That’s for other sites that sell Steam keys, which obviously use Steam infrastructure hence the limitation. If you sell your game on Steam and other real platforms, like GOG, Epic or Uplay (or whatever it’s called these days), you can set the price you want.
Of course Steam offers a lot more functionality, and many devs choose to tie their games to Steam because of that, not because Steam forces them to do it.
Already responded elsewhere in the thread but wanted to hop in and also say that no, this being about Steam keys alone is a myth. I compiled the information I found in a thread in regards to this. Some developers have confirmed it there as well.
A podcast with some quotes isn’t hard evidence. Hard evidence is what people are looking for (myself included).
Wolfire’s claims haven’t been proven in court and if they are, then there will be evidence in the public record. But people have been looking for hard proof of this for years. So right now your claim is also a “myth”.
Then it’s still the word of multiple developers publishing games on Steam reading the terms they have to sign versus… I guess random people on the internet? I suppose hard evidence will be difficult to come by because:
The lawsuit has taken ages and who knows when or if it will conclude with information
Developers probably don’t want to get on Valve’s bad side to prove it
Even if a game is taken off the store, it won’t be easy to prove it was due to this
I’ve seen conversations that mention threads on the Steam developer forums on this, but I’ve not been diligent enough to save this. Though I will try if I ever come across it again. It’s unfortunately difficult to search for information with my admittedly limited motivation. (If anyone can bring evidence either way, I’d be very happy.)
Eight whole years or more of allegations and not one singular leak? Nobody kept a record of their contract? Not one dev? Nobody heard the news about Wolfie and went “hey wait a minute” and went back and read their contracts?
I am taking these allegations with a grain of salt because the internet sometimes is very loud and very wrong and without a credible source of information (news outlets would love even a hint of proof of this), it’s a lawsuit that hasn’t been determined to be factually proven yet, and some rumors.
My problem isn’t that you’ve said Valve allegedly did this. My problem is that you posited your statement as if it was a proven fact and linked to “evidence” that a court of law might even consider hearsay.
I’m not trying to break your balls here. I’m just saying I clicked that link thinking there was something of substance in it.
Alright, since you’d rather argue than open up a search engine, let me be the one to do that.
Admittedly, there’s a lot of articles that are on the edge on whether or not the “most-favored nation” clause is a thing, since that’s what the lawsuit alleges. Though as I said, it has been confirmed by developers. Steam appears to indeed be clear about the policy around Steam keys usage and pricing on other stores, where it makes absolute sense. The thing is, otherwise, Valve is specifically avoiding putting this extra rule in writing. Here is a reddit thread where I found this document, which, if real (and I’m not sure why we should assume it is not) does confirm that Valve does this.
If we get to a situation – again, this is
rare. If we get to a situation where a partner is
telling us that the price needs to be lower on other
platforms than it is on Steam, then we will typically
choose not to run curated marketing during times where
that game is being discounted, if that is where the
price is lower, or around a launch if it’s a around –
if it’s a price at launch time.
And also:
Q. Okay. And part of these conversations is
saying, hey, we’re not going to offer you curated
promotions if you keep doing that, right?
A. Part of our approach, if we get to a situation
where we can’t have pricing that is fair for Steam
customers is not to amplify marketing with curated
markets.
Q. But these conversations, as you know, also
involve the threat not to keep the game on the Steam
store at all; is that right?
A. That is not our typical process.
This reads to me as: If Valve finds out your game is priced cheaper on another store, they will approach you to “have a conversation”, after which they might decide to just pull your game from Steam’s marketing system (or maybe off the store) or low-key threaten to do so. After all, they have the final say on what gets offered and promoted on their own store. This is totally within their legal right (MFN clauses are common), but still a dick move, and disadvantages especially smaller developers (who’d like to avoid the “Steam tax”) and consumer, who could benefit from a cheaper price off-Steam.
That’s about as much effort as I’d like to put into this conversation for now. But if you’d like to continue, I ask you to put at least as much effort into this as I have.
If you make a claim on the internet it should be backed up by facts. I don’t care if Gaben is guilty or innocent. I am pointing out that we don’t have a credible source for the allegations up to this point (even a copy of a contract with the specific wording would suffice and likely would have been leaked at some point in the last 8 years).
