Steam Is Under Fire In ANOTHER Country

okay today's going to be a fun one because nearly a billion dollars are on the line in the UK with steam facing a lawsuit that is trying to take them to task for their alleged dominance of the PC gaming Market I mean the dominance isn't really alleged we all know that steam absolutely is the the number one place to do games on PC and many of us have a fantastic time with it but what they're alleging is that they are using that amazingly strong position in the market to control the wider sale of PC games and this isn't the immediate end of the world for gab and friends it's uh it's going to be long time before we see action on this stuff you know how it is with the legal system but the question here is fairly real is steam as a platform and a store too powerful for anyone to compete with and while it won't get you anti- trusted what will make you more competitive is today's sponsor that is awesome but sometimes it can mislead you manipulate you it's really important in today's world to 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Advocate and digital rights campaigner Vicky shotbolt I didn't know that shotbolt was a surname it definitely sounds like something from out of Warhammer 40K so uh I I approve of that pretty cool but anyway it's challenging steam in the basis of a 656 million pound lawsuit based on the impact on 14 million UK Gamers if you turn that into USD you're basically dealing with a billion now what that would mean is 44 quid £44 for every UK gamer if they win providing of course you live in the UK and have bought games on Steam from the 5th of June 2018 and uh obviously this would be a ginormous headache for valve if the tribunal then ask them to change their policies or to stop operating in the UK I mean can I see a future where valve don't operate in the UK absolutely not but if it did get that far it would be awk for valve because if they did any changes and they tried to make them be UK specific I've got to assume that would be an utter Nightmare and it would probably invite loads of Regulation from other groups and of course if you watch our Channel you won't be surprised about that because recently we talked about this going on in Poland and also in the USA where basically their grip on a significant majority of the PC games Market is in those cases argued to uh to essentially lead to bad Monopoly Behavior now you might think that saying grip is a pretty loaded word there I suppose the reason why I would say grip is because in order to be on Steam which is the vast majority of the PC market you do relinquish your freedom to set prices on other storefronts you basically do agree to a bunch of conditions there and if you avoid those conditions then obviously you avoided a thing you agreed to and you will rightly be Yol away from Steam the thing is that steam is so big that some of these bodies are then arguing that that constitutes uh you know sort of like Anti-Trust Behavior the other thing they're getting some Flack for for is policies against selling DLC on third party stores so that's the kind of thing that's going on now of course you're probably a little bit cynical I'm a little bit cynical and we both know that this wouldn't be happening if uh you know if a lawyer couldn't make an absolute shitload of money and the good news is that is happening and that's why we've had similar stories before or at least it's a little bit of a reason because in fact this isn't even the first time that we've seen this type of lawsuit from this particular legal firm though their last Target I think is one that people will um will be a bit happier with so it's being brought and funded by a group called milberg London now they are the legal firm that also took Sony to court back in 2022 for5 billion which is a lot of pounds now in that instance their argument was that Sony's decision to retract permission for third party stores to sell digital games while Sony held such dominance over the gaming console space because many more ps5s have been sold than Xboxes and there's a humongous PS4 install base that still is you know on PSN and pretty active basically they were alleging that that sort of thing was anti-competitive the idea being that now only PlayStation can sell digital PS5 games and therefore they have complete control over the pricing basically the idea being that you couldn't go on to like Greenman gaming or somewhere like that and buy a digital PS5 game so that's what they were arguing there so that would obviously be spicy if it fully went forward now the tribunal they've not decided fully whether that's the case or not but they do think that there's enough Merit in the argument to justify a court hearing after PlayStation failed to have it be dismissed so the good news is lawyers and one side are going to earn their keep and Sony's lawyers are also going to earn their keep the system works What About Steam then how can steam be anti-consumer even though audiences absolutely love steam I mean when you think about uh Monopoly practices it generally is sort of evil big wigs and a case where the consumer absolutely feels like they're losing out because there is not enough competition in the market so how is it then that we all love steam so much that it honestly is such a fantastic product in so many ways yet they can potentially find themselves getting into trouble in this sort of way what all comes down to is a very very