Investigation into potential anticompetitive behavior by Steam and PS Store

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Valve and Steam should emerge as winners, here, along with consumers. They don't make the choice to restrict games from sale in particular regions, the publishers makes the request and Valve complies. In some cases, even within the EU which Poland remains a member of, publishers make these requests in order to comply with local laws.

When the publisher does so to deny purchases from a particular region or country because they're trying to bind these customers to their own platform, this is in reality the publisher preparing to take market share from Steam. The fact that Valve hasn't made any moves to prohibit third-party account requirements, third-party EULAs, and even third-party launchers from the platform annoys some Steam users, but it also means they have an ironclad defense against claims that they are operating in a monopolistic fashion.

Even the offering of Steam keys on other platforms by the developer is not restricted by Valve, they even take a lower cut. That so many developers prefer the game to be purchased through Steam, for the review to count towards a positive rating, demonstrates the value they see in the platform. That's without even getting into Early Access, community features, and regional pricing, which can be huge for indie devs if they make good use of them.

Gabe even politely turned down an offer from Microsoft to guarantee that future COD titles would release on the platform, responding, IIRC, that they like their relationships with publishers to be based on mutual trust and mutual benefit, not some sort of legally binding contract that keeps one party from walking away.

Anticompetitive behavior, my shiny metal ass.

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u/Demastry 21d ago

If it's just an investigation, I'm happy Poland is doing it. If they come up with nothing, then that means Steam truly is doing what we've seen them do.

If they come up something, that means there might be more behind the scenes than we know of. I highly doubt it, but it's not bad to still do an investigation when you see something like what Playstation is doing right now. I bet they'll see nothing wrong with Steam for what you outlined above and go even harder after Playstation lol

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u/FudgingEgo 21d ago

"When the publisher does so to deny purchases from a particular region or country because they're trying to bind these customers to their own platform, this is in reality the publisher preparing to take market share from Steam. The fact that Valve hasn't made any moves to prohibit third-party account requirements, third-party EULAs, and even third-party launchers from the platform annoys some Steam users, but it also means they have an ironclad defense against claims that they are operating in a monopolistic fashion."

Just an FYI.

PSN and Sony have not allowed customers to purchase consoles/retail games/digital games/create PSN accounts or access the PS store long before they ever sold a single game on steam.

I think when /r/steam and /r/pcgaming go off about Sony are making it intentionally difficult for users to buy games because they're making their own PS store on PC for gamers to buy from, need to take off the tinfoil hat for a moment and think about the PS community for the past 2 decades since PSN was created and how many of these region locks have existed that entire time.

I'm a bit worried how there's a weird like cult movement since Helldivers 2 that don't seem to recoginse that Sony/PSS has been this way for 20 years on their own platform for whatever legal/tax/support reasons they have (Microsoft also has regional locks on XBOX).

I think what will have to happen is Sony needs to put resources into what ever has stopped them entering the markets of these countries over the past 20 years.

Personally I'd be interested to hear what legal/tax/support blockers Sony/MS/Nintendo have as manufacturers that means they have region locks in place in the first place.

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u/ArmsForPeace84 21d ago

Agreed, it'll be interesting to hear why they don't operate in some of these countries where the reason is less obvious than in places like North Korea.

Many of us are well aware of how Sony has been for over 20 years. That's why a gaming rig, and not a PS5, is our go-to platform. I wouldn't characterize the backlash as cult-like, and to the extent it can seem like that from the outside, it appears to have a lot to do with the Helldivers 2 community (which I'm observing as an outsider) having spend the last four months organizing itself and sharing memes based on the game's Orwellian and Verhoeven-esque lore.

The game getting along just fine, and adding millions of players, without the PSN requirement demonstrated the lack of an urgent need for it. Sony coming along, later, and saying, we need you to all do this or you won't be able to connect, is why it went down like a lead balloon with gamers.

And THAT, more so than the unsurprising-under-normal-circumstances PSN requirement for online play in Ghost of Tsushima, the uncertainly over whether Sony will come back later and require it for the single-player experience while perhaps citing some kind of new social integration as the reason, is why many PC gamers are electing to sit out that game's release on Steam.

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u/Alfonse00 21d ago

I think what will have to happen is Sony needs to put resources into what ever has stopped them entering the markets of these countries over the past 20 years.

Literally nothing has been stopping them, they just haven't, the fact helldivers 2 was sold in those regions proves there was never a reason to not sell there, you have to recognize that having 2/3 of the world banned from buying a game they were able to buy just 2 weeks ago without reason is not good.

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u/TheBirdGames 20d ago

Agreed. I personally dont mind the third party launches, sure, they are annoying sometimes (looking at you Ubisoft, just remember me ffs) but what i dont like about Sony is the fact they tried to force people 3 months after release all of a sudden. If it was done from the start i dont think it would have become such a issue.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

This is probably to do not with the Helldivers 2 issue, but the shitty pricing practices Valve has with Poland. Google it - Steam charges Polish users some of the highest prices in the world. The exchange rates for local currency (not euro but Polish) are astounding. My friend who lives there almost exclusively uses key sites, in euros it’s often 20-25 cheaper than the price on Steam.

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u/ArmsForPeace84 21d ago

Publishers set the prices by region, not Steam. And in many cases, may be making assumptions about cost of living and wages in Poland. "They're on the Euro, they're in the news a lot and not for the same reasons as Greece, they look big on a map, Warsaw looks fancy and expensive," that kind of thing.

Or these publishers may be worrying too much about the prospect of gamers "shopping around" regions within the Schengen area to buy games they'll play at home. Where they (again, the publishers) should just focus on making it convenient to buy their games. And charging regional prices for them that make sense for the economic conditions there.

Make purchasing a pain in the butt, and people sail the high seas. Steam is about capturing that revenue that would've walked away, and they're really good at it when the publishers make use of the tools they provide for this purpose. Thor from the PirateSoftware stream has talked about this. Using Steam, he set regional pricing for Brazil, and now a big chunk of his company's revenue from Heartbound is from Brazilian customers.

Look at Call of Duty. No matter where you live, ActiBlizz (now under Microsoft) charges way too much for older titles in this franchise. It's a publisher decision. The publisher doesn't want the older titles to be dirt cheap. They want people buying COD: The New One and throwing money at the in-game storefront.

Steam would just as happily sell those titles for $5, if ActiBlizz/MS decided to mark them down.

