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Valve faces a £656 million lawsuit in the UK for 'overcharging 14 million PC gamers'
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this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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It's amazing how folks support valves monopoly while screaming bloody murder at every other tech company.
Every single argument there could be applied to every Amazon, Google, etc.
As a publisher if you do not publish on steam you are review bombed, rage bait is plastered across the internet, and every other comment online is about boycotting.
Oh and there is an easy solution from 15 years ago. Steam killed it. Discs. Or a modern digital representation where you can resell and use the content with a launcher.
I always find it funny when i point out too pcmr that console gaming is far cheaper and easier fairer to the consumer for this reason.
I resell and rent games all the time. It's far far cheaper and you aren't waiting for sales. You can easily relist software for 90% of its value. I use gamely so I spent $250 and played maybe 40 or so titles not having to wait for sales.
Add in the costs of a PC vs a console and it's not even close. I save literally thousands of dollars a year.
PC: 0€ because you already have one for all the other stuff you do that's not gaming?
Or does everyone really just rely on smartphones exclusively nowadays?
has games from companies like Riot games, or various MMOs been reviewbombed for not being on steam?
Of course there are edge cases.
So... What do you suggest be done about it?
Break them up
They don’t need to be a store, a launcher, a community, a mod database, etc
Break them up... How?
You can split off business units like their hardware sales or dev studios, but that isn't going to reduce their storefront market share at all.
Are you suggesting that they just split users up randomly? That would be probably worse for consumers- suddenly the friends and communities people have built up through Steam would be fractured, and users would look to find ways to get around it.
Split up by what publishers they have deals with? Well then those new companies would only be indirect competitors, not to mention that would also be worse for consumers as I'd have to suddenly make a new account with each new platform just to keep accessing my current library.
Like... How do you want to split them up in a way that doesn't hurt consumers and publishers more than it helps?
Read the second line, I already answered that
But the store piece is the only problem.
For community, there's tons of different communities for every game and Steam is usually one of the least active anyways.
For mods, as far as I know there's no exclusivity there. In fact, it's kind of a pain to mod Bethesda games because they don't go through Steam. It's similar to DLC in that it's just a better experience to have mod support included in the launcher.
For the launcher, that seems like once again a huge blow to consumers to have a separate steam store vs steam launcher. You can already add non-Steam games to the steam launcher or launch games without the steam launcher.
The problems identified in the article, and what they are getting sued for, are solely related to the store. So I don't see how breaking out these supplemental features would solve that.
How do you download and launch steam games without the steam launcher?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2553040199
But how do you get into the library without it?
Those things put seperatly Steam is far from the best option , except for the store part because that's their main thing.
The launcher part is just part of Steams basic DRM, some games can be started from their directory without Steam running.
The subreddits and Discord servers for certain games are usually more organized, cohesive and feature better fan made content than Steams Community Hub.
Nexusmods is far superior to the Steam Workshop in every single aspect.
For Reviews most people go to YouTube and watch a video. Steams review system is more an indicator of general reception rather than actual gameplay.
Steam doesn't try to squich all the other platforms they just provide a convenient alternative to them. So why are all those things suddenly an issue.
How do you even enforce breaking all those things up? Should there be a law that all governments agree on, that states Steam exclusively can't host mods anymore? Should they be split up into subsidiaries, like Steam Store, Steam Community, Steam Mods etc.?
So then there’s no problem requiring steam to only be a storefront right?
And yes the latter, steam store, steam community, steam mods all become independent
Yeah, but why? They would still all be owned by Valve. Or are you suggesting the government forcefully taking away private company assets?
Splitting a company isn’t a new thing
It’s neither of what you suggested
What? We still have useful idiots saying "X show is available on Y(netflix, apple, disney, amazon, etc) paid streaming service" instead of just giving a link to free streaming services like https://hydrahd.com/
Manufactured outrage is just that: manufactured. People get mad about things other people get mad about to fit in.