@@Fatttsreally though, GoG would be more successful as well if they didn't have such a stringent set of standards for their hosted games which is also what makes them the only good competition for steam. They aren't trying to bully their way into the market, they are just providing a good service
Nope. They hate steam because they are there for us customers and will literally refund us and lose a percentage of their cash to make sure we get what we actually deserve. So in conclusion. There suing valve for being probably the only good company
@BouncingTribbles All companies benefit from this lawsuit, except Valve. If Wolfire wins, no one will turn down their share of the damages -- not even Pirate Software or other vocal Valve supporters.
@@hollyc5417 Who in their right mind would've supported Apple? They don't deserve a cut of an in-game transaction just because they manufacture a device. It's a blatant monopolization of something that Apple has next to nothing to do with, but they still want their cut of the money.
There's tons of competition to steam. It just tends to completely bomb because Steam attracts more customers by being more pro-consumer and having a massively superior store experience. The laggy, buggy, labrinthine storefronts of UPlay, Origin, and the Epic store that aggressively push garbage you don't want are floundering because they REFUSE to compete. While GOG is doing fine in their own lane because they actually have a value proposition other than exclusivity agreements with specific games.
Not to mention that to be on UPlay or Origin, you have to climb into bed with Ubisoft or EA as publisher, which is rolling the dice because there's a good chance they'll simply tank your next gae and bankrupt the studio. Or commission you for something which you work on for years, then cancel it and bankrupt the studio. To be a studio tied to a publisher these days is to risk sinking the studio mid- to long-term
Yep. When sociopaths in suits peddle garbage, they get garbage returns. Instead of doing better, they want to cut down their competition to their size. It's like Cane and Abel, but for gaming.
I've collected so many free, quality games from the Epic Games Store. The damn program has never not been laggy, so I can't imagine using it to buy games. Only to play the hundreds I've collected over the last half-decade.
Steam holds the killswitch to your entire games library because you only buy a license and have to have access to Steam to use the games. And Valve is *still* the better option. Might wanna put some ice on that one, Epic.
I agree that steam is just better than the rest, but they do force devs to not sell games cheaper elsewhere. That's blatantly anti-competitive and that's why game devs are getting mad. The alternatives suck. Epic has no real incentive to take a smaller cut other than getting more games on their platform. People have no incentive to switch to other platforms when their stuff is already on steam, and devs aren't allowed to use price as an incentive despite it being cheaper to sell games on other platforms.
Butthurt dev: "Steam is pressuring devs to not sell their games on other platforms" Epic: Literally buys exclusivity so devs aren't allowed to sell their game ANYWHERE else. Butthurt dev: "STEAM IS EVIL!!!!!!!"
Valve isnt even pressuring to not sell on other platforms. It's literally only requiring price parity for steam keys. No steam key? No need for price parity.
Isn't curious that these devs who are suing Valve look shady as hell and haven't ever created a real high-quality game but just glorified tech demos?, it's almost like they just want a quick payday from suing Valve for a problem that doesn't exist since nobody is forcing them to sell their "games" on Steam and also I don't see them complaining about the consoles or Apple and Google which also take 30%. This all feels like a scam.
to be fair, if another company made a service better than Steam, people still wouldn't use it because 90% of PC games are already on Steam. Idk what the law says about that tho...
@@vibaj16Steam only had this large of a userbade BECAUSE it is the best platform available. If you want to thoughtexperiment a platform into existence that is better than Steam, then that would have to mean it has an equivalent userbase.
@@AnonD38 Steam having been pretty much the first platform of its kind was another major factor (arguably just as important as how good it was) that made it as big as it is now. Now that Steam exists, and dominates the market so much, a new platform has to be like 10 times better for players and developers to find it worthwhile to move to it.
@ No, if a platform is created that is genuinely better for developers AND consumers than Steam, then Steam would lose a big chunk of their userbase, no doubt.
@mechc9937cognition Valves actual greatest sin within the industry was their (arguable) spearheading of lootboxes and starting up what is essentially an NFT market before anyone knew what an NFT was with game cosmetics, leading to the issues with shit like box/skin gambling sites and stuff. It could be argued that Valve was just going where the industry was headed and all that, but TF2 is the first game I can think of that not only really pushed lootboxes with keys and junk for cosmetic unlocks but leaned fully into it by making the game free to play to fully rely on mtx income over traditional game sales income. I'm sure someone will come at me with some obscure example that came before it, but the influence of TF2 (and counter strike) on the industry, especially having the level of success they've had fiscally from it is undeniable unless you are being intentionally ignorant.
If anything, it's the opposite. Epic is the one that for a long time held an embargo. I've heard devs even say that they were permanently blacklisted from Epic for refusing to go wholly exclusive.
@@shadowslayer205 They've done even scummier things than that. Mechwarrior 5 was Kickstarter funded, and one of the perks you could get was a Steam key on release, until Epic came along and made a deal with Piranha for one year of exclusivity, at which point the Steam key was removed as a perk, *including* for people that had already backed the project. It also seems like Epic had a habit of doing this at the time, based on comments I'm reading in a reddit thread from the time.
Some developers don't like that Valve doesn't allow undercutting, that is there. You can't MSRP a game on Steam for 60 Euros and for 50 on EGS. MSRP has to be same on both
lmao why are you treating a lawsuit against a multi billion dollar company like a personal insult? Your beloved Lord GabeN isn't gonna let you kiss his toes bro
@@doktorhabilitowanystanczyk People feel insulted, because Steam is one of the most or the most customer-friendly Store there is. Aka, the new Rule to Season Passes they implemented
@@doktorhabilitowanystanczykSteam is literally the only platform in the industry willing to engorce stricter than necessary consumer protections. Steam needs to be protected.
I’ll never get why they keep piggybacking on the 30% cut when it’s literally industry standard, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo also take 30% games sold on their platforms, if they dislike the cut so much why don’t they also sue them???
@@bonelesschickennuggets1868 and what's crazy is on PC, you DO have other options besides Steam.. no such options exist if your game runs on a closed console platform and people pay without this upheaval.
Why don’t you want them to get better compensation? If they fight for 20% and make a whole 10% more of their total earnings then they can make better games. Valve doesn’t deserve 30 whole percent of a developers earnings
"I don't want to pay 30% cut" - then don't sell your game on Steam "But if I don't sell my game on steam I make less money" - Then why is 30% a problem if you make more money on Steam than anywhere else?
As a game developer myself, I'm just gonna announce now that i won't be joining this childish "give me money" lawsuit. Steam is one of the most user friendly platforms for developers. The amount of free tools they provide for testing, marketing and selling games are invaluable. Besides that, a 30% cut is very much industry standard with the Nintendo eShop, the PlayStation 4/5 Store, the Apple App Store and Google Play Store all taking very similar amounts.
@@White927 I don't work for steam. I'm just releasing a game on their platform. I do however not currently have any plans for micro transactions in my own game if that helps 😅
@@TheDragonfriday 30% is a small percentage for how much visibility Steam brings to your game or you think Vampire Survivors would be a huge success if not released in Steam?
30% is too expensive? They do realize that Valve covers ALL the distribution costs and hosting costs with that 30% right? It's not even 30% of individual games sold, it's a 30% cut of ALL sales made on Steam. They make 0% off of Steam keys sold on third party sites and there's no cost to generating Steam keys.
Steam is literally just popular. They have no rules against third party channels, they even let you use their platform integration utilities when you license your game on other platforms. Valve doesn't jealously guard against third party stores either, some of their own games are on GOG...
they have 2 rules about third party channels: 1: you can't sell a steam key for cheaper elsewhere. 2: if you put your steam key on sale elsewhere, you put it on a comparable sale on steam shortly after
They will, the claims are ridiculous. 1. The claim against Valve's 30% revenue share on Steam indeed overlooks that this is a widely accepted standard in the industry. Other platforms, like Sony’s PlayStation Store, Microsoft’s Xbox Store, and Apple’s App Store, also implement a 30% cut. Epic Games Store’s lower fee (12%) is more of an exception rather than the rule. Moreover, game pricing often adheres to industry norms, particularly for AAA games, which typically launch at uniform price points like $79.99, regardless of the platform or revenue-sharing model. 2. Game prices are more influenced by broader market expectations and publishing strategies than by the platform’s revenue model. Developers are typically paid based on prearranged contracts with publishers, meaning the platform fees are more about splitting the post-sale revenue than dictating game development or publishing costs. 3. If Valve indeed threatened to delist a game for breaching its Terms of Service (e.g., offering Steam keys at discounted prices on other platforms), this would generally be enforceable under their rules. However, if the claim is about non-Steam key sales, the publisher or developer would need strong evidence that Valve acted beyond their contractual rights. Without such evidence, Valve's enforcement of its platform policies would likely be seen as legitimate.
It is quite telling that the two main entities that filed this lawsuit have made nothingburger games. Overgrowth, while being a bit of a programming marvel back in the day, had nothing else besides that. The last I've heard of that game was a GDC showcase of the technology behind it. But the game itself is boring at best. And Djinni & Thaco is a VR game, which is inherently a niche market to begin with. So it seems like these two developers tripped over themselves with mediocre products, and expects Valve to pay for their failures. How utterly pathetic.