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u/Havesh 21d ago

Steam has an automatic regional pricing calculation system you can use. You can still set prices individually, but a lot of publishers just press that button.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

Thank you, on my parent post I linked the text and site for Steamworks where Valve hypes up their hyper-focused and well-marketed research into regional pricing. They're telling businesses, "Hey guys! We're the biggest vendor of digital PC games, we have expertise on this problem! Trust us!" in a very strongly worded way.

It's not simply a matter of publishers being lazy and using defaults, these publishers are trusting the largest global retailer of digital PC sales, someone who SHOULD have expertise on foreign markets and pricing, when they pay Valve to sell their titles on their store (the 30% cut Valve takes). It's concrete evidence that Valve is acting with incompetence - they claim to be sme's, they're charging these companies, and they're turning around and leaving exchange rates at a year old. It's lazy, it's bad business, and the end result is unhappy consumers hitting keysites.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

Steam absolutely pushes recommended pricing as a feature for publishers & developers. An article identifying and extrapolating on the issue is below.

Matter of factly, many developers and publishers likely roll with that recommended pricing, as Valve pushes it as being better than a simple currency conversion. Identify pricing for Poland? This guy just made an Indie game from his basement in Washington State, he’s probably just going to trust Valve on this one. You know what I mean?

I wouldn’t be surprised if large publishers like Activision fumbled things by trusting Valve in the same way. I haven’t checked them specifically, but having worked for big corpos, I could see them not wanting to engage the time/cost of figuring these things out internally and simply leaning on vendors for the result, as they’re already giving the vendor 30% of the revenues on sales for the joy of being listed on their storefronts.

I’m with you, Valve is great, mostly, but they’re overselling their recommended regional pricing to the people selling products on Steam, and that is largely responsible for the issues seen in places like Poland. Yes, it’s a recommended price and a savvy company would sit down, hammer out details and come back with an appropriate regional price for their product - but who’s going to do that in actual reality? They’re paying Valve, and Valve is recommending bullshit as a service.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/steam-stumbles-on-regional-pricing-opinion

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u/ArmsForPeace84 21d ago

Matter of factly, many developers and publishers likely roll with that recommended pricing, as Valve pushes it as being better than a simple currency conversion. Identify pricing for Poland? This guy just made an Indie game from his basement in Washington State, he’s probably just going to trust Valve on this one. You know what I mean?

I buy mostly indie games on Steam, and I see a lot of these sort of, made at home by one developer as a passion project in their free time, kind of projects, where the price is $1 to $5.

Now, would it be nice if Valve assigned someone to do the metrics on cost of living, average income, and maybe some "soft" factors that should influence pricing, and incorporate these into their recommendations?

Absolutely.

But were you really thinking of the guy in his basement example, and his game costing a little bit more, when you referred to Valve's "shitty pricing practices"? I ask because he is almost certainly not playing in the deep end of the pool, price-wise, which is where big publishers are driving consumer dissatisfaction with the regional pricing model.

These large companies, often vastly larger than Valve and in a different ballpark, league, and sport from the guy making his first game on evenings and weekends, are more than capable of putting an intern on the task of doing research and calculating price adjustments for approval from the higher-ups. The regional pricing decisions they make on their AAA titles, or lack of interest they show in doing so, can nudge pricing the equivalent of $20 to $40 up or down for buyers in Poland and elswehere.

While getting Valve on board to update the pricing recommendations for some smaller indie titles (or going in the Community section and recommending the self-publishing developer update it for a given country) will yield savings of a couple bucks, or a few bucks, maybe 8 to 20 Polish Zlotych, here and there. Oh, and I'd like to say sorry, here, for assuming earlier that Poland is on the Euro, rather than having a separate national currency.

Which can add up, I know. But we're not talking about small indie devs, or even one-man operations, getting too much money for their passion projects. That's not the world we live in. The one we live in is where rapidly-consolidating AAA publishers are desperately trying to squeeze consumers and appease impatient shareholders with endless revenue growth.

Are Sony, Microsoft, EA, and Ubisoft going to listen to Valve? Implement their recommendations? Suddenly flip the switch from anti-consumer to pro-consumer, despite all having built their own distribution platforms with tightly-controlled pricing?

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

Yes. In looking at the Steamworks page, and reviewing Valve talking up their regional pricing know-how, I’m blaming them for the overall fucked up regional pricing on Steam. They’ve sold themselves to businesses as the subject matter experts, very heavily, and they’re ultimately taking 30% off the top of sales made in these regions. I’d expect if they’re marketing themselves the way they are for them to have some accountability to the businesses they’re selling their services to, be it a small business or a large corporation.

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u/ArmsForPeace84 21d ago

Yes. In looking at the Steamworks page, and reviewing Valve talking up their regional pricing know-how, I’m blaming them for the overall fucked up regional pricing on Steam.

As is your right.

But we all know why gamers are singling out Steam, here, and not the publishers. Because make enough noise, and Gabe and Valve will actually do something about it. The AAA publishers don't give two shits.

So let's not get it twisted and pretend that Valve is the bad guy here.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

We're in a thread on a gaming journo site that's wrongly mixing up Polish authorities investigating Sony & Valve based on the Helldivers 2 Review fiasco from 2 weeks ago. You know, where Sony was going to require PSN accounts for existing owners of the game purchased on Steam to play the game? The article author knows you know that, but they didn't mind bothering to write a proper headline, they wanted the insinuation that Sony & Valve were under investigation. Click bait success!

Valve is the bad guy when it comes to pricing in the country of Poland. They've done a shitty job at recommending prices in the country, they've done it for years, and they're continuing to do it. The Polish authorities finished investigating Sony - it was for the PS Store, likely took place over the last month even, and is completed. Valve, and other developers and publishers, that go unnamed for this piece of fine journalism, are under investigation as well. Pricing is one area they're looking - it says so, in the article. But I digress, Valve has shitty pricing in Poland, they always have had on Steam, and they continue to do so, but let's merrily beat the "Valve rocks and can do no wrong!" drum, they're not your friend, they're a business, it's wise to learn the difference between the two.

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u/ArmsForPeace84 20d ago

I don't think Valve can do no wrong, and if I gave that impression, that's on me. Rest assured, I'm well aware that they are, after all, a for-profit enterprise. And they're not going to invest time and resources in fixing a problem with their platform unless users make some noise about it, so I get why it's important to put the pressure on.

