Mason LLP v. Steam Yes/No?

[Rabblevox]

I had to do some digging into actual facts. I've been happy with Steam for years. Their Customer Service is 2nd to none, and I love my Steam Deck beyond any reasonableness. I had no reason to go suing Steam/Valve, and had never heard of Mason LLC (fortunately, I've not had to deal with many lawyers).

When they invited me to be part of a class action, I tossed it. Then they invited me again when I was broke. Here's what I found out:

#1: Mason LLP is 100% legit. They've been around a long time, specialize in class action suits, and usually get at least partial wins.
#2: The suit might or not be legit. They are using a shotgun approach, alleging everything from price-gouging, to illegal partnership deals. Some of those claims might be legit. I'm not a lawyer, though I did play Atticus Finch in a HS play.
#3: It's based on your game purchases since 2017 only, no Deck or Dock or other hardware eligible..
#4: You might be eligible for 15-25% refund on your total game purchases. For me, that could be up to $300 bucks someday. I buy a lot of games) I And if you start the sign up, they will total their goal for you instantly.
#5: Why not?

I'll re-iterate I've got no axe with Steam. But lots of good corporations (not an oxymoron) over-charge and need a bit of a public tuning, yeah? And in an era of tightening budgets, it's a chance at some money that has way better odds than a lottery ticket. And Mason LLP is a safe legal firm, they use a legit front-end, beyond identifying your account history, they don't ask for squidgy data.

So why not? Does anyone have a good reason not to join the suit?

[WolfEisberg]

引用自 Ben Lubar：

引用自 WolfEisberg：

False equivalency, they are losing money solely because of exclusive contracts, coupons, and the free games, none of which Steam does at all. Those 3 things there are all temporary investments into growth for the store.

Alright, let me know if you think people have a positive opinion of the Epic Games Store. A store that launched without features like the ability to purchase multiple games at the same time so you don't get your account locked for fraud detection because you bought FIVE GAMES during a SALE.

You are changing the subject towards something that is irrelevant, while using a news link of something that happened 5 years ago and was fixed in a matter a day and hasn't been an issue in that 5 years since. seriously?

[Mad Scientist]

引用自 Doctor Zalgo：

引用自 ragefifty50：

no...
but you make excuses for a very profitable company.... that is very
well established with years of experience.... that dont really need a 30% cut anymore..

People have been making excuses for steam and actively reinforcing its monopoly by attacking epic and its users for being/using an alternative platform. Putting aside how insane that is for one second, do you know how insane that is?

People are completely fine with alternative stores, with epic usually being the exception as the people that defend it are usually going way over the edge in defense of terrible practices, shoddy performance of the client, data collection, and the inability to generate profit as a store by itself without relying on profits from an engine & fortnite. The "exclusivity" bribe is peoples biggest issues with it as Valve allows Developers to sell wherever they want by default.

Put it this way, the very ultra pro epic people, really seem to love being around here slamming valve, trying to make epic look like it's anywhere better while it clearly isn't, and usually bring up "coupons" but Steam Sales are typically far superior, in addition to games still appearing to not be cheaper there. Most likely because they don't have their own forums, but it's a general annoyance when some go way out of their way to tell outright disinformation about epic being "better" than steam, let alone other stores that regular users tend to use.

Not sure how we got to epic (again) for these supposed "class action" extortion "lawsuits" against Valve which appear to as usual, be going very poorly.

[Ben Lubar]

引用自 WolfEisberg：

引用自 Ben Lubar：

Alright, let me know if you think people have a positive opinion of the Epic Games Store. A store that launched without features like the ability to purchase multiple games at the same time so you don't get your account locked for fraud detection because you bought FIVE GAMES during a SALE.

You are changing the subject towards something that is irrelevant, while using a news link of something that happened 5 years ago and was fixed in a matter a day and hasn't been an issue in that 5 years since. seriously?

They put games on sale forcibly without even informing the developers or publishers that the sale was going to occur.

That's not a sudden problem nobody could have predicted that was over one day later.

Five years ago is ancient history to you? How about two years ago?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFIoaSOU16I

You can't claim that the Epic Games Store not being a good place for games to be sold is off topic when "Steam taking a 30% cut is unreasonable" is the central claim of the topic.

[WolfEisberg]

引用自 Ben Lubar：

They put games on sale forcibly without even informing the developers or publishers that the sale was going to occur.

Again, you are trying to change the subject, while talking about something that happened 1 time 5 years ago and hasn't happened since then, and even then you aren't even telling the actual truth about behind it.

That's not a sudden problem nobody could have predicted that was over one day later.