My thoughts exactly, the moment I heard the overgrowth devs were responsible for this I knew it was a cope lawsuit, game has been in indev hell for at least 10 years, extremely expensive too in its early access state, genuinely glad I never bought into the game
@@crolaa6137 It gets worse too. According to steamdb, Djinn & Thaco has a peak of only 5 players in its 4 years on the Steam platform. A 5 player peak in over 4 years. If that doesn't scream "My game flopped, please compensate for my failures", then I don't know what does. And apparently on metacritic, the developers of that game spent their time making accounts just to boost their review score.
@@crolaa6137 I have no clue. My guess is that this is one huge gamble to compensate for their failure. Buuuut... it could just be sheer idiocy at work.
As someone that bought Overgrowth back in the day... yeah once the physics engine's welcome wore out, the game became boring. I haven't played it in years.
Valve can charge whatever price they want, steam is their platform, and if you don’t agree with valve’s rules, then go sell your game on another platform 🤦🏻♂️
i personally don't agree with this, like I don't agree that the 30% cut is too high but I also think this mentality of "go sell it somewhere else" just ignores the problem that is actually presented, instead of challenging it
@@MisterChief711 problem of some individual developer SHOULD be ignored because it's none of our business. You don't like steam's cut - then find alternatives or go and distribute your game yourself. Correct me if I'm wrong but USRR died like 35 years ago and communism is currently exclusive to north korea.
@@MisterChief711 What problem? you said it yourself, 30% is not a problem, the consoles take 30% too and so does Apple and Google so why only single out Valve? also Valve doesn't prohibit anyone from publishing the games on other stores or skipping Steam entirely nobody forced them to use it, this lawsuit is clearly not fair and feels like something made to scam Valve and make some quick money from a nonexistent problem.
Judge "So Valve forces you to only sell your game on STEAM?" Lawyer "No. We can only sell STEAM keys on STEAM." Judge "Case Dismissed."-- This is dumb.
You can also sell steam keys elsewhere, and valve doesn't take any cut. The only restrictions are that you aren't allowed to sell those keys cheaper than the price on steam, and if you have a sale, you need to have a similar discount on steam within a reasonable timeframe. Those are very reasonable conditions since you are still utilizing valves resources despite steam keys not making them money.
@@AnonD38 Yeah. Valve offers so much for a very reasonable cut... what exactly are they wanting Valve to do differently? Are they hoping to change that 30% cut, or are they actually hoping for some type of settlement for cash? I guess lawyers just see a big fish with deep pockets and they want part of the fish fry.
Literally, the fact they claimed we're overpaying angered me so much. Where did they even get such outrageous information. We get our content for way below the actual market price!
I also want to bring up that when a ton of games went to epic there price stayed relatively the same, so no this is nothing about consumers paying to much but companies not getting more money
Steam regularly has sales where you can get even relatively new games for cheaper than market price, which I'd argue is the most pro-consumer movement in the industry. Epic forced us to buy the Kingdom Hearts remakes at full price, and you had to buy all of them separately. Steam allowed us to buy it heavily discounted for 2 months and we got EVERY game in the bundle for roughly $40. I will almost always support Steam for their pricing.
@@JoshuaGraves113 Steam does not set pricing on developers / publishers games. The developers and publishers do. They only set pricing on their own games.
They are for 2 hours, thats the window you have to refund or dispute any issues. After that there is no recourse, if the game server goes offline and you've played for 2 hours = no refund and the only response you'll ever get is "you played for more than 2 hours" - yes but the game is no longer available to play, it's gone.. "sorry but you played for more than 2 hours".. Or in my experience with Mortal Online 2, where on launch the servers were broken, you tried to join the server and just sat in queue, there was no indication of how many people were in the queue or how long you'd need to wait to join the game. I sat there for 30 mins and didn't join, gave up. Tried the next day, sat in queue for over an hour, no game, gave up. Eventually contacted Steam for a refund - you guessed it, they said no because i'd played for over two hours. I explained i'd not actually played and had sat in queue attempting to join a game for that amount of time, their response "you played for 2 hours, we won't discuss this anymore, no refund". Yeah, really customer focused and caring huh, lol. Steam has always had shit customer services, they really don't care at all. They do have a good online store though and for the 90% of the time their anti-consumer policies don't matter or effect anyone, so it's natural ppl think like they are great.
Valve and Steam ain't no perfect, but damn, they're surely better than the competition by all means. BUT in the long term, will Valve/Steam survive? I don't think so, the so called enshitiffication is inevitable. The question isn't IF but WHEN their store will turn into s*ht. I hope that when that happens, there'll be proper competitors.
@@tvlkn9130 2 hours of game time, and they should not give you more then that, but even if you have played over those 2 hours they may still grant you an exception, there are just no guarantee, as it's not meant to be used to Demo games
@@tvlkn9130This is just wrong? Like demonstrably false. As long as there is a good reason for your request for refund, Steam support usually grants it. Sometimes your first request is handled by a bot and auto-denied, in that case you simply have to try again until you get through to a human. Steam IS consumer friendly.
Any judge who knows about steam would dismiss this case. Its objectively incorrect to say that steam is anti-consumer or encourages game developers to not realease on other platforms. The majority of noteworthy games release on gog and epic alongside steam and steam is at least one of the most pro consumer storefronts in the gaming sphere, and likely overall. I can understand people believing that a 30% cut is too high, i disagree, but i can understand, however to start a class action lawsuit over it is just childish, silly and a waste of everyones time and money. Its more of a publicity stunt than anything.
@sinelacico 30% of people's earnings is the price developers contractually agree to give to valve in exchange for being allowed to use their storefront to reach more people. Valve has an overhead, an extremely large overhead, which involves all sorts of server upkeep, research and development costs, employee salaries, game development costs and maintenance costs, which is why they take 30% in the first place. I can understand people wanting that percentage to be lowered, but it is a scumbag move to start a class action lawsuit, outright lying about anti-consumer practices and monopolisation, to have the percentage lowered. And I suspect the developers in question are receiving heavy compensation from epic games for doing so. What do you suggest, that valve lets people sell their games on steam for free?
@@sinelacico bro nothing is free. Since steam is the biggest platform, there is a pay to publish your game there and steam being steam 30% is very good deal you still get majority of the money from your game idk what yall yapping about
@@sinelacico yeah, lets shift the values, devs get 70% of the cut, it is less compared to epic's 88% but the user base and potential buyers are much higher on steam. If you actually make a good game you are going to earn way more on steam than in any other plataform.
Funny part is that I was looking forward to Overgrowth when I first discovered it. Didn't take too many years to realise that Wolfire games can't make an actual game. Only a tech demo for physics with no actual content. Receiver also looked underwhelming as hell. While 30% is quite a lot of money for a small dev, they also miss the point that they get extra visibility if they are on Steam. They are always free to host their games on other platforms if they think Valve is unfair.
They can even host their game on their own website or even their own platform if they want to make one, Valve is not going to stop them, but we all know that this is about scamming Valve, these devs look shady as hell and haven't even created a real high-quality game, they just want a quick payday from suing Valve for a problem that doesn't exist.
It isn't even quite a lot of money. If they wanted to distribute themselves, the costs could run far beyond that 30%, not to talk about having to pay for marketing and advertising yourself, rather than being ably to mostly rely on Steams internal marketing (that they do for you), and perhaps some RUclips videos. Releasing a physical Playstation game could cost like 70% of the revenue, easily... 30% is like almost nothing in the end. Even if we compare by Epic, you only get 25% more revenue if you sold an equivalent amount of copies, and you would lose out on a LOT! of benefits that comes from being on Steam, everything from Steam Workshop, Steamworks for multiplayer, the third party reviews, hosting the game itself, hosting multiple revisions of the game if you so desire, being an automatic update platform, showing your game through the friendslist, and FAR!!! FAR!!! more.
I wanna yap about how i actually really like Wf games, both overgrowth and reveiver 2 are really unique and fun experiences, overgrowth in particular still being updated with new campaigns, receiver 2 was supposed to receive a dlc before the lawsuit took center stage. But Wf lost all my respect with this frankly scummy lawsuit...
The irony is that Steam is very indie/small dev friendly. They always market them just as much as big devs, have events just for them. Hell the Portal 2 ARG was literally a bundle of 13 indie games used to tie in and get exposure.
@@UnimportantAcc I agree 20% would be ideal, but its hard to argue for when others happily take 30%. If it's the industry standard then all developers need to adapt to account for Valve's cut.. as they already do..
I mean its fantastic to play mechanically, its just that there's nothing else to the game. Its entirely just user content, and Rabbit kung-fu, bottled up into a rushed and barren experience. Underwhelming Rabbit Kung-fu makes it sound like it didn't even get that right, but really that's the only thing they got right. Its very tight, very fun, it just needs like.... the rest of the damn game. So I'm not surprised they can't sell it if that's all they did for about a decade and on their early access funds.
How is this even a thing? This is like renting a room in a 5 star hotel, and then complaining about that it is more expensive than other 2 star hotels. If businesses think that the benefits of using Steam does not outweigh the 30% cut they take, then they should just not use Steam.
This "dev" has only made glorified tech demos, no wonder they want to scam Valve since they can't even make actual games. I'm sure that if Valve goes after them like they should've from the beginning they're going to discover a lot of things about them.
