Same way that Microsoft and Google totally aren't monopolies despite doing the same exact thing that got them into legal trouble in the 90's
legislators stopped giving shit (got bribed)

>>740214021
Ah yes ubisoft, the company who forces a shitty launcher nobody wants to use and wants to have games expire from user accounts after a while

>>740214021
GOG and Epic Games exist

>>740214021
>sign contract with valve that says "you'll make sure customers get the same deal on all stores"
>dont give customers the same deal on all stores
>valve tells you to fix it
>"NOOOOOOOOOOO VAVLE'S A MONOPOLY!!!1!"

>>740214021
Just post “I am a retard” next time

>>740214021
>>740214109
monopolies are globalized and in full cooperation with intelligence agencies so globohomo no longer cares to break them up

>>740214021
a real monopoly would've just bought ubisoft, and then shut it down

>>740214021
Asking for equal treatment of their customers isn't being a monopoly. Meanwhile forced exclusivity while undercutting other stores to funnel customers into a shittier service is.

>>740214109
Turns out monopolies are are a very useful means for the United States of Greater Israel to project influence.

>>740214516
>collusion and price fixing are legal and totally don't violate antitrust so long as you put it on virtual paper
uhhh
yikes

>>740214021
You're not allowed to sell Steam KEYS for below the (steam) market price.

KEYS

Not GAMES

Ubisoft is allowed to list their games for cheap on the ubi store, but not if it gives you a steam key with the purchase.

>>740214021
Ubisoft has a store. They can stop selling on Steam.

>>740216223
thats not what price fixing is.

>>740214021
>buycdkeys.com
>valve gets 0 cents from each sold key
>have to provide game install

>>740214021
Pretending to be retarded is still being retarded

>>740216245
Wasn't the controversy that Ubisoft tried to sell only the "R6 Siege Starter Pack" a Ubisoft Connect exclusive for cheaper and then Valve got mad for it? It's not like you needed Steam for it since it was just going only to Ubisoft's servers

>>740214021
Isn't Ubisoft busy chewing on rat poison and trying to sell out to Tencent

Also nobody gives a shit about a monopoly when it's a benevolent monopoly

>>740216482
Oh lol nevermind, looking it up, it actually gives you a copy to your Steam library which was cheaper than buying directly LOL, fuck no wonder Valve threatened them

>>740216285
"you cannot sell your profuct for a lower price than what I'm selling for" is price fixing, actually, something even Amazon has been fined for before.

>>740217030
thats not the issue here, you can't sell Steam game keys cheaper if it relies on Steam because it undercuts their infrastructure cost, thats why Valve wants price parity for their developers, if a said developer wants to sell their game cheaper on Epic and it doesn't use anything Steam related, they can

The real question is why do these Epic shills suddenly care about the developers? Developers hate me and want me dead. Why should I help them?

>>740217159
>you can't sell Steam game keys cheaper if it relies on Steam
So in other words pretty much any and all games because they all rely on steam as the de-facto standard DRM platform of the PC platform due to Valve's monopoly? You're not being clever here.

>>740214021
Ubisoft and UPlay are a blight
>we broke Anno 2205 for you, no need to thank us

>>740217228
Much like most contraversial stuff about vidya, its being boosted by non-gamers because they hate us

>>740217235
what the fuck are you talking about retard? you can sell your game for cheaper if A: doesn't give you a key to Steam and allows you to download the game on their Valves servers B: use anything Steamworks related, like their multiplayer infrastructure

>>740217235
>>740217365
Or I guess in your example, uses Steam's DRM, which you don't have to use if I wanted to sell my own game on my website, I could just another third party DRM

Real question : why does Ubisoft employees 20 000 useless cucks, while their products have much less relevance than a company with like 1k employees at most? Why gamers would wait for a gaben box and not a ubibox?

>>740217365
Nobody buys games outside of steam because of sunk cost fallacy and the monopoly. Wube sells Factorio on their site at a 15% discount. Nobody fucking buys it directly from the website. Even though it includes a steam key along with an off-steam download. Funny how that works.

>>740217472
see
>>740217563
Due to Valve's dominant position within the game distribution market, not selling on steam will 100% guarantee your game will not sell.

Valve never forced ubisoft to list R6 on steam

In fact they said the opposite, give us a fair deal or we just won't sell your game. This is not price fixing, i work in pharma wholesale and these negotiations are extremely common, i routinely refuse to list products because the manufacturer is giving us a shit price

>>740214021
Valve is monopoly.
Legally it's ok to be monopoly.

>>740217563
>Nobody buys games outside of steam because of sunk cost fallacy and the monopoly
its a monopoly because nobody gives a shit about wanting to buy games from different services constantly, but there is no anti trust fuckery here, developers and customers don't have to use Steam as the same I don't have to use Epic

File: file.png (63 KB, 437x741)

63 KB PNG

>>740217591
Some of the most popular games on PC are not on Steam.

>>740217730
Valve should be shut down because they're successful. If I have to live in a favela, so should Gabe.

>>740214109
>legislators stopped giving shit
When EU fines big tech for antitrust stuff you have burgers coming out of the woodwork crying about Europe bullying their overlords. Legislators not giving a shit is what Americans want.

>>740217884
>Diablo 4
>PoEjeets are seething

>>740217730
>nobody gives a shit about wanting to buy games from different services constantly
Which wouldn't be an issue if Valve wasn't a monopoly on PC games distribution and users were their own managers of their licenses instead of Valve being some God in the sky virtual keyholder of everyone's license. Virtual third party storefronts that also act as DRM should be fucking abolished. They should do nothing other than providing a transaction and a one-off download that you can then keep on a physical storage unit of your choice. The alternative is what you have now, an easily observable situation that, under any other market, is blatantly illegal.

