Comment on Court rules Gabe Newell must appear in person to testify in Steam anti-trust lawsuit

Zozano@aussie.zone ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• Spedwell@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Wolfire originally operated Humble Bundle, and they have a very legitimate case. Steam uses anticompetitive pricing policies that makes it difficult for other marketplaces to compete.

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  • Zozano@aussie.zone ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    If anticompetitive means “it’s your choice to enter into an agreement in which we host your game for 30%, and its distribute it on our platform, with unlimited patch updates, and unlimited user downloads, and a fuckton of features like community forums, guides, groups etc., also if your game is good we will promote it free of charge”

    Then I suppose companies like Epic who choose to run at a loss, as opposed to providing a good service, have no chance, and Steam is anticompetitive.

    The counter narrative exists though, Steam is just a good service, and if you want to compete with them, you need to provide a good service, like GOG.

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    • spark947@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That us all fine. David is alleging that Valve is trying to restrict other platforms wolfire can sell their cases on. Valve needs to compete, not threaten to stop distributing a game if they don’t like how it is selling elsewhere.

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      • Zozano@aussie.zone ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I’ve never heard of Valve trying to prevent a developer from distributing their game on other PC store platforms, it’s quite an assertion.

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    • Spedwell@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The Platform Most Favored Nation policy employed by Steam is the one at issue in this case. And yes, it is anticompetitive. It abuses userbase size to prevent alternative marketplaces from providing fewer services for smaller cuts

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      • Zozano@aussie.zone ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Again, it just sounds like Valve is offering a good service and other companies don’t want to compete. If it’s Valves fault for providing a good service and lots of users choose to use their platform instead of others, I fail to see what they could do to rectify that.

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  • Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I love this new narrative that undercutting the competition is anti-competitive and not just competing.

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    • Mango@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It’s not Steam’s price to control. It’s the developers’.

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      • Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Not talking about the game prices, which are already set by the developers.

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  • MrSqueezles@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I can’t believe that a company that puts out a device running Linux that gives you access to the OS in a few clicks and provides guides for how to install competing distribution platforms is more anticompetitive than Sony, Apple, Nintendo, Microsoft, Google. Valve and Steam aren’t perfect. It’s difficult to accept that having a store and charging for it is worse than, for example, Sony buying studios and paying millions of dollars for some games to be exclusive on their platform.

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    • woelkchen@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You know that court cases are not competitions about who’s the most illegal, right?

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      • Zozano@aussie.zone ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        They should be.

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  • jimbo@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    [deleted]

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    • Spedwell@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It’s a certain policy publisher’s have to agree to in order to list on Steam, called a Platform Most Favored Nations (“PMFN”) clause.

      Similar thing is used by Amazon, for equally monopolistic reasons.

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