I've read the entire terms of service, both user and developer. They're as fair as a clear sunny day. Their commission fees aren't also exhagerated either, and 30% for the early costs is fine, specially since it goes down depending on how famous the game becomes. Valve also sides with the consumer more often than not, so if you screw up as a developer you'll damn well pay for it. There's no multi-layer shielding from your fuck-ups. I believe they're just afraid of not paying a fixed value, but rather a scaling one.
Valve moving to New Zealand soon :3 Not fanboying, but other companies can make a better platform, Valve is a private business, you don't like it? Take your business somewhere else. The workshop alone makes the fee warranted
imagine getting a lawsuit because your just actually better than the competition, valve just sits there and watches as their own greed consumes and rots game publishers or just have a shitty launching service. honestly it's so pathetic valve is getting hated on by toxic developers or salty gaming corpos because they're just doing their thing and the fans like it.
Amazon is like 70%, and Google is (probably like 99.99%, but they don't tell you how much they made they only tell you how much you get at the end which is usually cents.)
Every Half-Life has a lawsuit with it... Gman wears a blue suit. Lawyers wear blue suits. This is now the 3rd lawsuit. 3+1+1-2=3 Barney appears in 3 half life games. Half-Life: Barney confirmed
Those disagreeing with Steam's policies should make their own platform and watch it get taken apart by investors and stock ownership (they are not Gabe)
@@White927 that's the price that the players themselves decided on, valve has no say on the prices of skins. all they do is set a price on the key for opening the case, and the rarity (droprate) of the skins in the case. Everything else is simply the players controlling the market. skins worth 10k+ dollars are worth that much because 1. they're rare. 2. there's demand. 3. people pay that price. a lot of the most expensive skins ever have been sold for literal cents in the past, back when the game wasn't as big and the prices hadn't adjusted. CSGO is not like valorant, league, r6, or any other non-valve game, because players can freely trade and sell their in-game items, creating a real economy / market, unlike every other game where the company (developer) sets the prices as they see fit. The other valve games are exactly the same (Dota2, TF2). And even though Counter-Strike may have some of the most expensive in-game items in all of gaming, it also has the cheapest ones. You could have multiple skins for every single gun in the game with less than 5 dollars, if you dont mind having plain-looking skins. Meanwhile in Valorant you can't even buy a single skin for less than 10 dollars if there isn't some big sale. Even the shit skins nobody wants cost more than that. Also, Steam allows people to freely trade, which makes it possible for an entire third-party market to exist. You can sell your skins for real money, deposited directly in your bank account. I've sold a knife and a pair of gloves myself, made about 200$ profit off of it. Straight into my bank account. Can't do that with any other big company.
In the court filings, Scott Lynch identified himself as a director on Valve's Board of Directors, suggesting that Valve Corporation may operate more like a typical corporation than commonly portrayed. Additionally, Valve employees have publicly discussed owning, buying, and selling shares of the company.
No one is forcing them to sell their game through Steam. They read the legalities when they agreed to put the game on the store and are just looking for ways to make more money after their game underperformed. I'm glad Steam has finally done something about season passes and devs taking advantage of consumers and I hope their next move is to refund gamers that bought games in early access from devs that are releasing DLC while their game is still in development years later; RocketWerkz with Icarus and Hinterland Studios with The Long Dark are two good examples of this. No other industry gets away with fleecing their customers like they do in the games industry.
Valve : you can sell steam keys outside our plataform, just dont make the price lower then the one in our storefront. Devs : Thats scummy. Valve : Youre using our ecosystem and our infrastructure Devs : You are monopolizing the market 😡
Honestly I've never seen this enforced as I literally see on a daily basis games on sale using Steam keys on other platforms for way cheaper than what the game goes on Steam and with a deeper discount. And I've been a PC gamer and user of Steam since late 2006.
@@godkekliveshere431 Hey are you a game dev? or just decided to be a ck today? Because i am a gamedev and steam is way better than any other game distribution platforms.
I don't see how their argument has any bite to it. Steam TOS literally doesn't ban you from selling anywhere else (just make sure if you do to keep their prices same to steam which is fair)
@@geekmechanic1473 which only makes sense until someone points out that you could sell a non-steam version of the game for 20c and a steam version for $20, and steam'd be fine with it.
@@geekmechanic1473 Nope, only apply to STEAM KEY, which literally uses their bandwidth and structure. Literally the case of "I don't want you to use MY service, without paying any fee, to undercut my store". The real life equivalent would be you use a supermarket's infrastructure and logistics to move stuff around for you for free and still want to sell for a lower price. In layman's terms, it's called being a leech.
@@raizors1331 the op is talking about price parity not steam keys. Also we won't know if they aren't trying to force devs to do this until discovery. Just because it's not out in the open in their TOS doesn't mean they don't do it, that's the purpose of discovery.
This is simple, when you do things right, people come to you... "monopoly" is not a problem, is a factor. Valve did a great job doing Half Life = People bought the game. Valve did a great job doing Half Life 2 = People bought the game. Valve did a great job making the Steam Deck = People bought his console. Valve did a great job making the Steam Controller = People bought that hardware. Valve have a great idea by selling games virtually = People download Steam. ¿Excessive prices? I'm not gonna lie, every game i own in my steam account i bought it at 90% discount, maybe 80% because when i see a game i like i simply add it to my wishlist, and wait for the notification to pop up. Just to give you an example today 03/12/2024 Battlefield V is on 90% discount (you can see many examples at the Steam Store by yourself). And another thing, I don't have a gun pointed at my head either... If I stop liking Steam I'll just buy games from other stores.
Yeah especially since 30% is the industry standard, Google, Apple, Sony, Microsoft, Steam, and others, the only one that I know of that takes less is Epic.
"We are filing a lawsuit not because our game sucks ass and doesn't sell but because of Steam being such a superior platform that they have no decent competitors."
Wanting compensation for choosing to spending money on a non-essential luxury product (videogame) is completely ridiculous and is obviously a scheme to sue valve for profit.
Valve literally cuts the best deal as far as publishers go. 30% is the best deal you will find. If you dont like having the best deal, go pay more money to be on an inferior platform that potentially owns more of your game than you do as the developer. The entitlement of people, I swear.
Guys, it's very simple. The competition just can't keep up with the success of Valve, so they are envious and want to bring Valve down at any costs. This is just how life works unfortunately.
"Charging excessive prices on Steam"?? That's a joke, right? $100 and a 30% cut seem reasonable for easy, safe, protected, global software distribution. And don't tell me it's the prices of games on Steam. It's the developers who set those, not Valve
Honestly? Valve is the only company i feel i can actually trust at this point Nintendo? Scummy lawsuits Meta? Insecure data PlayStation/Sony? Required account for PC Google? No longer "don't be evil" Epic? Steals games from Steam and despises Linux The list goes on and on, but Valve/Steam hasn't done anything to break my trust so far
@igorthelight I'll be completely honest, I forgot gog existed in the moment I wrote this lmao Outside of Valve and GoG, there's not many companies you can trust nowadays
It's not like Steam is an Apple Store with a monopoly on the platform, you can very well release your game elsewhere, but good luck having the visibility and pro-consumer service that Steam and GOG have compared to the other platforms.
apple store is a bad example because apple products literally lost a lawsuit recently because you could not, in fact, look elsewhere thanks to their locked ecosystem.
@@pyromeerkat4641 1, I did mistread the first sentence, so I should thank you for that, but 2, you really ain't gotta be condescending about it. People make mistakes. Let them.
@@shirothefish9688 If your gonna put the effort in to write a comment at least put the effort in to read what you are replying to... I feel like thats more rude then what i did tbh
@@pyromeerkat4641 like I said, everyone makes mistakes. I did read what was written, and In my case I was up later than I should have been and failed to read the first sentence correctly. Failing to be able to read it properly is not the same as not reading it at all, as in the latter circumstance the reader believes they have understood what was said, and can only discover their misguidance on re-reading the text, often with a later date being requisite. We are now at a later date, and the mistake is quite obvious to not just you, but me as well. There's many valid reasons to misread things. In other situations, people may have disorders or malfunctions within their bodies which can hinder reading ability and/or comprehension. I wasn't being mean to OP, I was just stating a fact that happened to be irrelevant as a result to the aforementioned mistake. A single sentence, and that can and has been cleared up. Anyone reading the comments here can see that, know my first comment is irrelevant to OP, and continue onwards. Valid reasons to be mean to people in such ways, however, are much fewer and far between. This situation does not constitute such a reason. lastly, because I am a bit petty: you're*.
Overgrowth devs suing steam is insane considering they've had overgrowth indev for like 10 years atp, milking it for aloooot of money, weird this is only happening now after their game has run it's life cycle
Steam isn't Anti-competitive. They're just BETTER than other options. The only store that others talk fondly of is GoG due to them making older games compatible with current systems and generally having a lot of DRM-free titles. Storefronts like Epic that have options. Lack the same core features that make steam good. And storefronts like Origin, Ubisoft's and Activisions are all just... Bad. Being only for that one company's games and nothing else. And that 30% cut steam gets? They give developers a plethora of support in that package. Giving Devs no matter how big or small everything they need to get their game out there to be bought. A store page, Forums, review sections etc. And Steam 'Pressuring games to not be sold on other platforms'. The ONLY time they get pissed. Is when Game keys are generated (Which is done for free by the way), To be sold on places G2W for lower prices than steam. Thus Robbing Steam of their 30%. Which is really scummy. Using a platform to have your game hosted on, but not give them a single cent in return. This entire Lawsuit has just been generated by 2 types of pissy people. 1. small teams who don't want to pay steam a fair cut for using their store. 2. Large publishers annoyed no one wants to use their trash launchers and are thus 'forced' to use steam. (Though at this point, while for instance, Ubisoft's launcher and enforced constant connection is bad enough. Their games are also not appealing to anyone)
I saw Wolfire and immediately cringed. Theyre the ones who have been milking early access for 16 years with Overgrowth. So many promises and still nothing substantial after 16 years of development and money.