>>740217934
the essay you just gave me, is literally not what 98% of PC gamers want btw. if this was the case, nobody would want to play PC games, don't mad at the companies when customers actually want this, and not to mention GOG exists so its not like you can already do it, which is fine man, GOG is cool

>>740217934
Non-DRM sales are repulsive to publishers. That would lead to PC games disappearing again. Just accept that daddy Gabe is taking care of us.

>>740217892
ahh yeah third world mentality, no wonder your civilization is just constantly bad

>>740218007
>that's what people want
People want whatever market forces condition them to want. People also "want" GaaS and having games they own shut down from under their noses. Dumbfuck consumers being retarded and not caring about their own self interests doesn't stop things like SKG from happening.

>>740214109
>MS and Google did shady and occasionally illegal shit to maintain their monopolies to the point of getting fined and/or slapped by the courts multiple times over the past few decades
>valve tells devs "don't sell the same game on steam and another store while making it permanently cheaper outside of steam, feel free to sell steam keys for cheap or put it on sale though but you can't fuck steam customers too much"
>these are the exact same thing saar! valve bloody bastard monopoly saar i mean friend

Indians need to come up with better arguments, ever since Valve implemented refunds they've had nothing substantial to work with to try and shit on Valve. Not that they're perfect, but it's gotten really obvious how astroturfed this bullshit is. Even "muh 30%" didn't catch on because every fucking store, physical or digital, asks for the same cut outside of the EGS and Itch (both of which offer way less features than other digital stores do, so gee I wonder how they're capable of it but not Valve). I'm sure the Rupees from Timmy Epic were worth it though.

>>740218112
GaaS doesn't relate to the biggest benefit of Steam: having thousands of games available without having to keep them hoarded on physical media.

dont care
still using steam
still not using egs

>>740218112
then maybe certain market conditions are good, in the case of SKG and publishers shutting down games, consumers don't want that for obvious reasons, for Steam digital rights, they don't give a fuck because it works, who fucking cares, just buy your games on GOG, nobody is forcing you to be on Steam, and again, its the same for devs too

>>740214021
s-s-s-SHUUUT UUUUUUUUUUUUP
JUST 200 GORILLION MORE DOLLARS IN GAMBLE BOXES AND HALF LIFE 3 IS REAL
GABEN NEEDS US!!!

>"Gabe"
Newell is not your friend.

>>740217030
price fixing is when two companies with their own version of a product agree to sell it at the same price.
whats going on here is not that.
whats is going on is valve saying
>if you sell steam keys for your game they have to be the same price as they are on steam
suppose you've got a physical store, right?
this store allows its suppliers to print and sell their own vouchers that let customers walk in, hand over the voucher, and simply pick up their item.
this is how steam keys work.
the big thing here is that the store doesnt take any profit from the vouchers.
this is fine because you'll still have a good chunk of people buying in the store, but if the supplier starts selling vouchers for less than the price in the store, this undercuts the store's cut for operating costs because it'll drive people to just buy the vouchers instead and eventually the supplier is just using the store's services for free.
>>740217934
buddy you have no idea just how bad DRM used to be.
valve's
>yeah so uhhhh just have the steam app open when you launch the game. also you'll only need an internet connection like, twice a year. oh yeah and nothing's stopping you from using goldberg to remove this DRM and we are making no active efforts to fix this.
is fucking peanuts compared to the historic
>ok so even if the game is installed on your PC you need to keep this disk in your PC 24/7 and provide a CD key every time you want to play, and need a constant internet connection, and...
steam's DRM is only there as a bare minimum deterrent to stop the mouth droolers who think "hurf me deserv free!".
the alternative is shit thats outright insulting and assumes every customer to be a thief.

>>740218272
You can always tell the foreigners because the talk about Valve games like anyone cares.
>Counterstrike shit!!!!!!
I forget that game exists until you poors mention it.

>>740214021
>How is Valve not a monopoly
Because you're free to chose what platform you buy your games in. Nobody is pointing a gun at you and say you can only buy from Steam. Just because retards keep screaming monopoly over and over doesn't make it true. Epic surely wants to smear Steam and bring them down so they make up lies about monopoly. Only braindead retards that don't know what monopoly means will be more than happy to spread the bullshit. They're as retarded and bad as leftist screaming facists and nazi at everything they hate.

>when it can bully Ubisoft into submission
And since when did Steam did any of that?

>and thus forcing customers to pay full prices
The developers of the game decide what their prices are, not Steam.

>while maintaining its dominant market share?
They make the best platform on PC. That's why players pick Steam.

>>740218325
*they

>>740218248
>they don't give a fuck
People give a fuck about games becoming more expensive. People are too fucking retarded to put two and two together and realise that the anticompetitive policies that valve is free to employ due to their dominant market position fuels the lack of competition in pricing. People in general are too shitbrained to extrapolate and see the bigger picture of market forces and that's why we have laws and regulations to tard wrangle entities whose only drive is to wring as much money out of people for as little effort as humanly possible.
your whole argumet of "well this situation is OK because people accept it" is so fucking stupid I refuse to believe you're arguing in good faith.

>>740214021
>How is Valve not a monopoly
you can buy games in a store. next question

>>740218392
>Valve is responsible for high game prices
>meanwhile, Nintendo sells first party titles on their own platform for $80

>>740218392
>the anticompetitive policies that valve is free to employ
what policies?

>>740218392
Games are not more expensive, in fact they're cheaper relative to inflation, and publishers set prices for their games, not Valve.

>>740218437
Nintendo represents the PC gaming market? Wow, gee. I guess Valve strongarming everyone into keeping to price floors that they set is actually good for the consumer after all.

