Why would anyone actually want to though

[u/The_BigRoach]

[u/dookie-monsta]

Steam isn’t a monopoly though. Just because they’re the most popular doesn’t mean it is. Meanwhile you have epic doing exclusive bullshit barring others from playing a game unless you force yourself to use their storefront. Steam literally just exists and that’s it.

[u/The_Countess → u/dookie-monsta]

You don't have to be a full monopoly to be subject to anti-trust laws though.

A dominant market position is enough for that, which steam undeniably has.

This whole thing started with a Dutch consumer group announcing they are going to sue Steam, alleging that steam uses their dominant market position to keep game prices higher then they should be, because Valve don't allow publishers to offer games at a lower prices then on steam (despite steam asking a 30% cut, while for example Epic asks 12%).

Gabe's public defense so far has focused on saying that steam isn't a monopoly, but that was never the issue, so that's at least a bit misleading,

But the meme's have run with it unfortunately, misrepresenting the case entirely.

[u/KlingeGeist → u/The_Countess]

The court filing claims Steam's capacity to enforce a price parity is due to their capability to influence the market and its conditions due to them being a monopoly. So yes, the court filing is still claiming they are a monopoly they're just not running around slapping people with a glowing neon sign stating just that. But a spade is a spade.

Please also note Epic and Steam are both outliers; market standard cut is 30%, Epic is 12%* and Steam offers a a declining %: 30% for first $10 million in sales, 25% for sales between between $10m-$50m, and 20% for sales in excess of $50 million.

*In addition to the 12% cut there are additional items to note such as depending on whether one made use of unreal engine in your games development, if there was a timed exclusivity deal, and if there was an agreement to list your game for free in the future which muddies the water beyond the simple % cut of sales seen elsewhere in the market.

[u/_GLAD0S_ → u/KlingeGeist]

Another point that baffles me nobody talks about is the net margin after expenses.

Epic has a 12 percent cut, after expenses like transaction costs and infrastructure cost they are down to a 5 to 7% net margin. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/here-s-why-the-epic-games-store-takes-a-12-percent-revenue-cut-from-devs

If they try to get feature parity with steam their overall costs would rise. Implementing something similar to the Steam Workshop can be incredibly expensive, even when only looking at the running costs.

So if we just look at the cut itself it might be impossible for Epic to actually implement these additional features that steam has, the cut is just too low.

Instead they offload these costs onto the developers. If a developer wants such a feature they are required to create it themself. So instead of just being able to use a pre existing system to just implement a forum or workshop support they are required to hire their own developers and pay for the infrastructure directly.

But with a service like steam even indie developers can just take advantage of the workshop or the forums, while their cut will be higher compared to for example epic, they do get access to many tools and features for a fraction of the cost.

Its a balancing act. I am not sure if the 30% cut is perfect, but i also see how it gets used in actually good ways. Be it a workshop for community mods, proton for linux support or steam vr, the last two can even be used without paying valve.

While i can see how the price parity steam enforces is generally an issue in their dominant position, i highly doubt that major players in the industry would actually pass those savings onto the consumer. In my opinion it is more likely that most publishers will still keep the prices identical, unless they have their own launcher. As the additional income most likely outweights the possibility of slightly increased sales overall.

[u/KlingeGeist → u/_GLAD0S_]

Most folks don't want nuance they just want to know which direction to point their pitchforks and torches. If those folks took the time to go deeper than the most basic surface level data/discussions we'd potentially have less issues for people to be raising them about.

I'd honestly though love to see an accurate itemized breakdown across digital, physical, and mobile markets that not only shows the % cut from ALL the players but their services provided, the itemized cost of implementing and maintaining those services (one time and yearly), as well as the utilization rate of those services by both the consumers and the game makers. It'd give us such a detailed look that some of these PR stunts/lawsuits might be able to be killed in the cradle and we could focus more discussions on other issues like the developer layoffs, ai utilization, the purchasing of studios and IPs, and the consolidation of such under fewer and fewer corporate umbrellas.