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Valve to Face Antitrust Lawsuit Over Steam Gaming Platform

Armenius said:
All Ubisoft and WB had to do was offer the same price on Steam. It says this explicitly in Steam's TOS and has been pointed out before.
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does XBOX / microsoft have a secret deal with Valve / steam? if no, then wouldn't microsoft want to leverage its position as the biggest game publisher in the world and go for timed/full time exclusives on XBOX pc app ?
 
Marees said:
does XBOX / microsoft have a secret deal with Valve / steam? if no, then wouldn't microsoft want to leverage its position as the biggest game publisher in the world and go for timed/full time exclusives on XBOX pc app ?
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Are you implying that Microsoft has a secret deal with Valve? Because every time they put a game on sale on their marketplace it goes on sale with the same discount on Steam whenever I shop around, if the game is on both platforms. I personally prefer the Xbox app either way.
 
Marees said:
the real world example is Amazon forces vendors on its platforms to match discounts they offer on other shopping platforms

to give a physical example: if you want to buy a camera, normally you go hunting for deals across different shops. instead if you have a favorite retailer like walmart or best buy & they force the camera manufacturer to match the deals they offer with any other retail shop
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A specific example is Weber grill. Try to hunt for a discount that grill is the same price everywhere to the penny. Sure you can get a free assembly or a free tank of gas but the price is fixed.
 
Armenius said:
Are you implying that Microsoft has a secret deal with Valve? Because every time they put a game on sale on their marketplace it goes on sale with the same discount on Steam whenever I shop around, if the game is on both platforms. I personally prefer the Xbox app either way.
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maybe Microsoft pays Valve only 25% rather than 30% ! is that possible !?
 
fyi, Amazon is popularly described as a monopsony & not a monopoly

Amazon can be undercut by small traders in UK after OFT intervention​

This article is more than 12 years old
Retailer agrees to drop clause banning third-party traders from selling products cheaper elsewhere
Simon Neville
Thu 29 Aug 2013 18.53 BST

Amazon has agreed to drop a clause which banned third-party traders from selling products cheaper elsewhere, following the intervention of the Office of Fair Trading.

Currently, third-party traders are forced to charge the same amount on any other platform as they do on Amazon but independent and rival websites can now undercut it, according to the consumer watchdog.

After numerous complaints from traders using the amazon.co.uk Marketplace platform the regulator opened a formal investigation into the price parity policy in October last year.

A similar investigation has taken place in Germany, and the inquiry by its Federal Cartel Office remains ongoing. (as of 2013)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/29/amazon-small-traders-uk-oft
 
Gamers Sue Microsoft, Claiming It Colludes With Valve On Store Pricing
https://aftermath.site/gamers-sue-microsoft-valve-steam-antitrust-lawsuit/

Two gamers are suing Microsoft over Valve's alleged anticompetitive practices. Stay with me here. Max Rockman and Randall Moring filed the proposed class action in Washington court on Sunday, alleging that Microsoft takes kickback deals from Valve "as remuneration for agreeing not to compete with Steam."
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Armenius said:
All Ubisoft and WB had to do was offer the same price on Steam. It says this explicitly in Steam's TOS and has been pointed out before.
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I never understand this point every time this comes up. EVERY new game has discounts pre release. Not grey market sites but Steam approved sellers like Fanatical and Green Man Gaming. How is that allowed?
 
rinaldo00 said:
I never understand this point every time this comes up. EVERY new game has discounts pre release. Not grey market sites but Steam approved sellers like Fanatical and Green Man Gaming. How is that allowed?
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https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys#3
  • It's OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time.
It's a vague rule and IMO they're violating it by not having the same deal at launch on Steam. Steam could stop it anytime they want.

But that's just for steam keys. These other stores in the lawsuit are not even selling steam keys, they're just trying to sell things on other stores for cheaper and Valve is just using their market dominance to stop them and maintain dominance.

I personally don't care too much about that. I'm more of a laissez-faire guy. But it is extremely hypocritical to think what Valve is doing is ok and cry about non-Steam exclusivity. There is no shortage of people incapable or unwilling to connect the dots because they feel like they're part of a clan.
 