>>740218392
thats not why games are becoming more expensive, they are more expensive because of dollar inflation and the retarded cost of making games nowadays, and its the studios and publishers being greedy, again retard, I'm going to make this clear to you, developers can sell their game cheaper on GOG or Epic if it doesn't rely on Steam's features. How is this anti competitive at all?

>>740218492
>too stupid to read American

>>740218161
keep in mind all of this is happening because the rothschild lost a patent lawsuit against valve. They are pulling every lever to make sure valve loses as much money as possible.

>>740218492
you are literally the dumbest third world nigger, you are complaining because you are poor because your ethnicity is too retarded to manage a stable economy

>>740218508
>developers can sell their game cheaper on GOG or Epic if it doesn't rely on Steam's features
see
>>740217563

You blithering retard. You're forcing me to repeat myself. You were clearly either born with Downs syndrome or trolling at this point. Kindly fuck off and go eat some crayons.

>>740218161
>Even "muh 30%" didn't catch on because every fucking store, physical or digital, asks for the same cut outside of the EGS and Itch
I think you can request unlimited keys and sell them on your own site thus giving steam a 0% cut on those sales. Except most studios don't because it's a fucking hassle dealing with all the external shit.

>>740218618
See what? People don't want to buy games outside of Steam? How is this Valve's problem?

>>740218729
>>740217934

>>740214021
Not even remotely what happened.

>>740218658
Yes, you're absolutely right - that's why the vast majority of developers just sell through Steam's front-end. Turns out having to make a proper digital store is hard, and honestly I would rather give Steam the 30% and let them handle shit like hosting forums, user data like leaderboards and achievements and handle international payments because putting that shit on a crummy WordPress site with WooCommerce isn't gonna cut it in 2026. Who could've guessed? Not Timmy Epic apparently (though WooCommerce comes with a fucking shopping cart which took the EGS years to add).

>>740214021
Doesn't ubisoft have its own store? At one point they didn't even sell their slop on steam

>>740214021
>How is Valve not a monopoly
Here's a list of launchers and/or storefronts:
>Epic Games Store
>Xbox App/Microsoft Store
>Playstation Store
>Nintendo Store
>Ubisoft Connect
>EA Play/Origin
>Battle.net
>Rockstar Games Launcher
>Riot client
>GOG Galaxy
>Amazon Games
>Itch.io
>CDRP's REDLlauncher
>2K launcher
Thus, we can conclude that Steam is NOT a monopoly. Just because all the other alternatives are garbage and have no clue how to run their shit, does NOT mean that Steam is a monopoly.

Simple as.

>>740218751
Dude who gives a shit lol, you are the minority outlier on this topic of issue

>>740218909
>>740218392

>>740217934
Ok and if Steam ever shuts down access (Steam does have DRM free games and steamworks can be bypassed by notepad) i'll just pirate.

>>740218998
going back to circles now are we? we just explained to you thats not why games are more expensive

>>740214021
The only monopoly position that Valve holds is the natural monopoly position of people not wanting to sign up for ANOTHER fucking account, DRM and launcher, because no one trusts any of these publishers and while Valve has established themselves as maybe trustworthy and definitely not reliable, at least they haven't fucked everything permanently.
All these publishers are free to just pull a GOG and not use launchers, adware, spyware and DRM, but they all don't want to because the profit margins for GOG are shit, they want the Steam profit margins.
>>740214109
Friendly reminder that the US caved to these fuckers so much that they refused to repeal the Mickey Mouse laws in the supreme court (this schizo take has been brought to you by Eldred v. Ashcroft 2003), in spite of them being unconstitutional.
The US is so in love with copyright and licking UN WIPO boot that they are no longer a republic.
>>740218392
Prices are fixed by publishers.
Companies like EA made sure that all of their shit would be 60$.

>>740218161
>Valve uses their market size to bully developers into not allowing cheaper prices because it would allow competitor PC stores to stay alive by pricing games far cheaper than the 30% cut from steam.

Literal definition of a monopoly abusing it's power

>>740219378
You can literally just not sell on Steam, and some of the biggest games out there do exactly that. But it begs the question
>why are you siding with developers that hate heterosexual white men?
Fuck them. Valve should take 90% and make them get their balls stomped by elephants.

>>740219378
How the fuck is it abusing power to make sure that there's a price disparity? Any retarded dev could make Steam look fucking horrible by just selling their game for 50% less elsewhere, and people would unironically get mad at Steam for "having higher prices".

You are a retard.

>>740219497
Oh my god, you mean competition is a good thing then? Steam would be forced to lower prices so gamers benefit way more?

>>740219474
>You can literally just not sell on Steam
>>740217563

>>740219532
You can literally sell games on other stores.

>valve is making games more expensive
>kingdom hearts on pc was epic exclusive for 3 years
>each game was 70 dollarydoos despite epics 12% cut
>it was cheaper to buy a used ps4+kh the story so far and kh3 than to buy the series on pc (which i did)
i know you are getting paid pennies to make these posts pajeet but you gotta know that you are lying

>>740219529
>Oh my god, you mean competition is a good thing then?
Sure, go ahead and sell your game everywhere else, except Steam.

>>740219497
>retard discovers the concept of market competition
>becomes indignant

>>740219529
developers/publisher set the price, valve doesnt make a game cost 25 or 70

>>740219529
>Steam would be forced to lower prices so gamers benefit way more?
Do you think Steam decides the price of games, you moron?

>>740219553
>>740219560
>>740217563

>>740219571
>developers hate straight white men
>gay Brazilian troon supports developers
Hmmm.

>>740219378
Is that why games on the EGS aren't cheaper than on Steam? And for all the coping people do, at the end of the day Valve just doesn't want publishers or developers to fuck consumers. You can still sell Steam keys for cheap outside of the platform, and you can still put up a game on Steam and other stores while discounting it all the time outside of Steam, they just don't want you fragantly abuse the situation.

