If any of those games on Epic are also sold in steam, then the (nonsale) price cannot be lower than the steam price because of steam’s TOS.
Also the “industry standard” was arbitrarily chosen to match the cut that brick and mortar stores usually operate at… Despite there being very different costs related.
But yes, steam is being just as greedy as all the other big walled gardens. People complain about that rate across the board, not just about steam.
That’s simply not true. They aren’t supposed to generate steam keys and then sell them at a lower price at other stores. Which is completely fair, as you can generate keys for free, but the game would still be using steams servers and services. But you can absolutely sell a game for cheaper on other store fronts if it isn’t using steams backend.
After looking into that more I’ve yet to see any hard evidence of valve threatening to delist devs for selling cheaper elsewhere. And presumably, so have the courts, because otherwise that seems like it would be a slam dunk case. I’ll believe it when I see it, but just going on word of mouth doesn’t convince me.
If any of those games on Epic are also sold in steam, then the (nonsale) price cannot be lower than the steam price because of steam’s TOS.
Also the “industry standard” was arbitrarily chosen to match the cut that brick and mortar stores usually operate at… Despite there being very different costs related.
But yes, steam is being just as greedy as all the other big walled gardens. People complain about that rate across the board, not just about steam.
How different?
That’s simply not true. They aren’t supposed to generate steam keys and then sell them at a lower price at other stores. Which is completely fair, as you can generate keys for free, but the game would still be using steams servers and services. But you can absolutely sell a game for cheaper on other store fronts if it isn’t using steams backend.
It IS true. They’ve threatened to delist developers who wanted to sell on non-steam key sites at lower prices.
There’s a ongoing class action lawsuit (which is already 2+ years old), started by Wolfire games, for exactly this scenario.
After looking into that more I’ve yet to see any hard evidence of valve threatening to delist devs for selling cheaper elsewhere. And presumably, so have the courts, because otherwise that seems like it would be a slam dunk case. I’ll believe it when I see it, but just going on word of mouth doesn’t convince me.