bin.pol.social

Aljernon, do games w Why is Valve being sued for almost $900 million, but Epic Games wasn't sued when they bought Rocket League and Fall Guys to remove them from steam?

I haven’t really looked deeply into this issue but what caught my eye was the claim that a 30% fee was excessive. I’m no insider into video game publishing but 30% is the standard retail markup for many things. If you bought a candy bar today, it probably cost the mini mart you bought it from 70% of what they’re charging.

Asparagus0098,

Just letting you know that you commented the same thing twice.

Bakkoda,

That’s what Apple charges devs in their “ecosystem” correct?

hperrin, do games w Games you really want to play, but can't or won't?

I’d love to play games like Fortnight, PUBG, and League of Legends (I know, don’t judge me), but they don’t work on Linux, so they’re just a no-go for me. I used to play GTA V Online, but they added kernel anticheat to that too, and now I don’t play that anymore.

I have Windows, but I’m not booting into another partition just to play a game. I use it for compiling my software for Windows users, and that’s already too much of a pain in the ass. I cannot stand Windows. It’s a bloated mess, and I don’t understand how anyone gets any actual work done on it. Just navigating it feels like a chore.

msokiovt,
@msokiovt@lemmy.today avatar

I can’t even play Apex anymore because EA decided Linux players cheat, and therefore, must be categorically banned from playing. All they did was turn off that switch for Proton/WINE support.

mybuttnolie,

didn’t know they added kernel anticheat to gta online, thought they just disallowed linux players. i had 5k hours on it, didn’t really play anything else for almost 10 years. dropped it entirely that day because it’s not worth using a worse OS, and turns out single player is more fun anyway with mods. will also pirate gta 6 and play it without windblows, suck my shrimp rockstar.

Godort, do games w Games you really want to play, but can't or won't?

Outer Wilds.

I very much want to play this game. It’s everything I want from a detective puzzle game, but actually playing it gives me motion sickness.

bluegreenpurplepink,

Same here. I get nauseous playing most first person games so I miss out on a lot. The only thing that sometimes helps is if the game lets you slow down the camera movement.

Famko,

I’ve heard supposedly that sitting back further away from the monitor helps with motion sickness, so if you have some sort of TV screen that you could hook up the game to, that might work?

mybuttnolie,

same here. i can play it 30 mins max and then i get very nauseated. and you can’t really get anything done in that time.

fartsparkles, do games w Why is Valve being sued for almost $900 million, but Epic Games wasn't sued when they bought Rocket League and Fall Guys to remove them from steam?

If Epic spent half as much money as they are suing organisations and instead funded developing their shop into a gaming community platform like Steam, they’d probably have caught up by now.

warm,

Epic Games Launcher would always end up a pile of shit anyway. Tim Sweeney is a fuckhead and he has lots of investors to please.

fyrilsol,

He's also Tencent's bitch too.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

To be honest, Epic is doing a good job of tearing down walled gardens in places like mobile, and we’ll probably be better off for it. But yeah, they’ve done a terrible job of competing with Steam.

scrubbles,
!deleted6348 avatar

They only did that because they wanted their walled garden to be there too. Tim Sweeney is just butthurt his walled garden isn’t the biggest

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Of course, but…broken clock, you know? A large percentage of personal computers will be freed from Windows in large part because of Valve, even though they profit off of legalized child gambling addiction. And walled gardens in mobile will be broken down in large part because of Epic, which uses dark patterns to trick people out of their money in pursuit of a cultural hodge podge of nonsense that won’t even exist in a few decades.

doublah,

The problem there comes from Epic taking secret deals to settle those cases instead of let any precedent be set that would actually benefit customers.

Korkki,
@Korkki@lemmy.ml avatar

it’s often more risky and expensive to hire, train and develop systems and communities like that, especially when doing it against the tide, than to just try to trip up the competition. It’s not just that it’s dificult and it costs money, but it’s not preferred because investors abhor risks.

Isn’t this seen in global politics all the time. When US says China is too dominant in X and we need to fight it. They are not saying that US will invest in shit that will help them compete. All or 90% of the actions is to try to trip up, sabotage and sanction the competition.

Typhoon,

Just a bunch of crabs in a bucket.

yeahiknow3,

“Gaming community.”

Steam and Epic are both malware.

Agent_Karyo,

I wouldn’t call them malware, but both Valve and Epic are not your friends and they have done a lot of bad shit (Valve was huge in enabling lootbox gameplay).

LifeLikeLady,
@LifeLikeLady@lemmy.world avatar

I wish they’d just focus on fixing Unreal. It’s a shit show.

zipzoopaboop,

Always has been

warm,

You dont like games that look like you have grease smeared over your monitor?

Baggie,

Every time someone uses lumen the frame rate drops by roughly 2/3rds, it’s nuts.

reksas,

its not about making better product for epic. its about removing competition so they dont have to.

M137,
@M137@lemmy.world avatar

They could remove that competition by making a better product, but that is somehow always the last thing they’d ever think about. It never stops being so fucking weird with all these business people who go to great lengths to do shitty stuff and always end up making it worse for everyone except a quick buck for themselves, even though they could easily make a lot more for a longer time by simply doing a good job. But no, that would require anything other than immediate greed. Absolutely vile people.