However, Wolfire, the developer of Overgrowth tried to sell non Steam key versions on other store fronts at a lower price due to those stores having a lower. Valve told them Overgrowth would be removed from Steam if he proceeded in doing so.
They are involved in an ongoing class action suit against valve over this. If this were just a misreading of the terms, it would not have been an ongoing suit for the last couple of years.
That’s for other sites that sell Steam keys, which obviously use Steam infrastructure hence the limitation. If you sell your game on Steam and other real platforms, like GOG, Epic or Uplay (or whatever it’s called these days), you can set the price you want.
Of course Steam offers a lot more functionality, and many devs choose to tie their games to Steam because of that, not because Steam forces them to do it.
Already responded elsewhere in the thread but wanted to hop in and also say that no, this being about Steam keys alone is a myth. I compiled the information I found in a thread in regards to this. Some developers have confirmed it there as well.
A podcast with some quotes isn’t hard evidence. Hard evidence is what people are looking for (myself included).
Wolfire’s claims haven’t been proven in court and if they are, then there will be evidence in the public record. But people have been looking for hard proof of this for years. So right now your claim is also a “myth”.
Then it’s still the word of multiple developers publishing games on Steam reading the terms they have to sign versus… I guess random people on the internet? I suppose hard evidence will be difficult to come by because:
I’ve seen conversations that mention threads on the Steam developer forums on this, but I’ve not been diligent enough to save this. Though I will try if I ever come across it again. It’s unfortunately difficult to search for information with my admittedly limited motivation. (If anyone can bring evidence either way, I’d be very happy.)
Eight whole years or more of allegations and not one singular leak? Nobody kept a record of their contract? Not one dev? Nobody heard the news about Wolfie and went “hey wait a minute” and went back and read their contracts?
I am taking these allegations with a grain of salt because the internet sometimes is very loud and very wrong and without a credible source of information (news outlets would love even a hint of proof of this), it’s a lawsuit that hasn’t been determined to be factually proven yet, and some rumors.
My problem isn’t that you’ve said Valve allegedly did this. My problem is that you posited your statement as if it was a proven fact and linked to “evidence” that a court of law might even consider hearsay.
I’m not trying to break your balls here. I’m just saying I clicked that link thinking there was something of substance in it.
Alright, since you’d rather argue than open up a search engine, let me be the one to do that.
Admittedly, there’s a lot of articles that are on the edge on whether or not the “most-favored nation” clause is a thing, since that’s what the lawsuit alleges. Though as I said, it has been confirmed by developers. Steam appears to indeed be clear about the policy around Steam keys usage and pricing on other stores, where it makes absolute sense. The thing is, otherwise, Valve is specifically avoiding putting this extra rule in writing. Here is a reddit thread where I found this document, which, if real (and I’m not sure why we should assume it is not) does confirm that Valve does this.
And also:
This reads to me as: If Valve finds out your game is priced cheaper on another store, they will approach you to “have a conversation”, after which they might decide to just pull your game from Steam’s marketing system (or maybe off the store) or low-key threaten to do so. After all, they have the final say on what gets offered and promoted on their own store. This is totally within their legal right (MFN clauses are common), but still a dick move, and disadvantages especially smaller developers (who’d like to avoid the “Steam tax”) and consumer, who could benefit from a cheaper price off-Steam.
That’s about as much effort as I’d like to put into this conversation for now. But if you’d like to continue, I ask you to put at least as much effort into this as I have.
Do you even hear yourself talking like a conspiracy theorist while defending a billionaire’s innocence?
If you make a claim on the internet it should be backed up by facts. I don’t care if Gaben is guilty or innocent. I am pointing out that we don’t have a credible source for the allegations up to this point (even a copy of a contract with the specific wording would suffice and likely would have been leaked at some point in the last 8 years).
The steam key part is what is publicly available.
However, Wolfire, the developer of Overgrowth tried to sell non Steam key versions on other store fronts at a lower price due to those stores having a lower. Valve told them Overgrowth would be removed from Steam if he proceeded in doing so.
They are involved in an ongoing class action suit against valve over this. If this were just a misreading of the terms, it would not have been an ongoing suit for the last couple of years.