No to the government doing anything at this time. They just about always make things worse.
As to Amazon, and Steam.... people, devs, businesses...those that deal with both, or either, of those. Do so for their reach, or the amount of people they can both draw in with their businesses.
And that comes with a cost. I am not sure that that can be said to be an monopoly at this time.
They can take their goods and or products elsewhere. We have lot of proof of that by the amount of people trying to take on Steam right now...the issue is that they are trying to do it separately...
If they all tried to form a group business, take them on together, they would have a much better chance. All the of them trying to outdo one another..not much chance as far as i can see. Just adds a bit of blood in the water the way they are doing things now.
A valid point. What IS a monopoly is "Exclusivity", as the Epic Store keeps trying to pull. Many other stores (digital and otherwise) have all striven for exclusives.
For some odd reason, I get no kicks from exclusive purchases. In fact, I avoid them like a plague. I much prefer INCLUSIVE purchases. I have no need to feel "special" in an exclusive way
You know why there are exclusives on the Epic store? Because they can't just undercut Steam prices directly. Instead, in order to make it possible for a developer to sell a game more cheaply on Epic, they have to pay the developer enough to make it worth their while not to sell through Steam at all.
Allow Epic to simply undercut prices and those exclusives will vanish. They'll get plenty of business from gamers who want to save $10 while legally buying exactly the same game as before.
I was watching CohhCarnage streaming the other day and he asked a very pertinent question. "Who receives this exclusivity money?" The publisher, NOT the developers are making these deals. So who is getting these kickbacks? I doubt the developers see much of it, if at all
I could be totally off-base, but I can see this happening all too easily in today's greed-filled gaming industry.
That's just the downside of using a publisher instead of going indie. You get a lot of attention / marketing, but you don't reap the benefits of deals such as this. It's the same thing as record labels, if someone sells a billion records, but were only on a 10 million dollar deal, they get screwed out of the money.
I would think... using the OP example... if a game is selling for $50 on Steam, I would be more than happy to sell it for $50 elsewhere and pocket that extra income from a lower fee...
distributors can undercut themselves all they want but I as the developer set the value of my product
Why would a developer be eager to sell a game for less (in the money paid to the developer) on Steam than on Epic? And even if one developer would, why would all take that view?
You have it backwards. I agree entirely with what you are saying... but that isn't what I'm saying.
If a game is selling well for $50 on steam (or whatever)... why would you sell it for less anywhere else? If that means more money in pocket for the dev because lower fees, all the better, right?
And if it's not selling for $50 on steam... in addition to offering it for less on other marketplaces why wouldn't you also lower the price on steam to get it to start selling?
The price to developer is irrelevent on sales... the price to the customer drives that. Sure, it matters with respect to margin and profit... but I as a consumer don't really care if you make 70% or 88% based on marketplace, I'm going to buy it where I'm going to buy it based on factors that affect me.
Cut to the distributor is a percentage basis... so revenue to developer is never zero or negative. And you always have the option to not list on a marketplace if you don't like the terms.
Also to factor is expected sales volume: 30% cut but a higher sales volume (about 25% more sales, it doesn't take a lot after I actually did the math) is roughly the same money in pocket as a 12% cut... and it doesn't cost you any more - the development cost is sunk. Epic is new... it has Fortnite driving a lot of installs, but it's still no where near Steam's level of ubiquity. The biggest risk you take on Steam right now is just getting buried in the noise.
You can offer cheaper than Steam elsewhere. You just can't offer Steam keys for those sales, something that would make gamers positively rabid (and start to cry to the press about).
I’ve heard otherwise, but if proven wrong I’ll accept it.
May vary my country.
If Steam allowed developers who sell their games there to offer it at lower prices elsewhere, then some would. If a game is $50 on Steam, why not offer it for $45 on Epic to encourage players to buy it there, where the developer will keep more of the money? Or better yet, $45 on your own local store where you get to keep all of the money? The only thing stopping that is that they'd get kicked off of Steam if they did that.
?
I was replying to "You can offer cheaper than Steam elsewhere. You just can't offer Steam keys ....... I've heard otherwise"
To which my comment was: it may vary by country.
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As to your idea surely the default position is that in a free market economy the market will decide. In the US ISPs can basically offer what they want now so why should game sellers be treated differently?
I just want things back to the old days , to the day where we own the game and not rent them .
In the EU games you buy through Steam you owm. Steam didn't like this idea but it saw the error of its ways. Other countries: don't know.