Lfrith,

Their approach feels like how lot of companies are currently focusing on AI to market to investors and AI data centers directly, and ignoring what consumers want assuming their opinions are of little relevance. Like how Microsoft doesn’t care if people dont want copilot, and keeps talking up the corporate side with the assumption that they know people will use Microsoft no matter what.

Which is much like Epic with them focusing more on giving money to publishers to lock up titles in the past like Final Fantasy 7 Remake from Square Enix over concerning themselves with the demographic of people buying the product.

Its not a consumer focused business model, because the idea of consumers not buying it is impossible to comprehend. Their headlines never seem to be around how its better for the consumer and the benefits to using them over the competition.

Lfrith,

Epic approach is the typical venture capitalist run company approach of running at loss then once they get market share start jacking up the prices.

Can’t really trust a company until they are actually profitable with a functioning sustainable business model. We’ve seen it time and time again where even Facebook launched without ads and look at it now.

Stern,
@Stern@lemmy.world avatar

If they didn’t have fortnite and unreal engine money propping them up it would have closed by now. Hasn’t been profitable since it opened in 2018.

SkunkWorkz,

If they didn’t have Fortnite they probably wouldn’t even have the money to dump into Unreal Engine to make it where it is today. They probably would ask Tencent for more money and Tencent would have bought the rest of the company. The game engine business is just not as profitable as Fortnite, just look at Unity.

BilboBargains,

There’s an argument for using these services in the early stages because they often operate at a loss in the hope that they will secure a monopoly in the future. The trick is to immediately abandon them when they jack the price up. I recently heard that in the food delivery space virtually no one is turning a profit.

Nugscree,

Even worse, it’s costing the food places you order from money. We have a lot of restaurants here that will give you free stuff if you do not use Thuisbezorgd which is owned by Just Eat Takeaway. They also own the American Grubhub since 2021 and are also active in the UK, Germany, Canada and the Netherlands.

-edit-

Correction they no longer own Grubhub, and are active in a lot more countries than I first thought, see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Eat_Takeaway.com

boonhet,

Sweeney is legit delulu tbh.

He literally said Epic’s launcher/store is ready as is, doesn’t need more development. It also runs in Unreal Engine, so you get Chromium (CEF) + Unreal Engine running just for one launcher/store.

At least on Linux you can run Unreal Editor without EGS (because it doesn’t exist on Linux) and if you’ve claimed any free games on Epic, you can use Heroic launcher to manage them easily.

Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In,

if you’ve claimed any free games on Epic, you can use Heroic launcher to manage them easily.

Oooh. This is interesting. I wonder how much of the epic library is Linux compatible.

Benaaasaaas,

Everything except fortnite and a few other kernel level anticheat games

evol,

I don’t understand this I use it for rocket league occasionally and it all just works ™ ? I prefer Valve 100% to slopnite developers but the launcher seems fine to me. (On Linux Heroic is unlikely better than steam which has a bunch of random bugs every few weeks)

skisnow, do games w Why is Valve being sued for almost $900 million, but Epic Games wasn't sued when they bought Rocket League and Fall Guys to remove them from steam?

I’m still bitter at Steam for taking a bunch of my single-player games off me that I’d already paid for when I moved to another country, and refusing to refund me because I’d already played 10 hours. Also the support guy treated me like I was a criminal for even trying.

Aljernon,

Did they explain why moving to another country ment anything?

Nugscree,

There was a time when the swastika was not allowed to be shown in games because of a law in Germany, causing Wolfenstein (the uncencored version) to be banned. Maybe the country in question has similar laws?

elephantium, do games w Games you really want to play, but can't or won't?
@elephantium@lemmy.world avatar

Similar. I played a lot of Diablo 2 back in the day, but Blizzard got a lot worse as a game publisher during the years they were focused on WoW. I’m not super interested in starting up on Diablo 3 or 4 or even Starcraft 2.

For a different direction on this – I played Subnautica. It was terrifying. I’m not going to get the expansion or Subnautica 2 when it comes out. shudder

Abundance114,

StarCraft 2 is the bomb, just download it and play the campaigns, it’s worth it. Probably the best RTS campaign IMO.

Sturgist,
@Sturgist@lemmy.ca avatar

Might I recommend Median XL?

An OG D2 mod, adds a load of content and changes things dramatically, vibrant MP scene, and even after having spent most of a decade playing D2 back in the day it’s changed enough to feel new and shiny again.

popcar2, do games w Why is Valve being sued for almost $900 million, but Epic Games wasn't sued when they bought Rocket League and Fall Guys to remove them from steam?

Because Steam is the world’s biggest games store on PC while Epic is statistically insignificant. What’s the question?

unknown1234_5,
@unknown1234_5@kbin.earth avatar

epic is irrelevant because nobody wants it, not because steam is trying to crush competition.

yeahiknow3,

You prefer Walmart instead of Walmart?

Sonicdemon86,

I personal want a store that is native Linux. I have yet to find a store that does it better, no matter your OS. Epic, GOG, Amazon, ubisoft, and Xbox gamepass do not support or have a native Linux programs and require using Wine/proton to access their stores. Having an extra layer on top makes it hard to install games as all of them are expecting a C:/ that is just how any Linux OSes work.

fyrilsol,

Epic is irrelevant because Epic has not given anyone a single solitary reason to use their launcher and platform. Tim Sweeny loves the smell of his own shit in the morning after he takes a big wet dump in the toilet. So much so, he doesn't even flush for a while.

