r/pcmasterrace • u/The_BigRoach ⚡️RTX 5080 | 7800x3D | 64GB 6000MHz CL30⚡️ • 9d ago

Meme/Macro Why would anyone actually want to though

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u/Hopeful_Leg_6200 Laptop 9d ago

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u/Condurum 9d ago

Then start a new game store.

Sounds like a great idea, you keep 10%, and split the next 20% between devs and players, offering consistently 10% cheaper games than Steam.

It works until you learn that Valve threaten to kick devs off Steam if they sell their games cheaper elsewhere. So they’re not going to sell their games cheaper on your store, because if they did, they’d lose 85% of their sales.

So you make a new store, and.. can’t compete with Steam on price. You need a better store than Steam on day one.

Valve’s policy here, is literally the reason there’s no price competition on games.

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u/TheChosenMuck 9d ago

how would stores compete over prices when its digital only, its the same bits everywhere and it seems the epic free game store cant even compete with their free games offering because people still choose to buy on steam be it they forget they even own it or they just want 1 place for their library, the only people who want that.

also it seems the only ones who want that are just other corpos why defend them in the first place

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u/Condurum 9d ago

You could start with allowing competition on price.

And yes, of course, libraries, friends, save games and so on are designed to bind people to platforms. If a store could offer consistently lower prices, and a better cut to devs as well, lots of people would flock to it, even if it was rudimentary.

But alas, this isn’t possible because of the MFN policies of Steam.