How does this work in reality?
I realize Steam tweaked their EULA to say "Ok, sure, you own the game". But let's just pretend that Steam goes broke, closes up shop, and shuts down their servers.
How do you get the games you purchased through there after that? Or is it just... sure, you can play whatever you still had downloaded, but if you delete it or didn't have it already, your out? (which is basically the same thing as Offline mode right now on the client).
I just want things back to the old days , to the day where we own the game and not rent them .
In the EU games you buy through Steam you owm. Steam didn't like this idea but it saw the error of its ways. Other countries: don't know.
How does this work in reality?
I realize Steam tweaked their EULA to say "Ok, sure, you own the game". But let's just pretend that Steam goes broke, closes up shop, and shuts down their servers.
How do you get the games you purchased through there after that? Or is it just... sure, you can play whatever you still had downloaded, but if you delete it or didn't have it already, your out? (which is basically the same thing as Offline mode right now on the client).
Also what if you get your account banned? How do you access the games you apparently own?
No to the government doing anything at this time. They just about always make things worse.
As to Amazon, and Steam.... people, devs, businesses...those that deal with both, or either, of those. Do so for their reach, or the amount of people they can both draw in with their businesses.
And that comes with a cost. I am not sure that that can be said to be an monopoly at this time.
They can take their goods and or products elsewhere. We have lot of proof of that by the amount of people trying to take on Steam right now...the issue is that they are trying to do it separately...
If they all tried to form a group business, take them on together, they would have a much better chance. All the of them trying to outdo one another..not much chance as far as i can see. Just adds a bit of blood in the water the way they are doing things now.
A valid point. What IS a monopoly is "Exclusivity", as the Epic Store keeps trying to pull. Many other stores (digital and otherwise) have all striven for exclusives.
For some odd reason, I get no kicks from exclusive purchases. In fact, I avoid them like a plague. I much prefer INCLUSIVE purchases. I have no need to feel "special" in an exclusive way
No, exclusive is not monopoly. Monopoly is a situation where similar or replacement products or services are not available.
Having a couple of exclusive games is not a monopoly, and you can't get a monopoly on one game like Metro Exodus. To get a monopoly using exclusives you'd have to get so many exclusives that it would limit people's ability to buy (good) games outside your store.
So you're saying I can get Metro Exodus elsewhere (legally)? If not, it sounds like a monopoly on that game. Polygon has an interesting blurb on the store from GDC 2019 here.
In that list:
Afterparty from Night School Studios
Controlfrom Remedy Entertainment and 505 Games
The Cycle from Yager
Dauntless from Phoenix Labs
Industries of Titan from Brace Yourself Games
Journey to the Savage Planet from Typhoon Studios and 505 Games
Kine from Chump Squad
Phoenix Pointfrom Snapshot Games
The Sinking City from Frogwares and Bigben
Spellbreak from Proletariat Inc
Solar Ash Kingdomfrom Heart Machine and Annapurna Interactive
That's not even counting Metro Exodus, Division 2, and older Epic Games like Fortnite and Detroit: Become Human.
The trouble with comparing gaming with other businesses like ISP or Department Stores is that games are singular. Each game is its own entity. Sure, I can get a game "kinda sorts" like Metro Exodus, but it's not Metro Exodus. It's like if a music store had an exclusive to sell a record (showing my age here). It has a monopoly on that record.
Am I making any sense?
You are making sense, but that situation is not called monopoly.
Monopoly is a situation where there are no similar or replacement products available.
Monoploy is not a situation where the trademark owner, IP owner, or producer of goods exercises his right to not sell to all distributors. Whether that results in the product being available in every store, only a single store, or not at all, that is the right of every trademark owner / IP owner / producer of goods and that is not called a monopoly.
I just want things back to the old days , to the day where we own the game and not rent them .
In the EU games you buy through Steam you owm. Steam didn't like this idea but it saw the error of its ways. Other countries: don't know.
How does this work in reality?
I realize Steam tweaked their EULA to say "Ok, sure, you own the game". But let's just pretend that Steam goes broke, closes up shop, and shuts down their servers.
How do you get the games you purchased through there after that? Or is it just... sure, you can play whatever you still had downloaded, but if you delete it or didn't have it already, your out? (which is basically the same thing as Offline mode right now on the client).
