The real crime is that Valve requires price parity when you independently (no Steam keys) sell your game on a different store, as well as the Steam store. (“Most Favored Nation” clause.) It means that developers are allowed to pocket the profits if a game is sold on a store that has a lower percentage cut, but they aren’t allowed to share the lower cost with the customer, because that could encourage people to not use the Steam Store when buying games.
I’ve looked through court documents for this. They’re sneaky about it, but they implicitly threaten you with your game’s sales being crippled by being taken out of their recommendation algorithm. With Steam being the biggest store, that’s a death sentence for most indie developers.
The real crime is that Valve requires price parity when you independently (no Steam keys) sell your game on a different store, as well as the Steam store.
They don’t. Only if you are selling steam keys do they require price parity and only for steam key sales. You cannot sell a Steam key for less than you sell your game on Steam for. You can sell a non-Steam game key on other store fronts for any price you want.
This is what is being alleged in court by only a handful of developers but there are countless examples of the exact opposite thing being true.
They must’ve changed their tone recently, because I’ve read an actual leaked court document, and the Valve representative / employee states (very defensively) that this is what they did. There’s accounts of developers confirming this as well, including apparently in the (secret?) contract you sign when you sign up as a developer with Steam.
The real crime is that Valve requires price parity when you independently (no Steam keys) sell your game on a different store, as well as the Steam store. (“Most Favored Nation” clause.) It means that developers are allowed to pocket the profits if a game is sold on a store that has a lower percentage cut, but they aren’t allowed to share the lower cost with the customer, because that could encourage people to not use the Steam Store when buying games.
I’ve looked through court documents for this. They’re sneaky about it, but they implicitly threaten you with your game’s sales being crippled by being taken out of their recommendation algorithm. With Steam being the biggest store, that’s a death sentence for most indie developers.
They don’t. Only if you are selling steam keys do they require price parity and only for steam key sales. You cannot sell a Steam key for less than you sell your game on Steam for. You can sell a non-Steam game key on other store fronts for any price you want.
This is what is being alleged in court by only a handful of developers but there are countless examples of the exact opposite thing being true.
They must’ve changed their tone recently, because I’ve read an actual leaked court document, and the Valve representative / employee states (very defensively) that this is what they did. There’s accounts of developers confirming this as well, including apparently in the (secret?) contract you sign when you sign up as a developer with Steam.
Link the leaked court document.