- cross-posted to:
- gaming@lemmy.zip
- cross-posted to:
- gaming@lemmy.zip
You must log in or # to comment.
I’m a bit surprised that someone hadn’t already posted this
GOG sails past the bottom of the screen on a skateboard sipping a juicebox with a straw
Gog doesn’t have regional pricing where as steam and even epic does. If a Game on steam will cost me 700rs the GOG will charge me 1400rs and since I am poor I just pirate the game. I ain’t paying 700rs for that.
Cheers mate, still not a monopoly
They used to have it but it cost them too much IIRC.
There was a funnier one with GOG enjoying itself in the corner and the complaining party being Epic lol
would be more fitting if epic was creepy guy trying to lure people in a van with candy
Close, but also include the accusation coming from the ones on the left!
Damn that’s a good point. I don’t hear a single consumer talk about it being a monopoly. Isn’t that who would decide such a thing?
Accurate
The lawyer should just be able to give this meme to the judge and have the case closed.
Valve is one of the less evil ones. But GOG didn’t need to be forced by court to have a no-questions-asked 30 days return policy.
The courts are going to force Valve to enshittify, because consumers arent allowed to have good options. That’s unfair competition, think of all the poor megacorps. How can they sell their garbage when you offer an actually good competitor
This is your weekly reminder at this point that Valve is a corporation and that corporations are not your friends nor your allies.
Once Gaben dies, hell breaks loose.
He is a billionaire and just like all billionaire he can rot. He’s not your friend.
No, what I mean is once he dies Valve has a very good chance of going pure profit mode. Good or bad for society, gaming is often too focused upon while things doing objective harm are neglected.
Oh yeah, sure.
But if I were to have a death note I’d only be able to use on the very wealthy, I don’t think he’d be any of the first names I thought about.
lol ok Mao calm down now, just a fyi, don’t cast such a broad stroke when counting your adversaries in life, even the best waste a lot of time living like that.
It’s true though. Even the most well-intentioned billionaire is merely the central point of a massive ball of capital, full of accountants, lawyers, shell companies, VCs, lobbyists and sycophants and sucking more and more wealth and power into itself like Daniel Plainview’s giant straw through sheer fucking gravity. It can’t help its nature, it is the scorpion.
Billionaires shouldn’t exist.
“Buy” games on Steam? Sure wish they let you own them.
Some are DRM free and can be backed up at your leisure. I’m pretty sure that’s up to the developer to implement or not.
It would be neat if steam let you sell a game back, but I’m not sure how to square that with “you have a drm free copy that’s trivial to copy”
deleted by creator
God forbid people want to own their shit.
deleted by creator
Buying on steam has allowed me to play the same game for a decade on three platforms.
It’s so clear that so many people here DIDN’T read the article, which is further compounded by the author not understanding the meaning of monopoly vs anti-competitive practices. Just so we are all on the same page:
This isn’t about steam being a better service, (even though it IS a better service,) or being a monopoly, (it isn’t.) The lawsuit is about anti-competitive practices.
The lawsuit pertains to steam allegedly disallowing devs to price games lower on other platforms. If this is true, it’s a move that prevents competition. Maybe other digital storefronts are shittier, but they might make up for it by taking a smaller cut from game devs, which allows them to sell at a lower price on GOG, or EPIC. If Steam is forcing devs to charge the same price on all platforms, or preventing them from offering discounts on those other platforms when they aren’t offered on Steam, then it doesn’t matter where I buy the game. This is a form of price fixing, except it isn’t an agreement being done between digital storefronts behind closed doors, the price fixing is allegedly happening by steam leveraging the developers
Imagine you are going to buy Tide laundry detergent. You can go to Walmart, Target, or your local grocery store. They all carry the same exact same 125 fl oz bottle. Walmart has it for the lowest price, Target is the next highest, and the local grocer has the highest price for the item. Does my local grocery store get to force Walmart to raise their prices to match their own?
My local grocery store might charge a little bit more, but I prefer to shop there because it’s closer to me, and the stores are better organized making it easier for me to find what I want. Personally I LOATHE shopping at Walmart. I happen to be willing to pay more for a better experience when buying the same product. Other people might not give a shit about the shopping experience and just want the lowest price, so they go to Walmart.
I refuse to touch EPIC game store. I think it’s a subpar product. But if my buddy is telling me about a game he got for free through their storefront and raves about what a good game it is, I’m gonna buy it off of steam, instead of getting it for free, because steam is a digital storefront I trust, and provides a good customer experience.
I realize laundry detergent isn’t the same as video game software, but I think my example demonstrates how competition can work and how fucked up it would be if the allegations against steam are true.
To be clear, the only time Valve requires prices match what’s on Steam is if you’re selling Steam keys. Games are sometimes cheaper on GOG and EA and Ubisoft regularly price their games a dollar or two cheaper on their own stores.
https://www.wolfire.com/blog/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-class-action/
This developer says that Valve threatened to remove their game because they were selling the game for cheaper on a non steam platform with non steam games. (This is the same company mentioned in the article)
It seems that most everyone would be fine with what you said as the steam agreement, but it seems like they are in fact acting monopolistically by requiring even non-steam DRM to have price parity. This is the only thing that needs to change, imo. I think this lawsuit is about showing that the “unwritten rule” actually does exist, and they are in fact being anti-competitive.
This makes perfect sense.
I remember I got Baldur’s Gate 3 (early access) cheaper on GoG than on steam ($40 on GoG and I think it was $50 on Steam, or maybe even full-price (60), but can’t be sure).
I swear I’ve bought things on sale on GOG that were cheaper on there than on steam on more than one occasion.
