huge laugh from the audience

Yes. That is exactly the issue. It's not only Steam Keys either as some of the cultists would have you believe. Valve does require you to offer Steam Keys on other stores at the same price that you offer the game on Steam but that's not all. Now, while they don't specifically forbid you to offer different prices on stores that have nothing to do with Steam, they do reserve the right (do whatever the hell you want with this one simple trick!) to veto pricing on Steam for any reason. This has been historically used by Valve to block games that offer better pricing on competing stores. It goes something like this:

1. I make a game and decide I want to make $7 per sale so I publish it on my site at $7.
2. I want the game to be accessible to a wider audience so I publish it on other stores.
3. Epic takes 12% so I price it at $8 there in order to keep making $7 per sale
4. Steam takes 30% so I price it at $10 there for the same reason.
5. Valve says $10 isn't a fair price and refuses to elaborate why, reminding me that they reserve the right to veto any price on Steam for any reason.
6. I make my game $10 on all other stores
7. Valve magically decides $10 was actually a fair price all along and finally publishes the game on Steam.

You’re still hung up that there’s consensus on anarchism and libertarianism being so generic terms that they’re near synonymous? I mean, if you made some arguments to the contrary then this comment would carry some weight. Other than that, please see comment you responded to again, it’s applicable to you too.

The PC is an open platform. Even more so with Linux. Steam doesn't force exclusivity, you're free to host your game on Steam for discoverability while also self-distributing or using other storefronts. Valve's 30% is a price that a studio chooses to pay, because they know that a ton of PC gamers like buying games on Steam.

If all you want out of a storefront is a payment processor, CDN, and possibly DRM, you can release on Steam, Epic, Itch, GOG, or all at once. You pick Steam (or Steam+others) instead of others because you know that enough PC gamers are willing to pay for your game on Steam, because they like Steam. Epic can tout its small cuts or exclusivity bonuses or "zero percent cuts on the first $x" deals, but game devs know that 100% of revenue on an Epic launch week is going to be a lower absolute number than 70% of revenue on a Steam one.

Hell, if Steam did lower their cut to undercut Epic (which they absolutely could do, especially since they don't have any shareholders and thus just need to be profitable instead of demonstrating YoY growth), that would be a more "monopolistic" move in the PC gaming space. Remember, the alleged monopoly is over devs, not users. As a dev, the only reason you'd ever consider Epic instead of Steam for your game is that generous profit-share ratio. Steam could remove that only advantage overnight if it wanted to "compete", and doesn't. Valve will settle for winning exclusively on the merit of "being a platform that doesn't suck, and hasn't sucked for 20 years, and doesn't have financial motivation to start sucking now".

It was proposed, but Blizzard rejected it:

Schreier reports in the book that a few years before Steam launched, a group of employees pitched the company on a plan "to turn Battle.net into a digital store for a variety of PC games."

Battle.net basically approached the same problem as Steam but from the multiplayer side, whereas Steam approached from the distribution side.

Valve supports Linux just to safeguard their monopoly.

I wouldn't put it like that. They support Linux to safeguard against Microsoft pushing their monopoly, and they did seem to be gearing up to do just that. Epic had similar concerns, hence the lawsuits against Google and Apple.

All of this is pointless for most of the

How is Linux support pointless? Having more options to play your games is a good thing! I don't think Heroic would've had as much of an impact w/o Valve's investment into Proton/WINE, and that gives customers a choice on which platform to buy and play their games on. It also allowed for the Steam OS market, and competitors are absolutely welcome to create their own spin with their own store, they just don't for whatever reason.

Downloading and updating games, for me, is actually the least important part of what Steam offers. I care far more about Linux support (I was a Linux user before I was a Steam user), Steam Input (Steam Deck, and I prefer controller on PC), and consolidating sales to one store. Whether I need to launch it separately or whatever isn't a big deal.

Yes, Valve enforcing price parity only when it's convenient for them is also addressed in the lawsuit.

The rest of your comment refers to Steam Keys. That's literally not what we're talking about.

If tomorrow someone made a better Steam, how many years would you have to wait to be reasonably secure that it's not fueled by venture capital and serving as a loss leader foot-in-the-door scheme? It's not impossible that Steam itself would enshittify and open an IPO, but the fact that the option's been on the table for decades and Valve hasn't taken it is better evidence than any other platform could muster. Valve has proven that it's profitable and that it doesn't need to care about YoY growth. Let's overestimate their operations costs (CDN, R&D, employee salaries, hardware production, licensing, etc etc) at 5 billion a year. If they made ten billion in revenue last year and only make seven billion this year, Valve is fine. Think about that. Think about what a sixty percent drop in profits would do to literally any shareholder-backed company. It'd be apocalyptic.

That's the main reason I'll use Steam happily but never install another storefront on my PC. I'll buy games on GOG or Itch as DRM-free installers, and store the installers locally, and I'll buy and play games that distribute without a storefront launcher, but the only "storefront platform" anyone's gonna get me to install in the next decade is Steam. If "better Steam" happens, it needs to demonstrate immunity to being bought out by Microsoft/Elon Musk for eighty morbillion dollars. And that can't be demonstrated in a day.

That's without any mention of actual "features" like reviews or remote play or proton or steam input or anything that actually makes Steam as a program good/bad. It's all about the company's refusal to go shareholder-driven. If Gabe sells Valve or his successors do, I'm off the ship and scraping the DRM off of my library. What I won't do if that happens is go to someone else's shareholder-value-generating storefront.

