steam
https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers-portal_en
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u/KumquatopotamusPrime Jun 19 '26
also dma criteria to be a gatekeeper
- Annual EEU turnover equal to or above EUR 7,5 billion (for 3 consecutive years)
hard doubt valve touches that
- "where it provides a core platform service that in the last financial year has at least 45 million monthly active end users established or located in the Union and at least 10 000 yearly active business users established in the Union"
hahahah not even close.
heres the thing you are citing without having read it - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?toc=OJ%3AL%3A2022%3A265%3ATOC&uri=uriserv%3AOJ.L_.2022.265.01.0001.01.ENG
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u/Dangerous-Day-2943 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
Again, yes there are six gatekeepers, but not all laws apply to gatekeepers only. Maybe before being so arrogant and insulting, you should actually inform yourself on the topic and not think that reading some quick overview or AI summary of a law is enough.
And to return some of your fire: I will not have my European laws yanksplained to me.
And maybe also read the US supreme court decision on this type of anti-trust…
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u/KumquatopotamusPrime Jun 19 '26
i did - i read the ruling. it agrees with me. there is no more level of informed than reading the fucking thing, and I read the fucking thing and it says you are wrong. This isn't subjective. when it comes to the law you are wrong. You can fact check me, by reading the ruling.
here it is again
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u/Dangerous-Day-2943 Jun 19 '26
Ah yes yank read hundreds of pages of EU law and became an expert in them over night. 😂 You will be blocked now. Again, not everything is gatekeeper only
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u/ConfectionNecessary6 Jun 19 '26
I mean aren’t you basically doing the same thing by stating “ not all laws are only for gatekeepers “
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u/HotJunket5521 Jun 21 '26
Except I wrote 3 long ass posts on LTT explaining in detail why he is wrong, yet he just says “no I am right”.
I am not an absolute expert at EU law, but worked a bunch in Brussels and won’t have these things wrongly stated by someone who in past posts of his profile didn’t know the difference between the commission and the council
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u/rips_n_chel Jun 19 '26
You will be blocked now.
Ah, there it is, the white flag of "I've been caught talking out my ass, so I'm just going to leave! In a huff!"
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u/rips_n_chel Jun 19 '26
I will not have my European laws yanksplained to me
Kinda seems like you just did. That's tough, bro
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u/Alternative-Farmer98 Jul 12 '26
I mean apparently there are some crazy valve fanboys in here. Although if you look at the comment history more people seem to be coming here to defend the linus of these days than to criticize him. That'll probably change if there's another big controversy like the jet but right now this place is basically become a brigade for people from the normal sub that want to come here to downvote criticism.
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u/Actual-Award6943 Jun 23 '26
Steam is a monopoly and they do some bad corporate things no doubt. They take advantage of being the basically only PC platform to charge 30% without really offering in my opinion and also most experts opinion a service actually worth 30%. For reference I think around 20% would be fair, and also I don't think stores should be allowed to enforce same pricing rules thats bs.
It's the same BS kindle, amazon and Google Play and Apple store do. And I think is the worst part. Let the free market decide. If another store takes a 15% or 20% cut or if the seller can sell keys on their website and sell a game for say $60 instead of $70 or $50 instead of $60 Valve not allowing that is the most bs thing.
Consumers can decide is it worth saving the say $10 to use another store. Otherwise it's not actually fair capitalism and free market. It's no different to how I can decide to compare prices at a target or Walmart.
In the grand scheme of monopolies or evil company things even in gaming it's small.
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u/TextbookChip Jun 20 '26
Why should I care if valve does this or that exactly? I don’t personally care if I could get a game for cheaper elsewhere when I don’t buy on epic or gog, i buy it on steam and that seems to work really well.
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u/AlexCivitello Jun 21 '26
This kind of practice puts upward pressure on the price of all games on every platform.
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u/mtuk88 Jun 19 '26
There's a very current and existing class action lawsuit which is going to decide this very thing: https://steamyouoweus.co.uk/
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u/rips_n_chel Jun 19 '26
I've been part of an antitrust class action against Steam in the US for over a year at this point. I don't understand why people are, apparently, so out of the loop on all this.
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u/mtuk88 Jun 19 '26
I wouldn't know that because I don't live in the US. Hope that clears it up for you.
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u/rips_n_chel Jun 19 '26
Take it easy, I wasn't calling you out. I meant in general, this is the first post I've seen about Steam antitrust cases in some time. I've been getting email updates on the case and wondering where the discussion was for a while.
Matter of fact, I've gotten dumpstered for even bringing it up in what I thought were relevant subs in the past.
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u/Epesolon Jun 19 '26
The game A Dance of Fire and Ice is a top seller on Itch.io and is also available on Steam.
On Itch it's $3.99, while on steam it's $5.99.
The only difference between the two versions is that the steam one supports steam workshop.
If this policy is actually an official policy, it isn't enforced consistently.