Have you ever found yourself in a conversation with people about Valve’s anti-competitive practices? Well, I have. And I defended Valve’s requirement to let customers choose their preferred storefront when buying games, as long as Steam keys were involved. After all, you end up getting to use all of Steam’s features and services when you activate the game on Steam. We can argue about this, but it turns out, that was a red herring!
I’ve spend the better part of today digging through this newest class action lawsuit, again made by Wolfire, against Valve. (This has been going for a while.) I was compiling a response to each of the points in the overview (can’t go through the whole thing, sorry), and there was one thing that stood out after searching for the “Price Veto Provision”. I had heard people make claims to the same effect before, but they were never able to back it up. (And it being conflated with the “Steam Key Price Parity Provision” made it worse.) So here it is:
Valve pressures developers into price parity across different storefronts, even if Steam keys are NOT part of the equation.
We basically see any selling of the game on PC, Steam key or not, as a part of the same shared PC market- so even if you weren’t using Steam keys, we’d just choose to stop selling a game if it was always running discounts of 75% off on one store but 50% off on ours. . . . That stays true, even for DRM-free sales or sales on a store with its own keys like UPLAY or Origin.
When I looked for this quote, I found a podcast episode that I hadn’t listened to (The Hated One, Episode 228 - More evidence of Valve enforcing price parity beyond Steam keys), but that thankfully provided some sources for more related quotes, from earlier lawsuits, such as:
“The biggest takeaway is, don’t disadvantage Steam customers. For instance, it wouldn’t be fair to sell your DLC for $10 on Steam if you’re selling it for $5 or giving it as a reward for $5 donations. We would ask that Steam customers get that lower $5 price as well.”
“If the offer you’re making fundamentally disadvantages someone who bought your game on Steam, it’s probably not a great thing for us or our customers (even if you don’t find a specific rule describing precisely that scenario).”
a Steam account manager, Tom Giardino, reportedly told publisher Wolfire that Steam would delist any games available for sale at a lower price elsewhere, whether or not using Steam keys.
The developer asked, “Regarding the pricing policy, can a non-Steam variant of a game be sold at a different price than on the Steam store page?” Steam’s response was “Selling the game off Steam at a lower price wouldn’t be considered giving Steam users a fair deal.”
These were apparently from 2017 and 2018, so things might’ve changed since then, but it’s reason enough to question Valve. I unfortunately haven’t been able to find much on these other quotes (search engine enshittification, or has this really not been talked about?), and I’m unsure why they’re not also included in this newest lawsuit, but there they are. Hopefully this helps anyone who was misinformed or lacked proof, like myself. Also if anyone has related stories from gamedevs or articles that actually get to the core of the problem, I’d love it if you could share them.
I’m a dumb dumb. Can someone explain why this is bad?
I’m sure there’s some reason. I’m just missing it. Wouldn’t this mean that steam will always have the lowest/same price as other storefronts and I’m most likely to pick the storefront that I prefer?
I assume this doesn’t apply to temporary sales?
Steam
You could sell a product DRM-free on your own website 30% cheaper, and get the same money, while providing a cheaper, DRM-free alternative. Steam currently denies that, restricting your choices. You can still sell it on your website at the same price, of course, and the customer still has a choice.
I think what feels unfair or maybe immoral is that they make demands, even requirements, upon your decisions and distributions that do not involve them at all. They’re taking your product hostage. And they can do so because they’re so big you can’t not publish on their storefront too if you want reach.
Thanks! Your last argument was a pretty clear and good argument for why it feels a bit icky. I think it’s most convincing when comparing against the developers personal site.
It’s less clearly bad (to me) when comparing epic games vs steam or some other storefront. In what is probably a bad move, I mostly use Steam for gaming. It’s convenient and just works. Having a game available for less on a different, but considerably worse, platform would be a hassle.(because the platform has a better kickback for that developer as a temporary way to boost their platform) At least this way, they’ll have to offer it for the same price on Steam in most cases.
Steam has the lowest price because they force you to use the highest price, their price, on all other storefronts. It doesn’t give you any better pricing on Steam.
Right now a game is $10 on both Steam and itch. If Valve didn’t abuse their position it would be smth like $8 on itch because their fees are lower. Valve pretends this is allowed in their contracts but instead bullies devs into price parity.
Whether this also applies to sales depends on how much Valve likes you, on that particular day.
Thanks for the explanation!