Fuck the stupid morons who defend Apple.
Imagine if Microsoft banned Windows users from installing the software they want on their computer.
Imagine if Microsoft required all software developers to give them 30% of their earning or Microsoft will ban them from Windows
Hating on Apple for their 30% cut is popular.
Hating on Google for their 30% cut is popular.
Hating on Microfot, Sony, and Nintendo for their cuts is popular.
But somehow hating on Steam for their 30% cut is going too far.
Perhaps that’s because Steam doesn’t seem to be trying very hard to “lock in” developers to their platform. Devs are free to sell their PC games on Gog or Epic or whatever. Steam is popular because it’s a good platform. This freedom for developers or customers mostly does not exist on mobile or on consoles, except for the EUs efforts here.
Even their “console” the Steam Deck can, relatively easily, run games from other stores. I’m not saying a 30% cut should be considered fair but they do seem to take a different approach to digital sales than the other large players.
Yeah it’s arguable that Steam is a monopoly but somehow billion dollar publishers can’t create a store to sell their own products without fucking it up with annoying bullshit. Pay the 30% to protect you from yourselves.
Yeah, Steam is pretty much a monopoly. But I haven’t seen what I’d call monopolistic practices from them. It’s just that everyone else appears to fall flat on their faces when trying to make a competing product.
It’s weird because steam isn’t even that amazing at what it does and even some of the features I like can be tempremental or downright buggy at times.
Once I saw the power of Steam on Linux, I knew no other company could touch them.
Valve is a private company owned by someone who is passionate about games and so unlike other companies with investors, they leave short term money on the table to make the best product for gamers. If its ownership model ever changes it will speedrun enshittification for the same reason other storefronts suck
Steam is equally shitty, they just have the advantage of not being publicly traded which means they can create long term strategies and execute them successfully.
Doesn’t mean they’re pro consumer.
Would not say equally shitty, otherwise they won’t have popular support they do.
You are correct however that they are not pro consumer.
They are just a smarter, wiser business with a sustainable business model that understands the importance of consumer trust.
You could say the same about Google.
The same Google that’s been constantly trying to add features that deter 3rd party app stores?
Such as?
Google Play protect
Google SafetyNet. You have rooted your device and/or are using a custom ROM? Then your device definitely isn’t secure and a lot of apps straight up prevent you from using them.
Steam isn’t a monopoly.
The PC is an open platform, you can use any game store or launcher you want - unlike the iPhone, Android (without sideloading), PlayStation, switch, or Xbox.
My Samsung phone comes with an alternative android app store pre-installed.
Ya, but I also installed fdroid pretty easily without the system blocking me.
Yeah the comments about Steam being a monopoly are weird to me. Steam has a huge market share, but they don’t own the whole market and they don’t try to prevent you from buying your games elsewhere. Proton even works on non-steam games. I’ve used it to play WoW private servers on Linux.
If Valve isn’t a pro-consumer company, then I don’t know what company could possibly fit the criteria. They’re not perfect, but they’ve earned the trust they have. I’ll trust Valve until they give me a reason not to.
Microsoft, Apple, Exxon, Meta, Amazon, JP Morgan or Saudi Aramco are the most powerful corporations in the world. They are empires more powerful than many nations. Their CEOs always travel with armed men. They have the personal phone number of Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.
It’s healthy to scrutinize them. Steam is a problem, but Valve is nowhere near as powerful.
I’d like to see a game developer chiming in but as a user, 30% cut by Steam feels justified.
They have helped me discover and buy many games that I wouldn’t have even heard of otherwise. Compare that to Google Play Store which is full of dogshit shovelware and Pay2Win games.
And sometimes I’ve even bought Steam keys via Fanatical bundles, where I chose which games to buy by looking at their Steam store pages. Steam got nothing from these transactions as far as I know.
This is without getting into other useful stuff like guides and forums hosted by Steam which I can look at whenever I get stuck. Or Steam workshop which allows users to easily mod the games.
Call me a fanboy but I’m tired of this ‘what about Steam’ comments.
Ask Sony, Microsoft, Google, and Nintendo to improve their stores instead.
Fair, but there is an argument to be made about how hosting things are now cheaper than ever, by a huge margin. When 1GB used to cost 1 dollar, they had 30% cut. Now when that’s 0.01 not 1, 100x the difference (while games have gotten like what, 10x bigger?), it’s still 30%.
But you know what is the most damning argument against their cut? Steam earns more money per employee than next 3 companies combined and Gabe is buying fleet of yachts and multiple submarines, not even getting into real estate, while indie devs are going broke one after another. That cut might make a major difference for devs, but at this point Gabe has already too much money and won’t suffer from having less of it, which is really not consumer or developer friendly thing to do, basically hoarding riches like other billionaires
I mentioned few other things beside hosting though. The discovery algorithm, for example.
