Steam is killing PC gaming

[Razor]

Steam's monopoly is killing the PC gaming industry.. just look at their model over the years.. they used to have a decent library of free to play games or fairly priced games.. now they sell failed AAA titles for premium prices and before people say "stop it's not steam it's the developers" do you think steam hosts the games free for them? Nope that add's a premium to the costs.. I've spent more money on other platforms than steam in the last 5 years..

[Haruspex]

You are entitled to your opinion.

[Zefar]

Originally posted by Razor:

Steam's monopoly is killing the PC gaming industry.. just look at their model over the years.. they used to have a decent library of free to play games or fairly priced games.. now they sell failed AAA titles for premium prices and before people say "stop it's not steam it's the developers" do you think steam hosts the games free for them? Nope that add's a premium to the costs.. I've spent more money on other platforms than steam in the last 5 years..

Games are as expensive on Epic gaming client even with them taking a smaller cut.

Also While most other gaming clients are losing money, Steam is still winning.
Not sure how they are killing the PC gaming when they are keeping it alive.

The 30% cut is business standard. With retail stores game developers got much less money because there where more costs involved.

[Xhoas]

It's not even a monopoly...

[HikariLight]

Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect, Origin, GoG, and the Microsoft Game Store.
Those are competition to Steam.
So no, Steam does NOT have a monopoly.

[Satoru]

Steam doesn't set prices, develoeprs do.

If you don't like the prices of AAA games, go whine to AAA publishers. Because steam isn't the one setting the prices. They are.

[BJWyler]

Funny how I generally pay the same price for a game no matter which outlet I use - even from the devs own website.

Truth of the matter is that thanks to Steam, gaming is healthier than ever with a plethora of offerings to choose from indie to AAA across every genre possible.

And pound for pound, while gaming is still a relatively costly luxury hobby, the cost of games has remained relatively static over the last 40 years. If you factor in inflation, and basic economic factors over that period, it's actually cheaper to be a gamer today than it was in the 80's.

[Nx Machina]

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/pricing

Partners on Steam are responsible for setting and managing pricing for their products.

Prices are also set by the developer, publisher on other stores, when not on sale and the same discount when on sale is applied on all stores

The Outer Worlds Spacer Choice Edition - £49.99 on Steam, GOG, Epic.

The Division 2 (Standard) - £25.99 on Steam, Ubisoft Connect, Epic Game Store.

The Division 2 (Warlords Edition) - £49.99 on Steam, Ubisoft Connect, Epic Game Store.


All stores hosting 3rd party games take a cut of the sale, unless it is their own product where they get 100%, and Valve gets no revenue from keys purchased on 3rd party sites.

[Haruspex]

Originally posted by BJWyler:

Funny how I generally pay the same price for a game no matter which outlet I use - even from the devs own website.

Truth of the matter is that thanks to Steam, gaming is healthier than ever with a plethora of offerings to choose from indie to AAA across every genre possible.

And pound for pound, while gaming is still a relatively costly luxury hobby, the cost of games has remained relatively static over the last 40 years. If you factor in inflation, and basic economic factors over that period, it's actually cheaper to be a gamer today than it was in the 80's.

Massively cheaper. In 1995, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was $69.99 on both SNES and Genesis/Megadrive. Adjusted for inflation that's equivalent to $142.98 today.

Games were supposed to get cheaper as the move to optical discs happened. Final Fantasy VII was $49.99 when it came out in 1997. Cheaper than the previous cartridges for sure, but adjusted for inflation today it's still equivalent to $96.48.

People complain about the $69.99 price of new games today, but in 1997 that would be the equivalent of $36.81.

We don't know how good we have it, really.

[Qbert ⭐]

Originally posted by Razor:

snip

If you put your pennies on other platforms.. what are you doing here?

[Kargor]

Originally posted by Razor:

do you think steam hosts the games free for them?

Depends on how you look at it.

Steam charges 30% per sale, or a little less if you reach certain revenue checkpoints. This covers all(?) services, including the hosting.

So yes, you can start for free by just uploading your game (there's a $100 fee to get started, but that shouldn't be an issue). Even if you're uploading a 100GB game -- Steam will only charge you when people actually buy the game, by keeping some of the money to themselves before they send it to you.

And yes, I'm not a publisher so I phrased it as "all(?) services". I'm not currently aware of anything a publisher can buy separately; games get their store page, downloads, forums, achievements etc., and all the account management, customer interaction, fraud management, refunds etc. that Steam does for them.

As far as I'm concerned, Steam does anything BUT "killing PC gaming".

[76561197960287930]

Originally posted by Razor:

I've spent more money on other platforms than steam in the last 5 years..

Hey remember that when buying Steam keys from other legitimate online resellers, Valve gets 0% of the revenue share when you activate the game key here.

And remember Valve winning, is spending that 30% revenue on a expensive legal team many years pre -trial readying for anti - trust case. Case 2:21-cv-00563-JCC anyway.

[Haruspex]

Originally posted by Kargor:

As far as I'm concerned, Steam does anything BUT "killing PC gaming".

Yeah, last I checked, PC gaming was "dying" before Steam really ramped up and saved it from it's fate. Even Tim Sweeney said PC gaming was getting "left behind" by consoles back in 2008.

Now PC gaming is a juggernaut and all those companies like Epic who bet against it want a piece, (or really the whole pie.) but none of them want to do any of the work required to make it happen.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by Razor:

just look at their model over the years.. they used to have a decent library of free to play games or fairly priced games.. now they sell failed AAA titles for premium prices

Every game made, tries to be sold.
You still can get what you think is decent and fairly priced, when it is that.

[Zoey.]

Originally posted by Razor:

Steam's monopoly is killing the PC gaming industry.. just look at their model over the years.. they used to have a decent library of free to play games or fairly priced games.. now they sell failed AAA titles for premium prices and before people say "stop it's not steam it's the developers" do you think steam hosts the games free for them? Nope that add's a premium to the costs.. I've spent more money on other platforms than steam in the last 5 years..

Tell me you're delusional without telling me you're delusional

[Sleepy Yoshi]

It's always interesting to me when people say Steam is a monopoly, but then bring up how they're spending more money on platforms outside of Steam. Almost as if the complaint is Steam isn't monopolising hard enough.