Why is Valve being sued for almost $900 million, but Epic Games wasn't sued when they bought Rocket League and Fall Guys to remove them from steam?
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There are laws that say that abusing a monopoly is illegal. Steam is objectively a monopoly in pc games. Sure, you don't have to use it, but it is basically impossible for indie developers to make a living without it.
Now, the question is if valve's actions are actually abusing the monopoly, or normal business practices.
There are not many objectively provable monopolies and i doubt that English law would support that claim without extremely strong evidence, generally utilities are the only ones that'd get close. A necessity with high fixed costs and infrastructure lock-in.
Steam has high market share in a segment, but not necessarily a distinct segment, I'm sure steam would argue that there are enough consumers who can and do substitute between pc and console and mobile, as well as other vendors so that their market power is mitigated by a fair amount of consumer mobility.
So what you're looking to prove is unlikely to be a pure "monopoly" but 'excess market power', and 'abuse of market power'. That is a complex legal art that the competition regulator is usually not that successful at proving, at least in English law.
Abuse of market power has to impact consumers not producers. There are always marginal producers struggling to make a profit - that happens in competitive markets, producers bidding prices down, some going out of business. I'm not saying I agree, but that's more or less how the law sees it, lookup what they let supermarkets get away with in contracts with farmers.
To show consumer harm from upstream market manipulation you'd probably have to show a material dearth of choice being created by steam policies in order to jack up prices. Maybe that can be demonstrated, but it's not simple and more likely to come down to subjective interpretation of the arguments and evidence from both sides rather than any unarguable objective truth.
If it were unarguable or objectively true then the CMA might lead the investigation itself instead of this being a private action. Though maybe this is too small a market for them to worry about.
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I am definitely not on epic side here, but the reason they had to pay for exclusivity for games is because valve doesn't allow any games on steam to be sold cheaper elsewhere. Which developers follow because steam brings in a lot of revenue.
Without that, epic could try to compete with steam (and its extra features) by offering lower prices, and letting the consumer make the choice of features vs price.
But valve policies effectively make it impossible for any new marketplace to compete.
That's false. They do not allow steam keys (free to generate steam licenses of games) to be sold cheaper anywhere else for less than the game is sold for on steam. And in exchange, the profits on those game licenses sold elsewhere the developer gets to keep 100% of.
It is alleged by one developer that steam told them they can't sell their game for less on other stores even if they use a different company to generate the license keys. But that hasn't been proven. And since only 2 other developers are backing the new class action lawsuit out of literally thousands of devs who would be effected this way if it were true, it logically doesn't make sense. The dev who brought the first lawsuit that go thrown out? Their game is still up on Steam.
The fact is, Epic is making half the revenue Steam is with 11 times less market share, and not gaining market share because customers don't want to use their store. Customers don't want free games they want services that work.
You're alleging that Valve is doing something anti-competitive to maintain their market share here and you still haven't given me what I asked for.
What regulations are you expecting to be imposed, and how will that detrimentally or positively effect the consumers?
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Steams revenue was 16b (edit: it's 4b) in 2025, epics was 1b in 2024. At least click the links instead of pasting what the Google summary tells you. You are mixing up epics store revenue with their unreal engine revenue.
The fact is any game store front is a money printing machine mostly because of the rampant price fixing, hard to enter markets and abuse from those that hold the lion share of that market (Steam, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo).
That money is being sucked out of the companies that are actually making games, and is leading to a reduction in quality, layoffs and bankruptcies.
For regulation, we could easily have limits on the percentage store fronts are allowed to demand for digital media, but each time there's a lawsuit, a bunch of idiots loudly fight it. Lawmakers aren't going to enact laws that go against what the lobbyist want, especially if the majority of the population have been instructed that the boot is for their benefit.
Your list of pros and cons doesn't matter, every player being compared is bad. It's just a defense in favor of Gabens yacht fleet at this point. Exclaiming that steam shouldn't change because you like their product, even though it's clearly having an impact, is the same as defending Amazon because drop shipping is easier than going to the store.
