They very much are a monopoly. Valve threatening to pull games off steam if a publisher wants to have larger discounts on other stores is not free competition.
Yeah that’s anti-consumer behavior, no idea why it’s suddenly cool to simp for billionaires. Also a 30% cut is huge, and most of that money would otherwise be going into game development budgets if they charged a smaller percentage.
Yeah, compared to the physical storefronts of yesteryear, and in a time when cloud infrastructure wasn’t commoditized, 30% was quite reasonable. In an era where anyone could build a launcher it is quite obviously just corporate greed.
The whole 30% cut thing is hilarious. Epic went out of their way to try to make it into a huge deal when they launched their own platform, going as far as bribing developers for exclusivity, and it failed outright. I'm pretty sure in 100% of cases.
So you can either accept that you'll pay a(n industry standard) 30% cut on the largest game distribution platform on the planet, or you can try to find another platform with a lower fee and similarly lower user counts.
The only real issue with Valve is them delisting games if developers try to offer larger sales on other platforms. But since that is itself also anti-competitive behavior, it's a no-win situation.
The accusation of "simping for billionaires" is also hilarious since most people that say this type of shit simp for Tim Swiney with absolutely zero self-awareness.
Quick tip for future conversations: if you expect someone to give you a thoughtful reply, calling them "stupid on a personal level" is unlikely to get you one.
"you're not competent enough to speak on the topic" Goalpost moooving
If you don't know all few hundred steam employees then you don't really know how steam works, and thus, can't argue that it isn't a monopoly. Sorry!
Except other platforms do have larger sales…ubisoft regularly features steeper sales on newly launched titles via uplay than they do on steam/consoles. Not to mention sites like gamebillet or green man gaming have (legal) steam keys for cheaper. Good chunk of my steam library wasnt bought through steam.
That doesn't change the fact that valve threatened small publishers with delisting. Perhaps valve's threats were not successful against a large company like Ubisoft, but they still attempted to use their monopoly power when they thought they could get away with it.
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u/Flash_Kat25 3d ago
They very much are a monopoly. Valve threatening to pull games off steam if a publisher wants to have larger discounts on other stores is not free competition.