- cross-posted to:
- steam@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- steam@lemmy.ml
Noticed this update got pushed just now.
Edit: Seems they’re doing this to prevent costs from arbitration. Read comment below.
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They’re only doing this because of the class action being brought against them. It’s cheaper to let this go to court than to try and settle tens of thousands of individual arbitrations. In fact, there are plenty of companies now reversing course and realizing how badly forcing arbitration can backfire.
Edit: For those unaware: https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/video-game-giant-valve-hit-with-consumer-class-action-over-pricing-2024-08-12/
It’s a little hard to square “steam is over charging for games” with “look at all these games I bought for 80% off ($5) off”, but I guess there’s more to it.
After a short read, the case is specifically “Steam is prohibiting developers from selling their games to other platforms, at a price lower than that of steam, and then pockets the 30% platform cost, due to effective monopoly power”.
Which, if true, is super bullshit.
It’s false if I remember correctly. Steam prohibits you from selling steam keys outside the store for less than the price on steam. They don’t forbid you from selling cheaper elsewhere
And that seems entirely reasonable to me. Unless I am missing something
Why is that reasonable? Storefronts don’t get free keys from Steam, they have to buy them. After they pay Steam, they should be allowed to sell them at any price they want.
Imagine if Ford said you couldn’t sell your car for less than what Ford dealers charge for used cars.
I am almost certain that steam keys are actually free to developers, which is the whole reason for the policy.
Exactly! Pirate Software talked about this a while back. Steam doesn’t want you cutting them out, and then them still being responsible for the bandwidth to download and host your game.
I am almost certain that steam keys are actually free to developers, which is the whole reason for the policy.
Yes, they are. That’s what many of the Kinguin etc. keys are. People/bots pretend to be game reviewers/streamers and ask for free keys. I have a “Game Press” license for a game because back then I didn’t know of that method. I was under the impression those were keys sold by the developer in foreign markets for adjusted prices. Now I know better.
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The steam keys are free to developers.
Its this one. And the reason is that if steam sells a game at $10 and humble sells you a steam key at $5, steam gets no profit and is 100% responsible for the bandwidth when you donlload it, for hosting the page, for the market, etc etc. Basically steam doesn’t want to assume all the work with none of the reward. Which I don’t really see an iissue with.
I think part of the issue is steam allows publishers to set region specific prices and lock users into a region.
You pay $89 for an annual subscription package, somebody in brazil pays equivalent to $32.58.
By definition it is discriminatory.
Discrimination only applies if the two parties are similar. In this case the location makes these parties dissimilar due to the inability to just go from one place to the other legally. Brazil gross national income is 1/3rd the US. It makes sense to price things at 1/3rd the US price.
Steam taking 30% is a better deal than any other form of media gets by a mile. It’s crazy folks complain when it is so easy to self distribute a video game, people have been doing it for years and years. Steam doesn’t even require you to sign up for exclusivity like basically every other distribution/marketing service does for all media including other video game services.
The game company can afford to sell digital goods and services to Brazil at a fraction of the cost and they profit.
If they sold redeemable codes on cards and cardboard locally it would solve their issue.
They should have to offer any two people online the same price when they list things. An American with Brazillian Currency should have the right to buy a digital good with said currency at the price listed.
A sudden demand for Brazilian Currency certainly does not hurt Brazil, either.
If you do it that way you are importing a good.
The end of this would not be that Steam relenting enables folks to start using foreign currency to get cheap games on a publicly traded space.
What will happen if that goes through is a swift increase in taxation of export of digital goods. You’d have countries fighting tariff wars over video games.
The idea that you can use foreign safe spots to buy and sell goods at a cheaper cost is something that only rich people get to do. As soon as it becomes broadly available to the general populace the governments crack down on it quickly.
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That’s more complicated than it sounds. An export strengthening the currency is a significant part of Dutch Disease.
You realise that if that were to be “fixed”, you wouldn’t end up paying the low price, Brazil would end up paying the high price? One they can’t afford because they make as much in a month as you do in a week, or worse.
The steam store didnt use to region lock and game companies still had different pricing.
Ah that makes sense, it’s oddly suspicious they’d do this out of the blue. Though I am curious at the arbitration. Can they not include a clause that just says that the forced arbitration can be waived by them when they so choose? I feel like they would make carve outs for these big cases if they could to where they can still arbitrate on smaller cases which costs them less.
(Also updating my post text, thanks!)
Seems like a good thing?
I was wondering if it was related to anything passed recently, because another service had to change privacy rules to opt in over a rule change in Cali. I just assume if it sounds like a good thing for consumers, it probably wasn’t their choice, lol, but I guess in this case it’s just a cost cutting measure.
I at least appreciate them being pretty clear about what’s different now.
I think there’s a bit of a sea change in business generally where arbitration ended up being worse for corporations if too many customers/employees used that option because it meant paying a bunch of money for each case instead of dealing with one class action suit.
While the arbitration courts themselves are generally biased to corporate interests, it’s not enough of a thumb on the scale to make up for the huge downside.
I’ve seen some arbitration agreements stating that you can’t collaborate with other customers who are affected by the same issue, requiring each customer to have a different attorney.
Some companies really want to make it impossible for you to win any significant damages against them.
At that point, they are just telling on themselves.
I’ve seen some arbitration agreements stating that you can’t collaborate with other customers who are affected by the same issue, requiring each customer to have a different attorney.
Oh no, I did it anyways and collaborated with other customers online. Oh well guess we gotta arbitrate that now.
From what I’ve read, it can go either way (note: not a lawyer).
Arbitration is easier for people to seek compensation, but it usually prevents any significant damages and doesn’t set a legal precedent that others can use to easily get compensation.
Court cases are harder to start and generally require a lawyer, but if you win you can get significant damages and it can set a legal precedent.
So it’s usually best for the consumer to have a choice on how to pursue issues. I have seen a lot of companies lately update their terms for arbitration only though, so this is at contrast with how most companies I’ve seen are handling things.
Having been sued by copyright vultures, I definitely get the difficulty with court. The minimum just to have a lawyer retainer was 2500. The vultures told us to essentially give them 2400 and the problem would go away (a strongly worded email managed to get them off my back, but mostly because they clearly used bots).
I can see it weed out small cases less than that. I guess it’d help if I knew what people were sueing over.
Should’ve gone with a much lower number. The difference of 100 dollars means nothing to my burning spite.
That was technically my thinking too, haha. If you’re ever targeted by this (and it can be as simple as having a Google image placeholder in an unindexed page) you just need to be stubborn and spiteful. It’s not worth their time with so many other patsies, haha.
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Honestly really pisses me off how often I see people try to normalize forced arbitration clauses.
It isn’t normal, and should never become normal, and in many cases should be outlawed.
So you realise that when a lawsuit has a larger corporate backing, they get to bribe the arbitrator more than you and now you back off from arbitration.
Sad that this cannot be done to companies that already agree with others.