That launcher of theirs has a knack of sucking out all of your system resources, namely bandwidth and CPU, just to download games. Meanwhile, Valve gives you so many options to work around that.

atrielienz, (edited )

Why is Epic insignificant?

They launched with a 12% service fee, dropped that service fee to 10%, and then dropped the service fee entirely for the first $1Mn in sales per year.

In June 2025, they released a new feature enabling developers to launch their own webshops hosted by the Epic Games Store. These webshops could offer players out-of-app purchases, as a more “cost-effective” alternative to in-app purchases.

They provide developers with free to generate license keys, and keyless integration with other e-shop stores including GOG, Humble Bundle, and Prime gaming.

They offer a user review system.

They also added cloud saves in July of 2025.

The thing is, they offer none of the other features Steam offers:

  • In-Home Streaming
  • Remote Play with Friends
  • Family Accounts
  • Achievements
  • Price Adjusted Bundles
  • Gifting Games
  • Shopping Cart
  • TV/Big Screen Mode

Epic launched their service in 2018. It’s been 7 years. The only reason not to offer feature parity (for a company that makes $4.6Bn - 5.7Bn in revenue, and a shop that makes $1.09Bn, you’d think they would be enticing users with the services they want.

What they have done instead is exclusivity deals that plenty of consumers complain about but devs don’t seem to care about so long as they’re getting paid.

So, the excuse that Steam got there first (as if it’s just about that and the reason their market share is what it is is because they have refined, adapted, and improved their service offering over time doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when steam has a significant percent of the market share (79.5% to epic’s 42.3%) but is only making twice the revenue of their rival store.

It makes sense for GOG or Itch.io who’s market cap is smaller by quite a lot to not offer the same feature parity. Each of those platforms has figured out they can offer other things to devs and consumers to make themselves competitive over time.

Sweeny’s attack is basically just a pitry party he’s throwing for himself because he doesn’t want to compete.

EditThis is a sanity check because I wasn’t correct with my numbers by mistake.

So, the excuse that Steam got there first (as if it’s just about that and the reason their market share is what it is is because they have refined, adapted, and improved their service offering over time doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when steam has a significant percent of the market share (79.5% to epic’s 42.3%) but is only making twice the revenue of their rival store.

These numbers are not correct and I was mistaken. In actuality Valve’s revenue is approximately 16 times that of Epic e-shop. It looks like an estimate of Steam’s game sales is that about $4Bn of their revenue last year was from Steam’s game sales. I am trying to corroborate that from other sources.

I’m still looking into and trying to parse out what percentage of steams sale last year were hardware (epic to my knowledge doesn’t have a hardware arm of their business), and it’s not immediately clear what how much they made on the e-shop portion of their business alone so I can get more comparable numbers.

What I have been able to find so far I’ve posted below, and I’ll try to remember to come back and do some math on that after I focus on the first thing.

gamalytic.com/blog/steam-revenue-infographic

80.lv/…/valve-earned-over-usd4-billion-on-steam-a…

Grimy, (edited )

Steam isn’t being sued by Sweeny, they are being sued on behalf of 14 million UK gamers.

Also, epic has an estimated 3% to 7% of the market share (not 42 which makes no sense with steam having the other 80%), yet they should be regulated as well. If you stopped bootlicking for half a second, you would realise that this isn’t about who’s the worst but the fact that they are all bad (except itch, bless them).

Your enjoyment of their product doesn’t mean it isn’t having a serious and negative impact on the industry. Amazon is really convenient too, can you defend them next please?

atrielienz,

I never claimed steam was being sued by Sweeney. Sweeney made a statement about the steam lawsuit saying he agreed with it. pcgamer.com/…/epic-games-boss-tim-sweeney-voices-…

I was quickly googling market share stuff on break so I misread the Epic e-shop market share vs Epic’s full market share outside that.

The fact that Steam only makes double what epic e-shop makes with literally 11 times the market influence?

What regulations are you expecting out of this? How will that have a positive effect on consumers?

I never said this was about good or bad. I pointed out pros and cons of using each service which extrapolated quite literally to why consumers choose Steam over Epic.

A monopolistic corp who uses anit-consumer/anti-competitve tactics to remain a market leader/? monopoly is illegal. And it’s regulated.

The only reason steam is being investigated at all is because 2 or 3 out of literal thousands of game developers have made a claim that steam is threatening to remove their game if they try to sell it on other game stores for cheaper than steam (not steam keys, but using another stores licensing keys).

That hasn’t been proven and if it is, a further investigation into how wide spread that behavior is would still be needed to prove that Valve or Steam came by their market share illegally.

Also the fact that you brought up Amazon as the foil to your argument at the end is laughable. For multiple reasons.

Grimy, (edited )

Steams revenue was 16b (edit: it’s 4b) in 2025, epics was 1b in 2024. At least click the links instead of pasting what the Google summary tells you. You are mixing up epics store revenue with their unreal engine revenue.

The fact is any game store front is a money printing machine mostly because of the rampant price fixing, hard to enter markets and abuse from those that hold the lion share of that market (Steam, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo).

That money is being sucked out of the companies that are actually making games, and is leading to a reduction in quality, layoffs and bankruptcies.

For regulation, we could easily have limits on the percentage store fronts are allowed to demand for digital media, but each time there’s a lawsuit, a bunch of idiots loudly fight it. Lawmakers aren’t going to enact laws that go against what the lobbyist want, especially if the majority of the population have been instructed that the boot is for their benefit.