Fyi, I use both, I literally own a steam deck and the sd card came from Amazon. Defending their practices is just fucking weak though.
I'm not reading the Google summary. There is no Google summary for me. That shit is deep sixed. I don't want it. I love it when people automatically assume that I must be using Generative AI to get some silly answer off the internet.
The fact is any game store front is a money printing machine mostly because of the rampant price fixing, hard to enter markets and abuse from those that hold the lion share of that market (Steam, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo).
If so then Epic should have caught up by now, no?
That money is being sucked out of the companies that are actually making games, and is leading to a reduction in quality, layoffs and bankruptcies.
Please back that up. The game developers seeing bankruptcies are seeing them because of gross mismanagement and a never ending attempt to deliver crap that their consumers don't want. Pushing the "bleeding edge" of graphics while making games that sell poorly because they want to charge $60-70 for a game even 5 years after it came out.
And that's with the proliferation of crap like in game micro transactions, season passes, DRM, and internet sanity checks to even play single player games.
Indie developers are caught in the lurch, but that's generally the case with any small business, and on top of that the regulation will probably harm them more than it will help them because the percentage of sales pays for things that they use to market their game.
What is the limit on what store fronts can charge going to be? How much is too much? What does that 30% pay for? Do you know? Does it scale by user base?
Would other store fronts who charge less be more successful by a meaningful amount if they were charging the same?
It literally doesn't matter where your products come from. I own more computer games on disc from physical stores than I do from steam. I have paid for more than one game on both steam, switch, PS4, or physical copy. I'm not trying to call Steam the good guy here.
But I do not trust the developer who originally brought the lawsuit because even now most of the other devs who have games for sale on steam have not attempted to make a statement, join the class action, or even make a complaint about what is alleged.
On top of that, why sue only steam if this is a problem. Nobody is suing Nintendo, PlayStation, or Microsoft over this.
I also never said "steam shouldn't change", or that steam shouldn't take a smaller cut.
I feel like you scanned right over half of what I did say so you could be snotty in your response. You have a good day dude.
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Steams revenue was 16b (edit: it's 4b) in 2025, epics was 1b in 2024. At least click the links instead of pasting what the Google summary tells you. You are mixing up epics store revenue with their unreal engine revenue.
The fact is any game store front is a money printing machine mostly because of the rampant price fixing, hard to enter markets and abuse from those that hold the lion share of that market (Steam, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo).
That money is being sucked out of the companies that are actually making games, and is leading to a reduction in quality, layoffs and bankruptcies.
For regulation, we could easily have limits on the percentage store fronts are allowed to demand for digital media, but each time there's a lawsuit, a bunch of idiots loudly fight it. Lawmakers aren't going to enact laws that go against what the lobbyist want, especially if the majority of the population have been instructed that the boot is for their benefit.
Your list of pros and cons doesn't matter, every player being compared is bad. It's just a defense in favor of Gabens yacht fleet at this point. Exclaiming that steam shouldn't change because you like their product, even though it's clearly having an impact, is the same as defending Amazon because drop shipping is easier than going to the store.
Fyi, I use both, I literally own a steam deck and the sd card came from Amazon. Defending their practices is just fucking weak though.
I can't corroborate that Steam's revenue for the e-shop was $16Bn. The best estimate that I have is that their game sales netted them $4Bn last year. I'm still trying to find a better source for that. However we may both be wrong here.
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You asked a question, I answered. You didn't like the answer so now you move the goalposts.
To be clear, the original comment I responded to said:
looks at Hytale doing quite well without even touching Steam
In response to a comment that said:
There are laws that say that abusing a monopoly is illegal. Steam is objectively a monopoly in pc games. Sure, you don’t have to use it, but it is basically impossible for indie developers to make a living without it.
I never moved the goalposts; modern indie devs were always the goalpost.