What? SO now you are applying previous comment to a different subject, pretending my comment was that this different subject? really?

Five years ago is ancient history to you? How about two years ago?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFIoaSOU16I

You are going to need to provide a time stamp, not going to watch all of that. But I have a feeling they are also talking about the same incident that happened 5 years ago.

You can't claim that the Epic Games Store not being a good place for games to be sold is off topic when "Steam taking a 30% cut is unreasonable" is the central claim of the topic.

You trying to use Epic's exhorbant investment into their store growth, meaning they are losing money on purpose as an argument against the idea that Valve can take less, despite the very fact that Valve doesn't do that kind of exhorbant spending on growth is you using a dishonest argument, and then trying to use irrelevant 5 year old issues that haven't happened in the last 5 years is also a dishonest argument to make.

The very idea that Valve need anywhere close to multi-billions to run the store, with such little amount of employees compared to other multi-billion companies, is ridiculous.

[Ben Lubar]

Good Old Games takes 30%
Humble takes 30% (adjustable down to 15%) and an additional 5% for charity by default
Itch takes 10% (adjustable down to 0%) and sells ads[itch.io]
Steam takes 30%, though for very profitable games it can be as low as 20%.
Apple takes 30%, but if you use a third party payment processor they "only" take 27%.
Google takes 30%
Amazon takes 30%
Samsung takes 30%
Microsoft Store takes 15%, 12%, or 30% depending on arbitrary factors like "was the customer running windows 8"
every console takes 30%

30% is the industry standard. Steam is not being unreasonable like the suit claims.

[WolfEisberg]

GOG dropped below 30% years ago. Its negotiated.
Humble takes 25%, 10% goes to charity, and 15% goes to Humble.

Just because something is a "standard" it doesn't make it right, it doesn't make it any less greedy, it doesn't make it any less unreasonable.

The "its industry standard" is a fallacy of an argument. Is it really a surprise that stores that have a monopoly or a near monopoly (Steam's case) are the only ones taking 30%?

[Ben Lubar]

引用自 WolfEisberg：

Humble takes 25%, 10% goes to charity, and 15% goes to Humble

I literally went on Humble's website, typed in $100, and looked at the default split. My information from less than an hour ago is not "outdated".

[Ben Lubar]

引用自 WolfEisberg：

GOG dropped below 30% years ago. Its negotiated.
Humble takes 25%, 10% goes to charity, and 15% goes to Humble.

Just because something is a "standard" it doesn't make it right, it doesn't make it any less greedy, it doesn't make it any less unreasonable.

The "its industry standard" is a fallacy of an argument. Is it really a surprise that stores that have a monopoly or a near monopoly (Steam's case) are the only ones taking 30%?

Steam provides more features than other stores that take lower cuts. Features that require employees, which are expensive. I don't know of another game distribution platform that provides developers with free forum moderation.

[WolfEisberg]

引用自 Ben Lubar：

引用自 WolfEisberg：

Humble takes 25%, 10% goes to charity, and 15% goes to Humble

I literally went on Humble's website, typed in $100, and looked at the default split. My information from less than an hour ago is not "outdated".

Nope, even here it shows 75% goes to developer.

https://www.humblebundle.com/developer

Then this business article that did an analysis on Humble, from November 2023 talked about the revenue split.

https://fourweekmba.com/humble-bundle-business-model/

[Ben Lubar]

引用自 WolfEisberg：

引用自 Ben Lubar：

I literally went on Humble's website, typed in $100, and looked at the default split. My information from less than an hour ago is not "outdated".

Nope, even here it shows 75% goes to developer.

https://www.humblebundle.com/developer

Then this business article that did an analysis on Humble, from November 2023 talked about the revenue split.

https://fourweekmba.com/humble-bundle-business-model/

Are you claiming that the Humble Bundle website openly lies on its website about how much it pays developers? Or that it changed the cut it takes within the ten minutes since I checked their website for the default values?

Keep in mind that Humble Bundle games come with a Steam key, so the amount of money Valve is making from a purchase that affects their platform is $0.

[WolfEisberg]

引用自 Ben Lubar：

引用自 WolfEisberg：

GOG dropped below 30% years ago. Its negotiated.
Humble takes 25%, 10% goes to charity, and 15% goes to Humble.

Just because something is a "standard" it doesn't make it right, it doesn't make it any less greedy, it doesn't make it any less unreasonable.

The "its industry standard" is a fallacy of an argument. Is it really a surprise that stores that have a monopoly or a near monopoly (Steam's case) are the only ones taking 30%?

