Comment on Court rules Gabe Newell must appear in person to testify in Steam anti-trust lawsuit
Zozano@aussie.zone 7 months agoI still don’t see what you’re seeing.
Just to play devils advocate, what do you think Valve should do differently?
After learning more about it, I’m understanding the problem is that Wolfire (and every other developer/publisher) has a contract with Valve, in which they aren’t allowed to sell their game on another PC market for a cheaper price than Steam.
Though, I wouldn’t describe that as anticompetitive, rather, neutrally-competitive. Valve is offering a level playing field, they can take it or leave it. This is a fairly standard practice among businesses (though I understand this does not make it right).
If valve wanted to be anticompetitive they would dictate that games published on Steam are exclusive to Steam on PC.
Spedwell@lemmy.world 7 months ago
What Wolfire wants to happen is flr game marketplaces and game services platforms to be separated. Right now Valve is vertically integrated on that. You buy the game, and they offer peer multiplayer, social, workshop, etc.
If those services were charged separately, or rather the cost of those services was not forced into the pricing of other marketplaces that don’t offer those services, you open the market to more competition.
Zozano@aussie.zone 7 months ago
So Wolfire’s idea of being anticompetitive is to restrict how many features a platform may offer?
Honestly, it just sounds like Wolfire has an axe to grind. Steam doesn’t price in the features it offers, their 30% cut existed a long time before most of this stuff was added.
Something like this will never be implemented. Consider the outcome: Steam decouples the marketplace from the extra services, so they create a separate application and offer it as a free service, and creates a link between the two services. There are a hundred ways around this, and all of them inconvenience the consumer.
Spedwell@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I’m at my wits end trying to explain this. I guess I can just recommend reading articles and legal briefs that summarize the matter.
Maybe I’ll think about it later and make a more complete write up with concrete examples. I really hate to see the confusion here. Wolfire is doing us a favor, we should not be handing Valve the keys to the market just because they act like Mr. Benevolent.
Zozano@aussie.zone 7 months ago
Sorry, as aforementioned, I’m just not seeing what you’re seeing.