this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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Steam keeps on winning (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 10 months ago by Carighan@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world
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From the opinion piece:

Last year, I pointed out how many big publishers came crawlin' back to Steam after trying their own things: EA, Activision, Microsoft. This year, for the first time ever, two Blizzard games released on Steam: Overwatch and Diablo 4.

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[–] Aux@lemmy.world -4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

But it does abuse its market position. By setting very high developer/publisher fees and forcing everyone to pay them. Don't forget that from Steam perspective, developers and publisher are their consumers, not you. Their business is similar to supermarkets. Supermarkets don't sell stuff to you, they provide selling and logistics services to produce manufacturers.

[–] derpgon@programming.dev 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But those fees are counteracted by large user base, which is large due to the fact the platform is great and provides it's users good features that aren't elsewhere. A s large user base means large buying power, which directly translates to higher sales and thus higher profits.

If a supermarket gives the customers a nice place to stay, and provides extra features others don't, the extra cost for having your store in there (in Steam terms higher commissions, although I personally think it's adequate, but I digress) is offset by having bigger profit overall.

[–] Aux@lemmy.world -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That doesn't mean Steam doesn't abuse its power. Because they sure do.

[–] derpgon@programming.dev 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

How? By being a good company? Look at the Google Play Store lawsuit, and why were they sued, any why they lost. Steam is not abusing it's position. And if you think they do, gimme an example or two please.

[–] Aux@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Steam has several lawsuits and class actions over their head:

[–] derpgon@programming.dev 1 points 10 months ago

With a big platform, I would be surprised if there were none. Most of them were dismissed or Valve won. I haven't seen a big one that Valve lost.