The creators of Humble Bundle are suing Valve for monopolistic behavior in a class action lawsuit

[ravenshrike]

It amuses me that people blame Steam for the laziness of publishers. There's nothing stopping publishers from creating their own CDNs for their game, their own netcode, and then implementing crossplay between the Steam and non-Steam versions of the game. Then they could sell their own version for anything they wanted. Hell, for any single player titles, which the majority of Humble Bundler games are, they only need a CDN. This entire lawsuit is the equivalent of someone suing Amazon for not allowing them to use Amazon's delivery trucks for goods sold on other wwbsites.

[spartaman64]

21 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Disclaimer: I use Steam as my primary platform for PC games (I do use other platforms but it is what it is).

 

But let's be totally clear here: I constantly see posts about how users won't buy a game if it's not on Steam. Hell, even sometimes they outright say they will pirate the game rather than buy it from Epic or the Microsoft Store, etc.

 

I definitely think there's some merit to these claims. Steam might not be a technical monopoly, but they're pretty damn close.

 

With that in mind, balance must be gained between the business interests of Steam vs the consumer interests of everyone else. This isn't black and white. Steam isn't good nor bad. It has both good and bad aspects. Something needs to be done, but it doesn't necessarily mean Valve loses control over their own platform.

yeah but idk why they want steam to do about that. like not allow people to download steam unless they also have origin, epic games, and uplay on their computer?

[poochyena]

31 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

Not a great counter argument. Granted, I didn't know Gamestop actually sold PC games online, but it's still just Steam keys.

The fact that gamestop sells digital games isn't a great counter argument to steam having competitors? Are you even thinking? And no, its not just steam keys. SOME are just steam keys, but some are origin or a separate platform. This was true a few years ago at least, I haven't checked again recently.

 

33 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

Just going through the Steam "Top Sellers" chart

I said top PC games, not top steam games. The fact you felt the need to point out all the top steam games are sold on steam makes me think there is something wrong with you. There is nothing that can be gained from continuing.

[Quackers101]

The worst part is not steam, but dedicated KEYS that HAS to use another third party software that is always online to PLAY a game.

That it has to be a steam or whatever else key for a game.

Instead of owning and buying a game right there and then.

Only good thing about steam, you will know that it's likely will always be up, but you can't always trust of the game will stay up...

As in certain games removed just suddenly with no warnings due to copyrights or the end of copyrights, like car games and the like.

Which is bothering me quite a bit. An old classic and suddenly it might be removed. And steam re-releases of older titles aren't always great or unable to run and is closer to be crapware. at least they released refunds to their platform.

[tikker]

3 hours ago, JZStudios said:

So out of Steam's top 20 selling games, excluding their own franchises, 50% of them are available only through Steam, 20% of them are only sold on other platforms because they're first party or paid exclusivity, and only 30% are actually on the "open" market.

It would be interesting and relevant to see (I don't know, so that's partly why I'm asking as well) why those games are not on other stores though. If it's simply the developers or studio not bothering with other platforms than Steam, then you can't hold that against Steam and should complain to the developer.

 

3 hours ago, ravenshrike said:

This entire lawsuit is the equivalent of someone suing Amazon for not allowing them to use Amazon's delivery trucks for goods sold on other wwbsites.

Exactly my first thought.

[KaitouX]

3 hours ago, JZStudios said:

So out of Steam's top 20 selling games, excluding their own franchises, 50% of them are available only through Steam, 20% of them are only sold on other platforms because they're first party or paid exclusivity, and only 30% are actually on the "open" market.

That's 100% the publishers fault, Steam have nothing to do with where publishers/devs sell their games. But even in that case the keys system at least makes the market not limited to buying through Steam, but limited to downloading/playing through it, not ideal but at that point Valve can't really do anything more, unless you want Valve to force publishers to put their games elsewhere.

[Brooksie359]

On 4/30/2021 at 3:20 PM, dalekphalm said:

Disclaimer: I use Steam as my primary platform for PC games (I do use other platforms but it is what it is).

 

But let's be totally clear here: I constantly see posts about how users won't buy a game if it's not on Steam. Hell, even sometimes they outright say they will pirate the game rather than buy it from Epic or the Microsoft Store, etc.

 

I definitely think there's some merit to these claims. Steam might not be a technical monopoly, but they're pretty damn close.