Your list of pros and cons doesn’t matter, every player being compared is bad. It’s just a defense in favor of Gabens yacht fleet at this point. Exclaiming that steam shouldn’t change because you like their product, even though it’s clearly having an impact, is the same as defending Amazon because drop shipping is easier than going to the store.

Fyi, I use both, I literally own a steam deck and the sd card came from Amazon. Defending their practices is just fucking weak though.

atrielienz,

I’m not reading the Google summary. There is no Google summary for me. That shit is deep sixed. I don’t want it. I love it when people automatically assume that I must be using Generative AI to get some silly answer off the internet.

The fact is any game store front is a money printing machine mostly because of the rampant price fixing, hard to enter markets and abuse from those that hold the lion share of that market (Steam, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo).

If so then Epic should have caught up by now, no?

That money is being sucked out of the companies that are actually making games, and is leading to a reduction in quality, layoffs and bankruptcies.

Please back that up. The game developers seeing bankruptcies are seeing them because of gross mismanagement and a never ending attempt to deliver crap that their consumers don’t want. Pushing the “bleeding edge” of graphics while making games that sell poorly because they want to charge $60-70 for a game even 5 years after it came out.

And that’s with the proliferation of crap like in game micro transactions, season passes, DRM, and internet sanity checks to even play single player games.

Indie developers are caught in the lurch, but that’s generally the case with any small business, and on top of that the regulation will probably harm them more than it will help them because the percentage of sales pays for things that they use to market their game.

What is the limit on what store fronts can charge going to be? How much is too much? What does that 30% pay for? Do you know? Does it scale by user base?

Would other store fronts who charge less be more successful by a meaningful amount if they were charging the same?

It literally doesn’t matter where your products come from. I own more computer games on disc from physical stores than I do from steam. I have paid for more than one game on both steam, switch, PS4, or physical copy. I’m not trying to call Steam the good guy here.

But I do not trust the developer who originally brought the lawsuit because even now most of the other devs who have games for sale on steam have not attempted to make a statement, join the class action, or even make a complaint about what is alleged.

On top of that, why sue only steam if this is a problem. Nobody is suing Nintendo, PlayStation, or Microsoft over this.

I also never said “steam shouldn’t change”, or that steam shouldn’t take a smaller cut.

I feel like you scanned right over half of what I did say so you could be snotty in your response. You have a good day dude.

Grimy, (edited )

I’m not reading the Google summary.

Okay, but your stats are still wrong? (Edit: so are some of mine though, disregard me being a dick here). Using AI wasn’t my point.

If so then Epic should have caught up by now, no?

Is making 1 000 million in a year with something like 5% not catching up? Do you think any of these billion dollar stores are running at cost?

Please back that up.

Having a vampire sucking up 30% of your revenue does affect a company but quantifying it would mean some pretty in depth studies and getting information from bankrupt companies. I do know most devs don’t like it. gdconf.com/…/gdc-state-of-the-industry-most-devs-…

And yes, all those points you mention are happening, but having a huge chunk of your profits taken like that obviously aggravates it.

What does that 30% pay for? Do you know?

I know it pays for Gabens yacht fleet worth 1.5 billion lol. We do have rough numbers. We know their employees count and revenue, and that they are making an estimated 11 million per employee from an article by the financial Times. That doesn’t include data atorage but I doubt the cost of offering downloads is anywhere near there revenue.

I own more computer games on disc from physical stores than I do from steam.

Stores don’t even stock physical discs for PC Games. How many of those are from the past 5 years? Last year had 95% of games sold digitally (PC and consoles). twicethebits.com/…/the-shift-to-digital-gaming-wh…

But I do not trust the developer who originally brought the lawsuit

What dev? This is about a UK lawsuit on behalf of UK gamers. I can’t find anything about a devs involvement.

Nobody is suing Nintendo, PlayStation, or Microsoft over this.

PlayStation is getting sued for it, the trial is for March. This is specifically about the 30% (…org.uk/…/15277722-alex-neill-class-representativ…). (woodsford.com/woodsford-funded-5bn-class-action-a…) .

I want to point out that this is pure whataboutism, just like the OP. But what about epic, but what about nintendo. All of them deserve to get sued.

I also never said

Then the proper response would be “yes, steam does deserve to get sued, epics behavior doesn’t even have anything to do with the subject, but they also deserve to get sued”. Like what’s your point then? Why make a bullet point of things steam does well if you aren’t trying to imply that they are “good enough to be allowed to abuse”.

I feel like you scanned right over half of what I did say.

We are both writing walls of text.

atrielienz,

I can’t corroborate that Steam’s revenue for the e-shop was $16Bn. The best estimate that I have is that their game sales netted them $4Bn last year. I’m still trying to find a better source for that. However we may both be wrong here.

Grimy, (edited )

Ya, I misread it and I’m way off. It’s 4bn. Epic also made a lot less, my stats are not for gross revenue but generated revenue before they split it with the devs. Amateur hour over here (me, not you).

I went off in my other comment and was a bit of a dick throughout the convo. It just feels like someone is being robbed here. 4bn is a lot of money and, from the wolffire lawsuit leak, they have less than 100 people working on steam full time.

kinsnik,

I am definitely not on epic side here, but the reason they had to pay for exclusivity for games is because valve doesn’t allow any games on steam to be sold cheaper elsewhere. Which developers follow because steam brings in a lot of revenue.