All these lawsuits are wrong. I support Steam. What I get for my purchase of any game is far more than I pay. There's so much stuff wrapped around the game that the Steam platform provides to enrich that games experience. Why would anyone pick a fight where there is none. These Devs are just after payouts so they don't have to actually release a game.
Valve is the only company I’d ever defend in a situation like this. I love valve and I say all the time they are my favorite company. They simply just provide the best platform, make the best games, make good hardware, and innovate.
Epic store is a joke and they just as greedy as EA or Microsoft’s. At least steam has sales all the time. Epic store bribe devs with money only if they sign up with them. Then they bribe gamers with free games. But epic store does NOT Offer half the features of steam. ms who locking game behind their bloated windows bs. At least Valve is trying make Linux gaming the better option for pc gamers. Steam deck is proof of this and it’s true. Why aren’t more ppl suing ms for having a Monopoly with windows?? Ms has bullied all other OS out of business except Mac OS and Linux. IBM Os/2 Warp was SHUT DOWN by ms Cus was threat to windows. Many other os in mid 90’s to early 2000’s we’re shut down by ms, Cus they were threat to window. Windows has CHOKE hold on pc market but nobody seem care about that. We all bitch about how bad windows 11 is. But nobody want do anything? And they go after valve? Why aren’t more ppl pissed of ms trying kill off windows 10. When we know window 11 is FAR WORST???
Steam sells more copies for your game. Steam takes higher cut. Epic sells less copies for your game. Epic takes smaller cut. It balances out, and for some reason this dev doesn't understand that.
This 30% cut is not just for selling on platform but everything that you get with it too. Things like exposure, online saves, download servers, skins, key distribution, workshops, forums and everything else. They are the biggest for a reason, because they do things the right way for consumer and developer.
Really hope Valve doesn't lose this lawsuit.. would set such a bad precedent in the game industry. In a world where anti consumerism is absolutely rampant it is so obnoxious that the only consumer friendly games platform is the one getting sued every other year for being "a monopoly".. Steam is literally proof that respecting the consumer first means consumers will prefer your service. Not that they're a monopoly.
Idea steam games being costly as they are due steam cut is definitely not true as most games on steam are under 40$ with most games being more expensive being part of a different problem.
I can't understand these developers, they're literally choosing by themselves to sell on Steam, it's not like Steam is forcing them. If you don't like steams rules there's nobody stopping you from leaving.
How is Steam anti competitive? From what I know, Steam doesn't restrict developers from releasing their games to other platforms. There's no exclusivity. Wouldn't Sony and Xbox fit the bill for these claims, overpriced charges and anticompetitive behavior?
Valve is not anti-competition, their competition is anti-competition.
And their competition sucks, exception being GoG.
@@Fatttsreally though, GoG would be more successful as well if they didn't have such a stringent set of standards for their hosted games which is also what makes them the only good competition for steam. They aren't trying to bully their way into the market, they are just providing a good service
@@Fattts yea gog is cool but everybody else is just epic games
Exactly
One doesn't exclude the other.
these people have to fight one lawsuit everytime they're going to release a new half life it seems
Stars align and we see the indications
It's what the tradition...demands
@@johnthememer1 History really does repeat itself, doesn’t it?
you got that backwards - if they are finally releasing hl3, they are only releasing it to distract from this and gain positive image
is it really that time again...
They hate Steam because they aren't Steam. Suits being vultures is nothing new
Oh yeah Tim Sweeney wishes he made Half Life instead of "Unreal"
Word
preach!
Nope. They hate steam because they are there for us customers and will literally refund us and lose a percentage of their cash to make sure we get what we actually deserve. So in conclusion. There suing valve for being probably the only good company
@@Aresydatchyou mesn the franchise too Unreal Tournament?
So many legal problems. Valve is definitely working on Half-life 3 confirmed.
it took theme over a lifetime to go back on HL3
Did valve have legal problems on the first 2 games?
@@PETRIXXXX that's not a excuses lol 😂
Disney has legal problems all the time yet they publish way more stuff then valve
@@godkekliveshere431 no i was just asking a genuine question
@@PETRIXXXX aw ok then ...
but sound a bit like a excuse just saying
I am significantly less likely to purchase any products from any company that supports this lawsuit
`which other company's support it? pls dont tell me newblood or landfallll PLSSS
@@retro_founder newblood is cool
This exactly, company that mess with Steam basically is saying "I want players suffer though"
@@Mortal_Indeed lol, exactly. There's a reason I've never installed the Epic storefront.
@BouncingTribbles All companies benefit from this lawsuit, except Valve. If Wolfire wins, no one will turn down their share of the damages -- not even Pirate Software or other vocal Valve supporters.
Dude would rather filed a lawsuit rather than make advertisement for their games
That's the advertisement
I bet you supported epic games in suing apple.
@@hollyc5417 Who in their right mind would've supported Apple? They don't deserve a cut of an in-game transaction just because they manufacture a device. It's a blatant monopolization of something that Apple has next to nothing to do with, but they still want their cut of the money.
Whar
@@hollyc5417 I don't really care about epic's other shenanigans but apple deserved that one.
There's tons of competition to steam. It just tends to completely bomb because Steam attracts more customers by being more pro-consumer and having a massively superior store experience. The laggy, buggy, labrinthine storefronts of UPlay, Origin, and the Epic store that aggressively push garbage you don't want are floundering because they REFUSE to compete. While GOG is doing fine in their own lane because they actually have a value proposition other than exclusivity agreements with specific games.
Not to mention that to be on UPlay or Origin, you have to climb into bed with Ubisoft or EA as publisher, which is rolling the dice because there's a good chance they'll simply tank your next gae and bankrupt the studio. Or commission you for something which you work on for years, then cancel it and bankrupt the studio. To be a studio tied to a publisher these days is to risk sinking the studio mid- to long-term
Yep. When sociopaths in suits peddle garbage, they get garbage returns. Instead of doing better, they want to cut down their competition to their size. It's like Cane and Abel, but for gaming.
I've collected so many free, quality games from the Epic Games Store. The damn program has never not been laggy, so I can't imagine using it to buy games. Only to play the hundreds I've collected over the last half-decade.
Steam holds the killswitch to your entire games library because you only buy a license and have to have access to Steam to use the games. And Valve is *still* the better option. Might wanna put some ice on that one, Epic.
I agree that steam is just better than the rest, but they do force devs to not sell games cheaper elsewhere. That's blatantly anti-competitive and that's why game devs are getting mad. The alternatives suck. Epic has no real incentive to take a smaller cut other than getting more games on their platform. People have no incentive to switch to other platforms when their stuff is already on steam, and devs aren't allowed to use price as an incentive despite it being cheaper to sell games on other platforms.
Butthurt dev: "Steam is pressuring devs to not sell their games on other platforms"
Epic: Literally buys exclusivity so devs aren't allowed to sell their game ANYWHERE else.
Butthurt dev: "STEAM IS EVIL!!!!!!!"
Valve isnt even pressuring to not sell on other platforms. It's literally only requiring price parity for steam keys. No steam key? No need for price parity.
Again gaben will do nothing and win , light work for king of gaming. 😂
Epic literally sells AAA for free.
@@Immolator772imagine a product so bad you have to give it away for free and still lose the market
@@Immolator772 how desperate can you be
Isn't curious that these devs who are suing Valve look shady as hell and haven't ever created a real high-quality game but just glorified tech demos?, it's almost like they just want a quick payday from suing Valve for a problem that doesn't exist since nobody is forcing them to sell their "games" on Steam and also I don't see them complaining about the consoles or Apple and Google which also take 30%. This all feels like a scam.
They are government talmudist agents that's why, being an agent doesn't always mean you are in the club it means you are a tool to be used
I don't know anything about dark cat studios but I genuinely enjoy Overgrowth from Wolfire. I'm kinda disappointed to hear that they're doing this. :(
Overgrowth is a really fun tech demo, at least
I've had Overgrowth on my wishlist for years, game looks great. Probably never going to get it now
@@julianchristensen7350 isn't Overgrowth a remake of Lugaru (one of the "first" Linux games)?
"We at [company name] believe that because Steam offers the best customer service it removes any competitors and therefore should be taken down."
to be fair, if another company made a service better than Steam, people still wouldn't use it because 90% of PC games are already on Steam. Idk what the law says about that tho...
@@vibaj16 I don't think these lawsuits will achieve anything
@@vibaj16Steam only had this large of a userbade BECAUSE it is the best platform available.
If you want to thoughtexperiment a platform into existence that is better than Steam, then that would have to mean it has an equivalent userbase.