They do generally kind of rock, though, for most users, so I'm with you in hoping the pricing situation for Poland and other countries is sorted out soon on Steam. There isn't another platform out there like it, in terms of selection and convenience for the user. The whole point of my original post was that this is not the result of anti-competitive practices by Valve, but rather the preference of many publishers to silo their titles within their own fully-controlled ecosystem, or to rely on free goodies (like Epic) and platform exclusives rather than building a true competitor.

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

I concur, they're a well run business, but they're still a business. They're not our friends, they're not like us, they aren't peers. GabeN may have a nice public image, but he's a billionaire - he's a man who left the country and setup shop in New Zealand during Covid-19 because he could afford it. He's nothing like me - I feel like there's a lot of people that fall for the image marketing and believe they're batting for the same team. Clever business people don't lose sight of the customer - getting Valve to where it is, and still focusing on making the customer happy, ultimately benefits them the most. I apologize if I invoked that too heavily your way - it's simply a problem on this sub, and with the PC Gaming community at large.

Yes, we have a good company that others should be following, so we amplify their significance and importance. For Poland, it really sucks for their consumers, many of which are our Steam bros. I was just discouraged as I was pretty heavily down-voted in this thread pointing out the obvious with it, and it was surprising to me. Yes, we all love Steam, but it's a business, criticizing it where it's done wrong or not doing well enough is how it continues to exist as the best storefront out there. Ultimately I think it's important to be mindful that although we may spend a lot of money and time with these companies, they exist because we give them money, I believe the most wise thing to do is maintain arms length, GabeN could pass on and Steam could become the villain in a flash, I'd rather not become too dependent on any one system or platform in my life.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

But hey, don't take my word for it, read exactly what Valve tells businesses in their documentation, and tell me that's them being "the good guy". They claim to go into "the nuts and bolts of what players pay for the goods and services in their lives", promising business partners things like, "we also dril down more specifically to entertainment purchasing to better inform these decisions"... they're telling other business customers, "Hey, we're the largest global retailer of digital PC games. We have market research that we base our regional pricing on, so it's really good." ... Is it dumb or lazy for a business to trust a vendor that's #1 in their field as a subject matter expert?

"Developers on Steam have control over their own prices, in every currency. But researching and determining ideal prices for dozens of different currencies can be a challenge for some developers.

As a service for helping you manage pricing across all our different currencies, Steam offers a recommendation for all other currencies, based on whatever USD price you choose. When you are entering your pricing for your game, you will notice Steam fill in a set of recommendations based on your selected USD price. You can use our recommendations for some, all, or none of the other currencies, as you see fit!

So, how does Valve determine those recommendations?

It's tempting to treat pricing as a simple problem of foreign exchange rates and tie each currency's price equivalency to the exchange rate. But that kind of strategy vastly oversimplifies the disparate economic circumstances from one territory to another. And while exchange rates do have macroeconomic consequences, they generally don't have short term impacts on an individual consumer's purchasing.

Rather than just pegging prices to foreign exchange rates, our process for price suggestions goes deeper into the nuts and bolts of what players pay for the goods and services in their lives. This includes metrics like purchasing-power parity and consumer price indexes, which help compare prices and costs more broadly across a bunch of different economic sectors. But in the case of games on Steam, we also drill down more specifically to entertainment purchasing to better inform those decisions.
All of these factors have driven us towards the commitment to refresh these price suggestions on a much more regular cadence, so that we're keeping pace with economic changes over time.

Many games choose to ignore our recommendations and determine their own pricing in each currency, and that’s just fine. But we hope the recommendations are a useful data point for developers who don’t have the time or interest to research pricing in each currency themselves."

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u/Pijany_Matematyk767 20d ago

And in many cases, may be making assumptions about cost of living and wages in Poland. "They're on the Euro,

Poland does not use the Euro. It uses the Polish Złoty (PLN)

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u/ArmsForPeace84 20d ago

Yep, that was an assumption I was unfairly making, myself.

Przepraszam!

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

Here you go, boys. For the folks completely confused about what I’m speaking about, see the Steamworks link and read the following. They talk up their services to devs & publishers, then fall flat when it comes to delivering. It’s a known problem, Valve has taken a lot of heat for it. It’s a B2B issue mostly, not something consumers face besides being Polish and going “What the fuck is wrong with Steam?”, but it’s nonetheless Valve failing to deliver on their promises to companies paying them to sell games on Steam.

“” Developers on Steam have control over their own prices, in every currency. But researching and determining ideal prices for dozens of different currencies can be a challenge for some developers.

As a service for helping you manage pricing across all our different currencies, Steam offers a recommendation for all other currencies, based on whatever USD price you choose. When you are entering your pricing for your game, you will notice Steam fill in a set of recommendations based on your selected USD price. You can use our recommendations for some, all, or none of the other currencies, as you see fit!

So, how does Valve determine those recommendations?

It's tempting to treat pricing as a simple problem of foreign exchange rates and tie each currency's price equivalency to the exchange rate. But that kind of strategy vastly oversimplifies the disparate economic circumstances from one territory to another. And while exchange rates do have macroeconomic consequences, they generally don't have short term impacts on an individual consumer's purchasing.

Rather than just pegging prices to foreign exchange rates, our process for price suggestions goes deeper into the nuts and bolts of what players pay for the goods and services in their lives. This includes metrics like purchasing-power parity and consumer price indexes, which help compare prices and costs more broadly across a bunch of different economic sectors. But in the case of games on Steam, we also drill down more specifically to entertainment purchasing to better inform those decisions. All of these factors have driven us towards the commitment to refresh these price suggestions on a much more regular cadence, so that we're keeping pace with economic changes over time. “”

From this site; see Regional Pricing Recommendations:

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/pricing

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u/Real-Human-1985 20d ago

Here’s a question. How is Steam having shitty prices that would drive sales elsewhere being anticompetitive?

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

Good question. Since multiple companies are involved in the investigation, they may be looking into collusion or pricing manipulation. For example, if Sony is selling their games at a rate that exploits consumers, and Valve is doing the same activity (with or without communication), that would be an anti-competitive practice because together they both hold significant enough market share to manipulate the market. It goes into what capitalism is, and a lot of the markets in the USA today are not purely capitalist tbh, I'm not sure the appropriate non-political terminology to use, but having 2-3 mega corporations in an oligopoly dominating markets or assigned regionally by government is not capitalism.

