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Gabe Newell ordered to make in-person deposition for Valve v. Wolfire Games lawsuit
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this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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I don't mind their market position. I do mind them taking an entire third of revenue, straight off the top. That's bullshit enough when console manufacturers do it - and they claim that's to subsidize the hardware platform that they built and control.
They offer a hell of a lot more per dollar for their 30% (which isn't actually 30%, and increases your sales volume by way more than enough to make up the difference) than Epic does for their cut.
"Increases sales" just underlines that they have a monopoly.
No shit you sell more by dealing with a monopoly. They're the biggest store. That's what happens when you're a monopoly.
And I don't remember saying one word about Epic.
No, it doesn't. It means that they add massive value and more people buy more games as a direct result of the value that they add. Valve has done more to grow the PC gaming space than anyone else and there isn't anything close.
They could take 50% and they would still offer by far the best value out there with nothing else close. Their cut is extremely generous to developers.
Epic is the only one offering a meaningfully different cut from anyone else, and they're doing it by being absolute dogshit at everything connected to their store in any way.
Don't forget itch.io for its "pay what you want model" which is also the same from the developer side.
"They could take more and still control the market" is a confession, not a counterargument.
And it directly contradicts saying they need that much money, in order to... "provide value." An aggressive hand-wave that ignores how Sony and Microsoft take the same cut for platforms they own and control completely.
This 30% off-the-top is a de facto standard that's basically just left over from when Nintendo had 90% market share and had to physically manufacture cartridges months in advance. I don't care what Valve says they're providing - they did not do half as much per game as the people who made the fucking game. They don't deserve a third of their money.
They could take more and still deserve it.
What they "need" is irrelevant. They deserve every penny.
If valve never existed, the best case companies would make way less than half as much on PC gaming, and a meaningful proportion would literally make nothing because distributing software for revenue is extremely difficult for a normal person or small team to do. Anyone paying 30% is getting a bargain, because distributing the same volume by themselves would cost more than that in labor and other costs.
The entire PC gaming market exists because Valve created it.
I got a binder full of PC CD-ROMs that says "bullshit."
Valve has contributed to the PC gaming market. But they got there by shoving their middleman service into a game everyone bought anyway, at a store, because Steam did not exist. It sucked. It sucks a lot less now, in part because they take an entire fucking third of every sale, and if you think all those sales could only possibly happen by taking that much money from them, you're not even listening to yourself.
Oh nooo you brought in more context to respond to my argument, how dareee yooouuu
Epic fucking up isn't relevant.
Valve making as much from Microsoft Windows / your-own-PC games as Sony makes from Sony-branded Sony-made Sony Playstation hardware is a damning reflection of an industry-wide problem.
Do you believe it’s free to host downloads, support matchmaking services, and the near endless other services steam provides? Or did considering why other online gaming retail platforms (besides GOG we love GOG) suck major ass just skip your mind?
Free being the only other option.
An entire third, or zero. Other numbers don't exist. Valve obviously needs every cent they take, to do the bare minimum you smugly rub in my face, as though I've never even heard of their service. All that value just goes right back to the game-makers! Aaand all the hardware research and development they do for themselves but nevermind that.
And I guess GOG is a clear counterexample of your own point but uhhhhhh smokebomb!
So what is your actual point here? Because you've said fuck-all to make a point.
Valve's cut should be less than a third.
Do you need a diagram?
You know they're not hurting. They enjoy immense profit, at the expense of people who still make games. All excuses are tired nonsense. The cut isn't why Epic sucks. It's not why GOG has less market share. Steam barged its way into relevance on the back of Half-Life 2, and was the first digital game store anyone bothered to use.
They'll have a de-facto monopoly next year because they had a de-facto monopoly last year. That's all it takes. That's the entire fucking reason we have laws about monopolies. They can do whatever the hell they want to publishers, and there's fuck-all consumers can do about it.