 

With that in mind, balance must be gained between the business interests of Steam vs the consumer interests of everyone else. This isn't black and white. Steam isn't good nor bad. It has both good and bad aspects. Something needs to be done, but it doesn't necessarily mean Valve loses control over their own platform.

That legitimately has nothing to do with a monopoly. Thats people having brand loyalty to an unhealthy degree. Honestly it would probably be easier if the other stores didn't suck as its so hard to really see a reason to switch to a different platform if there is no better alternative. Also I would like to point out that steam isn't really monopoly simply because most people prefer using it over other services. That more so shows that they have a better platform the the competition. And again there are other alternatives and its not steams fault that people prefer steam over those alternatives. I mean why is it on them to somehow make their marketshare go down? No logical company would do that. 

[JZStudios]

9 hours ago, poochyena said:

The fact that gamestop sells digital games isn't a great counter argument to steam having competitors? Are you even thinking? And no, its not just steam keys. SOME are just steam keys, but some are origin or a separate platform. This was true a few years ago at least, I haven't checked again recently.

 

I said top PC games, not top steam games. The fact you felt the need to point out all the top steam games are sold on steam makes me think there is something wrong with you. There is nothing that can be gained from continuing.

You don't do logic well do you? Buying a Steam key on Gamestop is still buying it through Steam, not another platform. And the vast majority are Steam keys outside of Ubi and EA titles.

 

The only top games not sold on Steam are only available through their own first party launcher. That's primarily... Fortnight and...? Origin is now selling games through Steam after failing to make revenue otherwise, as well as Ubi. Hell, even MS is moving their games to Steam since people refuse to use their store. You let me know which other massive games are sold on multiple platforms that are blowing away the rest, because the games I listed are not small titles.

Once again you prove inept at following logic.

 

You're missing the entire fucking point of people saying "Steam is the only place to get 90% of games" by saying that some other first games are only available on first party launchers. That's not how an open market competition works. If you fail to understand that, then something is wrong with you.

 

5 hours ago, tikker said:

It would be interesting and relevant to see (I don't know, so that's partly why I'm asking as well) why those games are not on other stores though. If it's simply the developers or studio not bothering with other platforms than Steam, then you can't hold that against Steam and should complain to the developer.

There's probably an amount of development cost associated with other platforms, I don't really know. But given how if people say they'll skip Steam and just go to GOG or EGS the community will send them death threats and pirate their games... I mean, they could release on multiple platforms. GOG has been growing, but they're a much smaller store and since it's DRM free it's mostly old games and indie titles. Every other platform outside EGS now was always and is only really used for first party titles in an attempt to get the full price instead of splitting the revenue.

If you didn't release on Steam your game got no traction or people would just boycott/pirate it, and the other platforms (outside GOG) are really just first party. If you're a AAA studio and you want that sweet, sweet Denuvo, Steam was your only option.

 

That's why EGS came in and started trying to be an actual competitor to Steam as an actual storefront, and people are boycotting the shit out of them. Steam started this anti-consumer shit storm and somehow gained a rabid cult following.

 

5 hours ago, KaitouX said:

That's 100% the publishers fault, Steam have nothing to do with where publishers/devs sell their games. But even in that case the keys system at least makes the market not limited to buying through Steam, but limited to downloading/playing through it, not ideal but at that point Valve can't really do anything more, unless you want Valve to force publishers to put their games elsewhere.

How do you people think buying Steam keys isn't going through Steam? That's like saying you're not paying MS for your copy of Win10 because you bought it from your local PC store.

[poochyena]

25 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

Buying a Steam key on Gamestop is still buying it through Steam, not another platform

Correct. I never said otherwise.

 

26 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

The only top games not sold on Steam are only available through their own first party launcher. That's primarily... Fortnight and...?

But they are available on other platforms too, thats the point. Steam doesn't have a monopoly, there are many games you can buy elsewhere or not on steam at all.

30 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

"Steam is the only place to get 90% of games" by saying that some other first games are only available on first party launchers. That's not how an open market competition works.

If you can buy games somewhere other than steam, then steam has competition. Its as simple as that.

[KaitouX]

32 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

How do you people think buying Steam keys isn't going through Steam? That's like saying you're not paying MS for your copy of Win10 because you bought it from your local PC store.