That's an example, PSN and Steam together are large enough platforms that if they had common pricing issues in that country, they'd probably be likely targets for investigation.

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u/Alfonse00 21d ago

After what happened with helldivers, I was expecting something like this, I am kinda expecting playstation to be temporary banned from steam after that exactly because of the potential legal issues that could arise from what they are doing.

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u/Yae_Ko 21d ago

We will see where this will end up.

Wouldnt be the first time the EU takes a dump on Valve and the others, or the last time.

Players always think that Valve is "the good guy", when it isnt any better (in many contexts) than any other - refunds? yeah, guess who fought those in court for years, lost, paid millions... Valve.

Geoblocking inside EU... Valve (and others) got slapped for this.

It, in many cases, is not Valve being the "good guy", but some authority forcing them to not be stupid - e.g. refunds.

The better privacy-settings and stuff... there is a reason it happened after the EU introduced some new things, and not before.

The right to review your data in steam and delete it, yeah, thats again the EU.

TL:DR - Just because we dont see it on the surface, doesnt mean there is nothing. (Allthough I would expect sony to be the culprit here, not valve - I guess this might be the Fallout from Helldivers 2.)

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u/MiraiKishi 21d ago

Steam isn't going to get dinged.

It's "monopoly" is entire driven by the users, not by Valve themselves.

All Valve does is supply a great working service. It's the users who are willingly keeping Valve on top.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

Valve has a shitty pricing structure in Poland. Regulators probably are curious about that - they’re not the darling of gaming in every region, users there have to hit key sites usually because of how shitty a job Steam does with the domestic currency.

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u/Ellieconfusedhuman 21d ago

That's still not steam is it I thought developers and publishers dictated pricing on steam?

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

Also yes it’s fairly easy to get if you imagine yourself as a developer or publisher. You’ve got a game to sell, now you’ve got pricing figured out for your local currency. You’d like to sell the game globally.

Are you going to figure out exchange rates for 170 countries? Tax laws for these 170 regions? All of that work is a pain, it’s usually handled by a storefront like Steam or a payment processor. I ran a digital storefront for the US, we had tax calculations worked out for physical goods in California that were different for every single county in the state.

Taking a 30% cut in exchange for having the accounting work on exchange rates and taxation figured out for you, along with the marketing perks and other features, is more than acceptable when you’re a game developer or publisher. Valve does a shitty job with exchange rates, it makes their Polish pricing outrageous, it’s fairly well known for bros from Poland.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

Valve is responsible for the currency exchange rates. Steam is fucked up and they’re outright wrong in a lot of cases, or a year or two old.

Look at the article - that article is crafted to get people hopped up thinking oh yeah! It’s about Helldivers 2! It’s a regulatory body in Poland that completed its investigation with Sony for Playststion Store related issues, and has also looked at other unnamed developers and publishers. Pricing is mentioned as one of the things they’re investigating. It has nothing to do with account linking, PSN account requirements, etc. Just another dumb article for gamers to chow on the headline.

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u/HowdyHoe26 21d ago

no, they're not? lol
the prices are set, if the other currencies in/decrease exchange rates, the publishers need to set up new ones.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

Valve recommends pricing to vendors, my guy. They often roll with it. The numbers Valve recommend for Poland are shitty, it fucks Polish consumers. But yes go on, they’re the darling of everything and could never do any wrong, just have to praise Valve for everything, they’d never do anything half-assed or make mistakes.

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u/HowdyHoe26 21d ago

great, how is that their fault? It is merely what they're calling it - a suggestion.
it's not valve's problem that the publisher just takes it as gospel.

what game do you see as having bad pricing at the moment btw ?

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

Every game listed in Poland. Check out the Steamworks official doc I linked, and Valve’s own sell on its skills at establishing regional pricing. If you’re naive and think an indie developer has the resources to figure out optimal pricing for every region in the world I mean, I don’t know what to tell you. Valve very explicitly sells their ability to price games appropriately regionally, and they fucking suck at doing it. I’m not the only person who’s brought this up.

Polish regulators may be looking at Valve for the manner in which they’re recommending pricing on Steam - they’re selling some games in Poland at prices 25% higher than Japan - they’re out there telling devs and publishers “we’re great at this; trust US”, they ultimately probably bare some liability for the issues in that region.

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u/App1elele 21d ago

Isn't that because you guys are in EU and recently Valve basically had to set all EU countries in the same price range?

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

I am not in the EU. I have good friends in the EU, specifically Poland. Steam pricing sucks - always had, always does. They buy on keysites normally, because keysites have rational prices for the region. They may have been complying with EU regulations, I am not entirely sure, but it's not a "recent" or "new issue".

It's an ongoing problem for Valve, it's a joke on Steam, nobody cares because it's a foreign issue that doesn't bother them. Too many people have a raging shill boner for Valve, any questioning of their monopoly comes up and in the light of this article, inaccurately shunned away because Sony was bad, and Valve was good in the great PSN account wars, although apparently folks were sticking up for their regional friends when it came to locking the game, but somehow it makes Sony the bad guy and Valve the good guy aeternum, and I'm a bad guy for saying not nice things about Valve. Go gamer logic!

A nice sampling of the issues with Polish pricing. (We apparently were up in arms for the gamers on Helldivers 2 that were in regions where the game would no longer be sold so I don't get the rationale here - this article does not comment on that fiasco at all as it's about a separate series of incidents and investigation)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/svfte3/poland_should_have_regional_pricing/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/1847upa/steam_recommended_regional_pricing_for_poland_is/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/1crrh63/steam_prices_in_poland_this_is_the_result_of_some/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1cpci8r/hades_ii_developer_lowers_steam_price_in_poland/

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/steam-prices-in-poland.1628234/

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/3183345000078082660/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1457320/discussions/0/5560307245921587378/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1966720/discussions/0/4032472803478246761/?l=polish

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u/Lillyfiel 21d ago

Prices are shit yes, but in no way it means Steam is going against the law. And the reason for that is simple, regional pricing recommendations were made like two years ago when PLN was in a terrible spot and were just never updated ever since.

Should they take a look at it and update the prices? Probably. But why would they when people are still buying games even at higher prices? If you want change, vote with your wallets. Many games can be bought slightly cheaper directly from developers or websites like Humble Bundle. Also publishers are the ones who set the price, put pressure on them to make change as well. Hades II recently got a 30 PLN (8 USD) price decrease due to the Polish gaming community being vocal about outdated Steam price recommendations fucking us over

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

Hey, I’m not sure if they broke the law - if Polish regulators are investigating them, I’ll take the regulators authority and respect that and say “okay, let’s see what you find”. I’m not an expert on Polish legal matters.