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I dunno, killing the idea of ownership of games was pretty bad.
I don't think any amount of Proton patches submitted is going to bring that back.
Steam didn't do that. Even Super Nintendo cartridges tried to claim in the Terms and Conditions that you legally didn't own the copy you paid for. It was never contested, and thus we have the current software ownership debacle.
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They could still compete on I don't know, features, quality instead of anti-consumer practices.
Also true, but that's not what I'm replying to.
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I don't understand the reply. I was replying to the topic. I'm not a fan of Epic either but people are being kinda stupid about some of the justifications for the hate.
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I'm not reading the Google summary. There is no Google summary for me. That shit is deep sixed. I don't want it. I love it when people automatically assume that I must be using Generative AI to get some silly answer off the internet.
The fact is any game store front is a money printing machine mostly because of the rampant price fixing, hard to enter markets and abuse from those that hold the lion share of that market (Steam, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo).
If so then Epic should have caught up by now, no?
That money is being sucked out of the companies that are actually making games, and is leading to a reduction in quality, layoffs and bankruptcies.
Please back that up. The game developers seeing bankruptcies are seeing them because of gross mismanagement and a never ending attempt to deliver crap that their consumers don't want. Pushing the "bleeding edge" of graphics while making games that sell poorly because they want to charge $60-70 for a game even 5 years after it came out.
And that's with the proliferation of crap like in game micro transactions, season passes, DRM, and internet sanity checks to even play single player games.
Indie developers are caught in the lurch, but that's generally the case with any small business, and on top of that the regulation will probably harm them more than it will help them because the percentage of sales pays for things that they use to market their game.
What is the limit on what store fronts can charge going to be? How much is too much? What does that 30% pay for? Do you know? Does it scale by user base?
Would other store fronts who charge less be more successful by a meaningful amount if they were charging the same?
It literally doesn't matter where your products come from. I own more computer games on disc from physical stores than I do from steam. I have paid for more than one game on both steam, switch, PS4, or physical copy. I'm not trying to call Steam the good guy here.
But I do not trust the developer who originally brought the lawsuit because even now most of the other devs who have games for sale on steam have not attempted to make a statement, join the class action, or even make a complaint about what is alleged.
On top of that, why sue only steam if this is a problem. Nobody is suing Nintendo, PlayStation, or Microsoft over this.
I also never said "steam shouldn't change", or that steam shouldn't take a smaller cut.
I feel like you scanned right over half of what I did say so you could be snotty in your response. You have a good day dude.
I'm not reading the Google summary.
Okay, but your stats are still wrong? (Edit: so are some of mine though, disregard me being a dick here). Using AI wasn't my point.
If so then Epic should have caught up by now, no?
Is making 1 000 million in a year with something like 5% not catching up? Do you think any of these billion dollar stores are running at cost?
Please back that up.
Having a vampire sucking up 30% of your revenue does affect a company but quantifying it would mean some pretty in depth studies and getting information from bankrupt companies. I do know most devs don't like it. https://gdconf.com/article/gdc-state-of-the-industry-most-devs-feel-steam-s-30-cut-isn-t-justified-many-prefer-10-15/
And yes, all those points you mention are happening, but having a huge chunk of your profits taken like that obviously aggravates it.
What does that 30% pay for? Do you know?
I know it pays for Gabens yacht fleet worth 1.5 billion lol. We do have rough numbers. We know their employees count and revenue, and that they are making an estimated 11 million per employee from an article by the financial Times. That doesn't include data atorage but I doubt the cost of offering downloads is anywhere near there revenue.
I own more computer games on disc from physical stores than I do from steam.
Stores don't even stock physical discs for PC Games. How many of those are from the past 5 years? Last year had 95% of games sold digitally (PC and consoles). https://twicethebits.com/2025/06/19/the-shift-to-digital-gaming-why-physical-sales-are-declining/
But I do not trust the developer who originally brought the lawsuit
What dev? This is about a UK lawsuit on behalf of UK gamers. I can't find anything about a devs involvement.