You aren't buying through Steam, you're buying it through GMG, HumbleBundle or any other site, and then using it on Steam, in other words, the sale isn't going through them but the use of the product goes through Steam. In this case they become the provider and not the seller.

The MS analogy doesn't work here, as Steam doesn't profit directly from sold keys, they profit from having more users on the platform. The keys on Steam require no fee to be generated, and they obviously can't track where and for how much the key was sold, so they can't take the usual 30% cut there, and by the fact no one complains about Steam having some flat fee for each activated key and that it isn't mentioned in the site, they also don't seem to do that.

 

I'm just differentiating the action of buying/selling the product from the process of producing and using said product.

The product goes through Steam, the action of buying it doesn't.

[WereCatf]

2 hours ago, JZStudios said:

That's why EGS came in and started trying to be an actual competitor to Steam as an actual storefront, and people are boycotting the shit out of them. Steam started this anti-consumer shit storm and somehow gained a rabid cult following.

You keep referring to rabid fanboys and similar things, you keep bashing Steam/Valve, and it all seems like you just have an axe to grind. It's hard to take anything you say seriously with such an attitude.

 

For one, why are rabid fanboys and such even relevant? Literally everything attracts those kinds, including the other storefronts, but they're all in tiny minority and not a driving force here. Secondly, you seem to be insinuating that people are boycotting EGS just simply because it's a competitor to Steam. Sure, for the most rabid fanboys that may be true, but for the rest of us that's not the reason. I mean, if that was the reason, then why would many of us still support e.g. GOG, which is also a competitor? No, there's more to it, but I'm not sure if you just don't want to see it or if you don't even understand it.

[Semper]

Like many others here, I just don't see Valve's action as monopolistic.
They have an overwhelmingly significant grasp on the PC market as a whole, but that's thanks in no small part for them being around when nobody else really cared about PC gaming. When pc gaming began to grow in popularity, as we currently know it anyway, a lot of storefronts started to pop up on that "neato little doodad" called PC, which was, by it's nature, difficult if not impossible to be monopolistic on. They wanted their share of the pie that they abandoned and/or overlooked, kind of like what's going on with streaming services right now. Everybody wants their piece of the pie, and we're headed directly back down the route that is leading to cable TV's demise. Those that have followed have shown what I believe to be more of a grasp on monopoly. "our games, our platform", which for the record, I am not disagreeing with. Developers and/or publishers have every right to publish their games wherever they wish. Ask EA how well it worked for them. Ask Blizzard how well it worked for them, you're going to get two very radically different answers there. Then look at EGS. Yes, it's the "hip, cool, jive thing to do man... man" to hate EGS, but it's because of their monopolistic practices, their timed exclusivity agreements (for whatever reason that you believe just or unjust, as is your prerogative) of third-party games that I can definitively say that I will never be a patron of theirs (and yes, I realize that I am somewhat contradicting myself when I say that publishers/developers have a right to publish their games where they wish, and then immediately turning around and stating I do not support the exclusivity on EGS - I view them as separate instances which is a discussion in itself.)

I have steam installed.
I have Uplay installed
I have battle.net installed.
I have GOG Galaxy installed.
I have two different mojang launchers installed.
I have wargaming center installed.

I have Twitch installed.
There was a time when I had Origin installed. I refuse to purchase another EA title, therefore it was no longer of use to me.

I have no issue with multiple storefronts. I have no issue with competition.
I have issue with Epic working in the negative, making (granted, time-limited) exclusivity deals in an effort to undermine steam, being monopolistic in the "fight" against the monopoly. Instead of offering tangible encouragement for users to choose their storefront, such as even a basic level of usability, they brute force their traffic with "you can only get *this new game* on the EGS"
 

[Kisai]

1 minute ago, Semper said:

Like many others here, I just don't see Valve's action as monopolistic.
They have an overwhelmingly significant grasp on the PC market as a whole, but that's thanks in no small part for them being around when nobody else really cared about PC gaming. When pc gaming began to grow in popularity, as we currently know it anyway, a lot of storefronts started to pop up on that "neato little doodad" called PC, which was, by it's nature, difficult if not impossible to be monopolistic on. They wanted their share of the pie that they abandoned and/or overlooked, kind of like what's going on with streaming services right now. Everybody wants their piece of the pie, and we're headed directly back down the route that is leading to cable TV's demise. Those that have followed have shown what I believe to be more of a grasp on monopoly. "our games, our platform", which for the record, I am not disagreeing with. Developers and/or publishers have every right to publish their games wherever they wish. Ask EA how well it worked for them. Ask Blizzard how well it worked for them, you're going to get two very radically different answers there. Then look at EGS. Yes, it's the "hip, cool, jive thing to do man... man" to hate EGS, but it's because of their monopolistic practices, their timed exclusivity agreements (for whatever reason that you believe just or unjust, as is your prerogative) of third-party games that I can definitively say that I will never be a patron of theirs (and yes, I realize that I am somewhat contradicting myself when I say that publishers/developers have a right to publish their games where they wish, and then immediately turning around and stating I do not support the exclusivity on EGS - I view them as separate instances which is a discussion in itself.)

I have steam installed.
I have Uplay installed
I have battle.net installed.
I have GOG Galaxy installed.
I have two different mojang launchers installed.
I have wargaming center installed.

I have Twitch installed.
There was a time when I had Origin installed. I refuse to purchase another EA title, therefore it was no longer of use to me.

I have no issue with multiple storefronts. I have no issue with competition.
I have issue with Epic working in the negative, making (granted, time-limited) exclusivity deals in an effort to undermine steam, being monopolistic in the "fight" against the monopoly. Instead of offering tangible encouragement for users to choose their storefront, such as even a basic level of usability, they brute force their traffic with "you can only get *this new game* on the EGS"
 

Yet all those stores demand to be running in the background for updates, eating up your precious CPU and GPU power with chrome embedded frameworks, you may as well have 8 browser tabs open refreshing the page every minute.

 

At least if there is only one "store", be it Steam on the PC and Mac, or Microsoft's and Apple's stores, the "native" store, so to speak, everyone will adhere to the standard by which that store operates under. If y'all remember the time before Microsoft's MSI installers, you had Installshield and later NSIS (previously known just as the Nullsoft installer, which was a free alternative to Installshield) , and these installer tools would litter, if not obliterate old versions of Windows like XP, 2K, ME and 98 by installing things into places that they didn't belong.

 

MacOS, click and drag the thing you want to run to the desktop, 90% of non-MacOS store software is done that simply, everything stays together. It just works. Don't get me started on Linux packagers though. The one thing that "works better" on Linux/FreeBSD is that the package manager is usually not so brain-dead that it will update the package for the software, and all the dependencies. The problem is that most Linux distros are broken almost immediately after a major or minor version update, so if you don't update everything, it breaks.

 

So what would I prefer here? I'd prefer that there be just one process that downloads and manages software and can resolve dependency failures, and doesn't sit there wasting bandwidth and processing time in the background. The worst offenders of this on the PC are the Java runtime and the Chrome, Firefox, and Opera updaters, sometimes wanting you to restart the browser every second day. Likewise there are also the updaters for Razer, nvidia, AMD, etc , for some damn reason have multi-GB driver packages. Manually checking a dozen programs for updates gets monotonous. 

 

You know what would fix this stuff? Separate the download/update process from the "store". Register a "signed website address" for each program, and poll for an update before launching the program, and if there is a critical update, update it before running, otherwise download the update after the program is closed. None of these programs or stores have any reason to keep running in the background consuming resources.

[Semper]

2 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Yet all those stores demand to be running in the background for updates, eating up your precious CPU and GPU power with chrome embedded frameworks, you may as well have 8 browser tabs open refreshing the page every minute.

 

At least if there is only one "store", be it Steam on the PC and Mac, or Microsoft's and Apple's stores, the "native" store, so to speak, everyone will adhere to the standard by which that store operates under. If y'all remember the time before Microsoft's MSI installers, you had Installshield and later NSIS (previously known just as the Nullsoft installer, which was a free alternative to Installshield) , and these installer tools would litter, if not obliterate old versions of Windows like XP, 2K, ME and 98 by installing things into places that they didn't belong.

 

MacOS, click and drag the thing you want to run to the desktop, 90% of non-MacOS store software is done that simply, everything stays together. It just works. Don't get me started on Linux packagers though. The one thing that "works better" on Linux/FreeBSD is that the package manager is usually not so brain-dead that it will update the package for the software, and all the dependencies. The problem is that most Linux distros are broken almost immediately after a major or minor version update, so if you don't update everything, it breaks.