Consider this: Valve loses money hosting the vast majority of games on Steam. The only reason they can keep the store going is because there's enough million sellers to finance the hundreds of thousands of indie games on the platform that don't make them a single cent. Now consider this: Google randomly decided that the game dev studio I'm part of needed to send them specific legal documents, so we did and they replied "no this is wrong" without elaborating what was wrong or answering our follow-up questions, then threw our games off the platform. And unlike with PC, it's a massive hurdle to sell apps outside of Google Play on Android. Oh right, Google is also looking into making it impossible to install third-party apps on Android as well! That's what a greedy monopoly that doesn't care about developers looks like. Where's the fucking controversy there?

>>740214021
Valve is not a monopoly, they don't prevent anyone else for trying to do what they do
Valve is what happens when enshittyfication doesn't

>>740219686
Actually we have evidence they did prevent gamers from benefiting from cheaper prices. So you're wrong.

>>740219529
>Oh my god, you mean competition is a good thing then? Steam would be forced to lower prices so gamers benefit way more?
The anti-Steam trannies unironically think that it's Valve/Steam that decides the price of games. Now it all makes sense why they are so fucking stupid and have such fucking stupid opinions and arguments.

>>740219615
>devolves to spewing schizo/pol/shit after his attempts at defending kikery fall flat
How's the weather in Tel Aviv?

>>740219709
What evidence?

>>740219719
>How's the weather in Tel Aviv?
Why are you calling other people jews, when it's literally (You) that's acting like a jew and crying like crazy over a 30% service fee that you're not even the one that ends up paying?

>>740219709
By threatening to delist a product because it was ripping customers off?

>>740214217
valve removes games aswell, they did it with the OG san andreas

>>740219820
>valve removes games aswell, they did it with the OG san andreas
The framing of your sentence is incredibly dishonest. It was Rockstar that told Valve to remove it.

>>740219768
jews would make steam take 50% of the cut

>>740219818
Ubisoft released Rainbow Six Siege Starter Edition on their own store with a way cheaper pricing because they didnt need to pay for the 30% cut. Valve removed their game from steam due to this for 6 months. Is it a ripoff to get cheaper games now?

>>740219820
you can't be this retarded right?

>>740219820
>they did it with the OG san andreas
delisting a game from the store is not even remotely the same as removing it from your account

>>740219820
>>740220059
like straight up, you are just getting a humiliation kink going on right now? because most brazil trannies I know love being stepped and fucked on and spat on their faces, they get a huge boners

>>740214021
Good morning sir.

>>740219820
holy fucking retard

Imagine being so good at what you do that your opponents have to lie and smear your name as a monopoly in an attempt to get the government to shut you down. That is what winning looks like.

>>740220185
It reminds me of how Tim Sweeney would unironically rather spend 1000 hours on Twitter crying about Steam and GabeN, instead of fucking improving his own storefront by at the bare minimum providing a 1:1 feature parity.

File: 1763562377696810.png (1.02 MB, 1693x1171)

1.02 MB PNG

Why do jeets and jews hate microsoft and valve so much when all they want to do is protect PC gaming?

>gaben tells jews to fuck off
>suddenly dozens of threads crying about valve
i am nooticing

>>740220245
It really did spike right around then, didn't it?

>>740220114
the fuck are you talking about? save that shit for your discord chats you degenerate

No one gives a fuck about you being a monopoly as long as you provide a good service and don't fuck over your customers
How is it that hard to understand?

>>740219996
So other developers should be able to leech off steam success for hosting their games and publicity but also undercut them and leave them aside when it comes to the actual sale? Is that how fair business looks to you?

>>740220389
Same with dictators/monarchs tbdesu

>>740214109
Shadowrun is gonna be real, except we're not getting the cool supernatural stuff to make up for the shitty realistic parts.

Ubisoft, or any other publisher for that matter, can just drop prices across the board
It's literally that simple, they're just greedy bastards
Just lower prices on every storefront
It would even benefit consumers
But I guess the happy merchants would rather cut off the tip of their dicks again than that
If you want to sell at 30 on your store you can and should drop the price on steam as well to match, which lets consumers buy where they want instead of giving them the illusion of choice
Or you can not put it on steam and watch your game rot into irrelevancy because the service is absolutely fucking dogshit compared to Steam
Shit like this is why Ubisoft is robbing France and Canada blind while still going bankrupt, I hope the higher ups like speaking Mandarin to their new masters, hahahahah

>>740218312
Steam is so good, people have genuinely forgotten what a fucking headache it was to buy PC games online before it took off. We just bought our PC games in physical stores and it was still a pain with all the physical DRM, CD keys and installation limits. Most of that shit has disappeared, thank fuck.

If you want to see how most PC gamers changed their mind about the platform over time, just look up Shamus Young's articles about Steam. He goes from hating it to being a reluctant user to being content but still wanting competition, often comparing where shitheaps like Games For Windows Love, the Bethesda and Rockstar launchers or the EGS went wrong in comparison. He never became an outright Steam simp, so his comparisons were always very neutral and objective.

>>740219996
Lower the price on steam too then
That way consumers get lowers prices on both storefronts
It's a win for everyone

>Hey Valve, I know we're running a competing store with one tenth the features but you're still gonna have to host our games for double the price we're selling it for in order to artificially create the impression our store offers better value.
>Uhh, how about fuck off?
>Oy vey stop being antisemitic!

>>740220689
>Or you can not put it on steam and watch your game rot into irrelevancy because the service is absolutely fucking dogshit
Again, thus is pure copium. Wube sells factorio on their own website, at a 15% discount, AND gives away a steam key when you buy it meaning you get access to all the imaginary benefits you glaze steam for. There is literally no difference between buying off steam vs the website besides the obvious benefit of lower cost with the latter. Yet everyone still buys directly off steam. Literal retards like you will look at this and still go "uhurr well it just cuz steam gib bettr serbis". It's fucking amazing just how much brain atrophy brand lotalty can induce.