simple thing right the marketplace of consumers and then the individual feelings of those consumers and that's why I think having really good PR is important because if you've got good PR you can absolutely get away with more before you properly get in trouble and I suppose in the case of steam it primarily has just been more and more and more success because they do offer a excellent product to pretty much everybody involved and by offering such a good product from the time that they started offering it like way back with halflife 2 you can absolutely argue that they um did a really amazing job in well helping against piracy solving the service problem right by making PC gaming something that just feels far more accessible and easy to do for the average person that's really good for PC as a platform and it's actually a way where PC over time was able to compete a little bit more against the Simplicity of consoles and what has that success then led to well it's led to the handheld market for PC also kind of exploding yes valve have obviously got a lot of power there but they have also done a hell of a lot of work to create that market so let's jump in why would any regulator want to step in here because to the majority of the audience the the customers valve are great and steam is an amazing platform so why would people take an issue with that well back in 2013 valve was estimated to hold about a 75% share of the PC market and then with the epic games store case we found out that uh at least per epic games's own admission steam has about 85% of the market and to be clear that is the market by Revenue so that's absolutely dominant and over time it has grown stronger and stronger and stronger of course that's hardly a surprise to most of us EA went to steam Microsoft are putting their things on Steam at the end of the day loads of groups tried to do their thing away from Steam where they wouldn't have to give 30% to Gabe and most of those Endeavors failed so steam is very likely to be continually the majority of the PC game space I don't think any of us can see that changing in a very substantial way say within the next decade this is not a controversial thing and there's the likes of Gog and itch I think those are both fantastic but they are not even approaching a fraction of the numbers that steam produces and we all feel this in how we consume games take Kingdom Hearts that may as well have not been on PC until it arrived in Steam because yes it had been on the Epic store for ages I mean basically the epic game store is an absolute black hole it is a total void of marketing and uh I mean it's basically common knowledge that unless you're getting a bunch of money from them or you've got a massive inbuilt audience you'll just be sacrificing sales if you're exclusive on Epic absolutely so what those numbers show is that basically PC gaming and steam are almost the same thing and that means that when one player has got such a significant stake of the market well that's literally the point of regulators that is why Regulators exist because guess what if you have absolutely humongous control in the market and people basically can't really compete against you and you have a whole bunch of terms uh say those pricing things that make it harder for people to compete against you well that does actually lead to less competition yes there is less competition in the PC game space I mean a lot of people would say well just look at Epic well epic basically kind of failed in many ways and that was with them pumping absolutely ghastly amounts of money into the whole shindig so this is a pretty legit case where a regulator would be interested the thing is that the very dominant platform just happens to be one that provides a fantastic experience for users that's why people are not up in arms about this now the thing with valve is they do have a major thing in their favor that PlayStation actually doesn't right and again that's relevant because this is same jurisdiction being done by the same Law Firm so that is basically that valve let developers sell keys on other stores and there is no activation fee right to uh to use that key on Steam there's no key generation fee right so if you sell a 100,000 games on Steam and you sell 10,000 off of steam well valve makes absolutely no money from the 10,000 that you sold off of steam I think From valve's perspective they just want people to be using steam generally speaking which means there'll be a higher chance of them obviously buying more games on the platform so even though it's generous it does play Dev valves Advantage both um because it does help to make their platform stronger but also it would help them out against regulators and but it is also just a really good thing now the way it works is you can get up to 5,000 keys by default at launch and then you can basically request that steam generates more keys and basically that's all pretty fair and good now let's take a look at the publicly available terms for Distributing steam keys off platform and let's find where the complaint is so I'm going to read it you should use steam keys to sell your game on other stores in a similar way to how you sell your game in Steam underlined right so this is the important bit it is important that you don't give steam customers a worse deal than steam key purchasers it's okay to run a discount for steam keys in different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to