@@AnonD38 Steam having been pretty much the first platform of its kind was another major factor (arguably just as important as how good it was) that made it as big as it is now. Now that Steam exists, and dominates the market so much, a new platform has to be like 10 times better for players and developers to find it worthwhile to move to it.
@ No, if a platform is created that is genuinely better for developers AND consumers than Steam, then Steam would lose a big chunk of their userbase, no doubt.
There is, literally not a single thing in the tos that says you cannot sell on both epic games and steam, and other platforms.
Also arguably, case opening sites actually need to be addressed legally
@mechc9937cognition Valves actual greatest sin within the industry was their (arguable) spearheading of lootboxes and starting up what is essentially an NFT market before anyone knew what an NFT was with game cosmetics, leading to the issues with shit like box/skin gambling sites and stuff.
It could be argued that Valve was just going where the industry was headed and all that, but TF2 is the first game I can think of that not only really pushed lootboxes with keys and junk for cosmetic unlocks but leaned fully into it by making the game free to play to fully rely on mtx income over traditional game sales income. I'm sure someone will come at me with some obscure example that came before it, but the influence of TF2 (and counter strike) on the industry, especially having the level of success they've had fiscally from it is undeniable unless you are being intentionally ignorant.
If anything, it's the opposite. Epic is the one that for a long time held an embargo. I've heard devs even say that they were permanently blacklisted from Epic for refusing to go wholly exclusive.
@@shadowslayer205 They've done even scummier things than that. Mechwarrior 5 was Kickstarter funded, and one of the perks you could get was a Steam key on release, until Epic came along and made a deal with Piranha for one year of exclusivity, at which point the Steam key was removed as a perk, *including* for people that had already backed the project. It also seems like Epic had a habit of doing this at the time, based on comments I'm reading in a reddit thread from the time.
Some developers don't like that Valve doesn't allow undercutting, that is there. You can't MSRP a game on Steam for 60 Euros and for 50 on EGS. MSRP has to be same on both
0:47 Roblox developers getting 30% of the revenue out of their games:
Roblox "games" are legally called "experiences", so there's nothing that can be done for them.
10% actually
As someone else said: "I am significantly less likely to purchase any products from any company that supports this lawsuit"
Yes.. 1000%
lmao why are you treating a lawsuit against a multi billion dollar company like a personal insult? Your beloved Lord GabeN isn't gonna let you kiss his toes bro
I found your comment below that exact comment.
@@doktorhabilitowanystanczyk People feel insulted, because Steam is one of the most or the most customer-friendly Store there is. Aka, the new Rule to Season Passes they implemented
@@doktorhabilitowanystanczykSteam is literally the only platform in the industry willing to engorce stricter than necessary consumer protections.
Steam needs to be protected.
I feel sorry for Steam, they're the good guys doing their best and yet they get treated like this.
Its a multi billion company and gaben has armada of 6 mega yaths. They are fine.
@@IV-A You got shot in the leg. Oh, but you’ve eaten well before so you’ll be fine.
@@IV-A Not all multi billion companies are soulless, when they are, it's usually because they're publicly traded stocks, which valve isn't.
@@Dallows65VaLVE will be fine. There's no way their lawyers will lose this.
ehhhh, not good guys, just not bad
Saying 30% is high is crazy...
You're even lucky to get that small of a cut for a big company.
Amazon audible takes 70% cut if they did not go with a publisher, publisher get a lower deal
Also just by selling the game on steam would make up for the 30%.
I’ll never get why they keep piggybacking on the 30% cut when it’s literally industry standard, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo also take 30% games sold on their platforms, if they dislike the cut so much why don’t they also sue them???
@@bonelesschickennuggets1868 Because Steam is privately owned and cannot be subverted as easily.
@@bonelesschickennuggets1868 and what's crazy is on PC, you DO have other options besides Steam.. no such options exist if your game runs on a closed console platform and people pay without this upheaval.
butthurt game devs who don't agree with 30% should move their asses to Epic and see if they do nearly as well there
also selling steam keys outside of steam take 0% cut.
Wait really ?!!
Why don’t you want them to get better compensation? If they fight for 20% and make a whole 10% more of their total earnings then they can make better games. Valve doesn’t deserve 30 whole percent of a developers earnings
Epic Games reportedly only take 12% but the gross sales are much much lower than they make on Steam
"I don't want to pay 30% cut" - then don't sell your game on Steam "But if I don't sell my game on steam I make less money" - Then why is 30% a problem if you make more money on Steam than anywhere else?
Can these devs F-off ? I want valve to make Half-Life 3 in peace…
They just might if they didn’t make so much money from steam!
@@TTSP907Well it is in development for about 4 years now
No, this is good.
If they lose it sets precedent.
@@knerf999 nice try Tim Sweeney
@@knerf999 Precedent for what exactly?
As a game developer myself, I'm just gonna announce now that i won't be joining this childish "give me money" lawsuit.
Steam is one of the most user friendly platforms for developers. The amount of free tools they provide for testing, marketing and selling games are invaluable.
Besides that, a 30% cut is very much industry standard with the Nintendo eShop, the PlayStation 4/5 Store, the Apple App Store and Google Play Store all taking very similar amounts.
Someone pin this comment!
@@White927 I don't work for steam. I'm just releasing a game on their platform.
I do however not currently have any plans for micro transactions in my own game if that helps 😅
@White927 Microtransactions are created by the studio behind the games, not Valve/Steam
@@White927 I give up you win
@@White927 omg that's funny 😂
Steam literally doesn't stop you from posting the game elsewhere. These guys are stupid.
Other people are actually trying to force them to do so too
They do stop you if you offer a lower price, even when Steam keys aren’t involved. Read the evidence.
They just want you to not try to screw them over by selling for less money on other markets. Is it really that hard?
And nobody has stated that.
Istg why are game devs so against valve when their services are so pro consumer
Yeah I don't get it 30% is not bad. It not effect us consumer6
@@TheDragonfriday 30% is a small percentage for how much visibility Steam brings to your game or you think Vampire Survivors would be a huge success if not released in Steam?
It affects the developers though, so just think about it for a second… why are game devs against things that hurt game devs?
Oy vey… they are starting to notice things…
Most game Devs dont have an issue with it, it's just a small but vocal minority who are totally not getting "compensation" from epic.
30% is too expensive? They do realize that Valve covers ALL the distribution costs and hosting costs with that 30% right? It's not even 30% of individual games sold, it's a 30% cut of ALL sales made on Steam. They make 0% off of Steam keys sold on third party sites and there's no cost to generating Steam keys.
Steam is literally just popular. They have no rules against third party channels, they even let you use their platform integration utilities when you license your game on other platforms. Valve doesn't jealously guard against third party stores either, some of their own games are on GOG...
they have 2 rules about third party channels:
1: you can't sell a steam key for cheaper elsewhere.
2: if you put your steam key on sale elsewhere, you put it on a comparable sale on steam shortly after
A steam key being a key to use steam, the thing the fees pay for... @shirothefish9688
@@shirothefish9688makes sense
@@shirothefish9688 Sounds quite reasonable.
@@ceu160193 quite
its amazing how reasonable companies can be when they're not publicly traded.
Hope Valve win
They will (if they don't well consider me Shocker)
@@Alpha-cabb You'll change your name to Herman and use gloves that shoot vibrating air to rob banks if they don't win?
They will, the claims are ridiculous.
1. The claim against Valve's 30% revenue share on Steam indeed overlooks that this is a widely accepted standard in the industry. Other platforms, like Sony’s PlayStation Store, Microsoft’s Xbox Store, and Apple’s App Store, also implement a 30% cut. Epic Games Store’s lower fee (12%) is more of an exception rather than the rule. Moreover, game pricing often adheres to industry norms, particularly for AAA games, which typically launch at uniform price points like $79.99, regardless of the platform or revenue-sharing model.
2. Game prices are more influenced by broader market expectations and publishing strategies than by the platform’s revenue model. Developers are typically paid based on prearranged contracts with publishers, meaning the platform fees are more about splitting the post-sale revenue than dictating game development or publishing costs.
3. If Valve indeed threatened to delist a game for breaching its Terms of Service (e.g., offering Steam keys at discounted prices on other platforms), this would generally be enforceable under their rules. However, if the claim is about non-Steam key sales, the publisher or developer would need strong evidence that Valve acted beyond their contractual rights. Without such evidence, Valve's enforcement of its platform policies would likely be seen as legitimate.
The Steam always wins
I mean if they dont it wouldn't be the biggest of deals anyway, more money would go to devs and valve still has a bunch of money
It is quite telling that the two main entities that filed this lawsuit have made nothingburger games. Overgrowth, while being a bit of a programming marvel back in the day, had nothing else besides that. The last I've heard of that game was a GDC showcase of the technology behind it. But the game itself is boring at best. And Djinni & Thaco is a VR game, which is inherently a niche market to begin with. So it seems like these two developers tripped over themselves with mediocre products, and expects Valve to pay for their failures. How utterly pathetic.
My thoughts exactly, the moment I heard the overgrowth devs were responsible for this I knew it was a cope lawsuit, game has been in indev hell for at least 10 years, extremely expensive too in its early access state, genuinely glad I never bought into the game
@@crolaa6137 It gets worse too. According to steamdb, Djinn & Thaco has a peak of only 5 players in its 4 years on the Steam platform. A 5 player peak in over 4 years. If that doesn't scream "My game flopped, please compensate for my failures", then I don't know what does. And apparently on metacritic, the developers of that game spent their time making accounts just to boost their review score.
