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That lawsuit against Steam’s 30% cut of game sales is now a class action, meaning many other developers could benefit
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this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
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Doesn't Steam also mandate that a game on Steam that's also on other platforms MUST have the lowest price on Steam? So if a game goes on sale on another store, the Steam version must also match that sale within a given time period.
That's a pretty big road block, especially if a developer might be willing to sell for a lower price on another storefront that takes another cut.
THAT is actively blocking competition.
That requirement only exists when you also offer a Steam key for the game that's being sold. So Valve is actually the good guy here: You can sell on another store, where Steam doesn't get any money, and give the user a Steam key, provided by Steam for free, and the only thing they ask is to match the price on Steam.
Don't offer a Steam key, and you can pick any price.
That is my understanding of the issue.
There is a claim by some developers that Valve was pressuring them behind the scenes ("don't offer your game for cheaper elsewhere or else we'll take it down from our store") a while ago, but I've never seen appropriate proof of it, and that was part of (an earlier?) lawsuit.
They absolutely pressure developers to not sell cheaper elsewhere, even without a Steam key.
http://blog.wolfire.com/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-class-action
Steam might be the best of the gatekeepers, but they're still anticompetitive.
I've looked into Wolfire's claims multiple times in the past, but it was never confirmed elsewhere, so I don't know what to think. Maybe this was a thing Valve did in the past (in which case, yes, boo!), but they couldn't get away with it anymore, with the volume of developers that are now on their platform.
We should regularly be seeing lower All-Time-Lows for most multi-platform games on non-Steam platforms then, right?
I don't think we do. Why not?
Because that's not beneficial for companies. They want to make (more) money.
The only option most developers and publishers would have is to move to another store, where the cut is usually the same, with the exception of Epic Games Store. And as pointed out elsewhere, setting up and managing your own store ends up being more expensive than a 30% cut. And then you still don't have the same features as Steam.
No, it absolutely does not. But if you're not on Steam, your indie game doesn't sell.
As a counter example, Vintage Story seems to be doing okay regardless.
They delibarately decided to not be on Steam.
edit 2: They do run their own store, but it's a bit janky, has less payment options if I recall, and no regional pricing.
edit: Besides, one of the reasons indies like to be on Steam is because Steam basically does free advertising for you, with Discovery Queue and just generally pushing games that do well to more people (beneficial for Steam also, of course). But that's a service that's paid for by that 30% cut (among other things).
If having a lower price means you make more sales, then yes, it definitely can be beneficial for companies.
If you want to make $40 per copy, you could sell for $60 on Steam, or about $47.00 on Epic.
Being on sale for $47 would "unlock" more customers than you'd get if your game was only available for $60 everywhere. Some customers won't ever buy the game at $60, but they would at $47, and the company makes the same amount of money.
That is beneficial for companies.
Why are you making it my responsibility to explain why companies are not passing on their savings to consumers?
As a bystander I appreciate you. I learned some things I didn't know.
But you can sell for 47 on epic. You just cannot sell for 47 on epic giving a key that redeems on steam.
Exactly; this whole price restriction on Steam is for games that will be hosted and downloaded from Steam.
It makes no sense for Steam to allow developers to sell Steam keys for cheaper via other stores when Steam has to then shoulder all the bandwidth and Remote Play/etc.
As long as you never want your $60 game featured on Steam, you can absolutely do that.
Which do you think is worth more?
Why wouldn't that happen?
Or they could sell on Epic for $60 and just pocket more per sale because most players are used to new games being $60 anyway.
Besides, Steam itself also unlocks more customers even at same or higher prices because it can be a pain to get EGS games working on Linux sometimes, whereas Steam's seamless. Maybe we're a non-existent market force, but personally I've been maining Linux for my gaming PC for 4 years and now about 2 years ago I deleted the Windows partition I'd only kept around because I had Forza on the Microsoft store rather than Steam.
For AAA publishers, definitely. For indie developers or anyone who'd be wanting to try to bring customers to Epic, that wouldn't be the ideal long-term strategy.
Why should we see that?