I am starting to believe that the whole accusation of valve threatening to remove a game from steam about price differences likely has to do with if steam keys are generated for games purchased through other vendors. That’s like the only scenario where it would be appropriate.
An earned monopoly is still a monopoly. Anyone who feels that the power that Steam wields in the gaming market is not an issue, I urge you to think or learn about why monopolies are harmful – not in relation to steam. Think about a manufacturer of gizmos completely cornering the gizmo market and what that would mean for the people wanting to buy gizmos, as time passes. Don’t think in terms of the laws or definitions of some specific country, just think about the effect it would have on society. Worst case scenario you lose some time and gain some insight on monopolies
Of course it’s bad. For decades Valve has shown others why gamers value their game store yet most game stores still do stupid shit that drives gamers away.
The only one making an honest attempt is GOG. And their only issue is low purchasing volume which means they are slow to develop and improve their platform.
And a launcher that makes epic look good.
Think about a manufacturer of gizmos completely cornering the gizmo market
If your monopoly in the Gizmo market is because you’ve actively fought other companies, lobbied governments, filed frivilous patent suits, etc… in order to KEEP people from competing with you, than you’re a piece of shit.
If your monopoly in the Gizmo market is because despite there being no hinderance to them doing so, no competitor has been able to match your quality, than kudos.
In your example, you’re effectively saying that governments should force people to use shittier services just to avoid a monopoly, even if that monopoly is earned.
If people want to buy Gizmos, and that first company is losing their trust, another company will come in and compete successfully because that first company isn’t preventing them from doing so. If that second company does it better, great.
An earned monopoly and a forced monopoly are not nearly the same thing, precisely because an earned monopoly is on the whim of the consumers. If your product turns to shit, a replacement will make itself known. Whereas a forced monopoly is on the whim of the government and lobbyists.
But other stores exist, they just don’t offer what steam does (which includes Play on Linux).
It like if you bought an amazing vacuum that does everything (hardwood, carpet, car attachments, air filtration), and the competitor offers a vacuum that only does carpeted floors…its not a true monopoly, its the competitor not understanding what sellsThis gizmo maker is making the best gizmo that everyone loves, best delivery and best support for people that buys the gizmo. Why would you fault that company for delivering what majority of people wanted. They didn’t corner the gizmo market by buying out smaller gizmo makers, they didn’t block smaller gizmo maker by undercutting them, they didn’t even advertise to cut into other’s profit share. They win the capitalist market by making the best gizmo plus the best experience of buying and owning the gizmo.
Oh no. They’ve made gaming accessible on Linux, games still run you purchased 20 years ago on the latest hardware and they’re not a bloated pile of garbage
If anything, they’ve actually made things better for everyone
In contrast, if you purchased wii u games, you need to re buy for switch. Ps5, wii u and Xbox all basically are limited to what publishers can sell
I’d even argue they’re not a real monopoly because they Don’t control the hardware, and there are other platforms
Somebody needs to make a better gizmo than I guess 😉. Americans seem to love capitalism…so than, capitalize.
The Epic store sucks ass, the EA store sucks ass, Nintendo hates it’s fans more than Trump hates women.
As a counter example, Mincraft is a stand alone game, it came out long after Steam was established and it runs on Linux as well at it does on Windows.
If independent games came with a launcher/update experience as good as Minecraft I would have no problem buying outside of the Steam ecosystem.
Yes, but before Valve you had a lot more choice, because you could buy things in actual shops. I didn’t have to wait until the handful of predetermined “sale weeks” a year to actually get games at budget prices.
And it’s not just Valve, but if they ever go public or bust, you’ll all wonder how you were ever fooled for so long.
they aren’t going public or bust. there is no incentive for them to go public and they are sitting on a dragon hoard of cash with relatively few employees who are all multi millionaires. they’re the most successful private company there is, so there’s no reason why anyone there would want to change things just to get shareholder money. they don’t need shareholder money.
I get it but its not like they are buying up competition or doing bad practices to win unless doing what your customers want is being unfare. In this case I blame the competition.
Around the 2010’s, both MS and Google were seen as “noble monopolies”. Even if Steam is the better video game distributors, always stand on more than one leg when it comes to buying games.
MS was anything but lol, they had a swarm of lawsuit dramas over by then. Only Apple glazed MS because they quite literally saved them from bankruptcy which they only did as insurance against a proper antitrust case.
Google was newer but they also weren’t a private company, they were riding silicon valley money to the moon.
Regardless, Steam is a monopoly but their immediate competitors are the only ones chucking anti competitve measures around like crappy DRM and price lockins.
Other gaming platforms are fully capable of competing with Steam. It’s only real edge is that it treats game developers better than any other platform.
And at least both gog and itchdotio are the better ones. If only Epic got its shit together…
It’s only real edge is that it treats game developers better than any other platform.
I think you meant customers
Start with SpaceX
He’s not wrong. But the price fixing has to go. I shouldn’t have to pay physical prices for a digital product.
Publishers set the price on Steam. Steam doesn’t control pricing.
https://www.eurogamer.net/valve-antitrust-lawsuits-ubisoft-warner-bros-report This is the behavior I am referring to.
I’m eager yo use GOG in Linux. Meanwhile, Steam is fine.
Gamers can buy wherever they want. But game devs either sell on Steam or they basically don’t sell at all.
It’s not a full monopoly. He just has a quasi monopoly. And there are rumors that devs who sell cheaper on other platforms risk not being shown to buyers on Steam…
With great power comes great opportunity for abusing that power to take more middle man tax.Of course he’s not going to come out and say it, why even ask him?