@pulsekinesis do you know what they're planning here? They can't actually expect to win something like this right?
@@crolaa6137 I have no clue. My guess is that this is one huge gamble to compensate for their failure. Buuuut... it could just be sheer idiocy at work.
As someone that bought Overgrowth back in the day... yeah once the physics engine's welcome wore out, the game became boring. I haven't played it in years.
Valve can charge whatever price they want, steam is their platform, and if you don’t agree with valve’s rules, then go sell your game on another platform 🤦🏻♂️
i personally don't agree with this, like I don't agree that the 30% cut is too high but I also think this mentality of "go sell it somewhere else" just ignores the problem that is actually presented, instead of challenging it
@@MisterChief711maybe other platforms should make a better store
@@MisterChief711 problem of some individual developer SHOULD be ignored because it's none of our business. You don't like steam's cut - then find alternatives or go and distribute your game yourself. Correct me if I'm wrong but USRR died like 35 years ago and communism is currently exclusive to north korea.
@@szymon7607 I was about to respond until you brought up the USSR 💀
@@MisterChief711 What problem? you said it yourself, 30% is not a problem, the consoles take 30% too and so does Apple and Google so why only single out Valve? also Valve doesn't prohibit anyone from publishing the games on other stores or skipping Steam entirely nobody forced them to use it, this lawsuit is clearly not fair and feels like something made to scam Valve and make some quick money from a nonexistent problem.
Judge "So Valve forces you to only sell your game on STEAM?" Lawyer "No. We can only sell STEAM keys on STEAM." Judge "Case Dismissed."-- This is dumb.
You can also sell steam keys elsewhere, and valve doesn't take any cut. The only restrictions are that you aren't allowed to sell those keys cheaper than the price on steam, and if you have a sale, you need to have a similar discount on steam within a reasonable timeframe. Those are very reasonable conditions since you are still utilizing valves resources despite steam keys not making them money.
@@futurehistoryarchaeologist4480 Exactly. But those lawyers cant seem to understand this concept. All they can see is $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Even dumber: you can sell Steam keys anywhere you want, you just can't sell them elsewhere for cheaper than you're doing on Steam.
@@AnonD38 Yeah. Valve offers so much for a very reasonable cut... what exactly are they wanting Valve to do differently? Are they hoping to change that 30% cut, or are they actually hoping for some type of settlement for cash? I guess lawyers just see a big fish with deep pockets and they want part of the fish fry.
@@BReal-10EC they just want money, since their games can't pay for themself
"overpaying" meanwhile games go on sale all the time for cheap
Literally, the fact they claimed we're overpaying angered me so much. Where did they even get such outrageous information. We get our content for way below the actual market price!
I also want to bring up that when a ton of games went to epic there price stayed relatively the same, so no this is nothing about consumers paying to much but companies not getting more money
Steam regularly has sales where you can get even relatively new games for cheaper than market price, which I'd argue is the most pro-consumer movement in the industry. Epic forced us to buy the Kingdom Hearts remakes at full price, and you had to buy all of them separately. Steam allowed us to buy it heavily discounted for 2 months and we got EVERY game in the bundle for roughly $40.
I will almost always support Steam for their pricing.
@@JoshuaGraves113 Steam does not set pricing on developers / publishers games. The developers and publishers do. They only set pricing on their own games.
hmm I wonder why Valve holds a monopoly on the game industry
maybe its because they actually care about their consumers
Its called a "Natural Monopoly"
They are for 2 hours, thats the window you have to refund or dispute any issues. After that there is no recourse, if the game server goes offline and you've played for 2 hours = no refund and the only response you'll ever get is "you played for more than 2 hours" - yes but the game is no longer available to play, it's gone.. "sorry but you played for more than 2 hours"..
Or in my experience with Mortal Online 2, where on launch the servers were broken, you tried to join the server and just sat in queue, there was no indication of how many people were in the queue or how long you'd need to wait to join the game. I sat there for 30 mins and didn't join, gave up. Tried the next day, sat in queue for over an hour, no game, gave up. Eventually contacted Steam for a refund - you guessed it, they said no because i'd played for over two hours. I explained i'd not actually played and had sat in queue attempting to join a game for that amount of time, their response "you played for 2 hours, we won't discuss this anymore, no refund".
Yeah, really customer focused and caring huh, lol. Steam has always had shit customer services, they really don't care at all. They do have a good online store though and for the 90% of the time their anti-consumer policies don't matter or effect anyone, so it's natural ppl think like they are great.
Valve and Steam ain't no perfect, but damn, they're surely better than the competition by all means.
BUT in the long term, will Valve/Steam survive? I don't think so, the so called enshitiffication is inevitable.
The question isn't IF but WHEN their store will turn into s*ht. I hope that when that happens, there'll be proper competitors.
@@tvlkn9130 2 hours of game time, and they should not give you more then that, but even if you have played over those 2 hours they may still grant you an exception, there are just no guarantee, as it's not meant to be used to Demo games
@@tvlkn9130This is just wrong?
Like demonstrably false.
As long as there is a good reason for your request for refund, Steam support usually grants it.
Sometimes your first request is handled by a bot and auto-denied, in that case you simply have to try again until you get through to a human.
Steam IS consumer friendly.
Any judge who knows about steam would dismiss this case. Its objectively incorrect to say that steam is anti-consumer or encourages game developers to not realease on other platforms. The majority of noteworthy games release on gog and epic alongside steam and steam is at least one of the most pro consumer storefronts in the gaming sphere, and likely overall. I can understand people believing that a 30% cut is too high, i disagree, but i can understand, however to start a class action lawsuit over it is just childish, silly and a waste of everyones time and money. Its more of a publicity stunt than anything.
30% of peoples earnings isn’t child’s play, it’s people’s livelihoods and support for their families
@@sinelacicoyes if not steam, their games would make 85% less money
@sinelacico 30% of people's earnings is the price developers contractually agree to give to valve in exchange for being allowed to use their storefront to reach more people. Valve has an overhead, an extremely large overhead, which involves all sorts of server upkeep, research and development costs, employee salaries, game development costs and maintenance costs, which is why they take 30% in the first place. I can understand people wanting that percentage to be lowered, but it is a scumbag move to start a class action lawsuit, outright lying about anti-consumer practices and monopolisation, to have the percentage lowered. And I suspect the developers in question are receiving heavy compensation from epic games for doing so. What do you suggest, that valve lets people sell their games on steam for free?
@@sinelacico bro nothing is free. Since steam is the biggest platform, there is a pay to publish your game there and steam being steam 30% is very good deal you still get majority of the money from your game idk what yall yapping about
@@sinelacico yeah, lets shift the values, devs get 70% of the cut, it is less compared to epic's 88% but the user base and potential buyers are much higher on steam. If you actually make a good game you are going to earn way more on steam than in any other plataform.
Steam is very pro consumers... other platforms not so much beside ehh i forget the name
thats the reason why they get attacked
GOG is the name
@@dailydoseofvitaminc6565GOG is done
@@dailydoseofvitaminc6565 Good luck advertising your game on GOG then.
@@dailydoseofvitaminc6565No it's called Epic Games
Funny part is that I was looking forward to Overgrowth when I first discovered it. Didn't take too many years to realise that Wolfire games can't make an actual game. Only a tech demo for physics with no actual content. Receiver also looked underwhelming as hell.
While 30% is quite a lot of money for a small dev, they also miss the point that they get extra visibility if they are on Steam. They are always free to host their games on other platforms if they think Valve is unfair.
They can even host their game on their own website or even their own platform if they want to make one, Valve is not going to stop them, but we all know that this is about scamming Valve, these devs look shady as hell and haven't even created a real high-quality game, they just want a quick payday from suing Valve for a problem that doesn't exist.
It isn't even quite a lot of money.
If they wanted to distribute themselves, the costs could run far beyond that 30%, not to talk about having to pay for marketing and advertising yourself, rather than being ably to mostly rely on Steams internal marketing (that they do for you), and perhaps some RUclips videos.
Releasing a physical Playstation game could cost like 70% of the revenue, easily... 30% is like almost nothing in the end. Even if we compare by Epic, you only get 25% more revenue if you sold an equivalent amount of copies, and you would lose out on a LOT! of benefits that comes from being on Steam, everything from Steam Workshop, Steamworks for multiplayer, the third party reviews, hosting the game itself, hosting multiple revisions of the game if you so desire, being an automatic update platform, showing your game through the friendslist, and FAR!!! FAR!!! more.
I wanna yap about how i actually really like Wf games, both overgrowth and reveiver 2 are really unique and fun experiences, overgrowth in particular still being updated with new campaigns, receiver 2 was supposed to receive a dlc before the lawsuit took center stage. But Wf lost all my respect with this frankly scummy lawsuit...
@@ThisIsGlitch I took an interest into overgrowth to play it recently also, but after this ngl I lost all respect too
The irony is that Steam is very indie/small dev friendly. They always market them just as much as big devs, have events just for them. Hell the Portal 2 ARG was literally a bundle of 13 indie games used to tie in and get exposure.
No court is ever going to create a precedent that a store platform's 30% cut is too high. Google, Apple, Sony etc. will never let it happen.