>>740220745
Steam has a 30% cut, they cant lower prices because of that.

>>740214021
Consumer isn't negatively impacted, so it's irrelevant

>>740220858
When I can just add stuff to my cart and use my stored card to check out in seconds, it's better service than Factorio's site.

>>740220389
Because shareholders, inclusivity consultants and HRs clearly know more about proper service, sweety.

>>740220930
Why not? It's a percentage, it's not a fixed cost.

>>740220961
>monopolies and things being more expensive is actually good because it saves me two clicks!
Pure. unfathomable retardation. This is why regulation is needed. This is why valve needs to be sued into oblivion and their business torn to shreds.

Reminder that Amazon was also sued for holding a monopoly and doing the same things Valve is doing. Are people going to defend Amazon because they killed off mom and pop shops because they made delivery convenient?

>>740221090
I imagine you wearing a supervillain costume and shaking your fist while you type this. Just thought you should know.

>>740221090
Piracy is a service issue. Steam provides a service better than piracy. Some random website making me enter my credit card info for the millionth time so I can download an EXE that it's now my responsibility to keep backed up and updated is worse than piracy. This is why Factorio needs to be sued and regulated.

>>740221136
I buy from Amazon and don't complain. It's a service that's better than mom and pop shops.

>>740217934
>a one-off download
That's like retarded, gog doesn't do that. That's literally worse than just pirating games.
>>740218658
>unlimited keys
That's a lie. steam now limits key to the number of steam purchases, so for 10 sold copies on steam you get 10 steam keys no question asked. There's a youtube video in russian describing how the event unfolded, how devs abused the system and how valve restricted stuff in responce.
Also reviews from people who bought steam key don't count, but that's a different story entirely.

It's somewhat interesting that Valve today is much more consumer friendly than it was a decade ago (remember when you couldn't even get a refund?), yet only now is it getting all this flak.

>>740221418
>remember when you couldn't even get a refund
I remember them being taken to court over having no refund policy and them spending millions fighting vehemently against having to implement said policy, yes.

>>740220858
First, people buy it mainly from Steam because they just don't know there's an alternative that might be cheaper for them
Second, Wube doesn't sell it directly on his website and doesn't sell it at a discount, the sale in his website goes through the Humble Bundle store and the price difference is due to the applied regional pricing which is different from the Steam one, it can be cheaper or more expensive depending on your region. In my case the discount I get from buying from Wube site is less than a 1%.

>>740221090
>Pay more in order to receive a faster and easier experience.
Would you rather buy bread at the store, or buy the ingredients and bake it yourself? One of these is more expensive, and yet people seem to gravitate to that one.

>>740221571
There are literally people on >>>/ck/ who can't comprehend how someone would want to go to a restaurant versus cooking, as for the price of a Wendy's hamburger; you could have 400 meals of curry, rice, and shit.

>>740221571
>food analogy
You're done. You played yourself.

>>740221715
>so poor and starving that the mere mention of food enrages him further

>>740221418
They told the jews to fuck off, that's why

>>740221715
Food analogies are used because the concept of food is something everyone, everywhere, can understand. You know this, and you understand the meaning of the analogy, but since you have no retort you're left with no other option than to shit yourself.

I wish Valve was a true monopoly. No gay alt-launchers to juggle if I actually want to boughter a game for some reason, and doesn't change piracy at all.

>>740214021
Monopoly just means so powerful that no competitor can get a piece of the market and are driven out of business. PC has more game stores than any platform and yes they all make money so no Steam is not a monopoly.

File: 1779544994019322.png (659 KB, 800x1350)

659 KB PNG

>artifact schizo at it again

>>740221191
goyest goy itt

>>740222619
>being a goy is bad

>>740221571
except baking bread can in some instances be more expensive than buying it from a store
more apt analogy would be buying steak from a butcher for a reasonable price vs going to a steakhouse and paying outta the ass for the same meat

>>740222672
exactly, glad we're on the same page

>>740222741
Do you know what goyim are?

>>740222097
Nobody's baking video games from scratch and analogies in general are a dishonest rhetorical tactic to remove vital context and nuance of a topic with a pointless red herring. When shit devolves to analogies that's pretty much a signal for me that the person is a desperate fucking moron trying to gain a rhetorical win through a battle of attrition. You're just keeping this going to get the last post in at this point like the sniveling faggot that you are.

>>740222715
Fair point.
>>740222965
Except making games from scratch wasn't even the argument being made. The point of the analogy was a desperate attempt to explain to the idiot shouting "things being more expensive is actually good because it saves me two clicks!" that yes, people are willing to pay more for something if it's quicker and easier than a alternative, even if said alternative is cheaper.
The analogy wouldn't have even been necessary if this idiot was able to understand something this fucking simple and universally understood without it being spoonfed to him.

>>740214021
Valve didn't do anything to Ubisoft, is the misdirect you're doing here.
All of Ubishitter's wounds are self-inflicted

>>740223235
>The point of the analogy
I am not engaging in dishonest rhetorical games. Which is the entire point of your "analogy". I am not reading the rest of your post. Learn to argue in good faith or let go.

>>740223285
AC Shadows was destined to be the best selling game of all time, but Valve's 30% cut made people listen to the racist chuds.

>>740223293
>Learn to argue in good faith
Pretending to be retarded is the opposite of good faith. Take your own damn advice, hypocrite.