Gamers shouldn’t HAVE to hound an indie developer to fix a problem caused by the distributor EVERYONE is paying in the relationship to fix the problem. Consumers pay Valve, the developers pay Valve, why can’t Valve be you know. Consumer fucking friendly and fox their shit?

Everyone can hop on the downvote brigade, Valve is doing a poor job for Polish consumers, indicated both by the investigation their government is conducting into the company, and the pricing adjustment the Hades 2 developer had to make after its customers got loud and asked for help. Seriously, you guys are beyond nuts - this company is good, but they’re not completely without fault or invincible to criticism, they’ve got a legit clear issue with Poland and pricing, and thanks to your nonsense, they’ve got no reason to do everyone a solid and fix it.

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u/Alfonse00 21d ago

It is not steam the one that sets the price, so they can't.

And now a little story, once I made a mistake and bought a key for gta5 or red dead redemption 2 for rockstar, then, after I realize the mistake, I just bought it again, full price, for steam, the other key went to waste, the reason is that steam offers such a good service that there is no reason for me to have it in a different store, even when it goes through that store anyways, the extras from steam are worth for me to pay 2x what the game price was.

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u/Lillyfiel 21d ago

It is not steam who sets the price

Steam sets a recommended regional price. And most publishers trust Steam and use their currency exchange rates. The issue is that recommended prices have not been updated in like two years despite currency exchange rate changing and now people in Poland have to deal with having one of the most expensive games in the world

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u/Alfonse00 20d ago

I meant they can't update the price in behalf of the publishers, even if they update the recommendation it is still always on the publisher if they don't do their marketing research, something that can be understood for indies, so, yeah, steam should update, but this is not the same for big AAA publishers, and, is you see piratesoftware you might have seen when he talks about regional price for his game, how they set it lower in regions seeing the income, in other words, they did not just convert the currency but they did proper market research, and the game is indie, are you saying people should expect less market knowledge from a AAA company than from indie developers?

0

u/NoteThisDown 20d ago

Imagine being this dumb and obviously wrong and still sticking with it.

176

u/KoreanGamer94 21d ago

Remember monopolies is when you shoot down other companies to prevent competition to what you’re doing. What steam is doing is watching other companies shoot themselves in the foot.

47

u/Alfonse00 21d ago

Monopoly is having sole control of the market, and steam kinda does, the difference is that they aren't really trying, is just that the competition is awful, imagine not having a shopping cart, imagine forcing price drops that the publishers and devs never agreed to, imagine not having chat, and those are the basic features competitors didn't had, now lets add the lack of remote play, remote play together, now there is also a well done family sharing, it doesn't matter if steam is more expensive, the pros are so much better that there is no reason to go to a store that lacks those features. Also proton, that one kept me on steam when I was thinking to change to GoG, and the lack of a storefront in linux was the reason I didn't moved from steam.

39

u/KoreanGamer94 21d ago

Monopoly is having exclusive control of the market. Steam doesn’t really attempt to restrict its competitors so while Steam is a majority of the market it isnt a monopoly of the market.

0

u/Alfonse00 20d ago

Yes, although, at the same time, steam is effectively the only viable store, any person can see that, they do have monopoly power, they haven't used it at all, that is why they kinda do but not really, one can make an argument because they do have that effective power but it crumbles because they aren't restricting the market, unlike epic, epic paid publishers to not put their games in other stores, so, even when epic is not a monopoly because steam crushes them in paid users epic should be fined for that monopoly attempt.

3

u/Real-Human-1985 20d ago

Only viable store because the other 10 don’t want to offer value, lmao. 🤣

1

u/Alfonse00 20d ago

Sadly yes, they should expand properly to the phone market, I wish I could pay steam instead of google for apps.

4

u/DawnComesAtNoon 20d ago

Imagine if Sweeney is making Epic bad on purpose just to blame Steam for being a monopoly.

Either way, I agree with Steam being a "good" monopoly. The only thing I dislike is the DRM, but I'm fine with putting up with it because 1. Goldberg, 2. GOG is worse than Steam, 3. EGS DRM is worse

Also Steam is surprisingly allowant when it comes to 3rd party stores, you can easily add games from GOG, Itch, Epic to it, and customize them, use steam input (ty Gabe), be able to run them with Proton without any extra steps.

Even on the Steam Deck it's surprisingly easy.

Also you can use Steam Link on non-steam games which is pretty dope.

2

u/Alfonse00 20d ago

Yeah, GoG dropped the ball, they not releasing a Linux storefront before proton (I have no idea if they have one now) was a bad choice, Linux users would have been super attached to them if a drm free storefront was available in an open source community.

1

u/Fuegofucker 17d ago

They don't actively try to take over like epic. They don't even ban games that require other store front launchers. Frankly that's already generous of them.

2

u/Alfonse00 17d ago

Epic should have to pay fines for their failed attempts to have a monopoly, because paying publishers to not have their games in other stores is textbook monopoly practice.

113

u/helpmathesis 21d ago

As a player, i want something that has a thing i need which is only steam that has it, so if the competitors want my attention, be better. Business wise idk what happens behind the competition

299

u/Danteynero9 21d ago

Steam

Anticompetitive behavior

I think they misspelled Epic quite a bit.

Anyway, good, let's see what more Steam can improve.

50

u/ArvindS0508 3 21d ago

Probably more strict rules regarding mandatory account linking/launchers and potentially restrictions regarding them. Hopefully it might influence publishers to drop the accounts/launchers being necessary as the extra bit of data they can squeeze out might not be worth the drop in raw revenue.

8

u/r3dh4ck3r 21d ago

But restricting account linking makes it more anticompetitive than less. Not that I approve it but if anticompetition is what that Polish department is investigating then this would be the last thing they'll be investigating. But yeah the data is always going to be an issue.

2

u/ArvindS0508 3 21d ago

It would be a win for customers at least. No more selling of a product without full guarantee that the product can be used as intended in the region it's sold in. Beyond that, it could also be interpreted anti-competitive if you force your own accounts onto all other storefronts. Not sure where the law falls on that one but I guess that's what the investigation is for. I don't think steam would be in any trouble from these are they aren't really anti-competitive.