100% spot on. It does remove various "ambiguities" though. People have the right to re-sell their games without fear of prosecution. (Whether they can is another matter but such rulings are not just about games but about houses, cars etc etc.). If the game is hosted on a non-Steam server - as most are - they don't have to launch through Steam. If another "Steam like " provider wanted to "offer the service of hosting a person's electronic keys" they can - and who knows going forward Epic, say, may offer a migration service. The legal side is clear - the practicalities are another matter.
I don't think there have been such a ruling in the US? Which was triggered by big business in the EU "concerned" by what e.g. Oracle had been doing.
Interestingly cases brought by Oracle, IBM and some others against Amazon Web Services may prove pertinent. Basically Oracle etc. are unhappy with the success of AWS - especially as they now have CIA (think its CIA) security accreditation. And they are offering government departments a way to save (lots of) money ...... hurting the likes of Oracle etc.
AWS's defence: "We are using open source software; we have added nothing proprietary; if a e.g. government department wants to move their data to another hosting company they can."
You own the game keys and you should be able to move them around - if, of course, someone else wants to "host" them. @Quizzical made pretty much this point - how will it work etc. - in the discussion about Google's newly announced "streaming" service. It matters. So any clarity can only help.
If a service closes though or MySpace loses your data though ... how do we keep on playing?
Also, we are all railing on Steam and their 30% cut now that there appear to be other options out there.
Why aren't we railing on console digital storefronts, which do the exact same thing, and absolutely do not allow for any competition at all?
For game consoles, the cut of sales is partially to compensate for the cost of creating the hardware. Some consoles lose money on every unit sold, and the base console usually isn't priced for the vendor to make a lot of sales on each unit. Even if they break even on console sales, that doesn't cover the cost of designing the console and setting everything up to start producing them.
Valve doesn't do nearly as much to facilitate PC gaming on Windows as Microsoft does on Xbox or Sony on PlayStation. You don't need Valve hardware, and in many cases, you can play exactly the same game without Valve's involvement at all.
There are some places where Valve can very much justify a 30% cut--and they're places that Epic, Discord, and other possible competitors aren't going to go after. That includes Linux gaming, as well as some extremely low-budget indie games that don't have any real hope of ever making much money.
Also, we are all railing on Steam and their 30% cut now that there appear to be other options out there.
Why aren't we railing on console digital storefronts, which do the exact same thing, and absolutely do not allow for any competition at all?
For game consoles, the cut of sales is partially to compensate for the cost of creating the hardware.
So does the same sentiment hold true for something like Apple? They make their own hardware too...
And while some consoles may choose to sell at a loss, I don't think that's a universal truth.
No, in fact epic did not put their game on the google App Store for the same reason. The only reason they put it on the Apple store is there is no other option. There are people trying to change that as well though. We should be able to install from anywhere if we choose just as much as we should be able to repair.
As as far as consoles go I don’t know what their store cuts are.
Also, we are all railing on Steam and their 30% cut now that there appear to be other options out there.
Why aren't we railing on console digital storefronts, which do the exact same thing, and absolutely do not allow for any competition at all?
For game consoles, the cut of sales is partially to compensate for the cost of creating the hardware.
So does the same sentiment hold true for something like Apple? They make their own hardware too...
And while some consoles may choose to sell at a loss, I don't think that's a universal truth.
Certainly. The iPad is a game console, after all. Even if it usually isn't marketed as such.
It's the razor and blades model. The console costs less than it would if they weren't taking a cut of your sales. Some console developers (including Apple and Nintendo) generally make a considerable profit on each unit sold, but it's still less than it would be if they weren't trying to get it into your hands so that they can take a cut of game sales.
Another thing that closed platforms do is that they make piracy much harder. That's generally irrelevant to games that are intrinsically online. But if random people can't freely distribute software on a platform, that stops them from distributing pirated versions of games. If you're a developer, then getting double the sales because people buy it instead of pirating readily justifies a 30% cut. Steam doesn't offer that sort of anti-piracy protection.
From a consumer standpoint, if you have very strong views in favor of open platforms or closed, then fortunately, you get your pick. In the mobile market, you can have the open platform Android, or the closed platform iOS.
I think that battle will be short fought with streaming services winning the war. This will be a short and quickly forgotten footnote in tech history like cassette drives. Distribution and consumption is changing. These store war battles remind me of the Long Distance carrier wars of the nineties. It was a big deal until mobile tech made long distance irrelevant. In a few short years it crushed a decades old revenue system.