100% this. At least epic tried to make a value proposition for developers but developers can just make more from steam. Having said that, steam/valve had a hand in the always online gaming situation which we have all just come to accept. I buy from Gog where I can
Steam gets a pass because they actually offer buyer protection, refunds if it doesn’t work, refunds under certain requirements which can be waved under certain circumstances, removal of day one season passes, refunds for dlc that gets delayed too long for example.
If an actual competitor gave a shit about things that matter to actual players than they have a shot. Epic Game Store is a joke because no one wants a store that only focuses on what corporations want. GOG is good but just doesn’t market itself well, seriously outside of launching CDPR games I don’t see it at all.
Getting companies to offer their games on platforms that offer a higher margin is easy. Getting players over to a platform that offers less protections and features is not going to happen.
GOG is good but just doesn’t market itself well
GOG’s biggest problem is also their greatest asset: no DRM.
I was denied a refund for a broken game on Steam Deck just last winter. I had never played or even installed it, but I had purchased it and let it sit in my backlog too long before trying.
By comparison, I can’t recall a single time I’ve been denied a refund request from the iPhone App Store. They’ve also never sold me software that couldn’t run on the hardware they also sold me.
I understand how it’s my fault according to steam’s ToS, but it still doesn’t seem right to me.
When you ask for a refund under Steam’s 2h/14d policy, it’s Steam offering the refund. Past that, the request is passed on the developer
At least that’s how I’ve heard it described, idk for sure
Yeah I wasn’t entirely familiar and it’s not anything I got upset over (again, my fault). It’s just weird because they know I never installed or played it until I asked for the refund, and by nature of software, 14 days doesn’t mean I could have broken or destroyed it or something.
The game was the Grandia HD Remasters. It didn’t even occur to me to scrutinize compatibility on Deck when I bought it because it’s just a 2D JRPG from the PS1 era that supposed had been modernized.
14 days, to the developer, means that you now know that you actually have the money and can plan with it. Months later, the money has either been spent, or earmarked for something in particular.
Your best hope at that point is that the developer has allocated some money for people like you but otherwise, nope. Accounting would break down your door if you granted the refund.
It is actually Valve allowing or denying refunds, not the developer. When GTAV Online stopped working on Deck, some people with hundreds of playtime successfully refunded the game, iirc someone even refunded their Deck.
They absolutely can do such things but then the money comes out of their pockets, possibly with the option to sue Rockstar for breach of contract and money back. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Rockstar contacted Valve and said “don’t worry we’ll take the hit”, having calculated what it costs to continue supporting the deck vs. taking that hit. Certainly not a company which has to worry about cashflow a lot.
Sony also refunded CP77, IIRC without getting CDPR involved, and Sony generally has a shoddy return policy. At that point, to the store, customer goodwill is more important and they’ll figure out things on the backend.
OP didn’t describe that kind of case, though, but “I bought a game without checking whether it’s compatible with my hardware and didn’t bother to launch it for six months”. Steam isn’t going to refund that out of their own pocket that’s what the 14 days are for, so that they don’t have to do it out of their own pocket.
You get value from Steam for paying that.
What value do you get from Apple for paying the Apple tax? A higher price for a phone that could cost 500€ less?
As a Linux gamer, valve making proton has launched gaming on linux into the stratosphere.
What exactly is the value that steam provides with its 30% cut that Apple doesn’t provide? Not defending Apple by the way.
Openness of the hardware is a valid point but that isn’t exactly a feature of steam (nor a distinction between the other platforms in OPs comment)
Apple forces me to stay there.
Valve offers me to stay there. The whole market and review system is incredibly important as I can see if it’s even worth it to buy. Where else can you see reviews besides comparing numerous comments under video reviews?If you delete your steam account or decide you no longer want to ise their login/launcher or Valve decides to ban you, what happens to all your past purchases?
You’re locked in. You just have Stockholm Syndrome for the company that started the online requirement bullshit everything has today by locking Half-Life 2 behind a mandatory online service, then letting other devs force the same bullshit instead of just loading up a disc and playing the game.
I can certainly close my account and install games from other store fronts on my PC.
Valve is neither forcing me on my SteamDeck nor on my PC to use Steam.
I use emulators on my deck and also installed EA Origin and successfully launched titles on it.And Apple was only recently forced to allow devs outlinks to their respective shopping pages (currently only in the US). Just the priviledge to link users to the subscription page to circumvent apple trying to get a cut.
That is actually lock in.