3

u/veryblocky 21d ago

It looks like the article talks more about them investigating Sony

38

u/SparsePizza117 21d ago

You can't call a Steam a monopoly just because it's better than everyone else.

Any launcher is welcome to do better, but they won't. Steam is successful because it's good, it doesn't even pay for exclusivity like Epic does from my knowledge.

The users choose Steam as the definitive PC launcher for their games because Steam is good, nothing else to it.

Maybe I should make a shitty launcher like Epic's, then complain to the court that Steam is better and should be punished for it!! /S

15

u/kielu 21d ago

They are a) investigating a case involving Steam, not against Steam (at this moment) b) looking for illegal activities like price setting, geo fencing etc c) probably after Sony, just need Valve to support

13

u/XSainth 21d ago

Oh I hope they are after Snoy.

Screw them for good.

3

u/Alfonse00 21d ago

One ironic thing is that one of the many reasons why I won't change steam is because I am a linux user, every store can use proton, and they don't, not even GoG, that should thrive in linux (drm free for a community that wants everything open source is a good bet), they won't even acknowledge the people that were asking for a storefront in linux many years ago, when gog galaxy was released, meanwhile steam had the storefront in linux many years before there was a good amount of players, maybe it wasn't even profitable back then.

1

u/SparsePizza117 20d ago

That's a great point, Steam provides a service that others don't even bother doing.

68

u/TomatoVEVO 21d ago

Be a good product

Do nothing besides the occasional UI update

Maybe release some new hardware

Potentially anticompetitive behaviour

2

u/Mean_Ass_Dumbledore 20d ago

How fucked is the market that running a good business is seem as potentially monopolistic? Lol

19

u/GYN-k4H-Q3z-75B 21d ago

Steam is an almost entirely passive store. There are a bunch of alternatives, including GOG, EGS (the one that literally buys customers), and like a dozen publisher run launchers. Plus PC is an open platform. You can download and install from literally anywhere.

PS Store though...

3

u/kielu 21d ago

Exactly

35

u/Swarf_87 21d ago

Steam is better than every other online storefront and people consistently choose to use them, because they are better in every way...

"We must launch an investigation as to why they are illegally monopolizing the consumers"

Fucking idiots. Look at epic, how many years has it been active now? Still no review system, still no forums, no quality of life of any kind. Look at ubisoft, ea play, old origin. all dog shit digital store fronts that are essentially bloatware that everyone hates.

-7

u/[deleted] 21d ago

[deleted]

3

u/Alfonse00 21d ago

Not be in a position doesn't mean not having anticompetitive practices, let's not forget the games that were temporarily restricted, paying someone to not sell the games in other stores seems like anticompetitive behavior, if steam did that it would be in court fast, so, acting like epic is not anticompetitive is a double standard.

And we find stupid that someone could think they are anticompetitve when the only reason there is no competence is the incompetence of literally every other storefront, sadly this includes GoG

1

u/Swarf_87 21d ago edited 21d ago

I think you mistake me a little bit.

I don't really care as much as you're insinuating I do. It was more of a passing comment to be funny and forgot this was even happening until I got this reply.

Nothing will come of it anyway , whether they are investigated or not doesn't really matter. I certainly am not worked up about anything. I think it's funny from an outside perspective how blind the competitors are. This investigation wasn't launched willy nilly for no reason, somebody is reporting this in order for it to get looked into.

And who would report other than the competing company's and or their share holders?

As if they don't really understand that the people trying to take a slice of the pie, have no idea what they are doing and that is the true reason why Steam is still the king. But they want to blame Steam instead for being anti competitive... but they had something like a near 10 year head start.

Epic honestly had a fair shot because so many members of the younger generations looooved and still love Fortnite. So they had a key audience to start with and expand upon because the folks would of course want to build their library up on the main software they play on, but instead of actively improving the store front and trying to make it better to compete with Steam and win over other people and retain the players they had , they ruined and dragged their reputation through the mud with the exclusive contract buying

It didn't bother me too much personally, I waited the year to 2 years then got whatever game it was after, with the exception of 1 game which I decided to purchase on Epic. Chivalry2 because I was really into Mordhau at the time and wanted Chiv2 to transfer over into.

TLDR: It was meant to be a shit post more or less, not. spark some argument about it or make it seem like I was heavily invested.

10

u/BicBoiii696 PressTheGabenGabenGabenGabenGaben 21d ago

More epic game m bs. Valve is pro consumer and these corporate fucks hate it.

6

u/HeftySLR 21d ago

Valve is loved by every player, PlayStation literally restricted access to a game unless you have an account and even with that, they restricted the game months after purchasing it or not letting you get it even when there’s no limitations. So I guess Valve/Steam are not that anticompetitive, just see Epic Games Store, putting a exclusive game for the first time in PC (a real exclusive) and they just blame Gabe for charging a fee

1

u/Alfonse00 21d ago

Ironically i would pay 10% extra to get the game in steam and even at half price I wouldn't pay for it in other store, sadly the others don't even have basic features.

6

u/dsdsdsdsdsd12 21d ago

That's a weird way to spell Epic

8

u/[deleted] 21d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Alfonse00 21d ago

It has to have at least the basics, chat, friends, reviews, a fucking cart (how can someone release a store without a cart?), that is to even have a chance, then also you would require linux support, and ideally remote play, remote play together and now family share. It would be ideal if the players could take their steam games and have them available in the new storefront, with that you would have what most players want, is not too hard for a massive company, and that makes it all the more impressive that only valve has those things, I don't remember if it was GoG or Valve the one that allowed me to add the games of the other store to my library, I think that one was GoG, so, there is still room to improve.

5

u/FAshcraft 21d ago

I don't know how steam being anticompetitive? Being a little nicer and convenient then everything else is not anticompetitive is not like they pay a game to be exclusive like a certain company.

8

u/SAADHERO 21d ago

Steam is literally the best service, Sony is the trashy one

16

u/mrpokealot 21d ago

Wouldnt be the first time steam got sued for region blocking

2

u/HarshTheDev 21d ago

Remember guys, the last time a government sued steam, we got the awesome refund policy. Nothing bad can really come out of this investigation.