The same thing will happen here with sketchy deals going back and forth. Epic has already been caught scraping users Steam install folders for data. What will Valve do next? What other lengths will Epic go? Tim Sweeney has already started pointing fingers at the consumer. https://www.thegamer.com/epic-boss-says-developers-win-game-store-wars-not-consumers/. In there he basically says, there isn't a way to improve the consumer experience so we're going to focus on the developer at the expense of the consumer experience.
No they aren't. Their roadmap has features that benefit consumers just as they have features that benefit devs.
They've already implemented features that help both parties.
This is all basic business practice. News centers and journalistic organizations have exclusive stories, book publishers have exclusive rights, board game publishers prevent you from signing a contract with another company and rereleasing it, as it is in game distribution.
its ok to have a monopoly on distribution if you created the hardware, since it allows you to sell the hardware for less.
i don’t agree with that, just trying to clarify what I think is being said.
if that’s the case, would it be ok if Microsoft banned Steam/Epic/etc from running on Surface devices?
What Steam is doing is to essentially tell developers, you cannot sell through our store at all unless you sell it cheaper here (cheaper in the sense of how much the developer gets paid) than at some other sites. That's what I want to see stopped.
What Apple is doing is to say that you can't sell anything on our platform unless it's through our store. Steam didn't create an entire platform. They only created a store.
its ok to have a monopoly on distribution if you created the hardware, since it allows you to sell the hardware for less.
i don’t agree with that, just trying to clarify what I think is being said.
if that’s the case, would it be ok if Microsoft banned Steam/Epic/etc from running on Surface devices?
I like how you've identified the issue with regards to how different rules are applied subjectively to the various digital store fronts. This could also be done by only allowing Microsoft Store apps to run on the Surface like iOS. This level of control is already built into Windows 10.
In previous tech cycles we've measured progress by how much better and faster the tech accomplishes a task - 2D to 3D rendering for example. Now we're in a cycle where, what devices we use, how we use those devices is changing every generation unlike ever before. The landscape is shifting and changing faster than ever before. I think that will eventually settle back down, but not until we've left this traditional paradigm behind. It's not just mobile, but how mobile and server is affecting where hardware R&D is focused. I think it's not so much "doesn't everyone have a phone", but we'll get to the place where we carry our "computers" around with us and plug them into peripherals that can interact with it - monitors, VR headsets, AR headsets, docking devices (wired/wireless) with KB/M and traditional monitors, gamepads, voice, and so on.
We don't need laws regulating "fair play" (what a joke) between online marketplaces because we're not going to buy and use digital things in this way for much longer. This is a Blockbuster problem.
TL;DR: By the time any solutions could address the OP issues I think the question will be made moot because the landscape is shifting so fast. This is like how the long distance wars of the nineties were swept aside by the mobile revolution and the internet.
You are correct that sometimes changing markets make anti-monopoly efforts superfluous. The whole treatment of Microsoft as a monopolist from the 90s looks rather different today.
But that doesn't always happen quickly. To go back to the long distance wars, should Ma Bell have been left intact? A landline monopoly would eventually be made superfluous by mobile phones, but it took decades for that market shift to happen.
Furthermore, even if the market does overwhelmingly move to streaming games, that's likely to give us a nastier case of the same problem. Suppose that one particular streaming service gets overwhelming market share early on. Maybe there will be a period of a few years where only one game streaming service works decently, whether for technical reasons or game selection or whatever.
Then that one company with first mover advantage imposes all sorts of restrictions to make it hard for people to move elsewhere. If you want to move to another service, you lose everything you've paid for here and have to start over. So a lot of gamers are largely tied to that service. Then they tell game developers, you can't offer your game on this service (and so a majority of gamers won't have access to your game at all) unless you sell it cheaper to us than to any other service. And then they use that position to try to get future gamers locked into their service.
In order to have the same solution to that, you'd have to argue that game streaming will itself be a passing fad and we'll all abandon it in favor of something else a few years later. Then abandon that new paradigm shortly thereafter. I don't see that happening.
More than a century ago, some corporations abusing a dominant market position like that led to anti-trust legislation. In a number of industries, that resulted in the dominant company being broken up. I'm not arguing for breaking up Valve (or Apple or Amazon or whatever), but only for a more narrowly tailored regulation to prevent the abuse of a dominant market position.
its ok to have a monopoly on distribution if you created the hardware, since it allows you to sell the hardware for less.
i don’t agree with that, just trying to clarify what I think is being said.
if that’s the case, would it be ok if Microsoft banned Steam/Epic/etc from running on Surface devices?