steam customers within a reasonable amount of time so that's the rule and then this is the consequence if you request an extreme number of keys and you you are not offering steam customers a comparable deal or if your sole business is selling steam keys and not offering value to steam customers your request may be denied and you may lose the privilege to request Cas so effectively there valver telling developers that steam must price match any listings for steam keys on a different store if you do not do that within a reasonable amount of time inv Val's opinion then they can refuse to issue you more keys and that's what the Regulators are trying to investigate here the idea from their perspective is that valve are stifling competition by dictating other people's store prices and sales options for DLC and thus are limiting customer choice of course the genius thing from Val's point of view is they present this as protecting their customers right they don't want the 75% of PC Gamers on steam or 85% by Revenue as Tim Sweeney puts it they don't want those people to get a worse deal by staying on their platform to do their purchase they're fine with STS generating off store keys because those can really act as loss leaders and they get people into the steam ecosystem so that is a very positive thing and it means more interest to a game in general that means more sales and of course more sales that will because they are in a strong Market position predominantly be on their store with their 30% cut so it all lines up brilliantly for vth now from the point of view of Skeptics what these Regulators on lawsuits are demanding is that steam allows developers to effectively cheat users who only buy games in Steam while also still keeping steam as a platform for their game which they think is an unreasonable thing because it's basically wanting to have all of the benefits of being on Steam while avoiding their 30% cut and I think that's the bit where it gets interesting to me because for most of us the idea of maybe an indie game developer selling a cheaper version of a key on their own storefront as a sort of like a direct fan funding thing I mean even we for the pale Beyond got lots of comments people saying hey can I buy this from you directly so that uh you know there's not like a cut going to a middleman in that case our response was actually the best way you can help us out is actually to buy the game on Steam and yes to give Gabe that 30% cut the reason being the more success we see in Steam The More Steam will promote our game and the more it will be in discoverability so it's quite funny where in that sense you could totally see as a Dev the idea of selling keys in your own site for less money um as a direct fan support thing which of course Val thinks is unre because it's basically them wanting to have all of the benefits of steam and there are a great many benefits right steam will increase your Revenue that that's basically fact if your game has uh you know is giving valve good signals if people are writing reviews for your game it will be shown off in more places and whenever there is a uh you know a sale on Steam like listen be again with us doing pale Beyond like I could go into the steam back end and you just see Steam say Steam summer sale and the line just goes from Flat to right up to the top that's the way that it works that is a large value so you can totally see how it would be a little bit unreasonable to just have all the benefits of steam but then at every opportunity try to circumvent them getting their side of the deal but of course that's thinking about it from maybe an indie Dev perspective maybe from a customer's perspective I mean imagine if a AAA company wanted to basically play the numbers fun here and uh you know try to kind of KW their way into getting a better deal funnily enough valve has actually aligned the incentives properly there because you do Dro down to I believe a 20% cut going to Gabe if you are above $50 million in Revenue so that is a really really good incentive for those you know those very large Publishers to actually put sales on Steam because it will eventually get them a better cut now that's very much me talking about this from the perspective of it being a store but there are other things that uh that could crop up here because it is a platform in fact it is the platform for PC gaming it's got forums it's got the workshop discovery tools messaging services and dozens of other features even the steam deck integration stuff that's absolutely fantastic they've had just over two decades to make it the amazing platform that it is today very much contrasting with the mandatory launcher for halflife 2 that it started off as and that's what brings us to the questions that both Defenders of steam and The Regulators are asking why would anybody buy a PC game anywhere else than Steam and how does actual competition exist in PC Gam gaming stores if that is the case as a customer regardless of where you buy it you're still wanting a steam key regardless because that's where your library is and barring gray Market Keys anything that is uh you know following the rules is not going to be cheaper than it is being sold and steam without valve being able to revoke the developer's ability to generate new steam keys and that then means why not just buy it using steam in the first place where it's all very easy and convenient now for some other stores there are