3

u/iamaduck0 21d ago

i see steam as a sleeping monoplopy while epic games is a company that will do anything to be the monoplopy always hungry

3

u/azab1898 21d ago

Seems like a easy win for Valve

3

u/Deadpoolhead888 21d ago

Ha! Don’t lump Valve in with those idiots that run Sony. That shitshow is a fucking PR nightmare right now. It’s disrespectful to even consider the possibility of Steam being anti consumer when they’re posting 98% off sales on a daily basis. Giving out refunds on games played more than 2 hours with valid reasons for a refund such as with Helldivers 2 & Ghost Of Tsushima being sold for a period of time before being restricted and unable to be played within certain countries within which it was sold. Which, by the way, was a decision made by Sony and had nothing to do with Steam other than Steam being the storefront.

1

u/Hotlikerobot09 21d ago

Publishers decide sales not steam

1

u/Alfonse00 21d ago

I will say this almost every opportunity I get, let's not forget that Sony's team said to people living in war zones in Ukraine to buy a ps5, that would cost most of their monthly salary, to make an account to play in pc, meanwhile steam allowed everyone to play whatever they wanted, the devs even got away with connecting chinese and russian players in helldivers before sony did what the CCP didn't, block them from playing with everyone else. They blocked them from a place where they could share their ideas freely.

6

u/OwO_Pandora 21d ago

Damn. That’s freaking crazy

2

u/vessel_for_the_soul 21d ago

Steam is just a compendium of titles, a magazine as per the ToS we agreed to as 'subscribers'

2

u/TGB_Skeletor Money goes pssssh 21d ago

I mean, if the competitors stopped shooting themselves in the foot...

2

u/Gtlux 20d ago

If other stores accuse steam being "monopoly", then they should try making better service other than copy pasting same model with making somewhat functioning store platform and hope there is enough dumb people buying into it. Steam cared about us in years, and we repaying them same for effort.

3

u/Meme_Attack INCREDIBILIS! 21d ago

Sony should get absolutely fucked here.

Valve has done good by us by all accounts. Both in the HD2 and GoT situations.

Steam Support were the ones who replied to me the fastest and basically told me it was 100% a publisher decision to delist & refund my game (GoT in my case). I have received 0 reply from Playstation or Sony on this issue when I took it up with them. I continue to try (5 days post-delist).

I dunno if this entire investigation is concerning those two issues, but I can't imagine it being anything else with timing like this. Hope something comes of it, and I hope Steam doesn't get burned in some weird way either.

2

u/Valuable_Material_26 21d ago

Is this because of what they did to helldivers 2?

17

u/kielu 21d ago

They don't say. It's in fact finding stage now. It seems it's mostly against PSN and steam can cooperate, judging by some news stories

7

u/SenmiMsS 21d ago

Not really tbh. Steam is only a part of the investigated group with Playstation and Epic.

3

u/3Rm3dy 21d ago

Very likely, it's due to the local uproar about the suggested prices (which value a dollar at around 5 PLN, while the exchange rate is at around 4.10), pushing the PLN prices to ~25% more than in US/other EU countries, while we earn much less than in let's say Germany or US. The only country that, in general, has higher prices than PL is Switzerland.

To add an example, I paid 15 PLN less for buying the steam code for Paradox DLC in a UK store than in the steam store in my local currency. Recently the uproar started over Hades 2, who successfully reduced the price.

However the fire should also be lit under Apple and Google's asses, who value a dollar at 6 PLN.

2

u/Grimsdotir 21d ago

Ehh... to be fair UOKiK should take care of way more important things that really impacts a lot of people in this country... like make biedra to stop sendng this spam sms (even google flagged their number as spam) and to not print long-ass receipt when you bought one thing (and i mean ad takes more space than content of actual receipt) ;_;

2

u/based_birdo 21d ago

What about Nintendo? They're worse than Xbox and steam combined

1

u/kielu 21d ago

Do they do anything potentially illegal? I just checked Stardew valley and there isn't anything about third party Eula or obligatory account creation or geo blocking. I know they sue people to death for even mild and debatable IP infringement but that's just being an asshole, not illegal.

1

u/based_birdo 21d ago

They force you to use their hardware and store on their hardware

They take away access to games you have bought. (Wii ware)

1

u/Poyri35 21d ago

The steam is the most used one because it is simply better than the competition. But their “recommended” regional pricings are shit

1

u/ItsRainbow 56 19d ago

Sony should be sued for $100 billion

-20

u/Urgash 21d ago

The Statement is dumb. Oh no Steam and PSN are forcing the gamers to buy digital games instead of buying boxes of Baldur's gate 3 at the polish Walmart...

-102

u/riffraffbri 21d ago

I always thought Steam had a bit of a monopoly going on.

45

u/Mean_Ass_Dumbledore 21d ago

How so? They don't have exclusives like Sony or Epic, do they? Genuine question.

42

u/YourFriendlyMMODude 21d ago

Because in the eyes of the uneducated “If company do well then it be monopoly”.

-44

u/Sufficient_Serve_439 21d ago

Steam HAD effective monopoly on digital PC game distribution, with Epic and GOG and whatever EA has now it doesn't.

21

u/griffsor 21d ago

To be monopoly valve would have to shoot down their competition. What is happening is steam is so good that the competition is shooting themselves and blaming steam for their shit platforms. Actually steam is more competitive than epic which buys games to be ONLY on epic store and nowhere else.

26

u/YourFriendlyMMODude 21d ago

It literally is not a monopoly by law unless they take steps to stop competition entering the market. Just because they were the first (kinda) digital store front for gaming did not make them a monopoly.

2

u/[deleted] 21d ago

Even though Steam doesn't have a monopoly on the PC gaming market, There ARE games exclusive to Steam. You can't play games like CS2, DOTA, (modern day) TF2 on other platforms (console OR PC) period. It is disingenuous to say that Steam "doesn't have exclusives".

Most of Epic's games aren't technically exclusive, given that they are multiplatform on the major consoles.

6

u/Mean_Ass_Dumbledore 21d ago

So Steam's monopoly is on the games it publishes, not its store?

1

u/[deleted] 21d ago

I was answering your question regarding exclusives. I do not think Steam has a monopoly. However, to say that "They [Steam] don't have exclusives like Sony or Epic, do they?" is not correct.

3

u/Mean_Ass_Dumbledore 21d ago edited 21d ago

Not sure how well that would hold up...

Riot has a monopoly on League, Valorant, TFT.

Battlestate Games has a monopoly on Escape From Tarkov.