 

So what would I prefer here? I'd prefer that there be just one process that downloads and manages software and can resolve dependency failures, and doesn't sit there wasting bandwidth and processing time in the background. The worst offenders of this on the PC are the Java runtime and the Chrome, Firefox, and Opera updaters, sometimes wanting you to restart the browser every second day. Likewise there are also the updaters for Razer, nvidia, AMD, etc , for some damn reason have multi-GB driver packages. Manually checking a dozen programs for updates gets monotonous. 

 

You know what would fix this stuff? Separate the download/update process from the "store". Register a "signed website address" for each program, and poll for an update before launching the program, and if there is a critical update, update it before running, otherwise download the update after the program is closed. None of these programs or stores have any reason to keep running in the background consuming resources.

Not a single storefront mandates that it starts with Windows.
When I want to play a game I launch *storefront it's on here*
If I switch up games to play with friends, I'll open *insert storefront here* when needed. If something is being problematic, *storefront here* will be shut down, but the reality is, I don't recall the last time that I had to shut a background storefront down. Downloads are throttled to a little bit under 75% of my average download speed, which leaves plenty for my games' needs (with some QoS thrown in for good measure), and I don't recall ever seeing a storefront consuming so many hardware resources that it crippled my experiences elsewhere.

Yes, this creates the issue that my games aren't always immediately ready to go, however I consider it largely a nonissue. I fully realize that I'm likely in a better position than a good number of people in that I have access to broadband that's of a modern real-world practicality, so update times for me largely aren't critical decisions. I don't have to plan out "I want to play this game tomorrow, so I should leave my system on with *insert storefront here*, but rather it's "we want to play this game" "okay, give me 20 minutes to update it". I can't relate to that experience as it's been more than a decade since I abandoned AT&T and their throttled, data capped, "broadband" internet.

[suicidalfranco]

So you're telling me that valve started pointing their guns at studios and publishers and forcing them to release their games only on steam or else, and also started giving away big bags of cash to said studios and publishers to make sure that their product never pop up on other platforms.

 

The only thing monopolistic about valve is it's msrketshare, other than that I have yet to see them act shady or be immoral.

One can complein about how ugly and inefficient their store fronts looks like, how they deal with regional pricing and refunds, how they barely make games anymore etc... But those point hardly count as reasons why" steam is a monopoly and should be broken up".

[RejZoR]

I'm confused how is Steam "monopolistic"? It was the first platform. And as such you often have benefits that happen naturally. However, even if game is on Steam, you can sell it past Steam and users can still activate it on Steam. Dev gets 100% and user has same experience as if they bought it on Steam itself. Which entirely bypasses Steam's cut. You can literally LEGALLY bypass payment of your share. Sure, some will buy it through Steam anyway, but you could buy on developers webpage too. It's especially ironic Humble Bundle is involved here. A page we got bunch of games from and activated on Steam. Spot the irony?

[Mark Kaine]

On 4/30/2021 at 10:05 PM, BachChain said:

Has anyone considered the possibility that Steam is a monopoly primarily because other stores just suck?

In part, yes, but the real reason is because publishers choose Steam as the only way to play their games , you can usually buy the games off site , yeah, but you still have no other option than to use the Steam launcher to play the games , so the monopoly isnt so much a distribution monopoly, rather a launcher monopoly... which is unfortunately where it probably gets tricky legally.

The long term solution here is to give the consumers more rights as in actually owning what they bought and not just a rent, which is btw illegal in many countries, but somehow Valve got around abiding to the law until now.

 

[Mark Kaine]

On 5/1/2021 at 7:44 AM, Vishera said:

If you don't want to use Steam,you can use competing solution such as GOG and the Epic Game Store.

But that's only for some games, the vast majority of especially AA/AAA you're forced to go through Steam, which does create a "monopoly like" situation, even though it technically isn't a monopoly in the traditional sense (its a launcher monopoly)

 

And there comes a lot of issues with that: fake review scores as they simply dont count a lot of negative reviews for a variety of reasons ("review bombing", "off topic reviews" etc...) at their sole discretion, no option to resell games (which is against EU laws) not being able to use keys from other regions (also against EU laws)

 

At this point from a consumer view, it would be better if Steam were to simply not offer their service in the EU, because they're obviously categorically unwilling to follow its laws.