Without that, epic could try to compete with steam (and its extra features) by offering lower prices, and letting the consumer make the choice of features vs price.

But valve policies effectively make it impossible for any new marketplace to compete.

atrielienz,

That’s false. They do not allow steam keys (free to generate steam licenses of games) to be sold cheaper anywhere else for less than the game is sold for on steam. And in exchange, the profits on those game licenses sold elsewhere the developer gets to keep 100% of.

It is alleged by one developer that steam told them they can’t sell their game for less on other stores even if they use a different company to generate the license keys. But that hasn’t been proven. And since only 2 other developers are backing the new class action lawsuit out of literally thousands of devs who would be effected this way if it were true, it logically doesn’t make sense. The dev who brought the first lawsuit that go thrown out? Their game is still up on Steam.

The fact is, Epic is making half the revenue Steam is with 11 times less market share, and not gaining market share because customers don’t want to use their store. Customers don’t want free games they want services that work.

You’re alleging that Valve is doing something anti-competitive to maintain their market share here and you still haven’t given me what I asked for.

What regulations are you expecting to be imposed, and how will that detrimentally or positively effect the consumers?

Lfrith,

They do not allow steam keys (free to generate steam licenses of games) to be sold cheaper anywhere else for less than the game is sold for on steam.

That itself is false too with a quick look at isthereanydeals showing lot of steam games being sold cheaper outside of the steam store.

Even the Steam key guidelines don’t explicitly state that steam keys can’t be sold cheaper.

It’s OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time.

partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys

Key word being comparable which is why if you are a user of isthereanydeals or /r/gamedeals you’ve likely gotten most of your steam games from outside the official Steam store.

I think some people just assume Steam sales must be the cheapest and don’t look beyond it.

teawrecks,

What if I told you that the MAU count for Fortnite alone is more than half of the total MAU count for all of steam?

Even if the only game on epic was Fortnite, that doesn’t qualify as “statistically insignificant” no matter how you look at it.

popcar2,

Isn’t most of that from consoles and mobile?

Aljernon, do games w Why is Valve being sued for almost $900 million, but Epic Games wasn't sued when they bought Rocket League and Fall Guys to remove them from steam?

I haven’t really looked deeply into this issue but what caught my eye was the claim that a 30% fee was excessive. I’m no insider into video game publishing but 30% is the standard retail markup for many things. If you bought a candy bar today, it probably cost the mini mart you bought it from 70% of what they’re charging.

TheMinions, do games w Games you really want to play, but can't or won't?

Cyberpunk 77.

I don’t have a big enough SSD or SD card to put it on my Steam Deck haha.

Regrettable_incident,
@Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world avatar

I really enjoyed it on my steam deck, one day eh

TheMinions,

My wife just surprised me with a 1TB microSD card, so in 3-5 business days it will be “one day” hahaha.

Regrettable_incident,
@Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world avatar

Great, you’re in for a treat

mohab, do gaming w Looking for real-time RPGs with combat based around positioning

Hmm… I thought I knew what you mean, but you said MH and now I’m confused. Monster Hunter is mainly dodge and hit? I’m not an expert, but this is how I played World/Rise. How different were older MH games?

_Lory98_,

It’s less important in the newer games, since the monsters are less predictable and their attacks track a lot, and the hunters get parries or other options (in GU and Rise in particular), but you often need to position yourself defensively to preemptively avoid attacks and usually keep attacking. For example: the Rathian charge is instant, so you should keep to her side to avoid it and her other frontal attacks like the fireballs.

Pretty often you could just walk out of attacks if you knew they were coming.

mohab,

Hmm… this is common in action games and soulslikes, I think: Arkham in Devil May Cry 3 and Centipede Demon in Dark Souls come to mind. Those fights are all about positioning.

I feel as if this is a common solution to large boss fights in most games with melee combat; whereas humanoid enemies can typically either quickly turn, do sweeping 360 attacks, or teleport behind you (oh hi Vergil) so it’s less about positioning and more about pattern recognition and quick reflexes.

That said, it’s possible I misunderstood what you mean because I haven’t played older MH games or Xenoblade.

_Lory98_,

That said, it’s possible I misunderstood what you mean because I haven’t played older MH games or Xenoblade.

I realize I’m being a bit too vague, as I’m not sure how to describe clearly what I’m thinking about.

You mentioned both DMC3 and Dark Souls and while I don’t remember very well either fight, I do think that DMC3-5 (and Bayonetta too sometimes) allow you to do what I’m thinking about with most bosses, while normal encounters I feel are more about crowd control. On the other hand, Dark Souls and the other soulslike I played feel more focused on reacting to attacks, like the newer MH games.

Kraiden, do games w Day 565 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing
@Kraiden@piefed.social avatar

I love Cult of the Lamb! Such a vibe! You should check out Wytchwood. Completely different game but similar aesthetic. It’s a good time

moshankey,

Playing Wytchwood. I’m just enjoying the pace and the comedy. Cult of the Lamb was fun to play. Thank you for sharing.

SnotFlickerman, do games w Why is Valve being sued for almost $900 million, but Epic Games wasn't sued when they bought Rocket League and Fall Guys to remove them from steam?

What are they being sued for? I guess I missed this?