workarounds take Green Man Gaming they have got an XP based additional discount system of course that's not the developer violating their agreement that is Greenman gaming making their store look appealing because they are willing to eat some of the cost by doing that discount system now sure they can offer discounts at different times but again Steam runs dozens of sales a year so you know just wait and you will be price matching eventually and as we've seen if a game is not activating on Steam 75% of the audience don't care we know it with the epic game store itch and GOG bu they are a fraction of steam so if you want to sell in the primary Market you have got to sign up to all of their rules and policies even yes giving some control on stores or even your own website and that's where the antitrust concerns come in a combination of both platform and store is the key here now steam does an amazing job with audiences for competition Regulators in an economic Market they basically can't take the opinion that one company just because it is benevolent isn't immune to competition especially when they control the biggest store in the market and the platform by which the majority of people access that market that is basically the argument that will be made here to try and get a very very large pound of flesh out of steam and it's not dissimilar to a position that Apple and Google have found themselves in and certainly if you're a user of uh of the iPhone and you have USBC in your iPhone and you think it's handy that you can use one cable for basically everything well actually that's anti-competition stuff if you're in the EU your iPhone literally is a product that has got more value now they may be doing some things with apple intelligence and new features basically not bringing them to the EU which a lot of people would say is a form of malicious compliance but basically the the point is if the regulations are good enough um then you know there can be a little bit more competition that's why we are seeing the likes of alt store appear on um on iOS that's why people are able to load up their emulators and their iPhones so certainly if you're sitting there with your favorite Nintendo DS games you probably look at the EU and think oh man what do I do because I really like this emulator but man gdpr is a pain in the ass and the Chrome extensions to deal with it are not good enough now it's not about a regulator Sweeping in and just killing Gabe somehow again that would be hard he does have a marvelous collection of knives that we do enjoy showcasing on our thumbnails no the point is changing things to allow for New Opportunities that's why having alternative app stores uh with of course different payment processors why that is you know the thing on on Apple and Google that they're currently going for so it's not them trying to dismantle valve or force them to give audiences a worse deal or to punish Val for putting in 20 years of good work that's literally not what they care about because that's not their point uh it is them being challenged to review the PC gaming market and to ask if steam are immune to competition because they're at the top of the market both as a store and a platform and whether any other store can even start to compete and potentially offer a better deal to audiences and I think that last bit a better deal to audiences is the bit that is challenging because yes you can offer a better deal for your game two audiences on PC asteris you just won't be able to sell it in Steam now this lawsuit is going nowhere fast the PlayStation one happened in 2022 and it's only just approaching its first actual hearing now that we're in June 2024 but again it's Regulators they're not really concerned about the short term that kind of thing is fine it is just going to trundle on and on and on maybe something will come out of it I mean we're so used to being so godamn jaded about all of this stuff which I totally understand but again you take a look at some of the times that Microsoft has properly been snapped by the EU uh like early 2000s wasn't it Microsoft got a fairly gargantuan fine of course there's stuff with Google and um Apple that basically does mean that users will be getting more control over the hardware that they purchased I think that's fundamentally a good thing it's a question though of how will it all sort of shake down here with steam and because I can't go into the future I I can't tell you that I don't know but man wouldn't it be crazy in an environment where we're seeing the likes of Apple where we are seeing really big players actually get in a sticky situation it's not impossible especially when across the states in Poland in the UK and likely as months go on other regions similar cases are cropping up so I think that very much means Val's legal department has probably been gearing up for this battle for a long ass time because absolutely if you think about large scale strategic risk for valve this kind of thing is going to be easily in the top three okay that's it for me let me know what you think thanks to today's sponsor for helping to fund our team and with that being said see you later

Channel: Bellular News

Views: 39,704

Keywords: steam, valve, falconeer, bulwark game, steam banned, steam games, valve steam, gabe newell, gaben, gabe, bellular, bellular news

Id: qXCCa053hH8

Length: 22min 9sec (1329 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 27 2024