On Android I can do what I want. And if I so desire I could install an alternative OS on it.
Try that with an iPhone.
I’m less mad at Steam and Google because there are clear, simple ways to avoid their cuts.
I have no basis to say whether they’re providing a service worth the 30% charge. I’m also less mad at Steam than at Google because they’re being less shady about trying to push people into their store too.
It would be more comparable if Apple, Microsoft (Xbox), Nintendo, or Sony allowed anyone to make a third party game launcher but they just keep sucking.
The difference is availability of choice. On apple phones, Xbox, Nintendo, and PlayStation you are locked into a single source of software. On a PC there are myriad of game stores you can choose from. Sometimes you can even buy the software directly from the developer. Usually people are upset when this choice is taken away (for example epic exclusive games). Nobody would bat an eye if a developer offered their game on epic or their own platform with a ~20% discount compared to steam. But it is up to the developers to make their game available on any of the PC game stores.
In conclusion, steam is not a platform holder, they could charge whatever they wanted. If the markup was too high, you could simply choose to buy your games elsewhere. For most people, this 30% is worth it for the features and buyer protection that steam offers compared to other platforms.
I agree that the 30% cut is too much. The only reason I give them a pass is because Steam is really good (at least, as a user). But I still want them to lower it.
For a dev those 30% are very much worth it because Steam has tons of customers and very good recommendation algorithms, you gain more in additional sales than what you lose from the cut. Could they do with less probably but they’re not extorting devs. There’s a reason why Epic had to do stuff like guarantee sales and provide huge advances to get anyone onto their excuse for a platform.
I get why people like steam. But as a steam hater, if GabeN ever dies and the kids or whoever is heirs are decide to sell to VCs or private equity. That 30% will be just as oppressive as anyone else’s.
Steam’s 30% is the last of their problems, I would like them to finally start actually moderating Steam forums. Because devs of the particular game usually don’t care. Visit some forums of newly released popular game and it’s full of bigots, misogyny, trolls and hate. It’s unbelievable.
Go check oblivion remastered
I hate it 🙂
Steam reduced their cut to 20% for the biggest publishers, let’s see any of the others do that. They also allow other stores on the steam deck. They also allow steam keys and shouldn’t demand MFN pricing.
Their cut is worth it to users for the same reasons as an iOS and Android user might say, except when it comes to switching platforms, your steam games can come with you to rival platforms and not just friendly ones.
Epic charges 12%, but they’re somehow the villain.
Not really, they’re the villain for doing exclusives. Steam never did exclusives, at least not with 3rd party devs.
That’s exactly what Steam Greenlight was before they stopped all curation of games.
Curation and encouraging PC ports when the store was relatively new != exclusives.
Steam Greenlight was a program where independent games without a publisher could release games on Steam, but it was absolutely exclusive. They couldn’t sell their game elsewhere.
Literally the first game released on the program was a free Total Conversion mod that you could download anywhere else for free, but if you wanted to get it installed through Steam, you paid them for the privilege.
The dev made money from at least the iOS, Android and Steam Greenlight versions. They also offered it for free.
https://www.giantbomb.com/articles/mcpixel-embraced-piracy-lived-to-tell-the-tale/1100-4366/
The EU seems to be the only entity left with a backbone when it comes protecting consumers.
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It goes up if they dont comply. This is first offence since the law came into effect.
except only loosing 568m is just “the price of doing business” for them and it’s not much of a deterrent to make them stop. they made more than that by doing this so it’s still a net profit
While true, 568m is a significant cost of doing business. Also remember that a punitive action should not make the company go bankrupt, it should make them rethink.
And if they don’t, the fines will go higher, until they do rethink.
If they keep not complying, which is my understanding of what apple has been doing, they should absolutely be bankrupted. Or something drastic.
A warning, which will make other companies self-Police, bringing down the cost of enforcement.
Countries are so permissive of corporate bad behaviour it’s not even funny.
Perhaps I worded it poorly, but my point was that companies shouldn’t go bankrupt when they make a mistake.
If you keep doing it after you’ve been told, then you’re no longer just making a mistake it’s obviously malicious, but I don’t think then Apple should go bankrupt when they incorrectly implement a new law.
While I personally don’t think it’s accidental, you should be more lenient towards a first offense for any new law (unless you can prove it was intentional, which is incredibly hard).
I mean that would imply they stood to gain $568M by not allowing 3rd party app stores. Seems unlikely.
one of the most profitable companies in the world, it seems very likely
How much money do you think Google loses to 3rd party app stores? Considering they’ve been allowed from the beginning and are also one of the most profitable companies in the world?