Also I guess it could be argued they only removed it from new sales whereas people who already owned those titles on Steam still have them on Steam.

eli, (edited )
@eli@lemmy.world avatar

They are being accused of price fixing with the whole “can’t sell games for cheaper on other store fronts compared to the steam listing” thing

warm@kbin.earth explains it better below:

It only applies to Steam product keys though, so developers cannot sell cheap Steam keys on other platforms while still taking advantage of Steam’s services.

SnotFlickerman,

Oh well that’s totally fair, honestly.

It locks out real competitive pricing.

warm,

It only applies to Steam product keys though, so developers cannot sell cheap Steam keys on other platforms while still taking advantage of Steam's services.

eli,
@eli@lemmy.world avatar

Yes this is a more apt description, sorry, this whole thing has been stupid tbh.

Cavemanfreak,

I believe the problem is that it isn’t just Steam keys. There’s apparently emails from Valve employees that state that it’s all versions of the game, and that seems to be the real crux here. And if that’s true it’s pretty shitty, and they might actually lose this.

warm, (edited )

Do you have a source for that? All I can find on their Steamworks site is the rules on Steam keys being restricted, not other versions. Maybe I missed that email part in the news.

Cavemanfreak,

They were mentioned in a recent Youtube video by Bellular News. I haven’t read more about it myself.

mic_check_one_two,

It only applies to steam keys though. Like if you want to sell on other storefronts (like Epic) for cheaper, it’s perfectly fine. You simply can’t sell steam keys on other storefronts for cheaper. It’s not really “price fixing” as much as it is “Steam ensuring their servers aren’t used to download the game unless the dev has properly paid them for the key”…

Like imagine a company wants to sell more copies of their game. So they set up their own site to sell directly to consumers, and it’s cheaper than buying on Steam. This is totally fine. Consumers can still choose to add the standalone version as a non-Steam game to be able to launch it via Steam.

It’s only a breach of contract if they start offering steam keys for that same (cheaper) price, which allows the game to be downloaded via Steam, includes achievement integrations, includes Steam’s friend list “join game” multiplayer, includes Steam Deck/Steam Machine optimizations, etc… If they want all of those nice Steam integrations, they need an official Steam key. And that Steam key can’t be sold cheaper than on Steam’s official store.

Nibodhika,

How does it do that?

bookmeat,

I think this lawsuit is actually about allowing people to buy dlc from other stores for games that you bought through steam?

unknown1234_5,
@unknown1234_5@kbin.earth avatar

ah yes, they are price fixing by saying devs can't set the price on steam (which the devs control) higher than the price on other platforms (which the devs also control)

Nibodhika,

That’s not true, it only applies if you’re selling a steam key. Devs are free to set the price on any platform they want, want proof? Check out the currently free game on epic which has never been free on Steam.

Steam provides developers with infinite steam keys that they can sell outside of steam for 100% profit, however those keys cannot be sold at a lesser price than what it’s sold on steam. Which honestly sounds like common sense.

Lfrith,

That itself is false too with a quick look at isthereanydeals showing lot of steam games being sold cheaper outside of the steam store.

Even the Steam key guidelines don’t explicitly state that steam keys can’t be sold cheaper.

It’s OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time.

partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys

Key word being comparable which is why if you are a user of isthereanydeals or /r/gamedeals you’ve likely gotten most of your steam games from outside the official Steam store.

I think some people just assume Steam sales must be the cheapest and don’t look beyond it.

I am puzzled why people believe Steam keys can’t be sold cheaper outside Steam unless they never looked outside the Steam store.

This is one example of a game that isnt too old is Silent Hill F.

isthereanydeal.com/game/silent-hill-f/info/

Historical low is $31.49 from Fanatical and Steam low is $41.99

Nibodhika,

Sure, but that’s more about Valve not pursuing violations than anything else (in other comment I also mentioned how they turn a blind eye to Humble Bundle as well). But legally they could go after silent hill f and demand it be sold for a similar value to $31.49 since some time has passed and stem users have not been offered a comparable offer. I think what’s in the clause they make people sign is more important than whether they enforce it or not, because if it was about price parity with other stores then it would be abusive (even if they didn’t enforced it always), but if it is about selling something they provide then it’s not abusive even if they do enforced it always.

nogooduser,

I’m pretty sure that Amazon also says that you can’t sell things on Amazon for more than you sell the same item elsewhere.

I’ve certainly seen a video claiming that.

GuerillaGorillas,

Which isn’t accurate and is more nuanced involving Steam keys like another user said. For instance, Prey is on sale for $6 on the PlayStation store but still $30 on Steam.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/10b8e30b-6a07-45fa-9cd4-c4c8cbcd41c6.jpeg

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ace46a16-5ff6-4aef-9fb0-de01ff7dba5e.jpeg

SparroHawc,

That’s because they can’t intimidate Bethesda with an email.

lath,

As per my understanding (which isn’t saying much), Steam takes a 30% cut of each sale. In UK, someone with a specific agenda claimed to represent gamers as a class and sued reasoning that the 30% cut inflates the price of games globally even beyond Steam’s store, harming everyone.

Did i understand it right? No idea. What’s the actual goal here? Also no idea. Is Steam the “good guy” in all this? Of course not.

lofuw,

Well that’s stupid. If Steam charged less, the price of games wouldn’t change.

Developers and publishers would just pocket the difference.

