this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 76 points 6 months ago (2 children)

This lawsuit build on a false premise. Steam doesnt have a price parity clause for other stores. What this lawsuit alleges applies to Steam keys that the developer generates through Steam. If the developer lists those keys for sale at a price lower than what the game is listed for on Steam, then the price of the Steam Store purchase price must match it, so that people visiting the store page on Steam get the same discount. It doesn't matter if you list your game on GOG and discount it there.

Its literally helping players.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Seems like that'd be hard to track with so many stores selling steam keys just looking at isthereanydeals.

Weird thing is it is the publishers themselves that are able to set the price so they are choosing not to put the game on sale same as it is elsewhere. Probably to not devalue the price of their game like the Nintendo strategy when it comes to certain storefronts.

[–] furikuri 10 points 6 months ago

Probably operates closer to corporate software licensing deals, i.e. "we might not catch you but if we do it's over"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Just for clarity: how would it do a disservice to players if a dev can sell their steam keys for any price, no matter which platform?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Steam is a service that costs money to keep running - lot's of money actually in their scale. When you sell a Steam key outside of Steam, they don't get their cut which goes toward running costs and whatnot. It doesn't of course matter if it's just some random few keys but if almost all devs started to do that, it could cause some serious funding problems to Valve. That could then lead to reduced service levels of Steam and that would hurt their customers - the players - the most.

So while it's not a big problem currently, it could be if it wasn't prevented properly in contractual level. People who think that is an unfair clause don't probably understand what it actually takes to run a service like Steam or they are straight competitors trying to run them out of business in any way imaginable.

E: And actually if Steam still allows selling the Steam keys in external services but only requires the price to match the price in Steam, it's already a quite charitable policy. I guess they count on not too many people buying the key externally for the same price than in Steam store.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Just think about how this works.

Steam currently allows you to generate keys and sell them for free, only stipulating that they must be sold for the same price as on steam.

Let's say they are told that stipulation can't be enforced.

Valve, will probably go with 1 of 2 options.

1 - you can no longer generate keys. So all the great key sites(GMG, Fanatical and so on) no longer exist, because no steam keys.

2 - Valve charge an upfront fee for keys generated. Now smaller pmdevs and publishers can no longer supply keys to sites, because they can't afford the upfront costs.

What incentive does valve have to continue offering this free service? If it can be exploited for the detriment of steam, they will stop providing it.