>>740218312
holy bootlicking. methinks the thirdies have a point.

there is literally no logic by which anyone can call valve a monopoly that also doesn't include sony, nintendo and microsoft's consoles
google and apple also fight for compete control on their storefronts
valve doesn't even compare if anything, there is zero hardware vendor lock in

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>>740214021
there are real political and physical monopolies that are raping the land to make goyslop to forcefeed you while pumping mkultra music into your head and these same retards think ragebaiting a bunch of counterstrike russian case gamblers will fix anything lol

>>740214217
Ah yes Valve Corporation, the company who forces their shitty Steam launcher nobody wants to use and wants to have games expire from user accounts after failure to be popular, like Artifact.

Same company anon, you just now supporting a monopoly version of it.

>>740214516
>>740222281
That’s literally against the law because oil companies killed off small businesses who tried to offend oil for less. You should not support the same tactic as oil companies who are now in control of your country.

>>740224168
Do you have counter arguments tho?

>>740224351
so your argument is that valve is killing indie devs who offer games for 10-20 dollars because they're offering games for less than AAAs

Funny how the 30% tax is always defended as an "industry standard". Where I come from that's called price fixing, and indicates a cartel.

>>740224576
if you sell it yourself you pay 0%
and selling shit has never been easier thanks to the internet

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>>740214021
If you'll please consult the ps5 charts after crucifying me for phoneposting, you can clearly see steam can't be a monopoly because sony has more players than steam does.

>>740224425
They did tried to killed Nexon who was trying to help Blue Archive.

Then we have Japan devs who are being denied for no reason.

Sony is trying to leave PC and failing, tell me how they are at fault when you cultist refuses to buy anywhere else.

>>740224662
why doesn't anyone offer equal or better service then? you expect people to give them custom out of fucking pity?

>>740224662
>they did tried
aaand argument over.
maybe instead of shitposting, you should work on improving your mud hut.

>>740224662
Someone should make a global store for nsfw stuff, which would also fight paypal visa mastercard bullshit and etc. valve doesn't have balls for that. maybe just doesn't have enough internal force interested enough to do something with this.

>>740224576
It's industry standard because it's fair.

>>740224836
nsfw stuff is all over steam though

>>740224850
Supply and demand in a free market is fair. This...

>>740224927
And? They are interested in selling more games, but not interested enough in nsfw games to defend them against money processers retarded rules and etc.

All the arguments I'm seeing is "Valve should shoot themselves in the foot and purposefully let devs use all their shit for free, because it's so good and that's not fair for everyone else."

>>740225032
it's hard to defend pedophilia

>>740225113
Especially singlehandedly.

>>740224950
is fair

>>740224724
>>740224734

Itchio offers more, they have browser games, android downloads, pay your own percentage, customization of game page, game jams, etc.

It’s you who chooses to stay in corporate bland environment. It’s you who is ok with Valve letting malware in Steam after FBI told you. It’s a you problem that you don’t want to go anywhere else.

>>740224836
It exists anon, i just can’t post it on /v/, try looking at any of the nsfw boards in 4chan instead of being a coward.

>>740225612
itch io is cool. not nsfw game hub tho, but can be, but also it's more of a dumbster than any other stores combined.

Also, you referring to fantia or fc2? i don't remember the name, but i do remember it being a japanese site which also introduced credits system. But also i remember reading that they blocked anyone not from japan?

>>740225612
do you actually think those come close to what steam has integrated? the only relevant one is android downloads

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>>740214021
Steam isnt a monopoly because some of the biggest games on PC ever weren't even on Steam e.g. Minecraft, League of Legends, World of Warcraft, Fortnite etc
All the other arguments are kind of irrelevant. By definition you cant be a monopoly when the biggest games in the world aren't even on your service

>>740226032
But steam is a monopoly. there's is no definitions that the popular products have to be involved with a monopoly to survive? Steam is monopoly that came to be from good practices and doesn't abuse it monopolistic status to widen it's grasps on the market and doesn't fuck over users and partners. So it's not an illegal monopoly.

>>740226032
They are big because they are not on Steam. Hoyoverse games like genshin impact, generate profits and enough revenue to support a rocket launch. Roit Games had enough money to create a LOL (Arcane) show. Minecraft is getting major updates because people are not locked into Steam or Microsoft servers, the Java edition is the most popular version that allows mods to be easily installed. Helping real creators.

See how 30% can harm progress in gaming. Valve use of 30% is nothing more than rich getting richer.

>>740214021
i don't know. why should i care? don't bother responding actually

>>740224278
yeah but complaining about them is communist, Gabe let steam discussion jannies ban me from.. that game's discussion page for posting nigger so he's woke

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>>740214021
>nooo muh hecking multinational corporations
ubisoft is dead like you should be because its managed by drooling retards.

>>740226508
>the Java edition is the most popular version that allows mods to be easily installed
not only is it nowhere close to bedrock but mojang hasn't done fucking anything to support mods
what's there is due to the community alone

>this shit again
i wish your shit country gets range banned

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>>740218161
The thing about not being allowed to sell cheaper elsewhere is a myth, you can check for yourself. It's why I buy on GoG if it's an option, as it's generally cheaper there.

>>740226628
but they did? like the gave out deobfuscation tables (whatever it is) their features are now data driven (which is made to ease their internal development, but also makes game more moddable by the datapacks) And they also asked modders on what they need from their graphics api to handle, so the shaders and other graphics mods don't break on switch to vulkan.

But bedrock is more popular than java edition, that's a fact.

>>740226508
>Valve use of 30% is nothing more than rich getting richer.

>cool ocean research
>essential climate research
>cool medical research
>cool hardware development (until AI-jeet sabotage)

Sorry that Valve didn't fund a Netflix show of the TF2 mercs being gay or whatever it is you think is a better investment, faggot.

>>740214021
Did this actually happen or did it allegedly happen?