Bankie said:
Should be pretty obvious what's happening here. They want access to Steam's customer base and marketing and will use it to railroad people to their own stores in order to try to cut Steam out.
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We can't allow the Steam monopoly... on games. Also 3 cell phone providers in the USA is plenty in the USA. Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T is all that is left, vs Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG.com, Humble Bundle, Green Man Gaming, Fanatical, itch.io, Microsoft Store, Ubisoft Connect, and Battle.net
 
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sharknice said:
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys#3
  • It's OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time.
It's a vague rule and IMO they're violating it by not having the same deal at launch on Steam. Steam could stop it anytime they want.

But that's just for steam keys. These other stores in the lawsuit are not even selling steam keys, they're just trying to sell things on other stores for cheaper
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What is the difference? Either way I get the game cheaper. It looks like Steam just wants to punish the big guys and let the smaller ones alone .
 
rinaldo00 said:
What is the difference? Either way I get the game cheaper. It looks like Steam just wants to punish the big guys and let the smaller ones alone .
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Steam is generally not out to screw gamers so people give them a little less grief. But, it is not beneficial to anyone if Valve becomes a monopoly. It isn't one now but it could theoretically become one which is why people look hard at these sorts of practices because they typically lead to monopolies. Steam, with its great interface and other options can afford to price higher and people might still buy there. But, they'll still not generally want other stores pricing lower because customers might decide that the less user-friendly store is worth saving 20% on the game. They'll overlook occasional circumstances especially from small publishers because it is less likely to hurt their business. But, if the big players keep pricing it lower on their stores it can hurt overall Steam sales so they want to fight that.

As a customer we'd love to pay the cheapest price on the most user-friendly store around (usually Steam) but it is bad for us if that results in Valve having a monopoly so a little pain over the years is worth it if we don't run into a monopoly. After all, Gabe isn't going to live forever and we have no idea what a new owner might do taking control of that company. We don't want to live through a scenario where Gabe dies and a new boss decides to screw us all over with his new monopoly.
 
Armenius said:
All Ubisoft and WB had to do was offer the same price on Steam. It says this explicitly in Steam's TOS and has been pointed out before.
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well... exactly, price control being a big issue, if that true that they had to offer the same price on steam.

Say a store take 17% the other take 30%, selling the product a bit less to incite customer to use the 17% store would make a lot of sense, blocking it by having a position so large than avoiding selling on your store become a too big of a deal can be seen as an issue, i.e. price control.
 
rinaldo00 said:
I never understand this point every time this comes up. EVERY new game has discounts pre release. Not grey market sites but Steam approved sellers like Fanatical and Green Man Gaming. How is that allowed?
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Those do not move customer to another store/platform, valve agree to take a no cut sales for small game for a small volume of keys that they agree they could be sold for a little while at a lower price than on the storefront. It is to build their locked-in position and moat up. That significantly different than allowing publisher and gamers to take advantage of a store taht charge less % for selling the game at lower prices at a price point that both the publisher and the gamers have more money, the store taking the hit.

I think the something that a near monopoly do a lot of good, having a single store-launcher is not a nill benefit. Would they be raw store where you only buy keys that would be something else, but people insisting at being a platform.... margin could become quickly near nill and innovation bought by all the money not able to happen.
 
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Price control is fine, price fixing (not this) may not be fine, using your position (large customer base) to force other companies to follow your price points....ehhhhhh.

I think it may depend on whether they had an agreement here not to price their product below the Steam price, or some similar agreement. If they had an agreement, then Steam has legal grounds to remove the product(s) from their storefront.
 
LukeTbk said:
Those do not move customer to another store/platform, valve agree to take a no cut sales for small game for a small volume of keys that they agree they could be sold for a little while at a lower price than on the storefront. It is to build their locked-in position and moat up. That significantly different than allowing publisher and gamers to take advantage of a store taht charge less % for selling the game at lower prices at a price point that both the publisher and the gamers have more money, the store taking the hit.

I think the something that a near monopoly do a lot of good, having a single store-launcher is not a nill benefit. Would they be raw store where you only buy keys that would be something else, but people insisting at being a platform.... margin could become quickly near nill and innovation bought by all the money not able to happen.
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So my point is valid, Steam decides when and on whom it enforces its TOS. That seems like a legal liability.
 
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