What Steam is doing is to essentially tell developers, you cannot sell through our store at all unless you sell it cheaper here (cheaper in the sense of how much the developer gets paid) than at some other sites. That's what I want to see stopped.
What Apple is doing is to say that you can't sell anything on our platform unless it's through our store. Steam didn't create an entire platform. They only created a store.
Big box stores are always pulling this type of crap. A manufacturer gets less money per widget from a big box store than they do from a Mom and Pop but they make it up and more from volume.
The developer has a choice, there are other storefronts. Don't like Steams terms, they can deal with someone else. If enough do that Steam will change their terms.
its ok to have a monopoly on distribution if you created the hardware, since it allows you to sell the hardware for less.
i don’t agree with that, just trying to clarify what I think is being said.
if that’s the case, would it be ok if Microsoft banned Steam/Epic/etc from running on Surface devices?
What Steam is doing is to essentially tell developers, you cannot sell through our store at all unless you sell it cheaper here (cheaper in the sense of how much the developer gets paid) than at some other sites. That's what I want to see stopped.
What Apple is doing is to say that you can't sell anything on our platform unless it's through our store. Steam didn't create an entire platform. They only created a store.
Except that's not true. You can keep repeating it but it will never gain traction because it's not reality. There isn't an ultimatum and that isn't the deal so you're arguing from a position that doesn't exist. No one is having that problem because the condition Valve presents is based on customer experience, not back end license fees. A studio cannot provide Steam users an inferior experience/deal compared to users of other stores. You're trying to reframe the argument.
Suppose that a company wishes to sell its game for $35 through Steam ($50 to end users) and also for $35 through the Epic store ($39.77 to end users). Can Valve say, no, if you're selling it for $35 through the Epic store, you must sell it for $27.84 through Steam (also $39.77 to end users) or else we'll kick you off of Steam entirely?
I think the sale price should be on the developer and the markup on the store. I "sell" you the right to sell my game, but I want $35. How much YOU sell it for is up to you.
There's a really simple solution just don't use 3rd party applications like steam or the epic store....remember the good ole days where you could just get a digital download from the game own website and not need steam or epic etc etc?
Dunno but can't say that I care so much as the poor devs made their own beds, dug their own holes so to speak and this is what they get in return. Frankly if they didn't use "steam or epic" they would get 100% of the revenue.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Comments
If a game is selling well for $50 on steam (or whatever)... why would you sell it for less anywhere else? If that means more money in pocket for the dev because lower fees, all the better, right?
And if it's not selling for $50 on steam... in addition to offering it for less on other marketplaces why wouldn't you also lower the price on steam to get it to start selling?
The price to developer is irrelevent on sales... the price to the customer drives that. Sure, it matters with respect to margin and profit... but I as a consumer don't really care if you make 70% or 88% based on marketplace, I'm going to buy it where I'm going to buy it based on factors that affect me.
Cut to the distributor is a percentage basis... so revenue to developer is never zero or negative. And you always have the option to not list on a marketplace if you don't like the terms.
Also to factor is expected sales volume: 30% cut but a higher sales volume (about 25% more sales, it doesn't take a lot after I actually did the math) is roughly the same money in pocket as a 12% cut... and it doesn't cost you any more - the development cost is sunk. Epic is new... it has Fortnite driving a lot of installs, but it's still no where near Steam's level of ubiquity. The biggest risk you take on Steam right now is just getting buried in the noise.
I was replying to "You can offer cheaper than Steam elsewhere. You just can't offer Steam keys ....... I've heard otherwise"
To which my comment was: it may vary by country.
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As to your idea surely the default position is that in a free market economy the market will decide. In the US ISPs can basically offer what they want now so why should game sellers be treated differently?
I realize Steam tweaked their EULA to say "Ok, sure, you own the game". But let's just pretend that Steam goes broke, closes up shop, and shuts down their servers.
How do you get the games you purchased through there after that? Or is it just... sure, you can play whatever you still had downloaded, but if you delete it or didn't have it already, your out? (which is basically the same thing as Offline mode right now on the client).
Why aren't we railing on console digital storefronts, which do the exact same thing, and absolutely do not allow for any competition at all?
Monopoly is a situation where there are no similar or replacement products available.
Monoploy is not a situation where the trademark owner, IP owner, or producer of goods exercises his right to not sell to all distributors. Whether that results in the product being available in every store, only a single store, or not at all, that is the right of every trademark owner / IP owner / producer of goods and that is not called a monopoly.