Lfrith,

Best example is Ubisoft and EA when they took their games off Steam and Epic wasn’t around but didn’t sell their games any cheaper despite 0% cut. Or Final Fantasy 7 Remake released as an Epic exclusive, but was priced at $70.

It is weird. Every other product people know that companies want to charge as much as the market will take to maximize profits. Most noticeable examples being GPU prices over the years and now ram and storage.

But, gamers for some reason think companies want to price things lower as though game companies are so noble they escape the greed of capitalism to seek out exponential profits.

Adeptus_Obsoletus,

Is Steam the “good guy” in all this? Of course not.

Too bad a lot of people, even here or in other threads, don’t get it, so they willingly cheer for Valve simply because Tim Sweeney sucks.

KoboldCoterie,
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

I think devs actually get quite a bit for that 30%. Let’s present a hypothetical. What if Valve offered an option where you could list your game on Steam with no restrictions and they’d only take a 10% cut, but the tradeoff is, they won’t promote your game at all? Like, it won’t show up in any Steam storefront advertisements, can’t participate in sales, etc. - it’s still there if it’s linked to from off-Steam or if someone searches for it, but it won’t be promoted, period.

How do you think that would work out for developers? I’d argue not well, especially for small studios.

The promotion those games get applies to the game as a whole, not only through Steam - someone can see the promotion on Steam, then go shop around and buy it elsewhere. Why should Valve promote a game if they aren’t getting a cut of the sales?

Matt, do games w Why is Valve being sued for almost $900 million, but Epic Games wasn't sued when they bought Rocket League and Fall Guys to remove them from steam?

Valve is being sued because they are forcing others to follow policies that further entrenches Steam as the largest store.

Since Epic bought the game developer, it only applies to themselves. It is much harder to sue someone over a decision that only applies to something they own. How can a company be sued for not selling their product at a store? Should Valve be sued for not selling their own games on Epic or GOG?

Is Epic’s decision to only sell their games on their store annoying for users? Yes. But unfortunately, there is nothing illegal about. There would be a better chance of a lawsuit of Epic paying other game developers for exclusivity, but that would still not be easy as game exclusivity is still a significant factor on game consoles as well. Albeit much less than in the past.

mushroomman_toad,

Isn’t valve being sued for

  1. Not allowing devs to sell steam download codes on other stores, But the ban only applies if they are selling the download code for cheaper than Steam
  2. Not allowing devs to sell steam DLC download codes on other stores

I don’t think 1 or 2 puts other stores at any disadvantage. If a store wants to sell steam download codes then Valve has to get their normal cut. If they don’t want to pay the valve tax, then they don’t need to offer a Steam download code.

markz,

So the entire problem is about restrictions on steam codes?

lofuw,

Valve isn’t forcing anyone to use their platform.

If Steam’s terms aren’t satisfactory for developers, then they don’t have to use Steam.

kinsnik,

There are laws that say that abusing a monopoly is illegal. Steam is objectively a monopoly in pc games. Sure, you don’t have to use it, but it is basically impossible for indie developers to make a living without it.

Now, the question is if valve’s actions are actually abusing the monopoly, or normal business practices.

MrQuallzin,

looks at Hytale doing quite well without even touching Steam

Nelots,

Got any other modern examples than just the one game that had a massive following for the last 7 years of development?

ripcord,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

Star Citizen I guess. If by “well” it is meant “making lots of money”

But yeah it’s not realistic at all for 99+% of devs/games

MagnificentSteiner,

Anything by Blizzard, Escape from Tarkov, Minecraft, Roblox, Valorant/LoL/TFT, Genshin Impact/HSR, Fortnite and more.

Nelots,

Notably, almost none of those are indie games, and almost any indie game that you did list came out in the 2000s like Roblox, before Steam was the behemoth it is today. Half of them are games by the same sets of AAA studios like Epic Games, Blizzard, and MiHoYo, and most Blizzard games have an entire franchise of games older than Steam itself to piggyback off of. Speaking of, anything by Blizzard isn’t even true… their most recent games like Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 are both on Steam. Tarkov is also on Steam now, but I’ll admit I’m splitting hairs here since it spent nearly a decade off of it. Though the fact that it released on Steam with its 1.0 update does say something.

So I really don’t think any of those games aside from debatably Tarkov shows that the average modern indie dev can be successful outside of Steam.

MagnificentSteiner,

You asked a question, I answered. You didn’t like the answer so now you move the goalposts.

Nelots, (edited )

To be clear, the original comment I responded to said:

looks at Hytale doing quite well without even touching Steam

In response to a comment that said:

There are laws that say that abusing a monopoly is illegal. Steam is objectively a monopoly in pc games. Sure, you don’t have to use it, but it is basically impossible for indie developers to make a living without it.

I never moved the goalposts; modern indie devs were always the goalpost.

dukemirage,

Hytale has incredible publicity for an indie release and caters to a target group that’s used to a separate launcher. Not comparable to the usual release.

fyrilsol,

I would say they aren't.

Because, they aren't like Epic, who has been going around and locking games behind exclusivity deals. Name me one game by one developer, who Valve went to and was like "hey, I'm going to give you a $5 Million exclusivity deal. I'd like for your game to be available on our Steam platform for 2 years before you're allowed to sell anywhere else!"

I'm sure nobody can find that game. Meanwhile, Epic has done this to Metro: Exodus, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2 for the PC and outright buying studios going "hey, delist your game on Steam and only be available to our platform."

