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That lawsuit against Steam’s 30% cut of game sales is now a class action, meaning many other developers could benefit (www.rockpapershotgun.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[+] [email protected] -7 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

You are in the wrong here, Steam have a term where you can't mark the sale cheaper on any other place, including your own website as you can generate your product keys.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I constantly see people saying this.

Explain the pricing on virtually every non-Valve-published game on IsThereAnyDeal at any given time. Steam is almost always being undercut by another legit store selling legit Steam keys.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Except those are grey market keys and Valve can just take the game away from you once they detect it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

ITAD only lists retailers that are fully legit. No grey market.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Unless you can point us to that term, is it worth considering that you may be in the wrong here?

I've been searching for someone who can give me more than "yeah, but I saw someone say it online" for a while now... I've read the public facing docs and have found nothing that says you can't sell your game cheaper - though there is something that says you can't sell your free generated Steam keys cheaper without an equivalent deal on Steam ([here] (https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys#3)).

It is important that you don't give Steam customers a worse deal than Steam key purchasers.

It's not even that strongly worded.

Even if there was a super secret policy, how do you think it is communicated to developers so they know not to do it?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Nope. This is, at best, a misconception. At worst, it’s an intentional misinterpretation. They have a term that prohibits the sale of Steam keys cheaper elsewhere. Game publishers are welcome to put their game up for sale on other sites for cheaper; They just can’t sell Steam keys cheaper. Basically, Steam wants to protect their own product keys from being undercut.

Ubisoft has their own storefront, and their own launcher. If you buy games on the Ubisoft Store, you get access to them via Ubisoft’s launcher, called Ubisoft Connect. Ubisoft is free to sell their games at whatever price they want on the Ubisoft Store, as long as they’re not granting access to the game as a Steam key. If you buy it on the Ubi Store and get access via Ubi Connect, then everything is fine. The only way it would be a breach of contract is if Ubi ran a sale on the Ubi Store, then gave players access via Steam. If you buy it cheaper than Steam on the Ubi Store, you won’t get a Steam key.

You can even sell DRM-free versions of your game for cheaper. As long as you’re not selling Steam keys, you’re fine.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

It's a major part of the lawsuit itself.

I did not set out with the goal of suing Valve, but I have personally experienced the conduct described in the complaint. When new video game stores were opening that charged much lower commissions than Valve, I decided that I would provide my game "Overgrowth" at a lower price to take advantage of the lower commission rates. I intended to write a blog post about the results.

But when I asked Valve about this plan, they replied that they would remove Overgrowth from Steam if I allowed it to be sold at a lower price anywhere, even from my own website without Steam keys and without Steam’s DRM. This would make it impossible for me, or any game developer, to determine whether or not Steam is earning their commission. I believe that other developers who charged lower prices on other stores have been contacted by Valve, telling them that their games will be removed from Steam if they did not raise their prices on competing stores.

http://blog.wolfire.com/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-class-action

So before saying they are wrong, see what happens in the lawsuit alleging just that

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

I've joined one of the Steam Dev Days conference in Seattle. It's around time where people was still doing things like cross buy etc. (so buying the game on website unlocks both steam, dev's own drm free version, maybe even console version.) I do not know if any of the actual developer term is updated after that time, but during the conference, one dev asked question exactly like this, can he sell his version without the 30% cut from valve if it does not going through Steam while giving away the steam key for free. The answer is no.

During the time it was explained that if you sell on different platform, that gives better sale %, steam can also impost that sale % on it's platform. At the time EGS was still not a thing but people asked about can they have different price on different platform, I think the answer is also no or not recommended, as they can request you to match say the base price of itch.io but they don't mind if that sale and software never use anything from steam. They specifically mention if any steam feature, like invite steam friend is used, then no, even if your game are not downloaded or use any steam distribution feature.