Right. And the fines will continue, lol.
maybe, maybe not
For a company like Apple, that’s “cost of doing business” rather than a genuine deterrent.
People are down voting you like your defending them, but you’re not, and you’re right. It sounds like a lot of money, but for Apple, it’s just an adjustment to the profits they made doing this.
Cost of doing business…
500m is bigger than you think. Also fines escalate.
I didn’t read the article, but I presume this is under the DMA which has provisions for increasing fines for repeat offenses - something like 10% of global revenue or something like that. I’m also a bit discouraged by how small the number is, but there is still some hope that it will either increase or get them to change their practices. But it is quite frustrating how slowly it’s going.
In fact, chances are that Apple is going breaking the law until the last minute so they can squeeze every penny they can out of this scheme until they can’t do it any longer.
Imagine if Microsoft banned Windows users from installing the software they want on their computer.
Imagine if Microsoft required all software developers to give them 30% of their earning or Microsoft will ban them from Windows
I think that’s exactly what Microsoft is aiming to do in the future.
cough S Mode cough Windows RT cough
Naw, you’re right. There are still ways to get a decent windows experience, but it will fall to the domain of power users.
I personally see MS not really caring about their windows users. With more than enough revenue from enterprise to keep them going for decades, they will lose grip on gamers and older casual users, who remember windows before the marketplace and preinstalled adware.
With all the flavors of Linux (and a proper walled garden like Apple), I’m thinking Windows will follow Skype in the next decade or so.
So it’s going to get bought out by Microsoft and replaced with a shitty electron app?
Only being used because someone is paying you to do it, then snuffed out after an extended death throe.
Getting out of S mode is a few clicks away though. There’s a certain kind of user who actually benefits from it, and nobody is locked in.
RT’s restrictions were primarily architecture based (ARM)
Imagine if Microsoft required all software developers to give them 30% of their earning
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/publish/publish-your-app/why-distribute-through-store
Flexible revenue sharing options that let developers choose their own commerce platform and keep 100% of the revenue for non-gaming apps, or use Microsoft’s commerce platform and pay a competitive fee of 15% for apps and 12% for games.
I guess their rates are lower. Currently.
EDIT: And as @Eggyhead@lemmings.world points out, that’s for Windows, not the XBox. For the XBox, they do run an exclusive store and apparently do 30% there as well.
continues using Linux
Big difference here is that Windows doesn’t REQUIRE developers to use the windows store or still pay them money if they use other methods of payment. Anyone can download an installer and install software without the Windows store and Microsoft doesn’t make developers pay them still to do that.
Now if they could get away with it they absolutely would like on Xbox. That’s why Valve put so much effort into Linux.
You somehow missed the original argument. No one is forced to use the app store, which is what this is generally about.
Yes, Windows does that. It’s called S Mode.
Thanks, I almost forgot about my experience using S mode. It is fucking awful.
If it was my own I would have just installed Linux.
Isnt the mode dead? I thought they discontinued it
S mode in win10
SE mode in win11
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20% for repeat offenders.
Historically EU fines are bad at stopping companies from trying shit, but they are good at stopping the behaviour. The money, btw, doesn’t go towards the EU’s budget it goes towards the member states’ contributions, everyone gets a rebate.
Microsoft does with their Xbox, though. Don’t they?
Yes but I don’t believe consoles are a target of the DMA or this investigation. While would be nice if consoles were opened up and forced to allow side loading and alternative stores, I think there’s an argument that they’re single purpose appliances - a PlayStation is sold to you with the intention of it being a gaming box and not much else.
A smartphone or tablet though is at this point a general purpose computer, and it’s reasonable to expect to have the same freedoms and open environment that you would on a PC. And Apple’s argument that they can’t open up the iPhone because security or whatever doesn’t really hold water, because the Mac exists and is both secure and open.
The original argument compares windows to iOS, but gets weaker when comparing windows to macOS, which is still pretty corralled, but more or less open.
I asked about Xbox because Microsoft doesn’t sell a phone, and Xbox is an example of a Microsoft-run closed ecosystem. So I was curious about how their closed ecosystems compared.
If Microsoft sold a phone, I wonder if it would actually be more open like windows and Mac, or closed like their own XBox and the iPhone.
Well, they used to sell one, right? Windows Phone used to be a thing. As I recall though, it was equally locked down with an app store as the sole distribution method.
Microsoft is actually the least problematic of the console racket (Sony, Nintendo and MS), games release simultaneously to pc and they offer cross compatibility. Maybe the EU will address it eventually, but i guess mobile takes precedent given that everyone has a cell phone.
“reeeeeee”
Tim Apple to Trump
You know what to do, papito…