How the fuck can that broad be so stupid to not notice that? But it's all Valve's fault, somehow.

ripcord,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

hey, I’m going to give you a $5 Million exclusivity deal

This isn’t something they need to.do, as they have a monopoly.

fyrilsol,

...Okay?

ripcord,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t understand the reply. I was replying to the topic. I’m not a fan of Epic either but people are being kinda stupid about some of the justifications for the hate.

doublah,

They could still compete on I don’t know, features, quality instead of anti-consumer practices.

ripcord,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

Also true, but that’s not what I’m replying to.

kinsnik,

I don’t know if valve are or aren’t abusing their monopolistic position. I am not a lawyer and i don’t have a horse in the race.

I was just answering to someone who said “if you don’t like valve policies, dont publish your games there”, which would be true for a normal business, but specifically not true of a monopoly, which steam is, unquestionably

Epic can do things much more freely, because they dont hold a monopoly on pc games

fyrilsol,

It's hard to really call Valve a monopoly when, there is competition. If there's no competition, then Valve would clearly be a monopoly.

It's not like back in the 90s when Microsoft bundled their Windows OS with Internet Explorer that edged out Netscape back then. Because there really wasn't a lot of browser alternatives available to have made it where competition was there. Microsoft was considered a monopoly back then because competition was very little during their peak then.

In the digital PC gaming landscape, it's entirely different. There are numerous marketplaces for digital games. And they're big enough to where Valve is just simply an alternative and can go without if someone chooses.

Valve doesn't force anyone to use Steam or strong-arms people to buy games from them. They just exist, the people have spoken both by their own loyalty and their wallets. And that made companies like Epic mad and jealous. They just came late into the game when Valve was developing itself.

bryndos,

There are not many objectively provable monopolies and i doubt that English law would support that claim without extremely strong evidence, generally utilities are the only ones that'd get close. A necessity with high fixed costs and infrastructure lock-in.

Steam has high market share in a segment, but not necessarily a distinct segment, I'm sure steam would argue that there are enough consumers who can and do substitute between pc and console and mobile, as well as other vendors so that their market power is mitigated by a fair amount of consumer mobility.

So what you're looking to prove is unlikely to be a pure "monopoly" but 'excess market power', and 'abuse of market power'. That is a complex legal art that the competition regulator is usually not that successful at proving, at least in English law.

Abuse of market power has to impact consumers not producers. There are always marginal producers struggling to make a profit - that happens in competitive markets, producers bidding prices down, some going out of business. I'm not saying I agree, but that's more or less how the law sees it, lookup what they let supermarkets get away with in contracts with farmers.

To show consumer harm from upstream market manipulation you'd probably have to show a material dearth of choice being created by steam policies in order to jack up prices. Maybe that can be demonstrated, but it's not simple and more likely to come down to subjective interpretation of the arguments and evidence from both sides rather than any unarguable objective truth.

If it were unarguable or objectively true then the CMA might lead the investigation itself instead of this being a private action. Though maybe this is too small a market for them to worry about.

squaresinger,

You have to differentiate between a monopoly in economics and a monopoly in law.

In economics a monopoly is the only seller of a good with no other competition. If I am the only one who owns apple trees, I got a monopoly on apples.

In law a monopoly is someone who owns so much of the market that they can charge unfair prices. If I am the only one who owns large orchards full of the best kind of apple trees, it doesn’t really matter to me that someone else has a couple mediocre trees in their backyard. I am not a economics-monopoly, since someone else is also selling apples, but I hold enough of the market that I can set the price to whatever I want.

(Ok, the analogy isn’t perfect, but you get it, I hope. Basically the “excess market power” thing you talked about is the legal definition of a monopoly.)

Customers don’t necessarily need to be end customers. If steam is charging their business customers too much, that counts too. (It also affects the end customers too, btw.)

So the question is: If I don’t release a game on steam, will that cause it to underperform significantly? If so, does steam charge a lot above market price? If both of these questions are answered with yes, a lawsuit could be successful.

bryndos,

whatUK law basically doesn't use the term.

My point was that proving dominance and abuse is rarely objective fact. It sure isn't showing market share and that some games companies go out of business. They have to show the things that valve does to restrict competition - being popular isn't enough alone.

Your last question is quite a good example of how hard it is to prove because it includes counterfactual comparisons.

This might be why it seems (if the journo is to be believed) that they're going down the tie-ins angle for the DLC, not necessarily headline pricing. Thou the latter would probably a worse outcome for valve if guilty.

False,

They essentially removed games that I owned and made it so I could no longer play them by drippy Linux support.

justdaveisfine, do games w Games you really want to play, but can't or won't?

Most anything PvP.

I just can’t do anything with games that don’t allow me to pause (or go idle) as I just have constant interruptions.

It doesn’t help that many PvP games also have sweaty tryhard metas that put you on a different level if you’re not reading up on forums or discussions.

Abundance114,

I’ll straight up admit that I can’t compete in most pvp titles; and I don’t want to be a loot goblin for the high school kids who are going to 360 no-scope headshot me from across the map and then tea bag my corpse.

remon, do games w Games you really want to play, but can't or won't?

I’ve been paying for my EvE Online accounts for over 10 years without playing. Just logging in about twice a year, to play skill training online.

Maybe I’ll have time to continue playing when I retire …

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