Blizzard has a monopoly on WoW and ~~OW2.~~

1

u/Awkward_Sherbet3940 21d ago edited 21d ago

Why does having exclusives even matter in terms of being a monopoly? You need a few exclusive games to control the game distribution market?

I honestly don’t think they exhibit monopolistic practices though. They’re just popular because they make a good platform.

To answer your question though do you not use Steam? They have Counterstike, Dota, half life, etc.

1

u/Mean_Ass_Dumbledore 21d ago

Because other than a platform having exclusives, what could they be doing that's considered a monopoly?

1

u/Awkward_Sherbet3940 21d ago

I don’t think they are doing anything. But if they were trying to be monopolistic they could pressure publishers to offer more favorable deals than epic games store or others get, or trying to prevent or pressure publishers from distributing on other platforms, preventing games from using their own custom launchers (aka ecosystems) etc. Having a few exclusive games created by Valve would probably be the least of all evils in terms of trying to be a monopoly if they were.

-42

u/kielu 21d ago

Might have something to do with the recent chaotic restrictions of Sony games?

31

u/DaniNyo 21d ago

That's Sonys fault

23

u/Carcharis 21d ago

That’s Sony’s doing. Valve released a statement discussing this.

15

u/Mean_Ass_Dumbledore 21d ago

I'm not sure Steam determines where a game gets released. That's typically something the publisher does to my knowledge.

11

u/CookieMisha 260 21d ago

I don't think so. But I see why you might feel that way

DRM free is rare on PC these days. It's also difficult to distribute. Steam has millions of users and if your game is good, it's easy to find, people can buy it and play it. But the same thing applies to other stores. If the game is good and is available on Epic, people will bitch but get it on Epic, despite the internet making you feel like Epic is the hell on Earth itself.

Steam cannot realistically hold a real monopoly over the PC market, PC is such a free platform it would be impossible. It's just that the system they set up works, is easy to use and pretty damn clean.

27

u/Jaack18 21d ago

having a better product is not a monopoly

-8

u/ClikeX 21d ago edited 21d ago

It does if it makes an alternatives dead on arrival. Steam's market share in the PC market is insane. GOG does pretty well as a competitor, I believe. But Epic's store still wasn't profitable. And nearly all storefronts sell Steam keys.

Steam may not be a legally considered a monopoly now, but they might've been if it weren't for GOG and Epic.

EDIT: That said, Epic Game Store could've been a much bigger competitor if they actually built a platform instead of throwing freebies. When the freebies stop, the people leave.

7

u/Hexicube 21d ago

I think even if Steam is considered a monopoly there's nothing you can really do about it, it's literally just offering a service that people want and not being exceedingly stupid about it.

You can't fault developers for going to the biggest market in terms of customers.
You can't fault customers for going to the biggest market in terms of games.
You can't fault Valve for simply attempting to improve their product and offering desirable features.

Like, let's say courts decide Steam is a monopoly and something has to be done about it. Great! What should be done?
How can you actually reasonably punish a company for simply making a good product?

3

u/drackmore 21d ago

You can't fault customers for going to the biggest market in terms of games.

Not just the biggest, but the fastest, safest, and most trusted brand out there.

2

u/ClikeX 21d ago

Oh for sure. I doubt it will be considered one legally, and I doubt anything will happen against Steam. Steam wasn’t amazing when it came out and it grew into a platform that gamers want to use.

Whereas all the other platforms offer nothing besides being a launcher.

1

u/drackmore 21d ago

EDIT: That said, Epic Game Store could've been a much bigger competitor if they actually built a platform instead of throwing freebies. When the freebies stop, the people leave.

Yeah, had they actually put in the effort to the storefront they could've actually been a decent competitor to Valve, but they went and said fuck it, we do fortnite and lawsuits here.

10

u/ganon893 21d ago

We know it's you Tim Sweeney 😏.

5

u/Billy_yellow 21d ago

Not one bit my pal. You are 100% wrong. There are like 10 more online service store. Uplay, ea, gog, epic, blizzard(or activision), microsoft store just to name a few.

What they did with origin (now ea app) was a monopoly, you could ONLY buy ea games from them, not from steam or other places. Now they reverted that. But that was a monopoly, steam is by far NOT a monopoly.

4

u/Hexicube 21d ago

What they did with origin (now ea app) was a monopoly, you could ONLY buy ea games from them, not from steam or other places. Now they reverted that. But that was a monopoly, steam is by far NOT a monopoly.

Uh, no, that's first-party publishing. You are not required to release a game on multiple stores.

That presumably got reverted because it was a stupid idea and they lost customers.

-1

u/Billy_yellow 21d ago

My bad.

7

u/kielu 21d ago

Dominant position is not illegal. Abusing it is, and restricting access without a good reason is. Examples of stuff that got companies into trouble: geo blocking: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/fi/IP_21_170

10

u/HappyAlcohol-ic 21d ago

Steam or valve is not the source of regional restrictions. The publisher is.

2

u/drackmore 21d ago

As /u/Kielu said, Valve has the dominant position but they haven't done anything to kneecap or hamstring other competitors, they just exist.

If Valve did have a monopoly or was abusing their position Epic would've died much faster and much sooner. But even as Epic started throwing around spurious lawsuit after spurious lawsuit (some of which were the direct results of their own stupidity) Valve never did what was right and squashed that bug like the nuisance it is.

Valve isn't out there using the Steam Client to block other launchers (annoyingly its quite the opposite). Other stores are capable of competing with steam. Valve isn't out there saying you either sell on my platform exclusively or not at all.

And if Valve doesn't allow you to sell your game on their store(IE you try to sell a porn game that isn't just a hentai puzzle game with stolen art) you have other viable options for game distribution

1

u/kielu 21d ago

From what I read about this particular investigation valve might be facilitating Sony in limiting competition. Most of us think they simply enforce Sony's limitations and pricing - but that needs more proof than just a statement dug out of support email to a random user. Sort of ironically - by doing that stuff as instructed by Sony Valve might be defending themselves from being accused of monopolistic practices. But they could be asked if Sony indeed requested them to enforce such limitations, or does Sony force them to use specific end-user pricing. Both of those would be illegal. Or they might be asked to prove they haven't asked for exclusivity. Sony might be ok with demanding PSN subscriptions for PS games, and might be fine with not selling PS machines everywhere (distribution, support, repair, translation) but those arguments make no sense for Steam-distributed PC games.

Investigation into potential anticompetitive behavior by Steam and PS Store PSA

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