 

[suicidalfranco]

19 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

But that's only for some games, the vast majority of especially AA/AAA you're forced to go through Steam, which does create a "monopoly like" situation, even though it technically isn't a monopoly in the traditional sense (its a launcher monopoly)

but not because of Valve's action. 

Albeit we do not know if Valve does some deals kept secret from the public with publishers, but for what is visible to us pubs are the ones deciding where to release their games. They aren't coerced or forced to release only on steam, it's purely their own decision to not release on other store fronts.

Even Epic has a similar key system that would allow publishers to resell the keys outside of the EGS, yet they don't take it (unless paid by epic to do so).

Seriously Valve only reason for being at the top is they were the first one, other than that one can preach about all the services they offer compared to the competition to both consumers and devs that they've created over the years (name one other launcher that on the consumer side allows you to seamlessly remote play your games, play your games on any OS (the most important one to me, valve literally made a dream come true for someone like me who daily drives ubuntu) ).

GOG benefits are no need for the launcher to play your games and no DRM. Amazing on the consumer side, try to convince publishers to accept it, they see it as the devil reincarnated and avoid it for that reason. It's not valve telling them to not release it on GOG.

Origin only hosts EA games and indie studios partnered with EA.

Ubisoft, same as EA.

Blizzard, doesn't even look to partner up with indies.

EGS, buying their way to the top hoping that the consumer will stay even after the free beer ends.

 

Having said that, what should Valve do?

let publisher host for free? no longer accept new games to be put up on their store till their marketshare drops to less than 50%? What's the solution here? there is nothing to break apart like it should have happened with MS, they don't hold PCs hostage like Apple does with the iPhone, they aren't gatekeeping the internet like Google or Amazon, they don't wipe the competition out of existence or absorb them to nothingness like Facebook. Really can someone show me the smoking gun, cause I ain't seeing it.

 

[Mark Kaine]

31 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

but not because of Valve's action.

I also said this, its the publishers deciding that for whatever reason(probably because it's just convenient for them) but that still doesn't change that Steam is in a "monopoly like" position with consequences for the consumer (ie reselling, key activation, etc)

31 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

Really can someone show me the smoking gun, cause I ain't seeing it.

Well, there are several lawsuits Valve is involved in, that probably wouldn't be happening if they followed existing laws , as I've mentioned.

 

And the long term solution, imo, is to give the consumer more and better rights, that includes handling of DRM. I also really dont see why i have to buy several "licenses" for the  *same* game for example, if you buy it on one platform that should make you automatically eligible to use on any platform its available (which of course wouldn't be limited to Steam ) Basically better consumer rights and enforcing of existing rules would be the way to go, then there's really nothing to say Valve shouldn't exist or have the majority of the market, as long they stop abusing their position (i also gave examples for that, review handling, consumer rights, reselling licenses, the list is rather long...)

 

Btw "competition" is not the solution if the competition is using the same or worse tactics (ie EGS) the solution to have better online "storefronts" is to strengthen consumer rights , there isn't another way to that.

[WereCatf]

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

I also really dont see why i have to buy several "licenses" for the  *same* game for example, if you buy it on one platform that should make you automatically eligible to use on any platform its available (which of course wouldn't be limited to Steam )

That's up to the developers/publishers. If they want to allow you to unlock the game on multiple platforms, they can do that already.

 

That said, yes, I also wish it wasn't up to them, but at the same time, I wonder what unintended consequences there would be if something like that was mandated by a law; wouldn't be the first time a law that was intended to strengthen consumer-rights ended up doing more harm than good.

[Mark Kaine]

7 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

That's up to the developers/publishers. If they want to allow you to unlock the game on multiple platforms, they can do that already.

 

i mean, thats obviously just one of the things id like to be regulated better, really things like ive mentioned that *are* already law ,like reselling used keys etc should be priority.

 

7 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

That said, yes, I also wish it wasn't up to them, but at the same time, I wonder what unintended consequences there would be if something like that was mandated by a law; wouldn't be the first time a law that was intended to strengthen consumer-rights ended up doing more harm than good.

