Steam is the best thing to happen to Gaben. It’s better than the other options as a product but the bar is really low and steam takes advantage just as much as the other players. The soft monopoly going on is clearly having an effect imo.
By not competing with them. Gaben has 1.5 billion dollars worth of yachts. Steam doesn’t need to be taking 30% and only does so because everyone else does. I guess big companies colluding, each with a billionaire at the helm, is kind of the law of the market tbh but it’s not “the best”.
Idk, I think 30% is perfectly fair considering what a massive market steam is and the huge amount of publicity you get from putting it on steam. I’ll agree that by certain definitions steam is a monopoly, but they aren’t committing any anti competition practices, and this is further proven by them taking the standard 30% if they wanted to they could only take 10%, and that would probably be seen as anti competition by quite a few countries, as many other companies couldn’t deal with trying to make their percentage lower. Steam is essentially being the standard here, and if any other service wanted to take a smaller cut they could, and developers would turn to it more often. For instance, itch.io. if steam were a true monopoly, you could be certain that itch.io wouldn’t exist anymore. Ill change my mind on this when steam loses a SINGLE monopoly lawsuit, and until then you guys need to do more research on actual monopolies.
There’s only a handful of companies and the smallest one (itch.io) takes between 0% and 10%. The companies that “couldn’t deal with it” are Microsoft (for Xbox, they actually take 12% on PC), Nintendo, Sony.
Look up what a soft monopoly is. In any case, they have market dominance and are abusing it. Steam is currently dealing with more than one anti trust lawsuit, including a 900$ million one in the UK.
It’s weird seeing people defend billionaires and their money sucking machine. You could defend Airbnb or Amazon with that same kind of energy and arguments. They haven’t lost a single monopoly lawsuit either.
30% is a disgusting cut for a few gb of data on a virtual store front. It’s having a negative impact on devs, and it only helps makes rich people richer. You don’t get a networth of 9 to 11 billion by being fair and having consumers at heart. Steam and Gaben aren’t your friends, they actively treat you and the industry as a bag of money to be exploited. They just have a really good marketing team.
I defend it because I love the service, and have used it for over a decade. I again will wait until the results of these lawsuits, as steam has won every other monopoly lawsuit in the past, and I personally believe for good reason as described in my comment above.
You can say the same thing about Amazon and Airbnb. None of them are bad products and they are all convenient, but they are having a negative impact. You don’t directly feel it but the devs do and in the end, it does mean less quality and overall games for us.
I’m not calling for a boycott here but the minimum would be calling them out on it.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
deleted by creator
Steam is the best thing to happen to gaming period.
deleted by creator
Steam is the best thing to happen to Gaben. It’s better than the other options as a product but the bar is really low and steam takes advantage just as much as the other players. The soft monopoly going on is clearly having an effect imo.
What are the examples of steam “taking advantage just as much as the other players?”
By not competing with them. Gaben has 1.5 billion dollars worth of yachts. Steam doesn’t need to be taking 30% and only does so because everyone else does. I guess big companies colluding, each with a billionaire at the helm, is kind of the law of the market tbh but it’s not “the best”.
Idk, I think 30% is perfectly fair considering what a massive market steam is and the huge amount of publicity you get from putting it on steam. I’ll agree that by certain definitions steam is a monopoly, but they aren’t committing any anti competition practices, and this is further proven by them taking the standard 30% if they wanted to they could only take 10%, and that would probably be seen as anti competition by quite a few countries, as many other companies couldn’t deal with trying to make their percentage lower. Steam is essentially being the standard here, and if any other service wanted to take a smaller cut they could, and developers would turn to it more often. For instance, itch.io. if steam were a true monopoly, you could be certain that itch.io wouldn’t exist anymore. Ill change my mind on this when steam loses a SINGLE monopoly lawsuit, and until then you guys need to do more research on actual monopolies.
There’s only a handful of companies and the smallest one (itch.io) takes between 0% and 10%. The companies that “couldn’t deal with it” are Microsoft (for Xbox, they actually take 12% on PC), Nintendo, Sony.
Look up what a soft monopoly is. In any case, they have market dominance and are abusing it. Steam is currently dealing with more than one anti trust lawsuit, including a 900$ million one in the UK.
It’s weird seeing people defend billionaires and their money sucking machine. You could defend Airbnb or Amazon with that same kind of energy and arguments. They haven’t lost a single monopoly lawsuit either.
30% is a disgusting cut for a few gb of data on a virtual store front. It’s having a negative impact on devs, and it only helps makes rich people richer. You don’t get a networth of 9 to 11 billion by being fair and having consumers at heart. Steam and Gaben aren’t your friends, they actively treat you and the industry as a bag of money to be exploited. They just have a really good marketing team.
I defend it because I love the service, and have used it for over a decade. I again will wait until the results of these lawsuits, as steam has won every other monopoly lawsuit in the past, and I personally believe for good reason as described in my comment above.
You can say the same thing about Amazon and Airbnb. None of them are bad products and they are all convenient, but they are having a negative impact. You don’t directly feel it but the devs do and in the end, it does mean less quality and overall games for us.
I’m not calling for a boycott here but the minimum would be calling them out on it.
how is steam not competing with them? steam outcompeted them.
Everyone’s fine with staying in their lane and charging the standard percentage. Keeping the status quo to maximize profits isn’t competing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing
you should study a little game theory and industrial design. some markets balance that way
“Price fixing happens, it’s a normal part of a healthy market”
Doesn’t make it right or legal. Stop defending billionaires please.