Steam very much makes that 30% worthwhile with the support and features they provide for free. They can’t be forced to host games, prices are set by publishers/devs, steam takes 0% of steam key sales.
The price parity is the part that might be argued, but I doubt it will go far. I’m not seeing very good arguments for this being anti-consumer, which is the key point.
I think ‘anti competitive’ is here framed as ‘anti consumer’
This rule ensures that Steam doesn’t have to compete with their 30% cut. If competitor was selling a game for 5$ cheaper, many consumers would rather buy it from that competitor instead, potentially forcing Steam to lower their 30% cut.
Now Steam at the moment is very good for us gamers, but it should not be taken for granted and can change in future.
I had gifted a game while there was a sale but the person i gifted it to never got on their pc within the next month so i just got refunded and they never got the game. I complained that i still want them to have the game and they essentially just said that i need to now pay full price or suck it. They just didn’t seem to understand that this was an issue at all and were just fobbing me off. I guess technically since i didn’t lose money it’s not the worst thing. But it’s massively annoying because we were about to play that game together until we realised they never received it due to this so to me it felt very anti consumer.
Valve has been dealing with frivolous lawsuits for stuff like this for a while now, Epic Games just made it very public. I’d put it on par with copyright trolls.
I don’t mind it. The Aussies gave us that two hour refund window through their courts. Valve had this kinda turn into an asset, because people felt that they had purchase protection vs say, nintendo. Where you are kinda out of luck if something isn’t fun.
Consumer protections make products even better when the protections are well-crafted. (Some, like the dummy disk on bikes, maybe not so much).
Very interested in how people in the fediverse will react to this news. I know some of us have soft spot for Steam.
I don’t know enough about the UK laws and regulation to pick sides as of now.
Steam very much makes that 30% worthwhile with the support and features they provide for free. They can’t be forced to host games, prices are set by publishers/devs, steam takes 0% of steam key sales.
The price parity is the part that might be argued, but I doubt it will go far. I’m not seeing very good arguments for this being anti-consumer, which is the key point.
I think ‘anti competitive’ is here framed as ‘anti consumer’
This rule ensures that Steam doesn’t have to compete with their 30% cut. If competitor was selling a game for 5$ cheaper, many consumers would rather buy it from that competitor instead, potentially forcing Steam to lower their 30% cut.
Now Steam at the moment is very good for us gamers, but it should not be taken for granted and can change in future.
I had gifted a game while there was a sale but the person i gifted it to never got on their pc within the next month so i just got refunded and they never got the game. I complained that i still want them to have the game and they essentially just said that i need to now pay full price or suck it. They just didn’t seem to understand that this was an issue at all and were just fobbing me off. I guess technically since i didn’t lose money it’s not the worst thing. But it’s massively annoying because we were about to play that game together until we realised they never received it due to this so to me it felt very anti consumer.
That’s a fair argument and a decent case, but not one that strongly backs an anti-competition legal action.
Valve has been dealing with frivolous lawsuits for stuff like this for a while now, Epic Games just made it very public. I’d put it on par with copyright trolls.
I don’t mind it. The Aussies gave us that two hour refund window through their courts. Valve had this kinda turn into an asset, because people felt that they had purchase protection vs say, nintendo. Where you are kinda out of luck if something isn’t fun.
Consumer protections make products even better when the protections are well-crafted. (Some, like the dummy disk on bikes, maybe not so much).