Imo 20% would be ideal, but as you say it is industry standard
@@UnimportantAcc I agree 20% would be ideal, but its hard to argue for when others happily take 30%. If it's the industry standard then all developers need to adapt to account for Valve's cut.. as they already do..
@@UnimportantAcc 30% for the quality valve offers? I'd say it's worth it. Like high taxes on a wonderfully managed country.
@@fabrypetty1689I pretty much agree, based
@@UnimportantAccFun fact: the more copies your game sells on Steam the less of a cut Valve takes.
They obly take 20% if your game sells really well.
Lol, Wolfire. You mean the company that spent years and years and years making their underwhelming Rabbit Kung-fu game? Okay..
I was very impressed with the trailers, around 12 years ago...
I mean its fantastic to play mechanically, its just that there's nothing else to the game. Its entirely just user content, and Rabbit kung-fu, bottled up into a rushed and barren experience. Underwhelming Rabbit Kung-fu makes it sound like it didn't even get that right, but really that's the only thing they got right. Its very tight, very fun, it just needs like.... the rest of the damn game. So I'm not surprised they can't sell it if that's all they did for about a decade and on their early access funds.
How is this even a thing? This is like renting a room in a 5 star hotel, and then complaining about that it is more expensive than other 2 star hotels. If businesses think that the benefits of using Steam does not outweigh the 30% cut they take, then they should just not use Steam.
People would rather go to court than actually either release on time or make a playable game
overgrowth i remember that game i also remember idubbbz involvement surely nothing edgy will leak of this developer
ah, idubbbz overgrowth videos, back when he was sane and watchable
@@crylune pretty sure he was directly involved with the developer which used to work for spikeTV/gametrailers.
This "dev" has only made glorified tech demos, no wonder they want to scam Valve since they can't even make actual games. I'm sure that if Valve goes after them like they should've from the beginning they're going to discover a lot of things about them.
@@AJ-po6up Wasn't Overgrowth making basically no sales until it came to Steam?
The developer is salty that no one buys their early 2010 game. This game has been in development for so long. It's basically furry yandere simulator
I've read the entire terms of service, both user and developer. They're as fair as a clear sunny day. Their commission fees aren't also exhagerated either, and 30% for the early costs is fine, specially since it goes down depending on how famous the game becomes.
Valve also sides with the consumer more often than not, so if you screw up as a developer you'll damn well pay for it. There's no multi-layer shielding from your fuck-ups.
I believe they're just afraid of not paying a fixed value, but rather a scaling one.
Valve moving to New Zealand soon :3 Not fanboying, but other companies can make a better platform, Valve is a private business, you don't like it? Take your business somewhere else. The workshop alone makes the fee warranted
Why New Zealand specificaly ?
They stopped the plan to move to New Zealand
@@Alpha-cabb gaben likes it very much
@@getonWexford can always be planned again
@ fair enough
imagine getting a lawsuit because your just actually better than the competition, valve just sits there and watches as their own greed consumes and rots game publishers or just have a shitty launching service. honestly it's so pathetic valve is getting hated on by toxic developers or salty gaming corpos because they're just doing their thing and the fans like it.
it's literally the corporate equivalent of winning so hard the enemy says you're cheating.
Gabe Newell wins by doing nothing
I believe Roblox takes 80% from devs, so, 30% is pretty low.
Amazon is like 70%, and Google is (probably like 99.99%, but they don't tell you how much they made they only tell you how much you get at the end which is usually cents.)
Every Half-Life has a lawsuit with it... Gman wears a blue suit. Lawyers wear blue suits. This is now the 3rd lawsuit. 3+1+1-2=3 Barney appears in 3 half life games. Half-Life: Barney confirmed
Blue shift 2?
Half-Life Barny already happened. Its called Blue Shift.
@@pelvistBlue Shift 2.
Those disagreeing with Steam's policies should make their own platform and watch it get taken apart by investors and stock ownership (they are not Gabe)
@@White927 that's the price that the players themselves decided on, valve has no say on the prices of skins. all they do is set a price on the key for opening the case, and the rarity (droprate) of the skins in the case. Everything else is simply the players controlling the market.
skins worth 10k+ dollars are worth that much because
1. they're rare.
2. there's demand.
3. people pay that price.
a lot of the most expensive skins ever have been sold for literal cents in the past, back when the game wasn't as big and the prices hadn't adjusted. CSGO is not like valorant, league, r6, or any other non-valve game, because players can freely trade and sell their in-game items, creating a real economy / market, unlike every other game where the company (developer) sets the prices as they see fit. The other valve games are exactly the same (Dota2, TF2).
And even though Counter-Strike may have some of the most expensive in-game items in all of gaming, it also has the cheapest ones. You could have multiple skins for every single gun in the game with less than 5 dollars, if you dont mind having plain-looking skins. Meanwhile in Valorant you can't even buy a single skin for less than 10 dollars if there isn't some big sale. Even the shit skins nobody wants cost more than that.
Also, Steam allows people to freely trade, which makes it possible for an entire third-party market to exist. You can sell your skins for real money, deposited directly in your bank account. I've sold a knife and a pair of gloves myself, made about 200$ profit off of it. Straight into my bank account. Can't do that with any other big company.
In the court filings, Scott Lynch identified himself as a director on Valve's Board of Directors, suggesting that Valve Corporation may operate more like a typical corporation than commonly portrayed. Additionally, Valve employees have publicly discussed owning, buying, and selling shares of the company.
Lawsuit?
* looks inside *
* Fraudulent accusations of 'unfair pricing' *
Oh, they have NOTHING...
Every dev can host and sell their game itself, no need to use or sue valve for literally asking a fee for the use of their services and ressources
No one is forcing them to sell their game through Steam. They read the legalities when they agreed to put the game on the store and are just looking for ways to make more money after their game underperformed. I'm glad Steam has finally done something about season passes and devs taking advantage of consumers and I hope their next move is to refund gamers that bought games in early access from devs that are releasing DLC while their game is still in development years later; RocketWerkz with Icarus and Hinterland Studios with The Long Dark are two good examples of this. No other industry gets away with fleecing their customers like they do in the games industry.
Valve : you can sell steam keys outside our plataform, just dont make the price lower then the one in our storefront.
Devs : Thats scummy.
Valve : Youre using our ecosystem and our infrastructure
Devs : You are monopolizing the market 😡
never post your games on steam
or else valve will act like a Keran if you sell your games with 50% cut
@godkekliveshere431 that is if you are using their keys, otherwise they won't do shit, its in theirs games publishing agreement
Honestly I've never seen this enforced as I literally see on a daily basis games on sale using Steam keys on other platforms for way cheaper than what the game goes on Steam and with a deeper discount. And I've been a PC gamer and user of Steam since late 2006.
@@godkekliveshere431 Hey are you a game dev? or just decided to be a ck today? Because i am a gamedev and steam is way better than any other game distribution platforms.
@@phiality9070 i don't think i shout take any advice from you
after i just look up your channel
I don't see how their argument has any bite to it. Steam TOS literally doesn't ban you from selling anywhere else (just make sure if you do to keep their prices same to steam which is fair)
Not really as that could be seen by the courts as steam trying to illegally maintain their monopoly
@@geekmechanic1473 which only makes sense until someone points out that you could sell a non-steam version of the game for 20c and a steam version for $20, and steam'd be fine with it.
@@geekmechanic1473
Nope, only apply to STEAM KEY, which literally uses their bandwidth and structure. Literally the case of "I don't want you to use MY service, without paying any fee, to undercut my store". The real life equivalent would be you use a supermarket's infrastructure and logistics to move stuff around for you for free and still want to sell for a lower price. In layman's terms, it's called being a leech.
@@raizors1331 the op is talking about price parity not steam keys. Also we won't know if they aren't trying to force devs to do this until discovery. Just because it's not out in the open in their TOS doesn't mean they don't do it, that's the purpose of discovery.
@@geekmechanic1473 guilty until proven innocent?
This is simple, when you do things right, people come to you... "monopoly" is not a problem, is a factor.
Valve did a great job doing Half Life = People bought the game.
Valve did a great job doing Half Life 2 = People bought the game.
Valve did a great job making the Steam Deck = People bought his console.
Valve did a great job making the Steam Controller = People bought that hardware.
Valve have a great idea by selling games virtually = People download Steam.
¿Excessive prices? I'm not gonna lie, every game i own in my steam account i bought it at 90% discount, maybe 80% because when i see a game i like i simply add it to my wishlist, and wait for the notification to pop up. Just to give you an example today 03/12/2024 Battlefield V is on 90% discount (you can see many examples at the Steam Store by yourself).
And another thing, I don't have a gun pointed at my head either... If I stop liking Steam I'll just buy games from other stores.
Valve does not prevent you from selling on other platforms.
Others do.
A lawsuit from publishers who take over 60% complaining that Steam's 30% cut is "anti competitive"
Yeah especially since 30% is the industry standard, Google, Apple, Sony, Microsoft, Steam, and others, the only one that I know of that takes less is Epic.
These devs just asking to be terminally hated by anyone with a brain
We need a list of all the developers and companies in the lawsuit
Wolfire rather file lawsuits than develop good games. Typical for their kind.
Valve/Steam is not anti-competitor, they're pro-consumer.
