The only exclusives AFAIK are Valve games (understandable) and games that don’t bother listing elsewhere. I also think Valve’s “no undercutting” policy is reasonable. They give you free keys to sell elsewhere if you choose, and you can have sales happen elsewhwre at a different time (or the same) vs Steam, the only requirement is that you don’t undercut Steam.
That’s very far from monopolistic behavior. Adding to that, Valve also invests heavily in their own platform, providing features like Steam Input, Proton/Steam OS, etc.
Epic, on the other hand, bribes users to come via free games, bribes devs via paid exclusivity, and hasn’t meaningfully invested in their platform, they’re still lightyears away from Steam, and even GOG is way better from a features standpoint.
Which is showing more monopolistic behavior? Epic, and it’s not even close. The only “monopolistic” behavior from Valve is being really popular, and I think they’ve earned that.
Steam is full of de-facto exclusives that cannot be purchased and played elsewhere, meaning that you have to accept the Steam price, policies, practices, and their launcher in order to play those. Borderlands 2 was de-facto exclusive to Steam from 2012 to 2020, when Epic effectively rescued it from the exclusivity by paying 2K to give it away and add to the Epic store. If anything, Epic rewarding developers for doing what they’ve been doing on Steam is better than them not getting paid.
That’s a choice those devs made, not an exclusivity deal.
As for Borderlands 2, it looks like it was available on most consoles as well. It was released in 2012, which was before Steam even came to Linux, before the original GOG Galaxy, and way before EGS. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, The Witcher 1&2 were “exclusive” to Steam until ~2012 when GOG relaunched their website, so CD Project Red didn’t even bother selling their own games on their website. If they don’t, why would other devs?
I get it, I’m sad we don’t have good alternatives to Steam, but it’s not because of anything nefarious Valve is doing, it’s because their platform and policies are just better. I didn’t even have a Steam account until 2012 or so when they came to Linux, it just wasn’t necessary because everything I wanted to play was available elsewhere (e.g. direct from devs). These days I use Steam almost exclusively because they make playing on Linux so easy, not because I don’t have other options (I also play EGS and GOG games through Heroic, a community solution to support those stores on Linux because the stores themselves haven’t bothered).
An exclusivity deal is signed by both parties, so it’s just as much of a choice developers make. By the way, like Valve, Epic seems to favor Wine over native ports, given their donation to Lutris. Unlike Valve though, Epic isn’t iffy about others not using their launcher, so there’s an official GOG Galaxy plugin for Epic endorsed by Sweeney.
Yes, I’m not implying Epic is forcing game devs into anything, I’m saying it’s explicitly anticompetitive. Whether a business partner wants to be exclusive should be 100% their decision and not involve a legally binding contract or coercion, because that’s textbook anti-competitiveness.
Epic isn’t iffy about others not using their launcher, so there’s an official GOG Galaxy plugin for Epic endorsed by Sweeney.
Would they retain that policy if they or GOG became #1? I highly doubt it, this is merely a ploy to try to dethrone Steam, and you can be assured the policy will change once someone else gets on top.
They give you free keys to sell elsewhere if you choose
To be clear, this is a different system than stores listing non steam key games.
That’s very far from monopolistic behavior.
I mean, imagine if, say, Walmart or Amazon did this (assuming they don’t already). Every price is every other store has to be at or above theirs, or their product gets delisted, which is apocalypse for a supplier.
How does that not sound monopolistic to you?
Imagine if Amazon took 20% more cut that Newegg and passed that to hardware prices for literally everyone.
EGS literally can’t be monopolistic because they have like no market share, but yes, they’re being anticompetitive and bribing in an unsustainable way. It’s not good either. And their store is barebones, no question.
But the double standard of bothers me. Valve doesn’t get a free pass just cause they have a better platform and they’ve been fine in other areas so far.
To be clear, this is a different system than stores listing non steam key games.
That depends. For GOG and EGS, yeah, those stores don’t want to sell Steam keys, they want to sell keys for their own platform. But other stores like Fanatical sell Steam keys, and I’m not exactly sure how those work.
My point is that devs can sell keys on their own and take 100% profit if they want, they just can’t undercut Steam. And that’s pretty common in retail, if you see a product in store, it’ll be a very similar price to buy direct. It turns out, retail stores don’t like providing marketing just to get undercut on your website or a competitor store.
Valve doesn’t get a free pass just cause they have a better platform
Neither does EGS just because they take a lower cut and give away free games.