>>740227965
None of it matters when researchers can’t pull up papers and peer review it. Also it’s only Gabe Newell who brought them. Yes, he doesn’t support or endorse it, Gabe Newell brought it like the rich bastard he is.

>>740219718
The retarded faggots on this board don't just think Valve sets prices but they also decide if games have DRM (which they apparently invented).

>>740229192
It happened, this is from court records of Wolfgaming. You see anon, this is what is called “investigation” in law.

If Timmy Tencent took ten cents of every dollar he gave to lawyers and marketers to shit on valve and put it into improving the epic game store it would have surpassed steam years ago. Shame he's such a petulant manchild.

Valve is not a monopoly by the stricter sense of the word. It does have massive market share, but generally it's not engaged in anti-competitive practices. Because the market is still open to those who want to enter the market and valve does not go out of its way to crush competition in ways that are unprofitable in the short term, they're still considered to be engaged in fair market practice. Market regulation, especially against monopolies, is reserved for anti-competitive practices, collusion, price fixing, and extortion of the public on essential products like housing and healthcare. Valve doesn't really do any of that shit, they offer the same product regardless of the market landscape, and their customers have shown genuine preference even when competition does exist within the market. Video games are also a non essential product, you can literally just walk away, you won't die without it, it's a whole industry we can live without. Also the government doesn't give a fuck at all. Price fixing, collusion, extortion with essential goods and services, anti-competitive practices, hostile acquisitions, insider trading, stock market manipulation, all totally normal and expected in most western economies despite significant legal framework and precedent to prevent and punish these practices. Your government is captured by corporate America to facilitate unfair extraction of money from your pockets, and it's paid for by your tax dollars. This thread is likely corporate propaganda to make sure you never have access to steam sales again because larger corporate entities are pissing their pants about not being able to compete with valve.

>>740232830
There’s laws against price manipulation. Valve lied about pricing and creates deals every major holiday of a country to hide their crimes.

They are involved in antitrust investigations that Wolfgaming is bringing to justice and stop Valve from telling people to control prices.

We have numbers that tell us in countries that people pay over 20% more than USD. This is extorting money from people.

They are not good guys, they are billionaires who break the law.

>>740214021
you don't know what a monopoly is

>>740222347
You say that, but it's essential that we do defend steam in these cases. Not to "leave the billion dollar corporation alone", but there is a real desire to have the government break up valve to make it easier for companies that have consistently been engaged in anti-consumer practices to enter and dominate the market. Several large companies have tried and failed to compete with steam and lost billions in the process, and they're big mad about it. They lost because we as a community are highly suspicious of their practices because we've seen what's happened to streaming services and other products that these companies provide. We know that Amazon is going to try dominate the market, then hike the prices, then enshittify the platform, then censor the product to make it California safe. Valve has been here forever and hasn't. Valve has enough market share to grossly abuse their power, and they don't.

>>740214021
Only jews do monopolies.

>>740233687
Do you have any idea how common this is? I don't live in America, and I can tell you regardless of the exchange rate that there is a massive premium on products any time you pay in local currency for an American product. A gaming controller can be up to 50% more expensive even when the two currencies are nearly on par with eachother JUST because it's in my currency. 20% is nothing especially when you consider hidden duties, fees, tariffs, and banking regulations. This is a massive nothing burger that exists only to create ill will against steam. The companies that are launching and funding these investigations have done significantly worse to me. Also, how the fuck are you trying to start a conversation bitching about prices in another country not being on par with the sales you get in America? How seriously disingenuous that you would give a fuck.

>>740233687
Also, you can't extort people for a nonessential product. You can literally just not buy a game, it's not groceries or rent, or fuel, or life saving medical. It could be inflated %1,000,000,000 and it absolutely would not matter because I would be fine without it. Expensive games hold no power over me, and if anything, it opens the market to competition.

>>740234960
Have you been smoking crack? Antitrust laws apply to not just essential goods and services.

>>740218330
>Nobody is pointing a gun at you and say you can only buy from Steam.
I'm with you and agree but your reasoning is profoundly stupid. There's multiple real life practical monopolies that exist by legal means or simply because a single company produces large quantities of the world's supply. Just because nobody is forcing you to buy from them at gunpoint doesn't mean you always have a choice. Some sectors are so pricey to enter it's virtually impossible to not collude with the monopolies.

YKK produces 95% of the world's zippers, ASL produces 100% of UV litography machines. Google is considered an information monopoly and Microsoft an OS monopoly despite alternatives existing.

I disagree on Steam's case because of the low cost and ease of self-distribution as well as several high profile and active alternative launchers existing.

>>740232830
>by the stricter sense
Stopped there. Valve abuse their market dominance. Full stop.

>>740217030
you literally set the price for your own product on the store. valve doesnt arbitrarily choose the price of YOUR product. YOU chose to price it X on steam, and then YOU chose to price it at X-Y elsewhere. thats breach of contract. you could just as easily lower the price on steam to match everywhere else.

but to make it worse, they were WERENT selling the game lower elsewhere, they were selling STEAM KEYS lower elsewhere. this means that they used steam's servers and services at a lower cost as well.

you have no argument.

>>740235051
Sure, but you understand that you're frying tiny and dubious fish here, right? This is worth literally nobodies energy. If you care about this shit at all you'd be chasing Comcast which is gaming related because they provide internet connection, an essential service to gaming. If extortion bothered you you'd be chasing united healthcare and blue cross. If poverty bothered you you'd be making statements about landlords, if price fixing bothered you, we'd be hearing more about grocery stores and gas prices, but we're not. We're bitching about the nitty gritty pricing in small irrelevant countries regarding valve. Even if you're right, it's really just suspicious that this is where you decide to spend your energy.

>>740217030
>"you cannot sell your profuct for a lower price than what I'm selling for"
Way to twist what's actually going on, the problem was that Ubisoft was selling the game cheaper on their store but refused to put the same price on Steam. Steam doesn't control Ubisoft's game's prices, Ubisoft does.