When steam just appeals to buyers through awesome business practices but apparently that requires an anti trust lawsuit
Pepe being "extreamism" is the best part lmao
"We are filing a lawsuit not because our game sucks ass and doesn't sell but because of Steam being such a superior platform that they have no decent competitors."
For the love of god we need to make gabe inmortal
He’s literally the last bastion of the gaming industry
These guys are literally biting their feeding hand, that's both crazy and absurd
Wanting compensation for choosing to spending money on a non-essential luxury product (videogame) is completely ridiculous and is obviously a scheme to sue valve for profit.
I'd like to know who these devs are so I can stop buying their games. So greedy
Valve is the modern example of “in spite of everything you’ve done for them, eventually they will hate you.”
valve better win the shit out of this lawsuit.
Valve literally cuts the best deal as far as publishers go. 30% is the best deal you will find. If you dont like having the best deal, go pay more money to be on an inferior platform that potentially owns more of your game than you do as the developer. The entitlement of people, I swear.
the "our game flopped and we dont want to admit it so we're blaming steam" lawsuit
"He charges 30% and i accepted , this has to be ilegal"
Judge: bruh...
Guys, it's very simple. The competition just can't keep up with the success of Valve, so they are envious and want to bring Valve down at any costs. This is just how life works unfortunately.
Whoever dev join this lawsuit goes into my ignore list.
it feels like everything has been going wrong recently
This time it’s not a needle in a haystack, but a giant building with a small pile of hay at the front door.
"Charging excessive prices on Steam"?? That's a joke, right? $100 and a 30% cut seem reasonable for easy, safe, protected, global software distribution. And don't tell me it's the prices of games on Steam. It's the developers who set those, not Valve
Honestly? Valve is the only company i feel i can actually trust at this point
Nintendo? Scummy lawsuits
Meta? Insecure data
PlayStation/Sony? Required account for PC
Google? No longer "don't be evil"
Epic? Steals games from Steam and despises Linux
The list goes on and on, but Valve/Steam hasn't done anything to break my trust so far
What GOG did wrong tho? ;-)
@igorthelight I'll be completely honest, I forgot gog existed in the moment I wrote this lmao
Outside of Valve and GoG, there's not many companies you can trust nowadays
It's not like Steam is an Apple Store with a monopoly on the platform, you can very well release your game elsewhere, but good luck having the visibility and pro-consumer service that Steam and GOG have compared to the other platforms.
apple store is a bad example because apple products literally lost a lawsuit recently because you could not, in fact, look elsewhere thanks to their locked ecosystem.
@@shirothefish9688 read their comment again and actually read what they said this time...
@@pyromeerkat4641
1, I did mistread the first sentence, so I should thank you for that, but
2, you really ain't gotta be condescending about it. People make mistakes. Let them.
@@shirothefish9688 If your gonna put the effort in to write a comment at least put the effort in to read what you are replying to...
I feel like thats more rude then what i did tbh
@@pyromeerkat4641 like I said, everyone makes mistakes.
I did read what was written, and In my case I was up later than I should have been and failed to read the first sentence correctly.
Failing to be able to read it properly is not the same as not reading it at all, as in the latter circumstance the reader believes they have understood what was said, and can only discover their misguidance on re-reading the text, often with a later date being requisite.
We are now at a later date, and the mistake is quite obvious to not just you, but me as well.
There's many valid reasons to misread things.
In other situations, people may have disorders or malfunctions within their bodies which can hinder reading ability and/or comprehension.
I wasn't being mean to OP, I was just stating a fact that happened to be irrelevant as a result to the aforementioned mistake.
A single sentence, and that can and has been cleared up. Anyone reading the comments here can see that, know my first comment is irrelevant to OP, and continue onwards.
Valid reasons to be mean to people in such ways, however, are much fewer and far between. This situation does not constitute such a reason.
lastly, because I am a bit petty: you're*.
30% is Industry standard for ANY sort of publishing service and even most store chains.
Overgrowth devs suing steam is insane considering they've had overgrowth indev for like 10 years atp, milking it for aloooot of money, weird this is only happening now after their game has run it's life cycle
Steam isn't Anti-competitive. They're just BETTER than other options. The only store that others talk fondly of is GoG due to them making older games compatible with current systems and generally having a lot of DRM-free titles.
Storefronts like Epic that have options. Lack the same core features that make steam good. And storefronts like Origin, Ubisoft's and Activisions are all just... Bad. Being only for that one company's games and nothing else.
And that 30% cut steam gets? They give developers a plethora of support in that package. Giving Devs no matter how big or small everything they need to get their game out there to be bought. A store page, Forums, review sections etc.
And Steam 'Pressuring games to not be sold on other platforms'. The ONLY time they get pissed. Is when Game keys are generated (Which is done for free by the way), To be sold on places G2W for lower prices than steam. Thus Robbing Steam of their 30%. Which is really scummy. Using a platform to have your game hosted on, but not give them a single cent in return.
This entire Lawsuit has just been generated by 2 types of pissy people.
1. small teams who don't want to pay steam a fair cut for using their store.
2. Large publishers annoyed no one wants to use their trash launchers and are thus 'forced' to use steam. (Though at this point, while for instance, Ubisoft's launcher and enforced constant connection is bad enough. Their games are also not appealing to anyone)
Waiting for the defamation suit to mop the floor with these greedy fools... Leave Valve the hell alone -_-
I saw Wolfire and immediately cringed. Theyre the ones who have been milking early access for 16 years with Overgrowth. So many promises and still nothing substantial after 16 years of development and money.
Perfect. Write them down .. stop buying their games (pirate them). Have a nice day.
Don't pirate them. Let their popularity fizzle out until their name fades into obscurity
Piracy is just free advertising
Their games aren't even good enough to warrant pirating
This is like suing for not reading the Terms & Conditions sheet. They knew what they signed up for by selling through Steam.
All these lawsuits are wrong. I support Steam. What I get for my purchase of any game is far more than I pay. There's so much stuff wrapped around the game that the Steam platform provides to enrich that games experience. Why would anyone pick a fight where there is none. These Devs are just after payouts so they don't have to actually release a game.
Gabe on his boat:
Ok
Valve is the only company I’d ever defend in a situation like this. I love valve and I say all the time they are my favorite company. They simply just provide the best platform, make the best games, make good hardware, and innovate.
The reason valve has the market share they do is because they literally have the best game launcher. Nothing else really compares
Epic store is a joke and they just as greedy as EA or Microsoft’s. At least steam has sales all the time. Epic store bribe devs with money only if they sign up with them. Then they bribe gamers with free games. But epic store does NOT Offer half the features of steam.
ms who locking game behind their bloated windows bs. At least Valve is trying make Linux gaming the better option for pc gamers. Steam deck is proof of this and it’s true.
Why aren’t more ppl suing ms for having a Monopoly with windows?? Ms has bullied all other OS out of business except Mac OS and Linux. IBM Os/2 Warp was SHUT DOWN by ms Cus was threat to windows. Many other os in mid 90’s to early 2000’s we’re shut down by ms, Cus they were threat to window. Windows has CHOKE hold on pc market but nobody seem care about that. We all bitch about how bad windows 11 is. But nobody want do anything? And they go after valve?
Why aren’t more ppl pissed of ms trying kill off windows 10. When we know window 11 is FAR WORST???
Steam sells more copies for your game. Steam takes higher cut. Epic sells less copies for your game. Epic takes smaller cut. It balances out, and for some reason this dev doesn't understand that.
This 30% cut is not just for selling on platform but everything that you get with it too. Things like exposure, online saves, download servers, skins, key distribution, workshops, forums and everything else. They are the biggest for a reason, because they do things the right way for consumer and developer.
Really hope Valve doesn't lose this lawsuit.. would set such a bad precedent in the game industry. In a world where anti consumerism is absolutely rampant it is so obnoxious that the only consumer friendly games platform is the one getting sued every other year for being "a monopoly".. Steam is literally proof that respecting the consumer first means consumers will prefer your service. Not that they're a monopoly.
What brand is your microwave? (mine's Toyota)
mine's volvo
valve
mine Spies on me
I don't have one
Provisions-brand.
30% was the industry standard until the epic under steam
Hmmm let’s count how many game were released and labeled as exclusive on steam…
And now let’s count all other platforms exclusives
Idea steam games being costly as they are due steam cut is definitely not true as most games on steam are under 40$ with most games being more expensive being part of a different problem.
I can't understand these developers, they're literally choosing by themselves to sell on Steam, it's not like Steam is forcing them. If you don't like steams rules there's nobody stopping you from leaving.
They are claiming high prices on steam?? my wallet doesnt agree with that
Boycott them, all of Valves enemies. Boycott them all!
You’re a slave, a pawn with no free will
@@sinelacico says you lmao
There's better ways than boycott
@@sinelacico You probably thought in your head that you sounded cool as hell while writing that but in reality is corny and cringe as hell.
@@sinelacico if I am a slave, im getting paid better than those with free will.
And I have more things to buy with that money too
How is Steam anti competitive? From what I know, Steam doesn't restrict developers from releasing their games to other platforms. There's no exclusivity. Wouldn't Sony and Xbox fit the bill for these claims, overpriced charges and anticompetitive behavior?
Begun, the Corporate War has.
Anyone who thinks 30% is a lot should try and sell their game themselves.
Give me a list the of devs, so I can avoid them.
we gamers gotta group together and fight for steam