I haven't seen anybody else except the litigants included in the class action make these claims. Nobody seems to be able to substantiate them. I'm actively following this because I want to know if it's true. I'd welcome any proof someone can provide that these claims have been elsewhere substantiated.
atrielienz
joined 1 year ago
Can I ask what you get? I'd like to understand what steam provides for a 30% cut vs what app stores like Google or Apple provide and what you value more from one vs the other.
Lemmy is meant to be a direct alternative to reddit and it copies plenty of design and user elements from there that don't necessarily fit with the overall user use case here. There are whole instances without downvote buttons for example. This is an over-arcing statement that lumps together a bunch of instances and user bases that don't necessarily comply with such a notion.
There are several companies (Microsoft) who fall into the same category (being entrenched in PC gaming as a platform and intermediary between gamers and publishers). But Microsoft while more successful overall is not being considered to be a gatekeeper in this instance. They have further reach generally (they are the dominant platform for PC gaming as a whole, and have a competing game store). However you stipulate that Valve simply existing makes them a gatekeeper which runs afoul of the law put in place for economic reasons to provide a fair landscape. Why has Microsoft not pulled ahead of Valve? They take the same cut, have more exclusivity, provide more and arguably better hardware, have the Xbox game store and other competing services. They aren't being considered in this space to be gatekeepers (the two core platform services noted for them are LinkedIn, and Windows OS).
Nobody is forcing game development companies to do business with Valve. If they didn't (as an industry) they could absolutely exert enough leverage to push Valve off the top spot. Microsoft could almost definitively do so by themselves. They provide a great deal of the same services and products.
Valve only really seems to be guilty of innovating in a space that other larger companies ignored and being successful at pricing a product that people prefer. I'm not sure that's enough to warrant them being lumped in with companies that obviously use anti-consumer and anti-competition business practices to exert control over the digital market place.
The Digital Marketplace Act was created seemingly to force economic fair practice and provide a level playing field for businesses (startups or industry titans) to operate. Valve seems to be operating within those constraints and you haven't actually proven your supposition that they have done anything wrong to achieve what they have achieved.
Further I am going to say that you don't understand that "cornered the market" actually has a legal definition. "In finance, cornering the market consists of obtaining sufficient control of a particular stock, commodity, or other asset in an attempt to manipulate the market price. " - According to Wikipedia. So, how are Valve attempting to manipulate the market price of games?
We know already that they only enforce the price of steam keys (meaning that you cannot sell a steam key for less on any other platforms than you do on steam). But that's a steam key, and doesn't translate to the price of any other licensing key provided by any other license agreement.
What else are they doing that you feel or can prove is cornering the market. Getting to market first and offering goods at the same or a similar price as competitors with better service isn't it.
They don't. Look at the first paragraph you quoted. "Significant impact on internal market" what significant impact does Valve exert on the internal gaming market? Specifically, what do they do that Nintendo, or Epic or GOG don't do that exerts pressure on the gaming platform market?
Even if they were to meet those requirements and actually be a gatekeeper in the space, you still haven't answered the second question. Look at the do's and don't's. What don't's are they actively using to hurt other platforms in the space? What part of their business practices specifically do you feel falls afoul of the Digital Markets Act?
I read the article. You don't expect me to just take the quote at face value? You asserted that they fall into this category. So show us your work. How and why? A quote is not sufficient.
Sync doesn't do this by default (I haven't changed any settings to this effect). I'm currently in settings now looking for a setting to change just to see.
Edit: Under settings there is an option for setting comment views (settings/comment options/comment views). However it defaults to new. Additionally it does the same thing in my bed browser using Alexandrite.
The point is though this doesn't work for everyone using Lemmy and it's definitely a carry-over habit from reddit and similar messageboard style sites.
It's not slightly high when you realize that someone has to pay for bandwidth, advertising, licensing fees etc. IGN (please take that with a grain of salt) has an infographic about this from an article awhile back. I feel like it explains fairly well that the industry standard is 30% and that only a handful of stores actually provide anything below that. And Nintendo particularly is reported to take 30-40% depending. I can appreciate that people are naturally distrustful of any large company. I can appreciate that steam doesn't get it right 100% of the time and there are valid criticisms of it's business practices and decisions over time. But on the other hand, this has always seemed like a nothing burger to me.
When you buy a digital key at Walmart or Best Buy or Game Stop, they get a 30% cut too.
It's not even 30% of all sales: "Valve even adjusted Steam’s rates late last year in what seemed to be a response to the pressure from Epic, but this change is likely only impactful to major developers. After $10 million in sales through Steam, Valve’s cut drops to 25% on all new sales, and drops again to 20% on sales after $50 million. For reference, earning $10 million would mean selling just under 170k copies of a $60 game, and far more for independent games that are rarely that expensive."
"On 6 September 2023 the European Commission designated for the first time six gatekeepers - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft. In total, 22 core platform services provided by those gatekeepers have been designated."
That's a direct quote from their website. Perhaps you can elaborate on what specifically makes Valve a gatekeeper in this space, and why they have not been labeled one under EU law by the Digital Markets Act and those who enforce it?
I'm especially curious about how you came to this conclusion. I'm also curious about the do's and don't section of this article and what you might feel Valve has fallen afoul of as their obligations to the public and their competitors under this law.
So they just want parody accounts to be clearly labeled? With the number of people constantly eating the onion, I'm gonna say that's not the most terrible thing. People are dumb. They believe dumb shit.
Edit: Given that public officials use Bluesky and the whole check mark fiasco over on shitter, I'm just gonna say maybe they should have learned their lesson before now and enacted policies like this a long time ago but I guess better late than never. Can't have a CDC parody account saying to drink bleach.
Sometimes the save button doesn't give you context for why you saved it and it's not something you check everyday.
What substantiates the claim that games will become cheaper? We already know games are one of the few commodities that are getting cheaper over time when taking inflation into account. I've seen this claim everywhere but I don't understand what makes people think it's true and nobody has been able to show me the logic or reasoning of it. Also, you claim that game development becomes more lucrative. It only becomes lucrative at all with a return on investment which requires that a developer be able to afford to make the game, market it, advertise it, and sell it to a wide audience all while handling the financial side of things (licensing agreements, handling the financial details of consumers in a secure fashion, providing refunds within the constraints of laws worldwide, etc).
These cases and the litigation process also cost money. You absolutely can lose by looking into it.