Thats basically implying they would  increase "licensing prices" , which i would love seeing them try... (especially in a theoretically strengthend consumer environment)

 

 

 

[suicidalfranco]

4 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Well, there are several lawsuits Valve is involved in, that probably wouldn't be happening if they followed existing laws , as I've mentioned.

Doesn't really say much, when a patent troll sues a big tech company, does that make the troll automatically in the rights and the tech one in the wrong?

 

5 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

And the long term solution, imo, is to give the consumer more and better rights, that includes handling of DRM. I also really dont see why i have to buy several "licenses" for the  *same* game for example, if you buy it on one platform that should make you automatically eligible to use on any platform its available (which of course wouldn't be limited to Steam )

The only solution would actually be no DRM at all. Legislation haven't made it work in the movie and music industry. Don't see it coming far in the gaming industry. Or one of the storefronts becomes so big they can throw their weight around and force everyone else to use what the top dog du jour believes should be the standard. In this case Steam keys become the defacto standard key system for every other store. Now you have a monopoly that actually abuses it's power. 

 

9 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

stop abusing their position (i also gave examples for that, review handling, consumer rights, reselling licenses, the list is rather long

review handling was due to publishers bitching

you could transfer keys once, well gifting, and could do it on a global level. Then publishers came bitching as always about how they were losing money because people were taking advantage of regional pricing to get it cheaper.

Iirc you can buy keys from anywhere in within the EU now, all games now cost the same no matter where you at (in the EU, thanks pubs, must be great to be a PC gamer in east europe now) because of it.

reselling game is the only one missing now.

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

At this point from a consumer view, it would be better if Steam were to simply not offer their service in the EU, because they're obviously categorically unwilling to follow its laws

So is any other store front, so i guess ban everything in the EU i guess, Steam, Origin, Battlenet, Ubi, EGS. The only one who would be safe is GoG, but it's DRM-free, what would stop someone from just reselling copies?

[tikker]

8 hours ago, JZStudios said:

Every other platform outside EGS now was always and is only really used for first party titles in an attempt to get the full price instead of splitting the revenue.

If you didn't release on Steam your game got no traction or people would just boycott/pirate it, and the other platforms (outside GOG) are really just first party. If you're a AAA studio and you want that sweet, sweet Denuvo, Steam was your only option.

And there is the problem. In my view there are two problems 1) you cannot expect to get full revenue from your game if you use someone else's distribution platform. You can argue if that's 30%, 12% or whatever, but you'll have to split. 2) as you say, the other platforms don't even attempt to actually compete with Steam. They're just creating walled gardens with only their games and the bare minimum of features.

8 hours ago, JZStudios said:

That's why EGS came in and started trying to be an actual competitor to Steam as an actual storefront, and people are boycotting the shit out of them. Steam started this anti-consumer shit storm and somehow gained a rabid cult following.

People aren't just boycotting Epic because it's not Steam, but because they offer no real competition either. For one they try to draw people in by obtaining exclusives from tempting developers with large bags of money instead of pouring that money into improving their platform. Not saying Steam is faultless, but you are shooting yourself in the foot if the only way to fight Steam's "monopoly" is to create one of your own in my opinion.

 

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

I also said this, its the publishers deciding that for whatever reason(probably because it's just convenient for them) but that still doesn't change that Steam is in a "monopoly like" position with consequences for the consumer (ie reselling, key activation, etc)

There is a difference though. Steam's monopoly has come mostly natural. It has the benefit of being the first, but it never really abused it's position to force people or developers onto Steam. That's why I said in another thread that I don't think Steam's "monopoly" isn't that bad. We'll just end up in a vicious circle anyway. Now we're fighting monopoly A until we reach the point where we have too many options and start the fight to consolidate, until we reach create a monopoly again that the next generation thinks is bad.

[Kisai]

24 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

That's up to the developers/publishers. If they want to allow you to unlock the game on multiple platforms, they can do that already.

 

That said, yes, I also wish it wasn't up to them, but at the same time, I wonder what unintended consequences there would be if something like that was mandated by a law; wouldn't be the first time a law that was intended to strengthen consumer-rights ended up doing more harm than good.

"Hey friendo, I have a free key to give/sell you, only you have to use (store), in (country)"

 

Not that different from the gifting keys that already exists. In fact this is exactly how buying physical blueray/dvd/digital-download combo discs works. I could buy the BD, and turn around and sell the digital key, legally not permissible, but what if I just registered keys to a google account and sold the account? 