Gabe Newell is a man who, for the past decade at least, has had a big red button on his desk. This button, if pressed, will deposit eleven or twelve figures directly into his wallet to distribute however he likes, at the cost of letting some company gain control of how Valve operates. Make all his employees multimillionaires! Race Musk and Bezos for biggest number! Buy a small country! Whatever! Gabe Newell has not pressed this button, and has signaled that after his retirement or death that no successor to the company is going to be allowed to press it either. If Newell's managed not to press it for this long, I'll "trust" him as far as it goes. His successor hasn't earned that trust yet, so is only coasting on "trusting Newell to pick the right guy" which isn't guaranteed - a lot of guys would sacrifice a lot to press that button.

Again, this is not about Steam Keys, it's about Steam using shady contracts to bully developers into price parity on completely unrelated stores. Yes, runescape is cheaper on Epic, the incredibly broad nature of these rules that allows for selective wishy-washy enforcing is also part of the lawsuit.

If you see something I am missing from the lawsuit please let me know, preferably without the hostility if you can manage.

The whole thing because you didn't read it and, given that you keep bringing up Steam Keys, which is not what we're talking about, I'm skeptical that you can read at all.

The allegations of the plaintiff are not necessarilly the written or enforced policies of the defendant. Please consider linking something of substance when accusing others of being un-serious/insincere.

You made a claim without linking to it in the first place. Its not my job to substantiate your arguments.

Valve will never IPO, why would they? They own a money printing machine that doesn’t need any more capital. They will print money until the heat death of the universe if we let it. Moreover, since they’re not a public company they don’t have to share their financials and if they did that people would be likely to sing a different tune.

I’ve never seen a conceivable scenario where anything else can happen unless Valve does something mental on purpose.

Some people here raised they concern that they don’t value Valve input to merit 30% cut and would take lower price if it meant it didn’t have features they don’t use. What’s happening now means there’s no real free market or competition.

Valve's 30% is a price that a studio chooses to pay

No its not. Its a fee they have to pay because they have no other option, because Steam is a monopoly. Even CDPR, who literally owns their own game store, lists their games on Steam, because there's no way they could ever be successful without it.

Ah, the classic spoon-feed me the answer or it doesn't count as a source. Learn to use the internet, you're not a child.

So because Battle.net failed to predict market correctly 100% of PC gamers are stuck with Steam until the end of the world. That doesn’t change the fact that Valve lucked into the position they are in and was paid billions for this already.

So, you think a good way to correct someone is to directly insult them because you find their points unrelated but yours perfect? Rude.
And the only thing steam controls via contract is the ability to sell your games via steam keys for price parity.

And you misunderstood my point. RuneScape isn't even on the epic game store so you aren't reading my words carefully. You are projecting your own hypocrisy.

You honestly think I didn't do a google search before reading the two relavent articles reachable from the OP? Nothing I found, nor the fact that I regularly buy games/steam!keys cheaper than via steam, meshes with the plaintiff's claims.

Telling others to act like grown-ups while accepting un-founded claims that happen to reflect your argument at face-value, how very mature of you.

PC gamers aren't "stuck with Steam," they very much have options. And Steam is likely way better than whatever Battle.net would've become, so I'm quite happy with how things turned out.

And yeah, Valve was quite lucky in nailing the timing, however, that was also a very conscious choice since they filled a need they saw. Valve is perhaps the best company you could ask for to have such a dominant position, pretty much any other company would've resulted in a way worse situation for gamers.

PC gamers are stuck because Steam is a self-perpetuating monopoly. If your entire library is on Steam, and Steam has almost all of the games you’ll just keep on buying there for convenience (and that’s what happens, analysts estimate 90% market share). Alan Wake 2 wasn’t profitable until EGS exclusivity expired because gamers opted to wait rather than buy this gem of a game on a different platform (that gives away games like candy).

Even if you think that Valve are just the best, aren’t you worried that having one good option is being one good option away from having no good options?

But that is what the policy is about. Steam doesn't have a price parity policy regarding general game sales.

No, I think you deserve to be insulted because you are talking out of your ass about something you didn't read. Again, this is about the price veto policy. This is not about Steam Keys (here's me hoping italics help with your dyslexia).

And yeah, I thought you meant runescape on the EGS not on their site. It doesn't matter because it has zero bearing on the discussion, I only addressed it because you didn't read the thing you're talking about.

CDPR judges that selling on Steam is enough of a boost that it's worth the cost. Riot (for example) doesn't. If you think every game company or indie studio feels mandated to use Steam, that's a hugely consolebrained take. Nintendo has a monopoly. Want your game on Switch? Follow Nintendo's terms and list on Nintendo's store. Apple has a monopoly, challenged recently. Want your app on iPhone? Follow Apple's terms and list on Apple's store. Want your game on Windows PC? Upload an EXE somewhere. Sell a disc. Run your own launcher. Or license out to Steam/Epic/whoever.

The only reason you get more sales on Steam is because the PC gaming userbase overwhelmingly prefers Steam. Hell, I play Guild Wars 2, a 12 year old MMO that "launched" on Steam a couple years ago. You can still buy and play that game without any third parties getting involved at all, and always could. It doesn't have any Steam achievements, doesn't benefit from any Steam features, and has a decade old community in spaces other than Steam ones. ArenaNet decided that exposure via Steam recommendations was worth losing $x/player to list on Steam.

If Steam had an exclusivity clause, that'd be another matter entirely. As it stands, listing on Steam doesn't prevent you from also listing your game elsewhere or bypassing the entire storefront middleman scheme.