How much income per sale a seller is willing to accept is a big part of the equation that goes into pricing
And? If they sell at the same price as Steam but with the store taking a smaller cut they'll make more money per sale.
A lower price may attract more buyers, leading to more money overall (rather than only seeking to maximize each individual sale)
And which platform has the most potential buyers, by a long shot? Steam. That's why you're usually seeing all time lows on the Steam platform, because the sheer amount of buyers outweighs the per sale loss.
If a dev wants to make X per game, they could get X with a lower price point on Epic. To still get X, they could sell the game for a lower price on Epic. That lower price may get some people to buy the game who wouldn't buy it for anything more.
The game can still be sold on both Steam and Epic, which is the whole point of this discussion, so Steam having a larger userbase is irrelevant.
If the userbase is irrelevant then X per game is also irrelevant. X per game matters only in the context of how many sales you'll make. There's a strong correlation between sales and userbase because more users means more potential sales.
Steam's userbase is irrelevant in the example I'm explaining because they can still sell it on Steam. They won't lose Steam customers by having a lower price on Epic.
You wanted to know why there aren't all time lows on other stores. You agree that the lower the price gets the more people are likely to purchase it. But then you think userbase is irrelevant?
Let's say there are 10 million gamers in the entire world, 90% use steam 10% use Epic. Not that it matters but I'll add it anyway to further prove the point, Epic takes 10% and Steam takes 30%. You make a game that 50% of all the gamers in the world want to buy at a certain price. Let's say you have no issues selling on Epic and you sell at full price ($60) to the 50% of Epic customers. You make $60 * 0.9 * 1 mil * 0.5 = $27 million. On Steam your game doesn't sell at all on full price but at 50% off all potential customers will buy the game. So with a 50% discount on Steam you will make $60 * 0.5 * 0.7 * 9 mil * 0.5 = $94.5 million.
You can literally have Steam take a bigger cut than Epic and sell the game for half a price and still make more money on Steam because the userbase plays a huge role in how much money you'll actually make. That is why you see all time lows on Steam, because you can sell your game for cheaper than any other store and still make more money on Steam.
They can sell on both Steam and Epic.
Now that is actually irrelevant information. Nothing I said refutes what you've said and it refutes nothing I've said. It's not even something I've overlooked because my example is built on the premise that the game is sold in both stores.
Maybe for AAA devs. I'm thinking of indie devs as well, who may not be thinking of "big business extract max profit no matter what" optimizations.
You also seem to be leaving out of the equation that some customers will buy a game for $15 but not for $20. If selling at $15 on Steam would give too little money, but selling for $15 on Epic would give enough money, it doesn't seem absurd selling at $20 on Steam (with the biggest market) and for $15 on Epic (with the higher margin) to reach a few extra customers with the lower price point.
The reason games go on sale so often is because lower prices can mean more sales. Lower middleman cuts can allow for lower prices.
They don't and it would be faster to fact check yourself than spreading this misinformation further.
The other comment points out that it's only a case of selling steam keys where steam must have the lowest price.
I released a game a while back and while reading the terms it sounded like I couldn't link my Steam store page to another storefront where the game was available cheaper. Which, honestly, also kind of fair.
But again, I think that's really only if you're selling steam keys. If you sold the game DRM-free on your own website, I can't imagine they'd take down your company website.
If you link to an Itch page or something similar that might be a thornier issue because they're primarily a storefront.
I'm of the opinion that my game costs X unless it's discounted to Y. I don't see the appeal to the end user of having a dozen different prices on a dozen different storefronts.
I could see a situation where a developer wants to always earn, say, $10 from their game. So on Steam it might sell for $13, on another platform it might be $11 to show the difference in platform fees. But I wouldn't do that because it's putting me before my players, and that's not why I make games.
There are some open source games that are purchasable on Steam but which are freely available elsewhere.
Yeah, this is the kind of thing I was picturing.
I've looked into it and this actually does happen in some other regions' pricing! But not many people seem to be talking about it happening in USD/CAD, at least at a glance.
I'm still curious as to why that difference would be.
Thank you for sharing your experience!