Steam provides more features than other stores that take lower cuts. Features that require employees, which are expensive. I don't know of another game distribution platform that provides developers with free forum moderation.

GOG has a forum. By the way, Forums are not expensive to run at all, far from it. Its text, very little amount of space needed and very little amount of bandwidth needed.

Epic Store provides more features for developers than Steam does, and it is the developers that are paying that revenue share to these stores.

Also lots of Steam's features are automated or rely on user generated content, or are user self service.

[Ben Lubar]

引用自 WolfEisberg：

引用自 Ben Lubar：

Steam provides more features than other stores that take lower cuts. Features that require employees, which are expensive. I don't know of another game distribution platform that provides developers with free forum moderation.

GOG has a forum. By the way, Forums are not expensive to run at all, far from it. Its text, very little amount of space needed and very little amount of bandwidth needed.

Ugh, this again? I didn't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ say "they host an unmoderated hellhole of a forum". I said they provide moderators. Those are people.

[Start_Running]

引用自 SlowMango：

引用自 WolfEisberg：

Again, this Mason LLP arbrtitration has nothing to do with the EU.

But even in the EU the purchase price is still minus the VAT included in the price. Valve takes 30% of the purchase price, again purchase price is after removing tax.

But yes, Valve can easily run Steam at 15% revenue share with lots of room for profit. Costs would be around 5 to 7%, leaving 8-10% for profit. I know this because Valve isn't going to be in some kind of bubble that put their costs so far outside of any other company, regardless of industry, that deals with storage space, servers, bandwidth, internal software developers, employees, and payment processing.

Woah, you know how much Valve can afford to charge for their cut? How did you get this insider knowledge?

I kmean even EGS can't seem to manage that. And since when is a business obligated to charge the bare minimum. The way a free market works is that you charge the maximum amount your market will will pay for your service or goods. Valve is free to take/charge whatever cut they want. just like an electritian, plumberm, carwash, or bakery is allowed to charge whatever they want. If their customers feel the service and goods aren't worth the price they do what any customer does. They go elsewhere. Anbd there's no shortage of places to go.

If yyou grumble and whine about it. but still opay it means you agree that what you're getting is worth what you're giving up. And there isn't a customer anywhere that wouldn't like if something they paid for was cheaper. No matter what it is or how low the price was.

So long as Price > Free then people would want it lower.

引用自 Ben Lubar：

引用自 WolfEisberg：

GOG dropped below 30% years ago. Its negotiated.
Humble takes 25%, 10% goes to charity, and 15% goes to Humble.

Just because something is a "standard" it doesn't make it right, it doesn't make it any less greedy, it doesn't make it any less unreasonable.

The "its industry standard" is a fallacy of an argument. Is it really a surprise that stores that have a monopoly or a near monopoly (Steam's case) are the only ones taking 30%?

Steam provides more features than other stores that take lower cuts. Features that require employees, which are expensive. I don't know of another game distribution platform that provides developers with free forum moderation.

Keep in mind we're talking about the sales made directly through steam. If you buy a key from say FAnatical, GMG, or Humble...Valve doesn't actually get a cut of that.

[Ben Lubar]

引用自 Start_Running：

引用自 Ben Lubar：

Steam provides more features than other stores that take lower cuts. Features that require employees, which are expensive. I don't know of another game distribution platform that provides developers with free forum moderation.

Keep in mind we're talking about the sales made directly through steam. If you buy a key from say FAnatical, GMG, or Humble...Valve doesn't actually get a cut of that.

Yep, Steam Keys are a feature that I'm not aware of any other PC games store having an equivalent to.

[WolfEisberg]

引用自 Ben Lubar：

引用自 WolfEisberg：

Nope, even here it shows 75% goes to developer.

https://www.humblebundle.com/developer

Then this business article that did an analysis on Humble, from November 2023 talked about the revenue split.

https://fourweekmba.com/humble-bundle-business-model/

Are you claiming that the Humble Bundle website openly lies on its website about how much it pays developers? Or that it changed the cut it takes within the ten minutes since I checked their website for the default values?

Default values? wait? are you talking about the bundles on Humble? That is entirely different thing meant as a charity event too, and is its own completely separate thing and not the same thing as a store. Dev/pub put their games onto the Bundle event knowing that they may make $0 for a sale because the purchaser can literally choose to have $0 going to the dev/pub, and that is because the point is they are helping out with the charity event related to that bundle.


Now Humble has a Store, the Humble Store, that is the relevant one to this conversation, there they take 25% but 10% of that goes to charity, 15% is for Humble.