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>>740234721
You claim the market (which is economic term for everyone) is fair priced. Yet you failed to mention you only cared about US sales. Gee why didn’t you say anything anon, not a mind reader you know.

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>>740219820
Huh that's weird, I still have the original San Andreas in my account.

>>740217235
>because they all rely on steam
They don't though. Factorio doesn't you can buy direct and play no steam required.

>>740235407
>>740235814
>>740236716
Then you Americans should buy oil elsewhere, Iran have blocked your supply and refused to import oil. They are not the biggest monopolies of oil by your standards. Who cares if United States pays $10.00 a gallon while everyone pays less. It’s just business.

>>740226734
It's generally allowed for certain periods of time but you'll find the key sites go to parity with steam for much of the year.

>>740233687
>They are involved in antitrust investigations that Wolfgaming is bringing
The wolfire suit won't do shit as american courts heavily bias towards businesses. If you want to see any change you better hope the european court cases go through.

>>740236716
>Ubisoft was selling the game cheaper on their store
Isn't that reasonable? They don't need to pay a comission to themselves so of course they can afford to list it for less on their store.

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>>740218161
devs are also allowed to sell "complete" versions of games outside Steam
i.e. the AO-rated version of eden* is only available on third party stores and comes with a Steam key, but buying it on Steam only gets you the censored version without loli cunny sex

>>740217934
Quit living in your pipe dream world, with the exception of forced government legislation no self-respecting digital platform would let the end user manage their own licenses.

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>>740226734
>Canadian dollars
About that...

>>740226508
I think you're conveniently forgetting that Mihoyo's games are mostly played on mobile and are also on console, and all of those platforms also charge a 30% fee

>>740238538
>with the exception of forced government legislation
Yeah no shit? The idea is to get consumers to pressure governments to intervene to eforce their interests. You know, like with SKG, or right to repair. Nobody with any shred of sanity believes in the utterly retarded meme of a self-regulating free market.

>How is Valve not a monopoly
Because there are plenty of other ways to purchase videogames. Valve is not the only storefront.

Cope, epicsaar.

>>740214021
>>740214109
Here's a (you)
EA, Ubisoft, Google, Microsoft and other companies buy their competitors and destroy any small company that goes against them.
Valve doesn't do that. As much , they only bought one studio some time ago so they could develop Half Life Alyx

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it's okay when it's the wholesome chungus underage lootbox gambling yacht vidya santa doing it

>>740239978
No you don't understand, those yachts are actually totes legit research vessels! No, don't tell me to google an image of what an actual research vessel looks like. okay? Gabe is totally epic wholesome santa science man!

>>740225612
>It’s you who is ok with Valve letting malware in Steam after FBI told you.
Valve literally contacted the FBI and requested assistance about the foreigner menace.

>>740224662
Still sneeding about Silksong's pricing?

>>740239978
>>740240171
who gives a shit about Gaben's yachts?

>>740217235
>>740237473
Strange, my copy of Starsector doesn't require steam either. and it's doing really good in terms of sales.

>>740239753
well they did buy out devs from other studios. devs who made team fortress and counter strike, and recently hopoo games. But they are like, were merged into valve. There was also turtle rock - valve south stuff. dunno if the reddit post is true.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Back4Blood/comments/knp4ah/the_real_story_between_trs_and_valve_and_the/

So when is sony gonna be sued for not letting people sell games on the playstation, without needing PSN support?

>>740237505
consindering you don't even understand the words you're using, you should just shut up.

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>>740242904
Imagine if it was literally anyone else other than Gabe Newell buying yacht with their monopoly bucks. Imagine Koijima or Tim epic boss man buying yachts. /v/ would explode.

>>740214021
Maybe Ubisoft should stop being such a bitch then if they didn't want to be bullied.
If there games were that good people would buy them on their terms.
You see this with games like League of Legends and Tarkov.

>>740244230
why would *I* give a shit about yachts that are *not mine*?

>>740242904
The redditors who like to imagine Gabe as some sort of "good billionaire" who totally isn't a degenerate self-indulgent profligate like all the other billionaires.

>>740245307
You care enough to reply and seethe at every yacht picture
Mind explaining yourself?

>>740245528
Well, being that he's the only billionaire to ever restrain himself from selling out his company to shareholders for even more infinite money, there's clearly something different about him.

>>740245629
lol
an actual live one
reminder, gabe fought tooth and nail so that you would have no right to refunds, and it's only steam policy because he got reigned in through vourt cases thanks to australian consumer protection laws.

>>740245829
why are consoles now a decade behind steam when it comes to refunds?

>>740216223
>You set the price to whatever you want, even free, just make sure it's the same on all sites
>NOOO GABEN YOU CAN'T MAKE ME. THIS IS PRICE FIXING. HELP ME JEWISH BRITISH LAWYERS!

>>740245895
Because gabe splurged too much on his boats to afford better lawyers, as that refund policy clearly isn't there voluntarily.

>>740217235
How queer, I purchased a copy of Vintage Story from their official website. They dont even sell the game on steam.

>>740246541
>DON'T have the refund policy
>Steam Store gets flooded with (more) clickbait garbage that you now can't refund
Would be a fucking disaster. Think, Mark.

>>740246541
so i shouldn't be using steam because of your little grudge despite them objectively offering a better service than everyone else?

>>740246719
Weird how they didn't think of this prior to the lawsuit. At least, it's weird if you're a retarded pcbro. The kind of subhuman mongoloid that goes about making cringeworthy birthday cards with sweaty neckbeard strangers to send to his favourite megalomaniac CEO.

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>>740247109
Go outside brother, there's fresh air and vitamins you clearly need.