AFAIK, Steam isn’t doing anything differently than other retail stores. If EGS were in Valve’s position, you can bet they’d be way worse.
The only exclusives AFAIK are Valve games (understandable) and games that don’t bother listing elsewhere. I also think Valve’s “no undercutting” policy is reasonable. They give you free keys to sell elsewhere if you choose, and you can have sales happen elsewhwre at a different time (or the same) vs Steam, the only requirement is that you don’t undercut Steam.
That’s very far from monopolistic behavior. Adding to that, Valve also invests heavily in their own platform, providing features like Steam Input, Proton/Steam OS, etc.
Epic, on the other hand, bribes users to come via free games, bribes devs via paid exclusivity, and hasn’t meaningfully invested in their platform, they’re still lightyears away from Steam, and even GOG is way better from a features standpoint.
Which is showing more monopolistic behavior? Epic, and it’s not even close. The only “monopolistic” behavior from Valve is being really popular, and I think they’ve earned that.
Steam is full of de-facto exclusives that cannot be purchased and played elsewhere, meaning that you have to accept the Steam price, policies, practices, and their launcher in order to play those. Borderlands 2 was de-facto exclusive to Steam from 2012 to 2020, when Epic effectively rescued it from the exclusivity by paying 2K to give it away and add to the Epic store. If anything, Epic rewarding developers for doing what they’ve been doing on Steam is better than them not getting paid.
That’s a choice those devs made, not an exclusivity deal.
As for Borderlands 2, it looks like it was available on most consoles as well. It was released in 2012, which was before Steam even came to Linux, before the original GOG Galaxy, and way before EGS. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, The Witcher 1&2 were “exclusive” to Steam until ~2012 when GOG relaunched their website, so CD Project Red didn’t even bother selling their own games on their website. If they don’t, why would other devs?
I get it, I’m sad we don’t have good alternatives to Steam, but it’s not because of anything nefarious Valve is doing, it’s because their platform and policies are just better. I didn’t even have a Steam account until 2012 or so when they came to Linux, it just wasn’t necessary because everything I wanted to play was available elsewhere (e.g. direct from devs). These days I use Steam almost exclusively because they make playing on Linux so easy, not because I don’t have other options (I also play EGS and GOG games through Heroic, a community solution to support those stores on Linux because the stores themselves haven’t bothered).
An exclusivity deal is signed by both parties, so it’s just as much of a choice developers make. By the way, like Valve, Epic seems to favor Wine over native ports, given their donation to Lutris. Unlike Valve though, Epic isn’t iffy about others not using their launcher, so there’s an official GOG Galaxy plugin for Epic endorsed by Sweeney.
Yes, I’m not implying Epic is forcing game devs into anything, I’m saying it’s explicitly anticompetitive. Whether a business partner wants to be exclusive should be 100% their decision and not involve a legally binding contract or coercion, because that’s textbook anti-competitiveness.
Would they retain that policy if they or GOG became #1? I highly doubt it, this is merely a ploy to try to dethrone Steam, and you can be assured the policy will change once someone else gets on top.
To be clear, this is a different system than stores listing non steam key games.
I mean, imagine if, say, Walmart or Amazon did this (assuming they don’t already). Every price is every other store has to be at or above theirs, or their product gets delisted, which is apocalypse for a supplier.
How does that not sound monopolistic to you?
Imagine if Amazon took 20% more cut that Newegg and passed that to hardware prices for literally everyone.
EGS literally can’t be monopolistic because they have like no market share, but yes, they’re being anticompetitive and bribing in an unsustainable way. It’s not good either. And their store is barebones, no question.
But the double standard of bothers me. Valve doesn’t get a free pass just cause they have a better platform and they’ve been fine in other areas so far.
That depends. For GOG and EGS, yeah, those stores don’t want to sell Steam keys, they want to sell keys for their own platform. But other stores like Fanatical sell Steam keys, and I’m not exactly sure how those work.
My point is that devs can sell keys on their own and take 100% profit if they want, they just can’t undercut Steam. And that’s pretty common in retail, if you see a product in store, it’ll be a very similar price to buy direct. It turns out, retail stores don’t like providing marketing just to get undercut on your website or a competitor store.
Neither does EGS just because they take a lower cut and give away free games.
AFAIK, Steam isn’t doing anything differently than other retail stores. If EGS were in Valve’s position, you can bet they’d be way worse.