I don't think there have been such a ruling in the US? Which was triggered by big business in the EU "concerned" by what e.g. Oracle had been doing.
Interestingly cases brought by Oracle, IBM and some others against Amazon Web Services may prove pertinent. Basically Oracle etc. are unhappy with the success of AWS - especially as they now have CIA (think its CIA) security accreditation. And they are offering government departments a way to save (lots of) money ...... hurting the likes of Oracle etc.
AWS's defence: "We are using open source software; we have added nothing proprietary; if a e.g. government department wants to move their data to another hosting company they can."
You own the game keys and you should be able to move them around - if, of course, someone else wants to "host" them. @Quizzical made pretty much this point - how will it work etc. - in the discussion about Google's newly announced "streaming" service. It matters. So any clarity can only help.
If a service closes though or MySpace loses your data though ... how do we keep on playing?
You are perfectly free to refuse Steam's conditions and go to Epic instead. They'll even welcome you with open arms !
But you can't have your cake AND eat it...
Valve doesn't do nearly as much to facilitate PC gaming on Windows as Microsoft does on Xbox or Sony on PlayStation. You don't need Valve hardware, and in many cases, you can play exactly the same game without Valve's involvement at all.
There are some places where Valve can very much justify a 30% cut--and they're places that Epic, Discord, and other possible competitors aren't going to go after. That includes Linux gaming, as well as some extremely low-budget indie games that don't have any real hope of ever making much money.
And while some consoles may choose to sell at a loss, I don't think that's a universal truth.
As as far as consoles go I don’t know what their store cuts are.
It's the razor and blades model. The console costs less than it would if they weren't taking a cut of your sales. Some console developers (including Apple and Nintendo) generally make a considerable profit on each unit sold, but it's still less than it would be if they weren't trying to get it into your hands so that they can take a cut of game sales.
Another thing that closed platforms do is that they make piracy much harder. That's generally irrelevant to games that are intrinsically online. But if random people can't freely distribute software on a platform, that stops them from distributing pirated versions of games. If you're a developer, then getting double the sales because people buy it instead of pirating readily justifies a 30% cut. Steam doesn't offer that sort of anti-piracy protection.
From a consumer standpoint, if you have very strong views in favor of open platforms or closed, then fortunately, you get your pick. In the mobile market, you can have the open platform Android, or the closed platform iOS.
They've already implemented features that help both parties.
its ok to have a monopoly on distribution if you created the hardware, since it allows you to sell the hardware for less.
i don’t agree with that, just trying to clarify what I think is being said.
if that’s the case, would it be ok if Microsoft banned Steam/Epic/etc from running on Surface devices?
What Apple is doing is to say that you can't sell anything on our platform unless it's through our store. Steam didn't create an entire platform. They only created a store.
But that doesn't always happen quickly. To go back to the long distance wars, should Ma Bell have been left intact? A landline monopoly would eventually be made superfluous by mobile phones, but it took decades for that market shift to happen.
Furthermore, even if the market does overwhelmingly move to streaming games, that's likely to give us a nastier case of the same problem. Suppose that one particular streaming service gets overwhelming market share early on. Maybe there will be a period of a few years where only one game streaming service works decently, whether for technical reasons or game selection or whatever.
Then that one company with first mover advantage imposes all sorts of restrictions to make it hard for people to move elsewhere. If you want to move to another service, you lose everything you've paid for here and have to start over. So a lot of gamers are largely tied to that service. Then they tell game developers, you can't offer your game on this service (and so a majority of gamers won't have access to your game at all) unless you sell it cheaper to us than to any other service. And then they use that position to try to get future gamers locked into their service.
In order to have the same solution to that, you'd have to argue that game streaming will itself be a passing fad and we'll all abandon it in favor of something else a few years later. Then abandon that new paradigm shortly thereafter. I don't see that happening.
More than a century ago, some corporations abusing a dominant market position like that led to anti-trust legislation. In a number of industries, that resulted in the dominant company being broken up. I'm not arguing for breaking up Valve (or Apple or Amazon or whatever), but only for a more narrowly tailored regulation to prevent the abuse of a dominant market position.
Big box stores are always pulling this type of crap. A manufacturer gets less money per widget from a big box store than they do from a Mom and Pop but they make it up and more from volume.
The developer has a choice, there are other storefronts. Don't like Steams terms, they can deal with someone else. If enough do that Steam will change their terms.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
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Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.