 

Unfortunately the entire right to resell/secondary-market has been ignored for software pretty much since inception. Many software licenses absolutely prohibit reselling (see the Windows OS itself), and many game publishers (particularly Nintendo) don't give you a mechanism to backup your software. If your device, dies, it takes the software with it. At least Steam isn't tied to the machine, so you can always reinstall Steam and redownload everything or backup everything to a USB drive and just straight up move things on/off a PC as you need it. You can't do that with EGS (it will insist on redownloading, if it sees the same directory already existing it will just not download it) Windows Store is worse ( it will always redownload), but is tied to your microsoft/xbox account, but not permit you to download games to another device that you own if you didn't buy it while logged in. eg if you have a XBLA game from the 360, you can't install it on the Xbox One, Series X or Windows 10. Even if you use the USB drive it's already on. (Though you could use the same USB stick in multiple Xbox 360's, one at a time)

 

This is something that has to be addressed by copyright law, and discussing it here just just beating ones head against the wall.

 

- The ability to transfer a license between stores is a necessity, and does not exist, be that the Windows store, Apple store, Steam store, EGS, Ubisoft, etc. One day one of these stores are going to die off (see Sony shutting down the PS3/Vita store), and not be legally required to give players a way to save their purchases to use on their still working PS3/Vita's or move them to emulators. No Sony wants to offer PS Now and rent you access to the games you already purchased. And many third party publishers (see the 8-bit and 16-bit era) will go extinct and the games will just cease to exist, leaving no legitimate means of ever playing the game ever again.

 

At least when all the "alternative" movie stores existed, they voluntarily moved your licenses to another platform, however this has been nothing but a token "hey we aren't complete assclowns" move, as you didn't have a choice where it got moved to (and if you were outside the US, this came with an additional, "screw you anyway", as US-centric alternatives don't exist. Plus if you ever buy BD's now, many of those digital codes expire within a year of the store acquiring the disc, so if you bought a movie during this time, the code was worthless if it didn't work on iTunes, as the competing stores all folded. (This is why I only bought Disney stuff on BD, most others supported a competing store called flixster, then moved to Ultraviolet, which then Ultraviolet went extinct, which ultimately had you move the licence to googleplay.))

 

So you need to look at what happened there to see what will happen when GOG, Humble Bumble, or EGS end up failing due to some horrific management decisions that chase people off their platforms. I don't see Steam going anywhere, though it may at some point be forced to be spun off from Valve if it, or Valve wants to go public. In fact that might be the only thing that saves Steam from becoming a cash pinata for investors is that it's not public.

 

- The ability to avoid having to purchase the same game multiple times regardless of store or platform, does not exist.

 

I have 5 physical copies of one specific game (one shovelware cd-rom, the game itself on 5.25" floppy, a cd-rom version with just that game and it's expansions, and a cd-rom version with it and all it's prequels and sequels,) I also own it on GOG, where it's easier to download. However many other pre-Steam games I have are on floppy disks that no longer work, or cd-roms that didn't survive moves (because jewel cases shatter unlike dvd/bd cases, and CD's have no protective layers.) There is no reason why I should have had to buy the game twice physically in the first place, but because EA repackaged it 4 separate times, it has to be purchased 6 times, where those CD-ROM versions should have, minimally, been upgrades (what we would now call DLC) that were not full price.

 

At least with Steam, you can avoid purchasing the same game repeatedly in bundles, but it's not always the case, and some bundles will warn you that you are paying for an additional copy, but will not get an additional copy, nor can you gift that additional copy because it's a bundle.

 

Another example of this is where I purchased the same NES and SNES games three times (once for the physical cart, and then twice, once for the Wii and once for the WiiU) , at least Nintendo allowed for an upgrade, but you still wound up paying for the same game twice, despite nothing having changed in the game. What about everything else released on the NES or SNES? Never even came to the store because the defunct publisher/developer does not exist anymore, or the licences have expired for licensed IP.

 

A case example of this are a few movie-tie in games produced during the 8-bit/16-bit era. None of those games are ever going to be re-released, the only way to get them again is to find them on abandonware sites. Heck, even licensed games today still have this problem (eg Star Wars)