• Spedwell@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    11 months ago

    The Platform Most Favored Nation policy employed by Steam is the one at issue in this case. And yes, it is anticompetitive. It abuses userbase size to prevent alternative marketplaces from providing fewer services for smaller cuts

    • Zozano@aussie.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      Again, it just sounds like Valve is offering a good service and other companies don’t want to compete. If it’s Valves fault for providing a good service and lots of users choose to use their platform instead of others, I fail to see what they could do to rectify that.

      • Spedwell@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        Valve offers a great service, and I enjoy it a lot. But it’s very difficult for a competitor to enter the market because they won’t be able to match Steam’s services immediately. Typically in a market the approach is then to undercut Steam, but that is exactly what this policy is designed to make impractical by forcing publishers to overprice, on penalty of losing Steams’ userbase.

        I mean I don’t know what else to say. It is anti-competitive. It doesn’t take too much to see why. There are many good articles and legal briefs on the matter. It hurts you and me, the consumer, and it hurts publishers. It enriches Valve, benevolent though they may appear. You shouldn’t like this type of strong-arming the market when Amazon does it, and you shouldn’t roll over and take it from Valve either.

        Doesn’t even matter, the court is going to sort it out for us. But I hate to see the reputational hit Wolfire is taking here. I like their studio, I believe their developers are operating in genuine good faith, and I think they are doing consumers a favor.

        • Zozano@aussie.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 months ago

          I still don’t see what you’re seeing.

          Just to play devils advocate, what do you think Valve should do differently?

          After learning more about it, I’m understanding the problem is that Wolfire (and every other developer/publisher) has a contract with Valve, in which they aren’t allowed to sell their game on another PC market for a cheaper price than Steam.

          Though, I wouldn’t describe that as anticompetitive, rather, neutrally-competitive. Valve is offering a level playing field, they can take it or leave it. This is a fairly standard practice among businesses (though I understand this does not make it right).

          If valve wanted to be anticompetitive they would dictate that games published on Steam are exclusive to Steam on PC.

          • Spedwell@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            11 months ago

            What Wolfire wants to happen is for game marketplaces and game services platforms to be decoupled. Right now Valve has vertically integrated the two. You buy the game, and they offer peer multiplayer, social, workshop, etc.

            If those services were charged separately, so that the costs of those services was not forced into the pricing of other marketplaces that don’t offer those services, you open the market to more competition.

            • Zozano@aussie.zone
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              11 months ago

              So Wolfire’s idea of being anticompetitive is to restrict how many features a platform may offer?

              Honestly, it just sounds like Wolfire has an axe to grind. Steam doesn’t price in the features it offers, their 30% cut existed a long time before most of this stuff was added.

              Something like this will never be implemented. Consider the outcome: Steam decouples the marketplace from the extra services, so they create a separate application and offer it as a free service, and creates a link between the two services. There are a hundred ways around this, and all of them inconvenience the consumer.

              • Spedwell@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                11 months ago

                I’m at my wits end trying to explain this. I guess I can just recommend reading the legal briefs that summarize the matter, or articles that dig deeper than this one.

                Maybe I’ll think about it later and make a more complete write up with concrete examples. I really hate to see the confusion here. Wolfire is doing us a favor, we should not be handing Valve the keys to the market just because they act like Mr. Benevolent.