I think part of the issue is steam allows publishers to set region specific prices and lock users into a region.
You pay $89 for an annual subscription package, somebody in brazil pays equivalent to $32.58.
By definition it is discriminatory.
Comment on New Steam Agreement gets rid of forced arbitration and waivers for class action lawsuits
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 2 months agoIt’s a little hard to square “steam is over charging for games” with “look at all these games I bought for 80% off ($5) off”, but I guess there’s more to it.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s actually kinda the opposite. It’s claiming that Valve makes deals with publishers that use Steam forcing them to maintain price parity with other storefronts. So, if you want to discount a game on something like Fanatical, you’d have to run the same discount on Steam, you can’t just have one or the other. I don’t want to put on the ol’ tin foil hat, but it reeks of Epic. Epic wants to run cheap sales through their storefront that Steam won’t get, so they can pull users away from Steam. If they both have the same discounts, then Epic can’t get the upper hand. That is complete conjecture on my part, but it fits with Epic’s shit strategies. Instead of making something that brings people to them, they want to kill off the competition through anti-competitive practices. It’s the same thing they are doing by signing exclusivity contracts with third-party developers.
sep@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Price parity with other store fronts is only for steam keys tho? Right? I think the publisher can charge whatever on the other store front if they use the other storefronts infra.
It is just when you in effect sells steam infra, (steam carry the cost) you have to have the same price on steam.chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I think that’s part of the argument. It isn’t just for Steam keys, it’s for alternate storefronts like GOG, Ubi, EA, Epic, etc. If you want to sell on Steam, you have to keep it the same price as anywhere else. It seems a bit harsh, but I am tentatively siding with Steam on this one. I’ve never had a company be as consumer friendly as Valve has been over their lifetime, and they’ve earned some brand loyalty. It’ll quickly dissolve if they start fucking people over, but for now, as far as I’m concerned, they get the benefit of the doubt.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
Except that’s not really true. Or at least a half truth.
Steam prevents publishers from selling steam keys through other sites and means for less money. Publishers and other distributors are able to sell their games as cheap as they want anywhere they want. They just can’t sell it dirt cheap somewhere and then use valves steam program and bandwidth to download and play the game.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I thought the lawsuit was about overcharging, but what you just described would make sales available to more people?
chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It wouldn’t make them available to more people, it would make deeper sales available to certain storefronts. Right now, Valve says that if you want to do business with them, and you offer a discount on another storefront, that same discount must be reflected in the Steam price when it sold for a discount on Steam. What the lawsuit says is that Publishers should be allowed to publish whatever discount they want on whatever site they want. That sounds like a better deal to consumers, but what it does is open the door for anti-competitive loss-leaders. It’s the same strategy that companies like Wal-Mart have employed to gain marketshare. They come in, sell everything at a loss to drive out competition, and then raise the prices to the same price the competition was charging. They haven’t given the consumers a better option, they’ve only ensured that they don’t have another choice. If you look at Valve and you look at Epic, you can easily see who has the deeper pockets: Valve is worth a little over $3 Billion from what I can tell, while Epic is worth over $40 Billion. If Epic wants to sell at a loss to drive Steam out of business, they can, easily. As a matter of fact, they’ve already tried this by offering the free weekly games that they do. I’d wager that if this goes through and Steam loses, we’ll see that free weekly game go away, and then large doorbuster sales of everything on the site just to undercut every steam sale as it happens. Where are you gonna buy that new game at? Steam where it’s full price, or Epic where it’s half price? What about the Steam Winter Sale? Will you buy the game for 80% off, or go over to Epic offering it at 90% off with a $10 coupon for another game on the site? Pretty soon you’ll only be shopping on Epic, and once Steam is gone, Epic can charge whatever they want. It’s the long game. They don’t need to be profitable today. They just need to show their shareholders the path.
jerakor@startrek.website 2 months ago
Discrimination only applies if the two parties are similar. In this case the location makes these parties dissimilar due to the inability to just go from one place to the other legally. Brazil gross national income is 1/3rd the US. It makes sense to price things at 1/3rd the US price.
Steam taking 30% is a better deal than any other form of media gets by a mile. It’s crazy folks complain when it is so easy to self distribute a video game, people have been doing it for years and years. Steam doesn’t even require you to sign up for exclusivity like basically every other distribution/marketing service does for all media including other video game services.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The game company can afford to sell digital goods and services to Brazil at a fraction of the cost and profit.
If they sold redeemable codes on cards and cardboard locally it would solve their issue.
They should have to offer any two people online the same price when they list things.
jerakor@startrek.website 2 months ago
If you do it that way you are importing a good.
The end of this would not be that Steam relenting enables folks to start using foreign currency to get cheap games on a publicly traded space.
What will happen if that goes through is a swift increase in taxation of export of digital goods. You’d have countries fighting tariff wars over video games.
The idea that you can use foreign safe spots to buy and sell goods at a cheaper cost is something that only rich people get to do. As soon as it becomes broadly available to the general populace the governments crack down on it quickly.
UnityDevice@startrek.website 2 months ago
You realise that if that were to be “fixed”, you wouldn’t end up paying the low price, Brazil would end up paying the high price. One they can’t afford because they make as much in a month as you do in a week, or worse.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
If that were to be “fixed” it would be “unethical.”
Daxter101@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
After a short read, the case is specifically “Steam is prohibiting developers from selling their games to other platforms, at a price lower than that of steam, and then pockets the 30% platform cost, due to effective monopoly power”.
Which, if true, is super bullshit.
Orygin@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
It’s false if I remember correctly. Steam prohibits you from selling steam keys outside the store for less than the price on steam. They don’t forbid you from selling cheaper elsewhere
cybersandwich@lemmy.world 2 months ago
And that seems entirely reasonable to me. Unless I am missing something
FlowVoid@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Why is that reasonable? Storefronts don’t get free keys from Steam, they have to buy them. After they pay Steam, they should be allowed to sell them at any price they want.
Imagine if Ford said you couldn’t sell your car for less than what Ford dealers charge for used cars.
Grenfur@lemmy.one 2 months ago
Its this one. And the reason is that if steam sells a game at $10 and humble sells you a steam key at $5, steam gets no profit and is 100% responsible for the bandwidth when you donlload it, for hosting the page, for the market, etc etc. Basically steam doesn’t want to assume all the work with none of the reward. Which I don’t really see an iissue with.