Nobody is suing Nintendo, PlayStation, or Microsoft over this.
PlayStation is getting sued for it, the trial is for March. This is specifically about the 30% (https://www.catribunal.org.uk/cases/15277722-alex-neill-class-representative-limited). (https://woodsford.com/woodsford-funded-5bn-class-action-against-sony-playstation-gets-go-ahead-in-uk-competition-appeal-tribunal/) .
I want to point out that this is pure whataboutism, just like the OP. But what about epic, but what about nintendo. All of them deserve to get sued.
I also never said
Then the proper response would be "yes, steam does deserve to get sued, epics behavior doesn't even have anything to do with the subject, but they also deserve to get sued". Like what's your point then? Why make a bullet point of things steam does well if you aren't trying to imply that they are "good enough to be allowed to abuse".
I feel like you scanned right over half of what I did say.
We are both writing walls of text.
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I wish they'd just focus on fixing Unreal. It's a shit show.
Every time someone uses lumen the frame rate drops by roughly 2/3rds, it's nuts.
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I can't corroborate that Steam's revenue for the e-shop was $16Bn. The best estimate that I have is that their game sales netted them $4Bn last year. I'm still trying to find a better source for that. However we may both be wrong here.
Ya, I misread it and I'm way off. It's 4bn. Epic also made a lot less, my stats are not for gross revenue but generated revenue before they split it with the devs. Amateur hour over here (me, not you).
I went off in my other comment and was a bit of a dick throughout the convo. It just feels like someone is being robbed here. 4bn is a lot of money and, from the wolffire lawsuit leak, they have less than 100 people working on steam full time.
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Seems like buying games to remove them from your competitor is a scummier thing to do.
Who sued who in the what now?
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its not about making better product for epic. its about removing competition so they dont have to.
They could remove that competition by making a better product, but that is somehow always the last thing they'd ever think about. It never stops being so fucking weird with all these business people who go to great lengths to do shitty stuff and always end up making it worse for everyone except a quick buck for themselves, even though they could easily make a lot more for a longer time by simply doing a good job. But no, that would require anything other than immediate greed. Absolutely vile people.
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That's false. They do not allow steam keys (free to generate steam licenses of games) to be sold cheaper anywhere else for less than the game is sold for on steam. And in exchange, the profits on those game licenses sold elsewhere the developer gets to keep 100% of.
It is alleged by one developer that steam told them they can't sell their game for less on other stores even if they use a different company to generate the license keys. But that hasn't been proven. And since only 2 other developers are backing the new class action lawsuit out of literally thousands of devs who would be effected this way if it were true, it logically doesn't make sense. The dev who brought the first lawsuit that go thrown out? Their game is still up on Steam.
The fact is, Epic is making half the revenue Steam is with 11 times less market share, and not gaining market share because customers don't want to use their store. Customers don't want free games they want services that work.
You're alleging that Valve is doing something anti-competitive to maintain their market share here and you still haven't given me what I asked for.
What regulations are you expecting to be imposed, and how will that detrimentally or positively effect the consumers?
They do not allow steam keys (free to generate steam licenses of games) to be sold cheaper anywhere else for less than the game is sold for on steam.
That itself is false too with a quick look at isthereanydeals showing lot of steam games being sold cheaper outside of the steam store.
Even the Steam key guidelines don't explicitly state that steam keys can't be sold cheaper.
It's OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time.
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
Key word being comparable which is why if you are a user of isthereanydeals or /r/gamedeals you've likely gotten most of your steam games from outside the official Steam store.
I think some people just assume Steam sales must be the cheapest and don't look beyond it.
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its not about making better product for epic. its about removing competition so they dont have to.
Epic approach is the typical venture capitalist run company approach of running at loss then once they get market share start jacking up the prices.
Can't really trust a company until they are actually profitable with a functioning sustainable business model. We've seen it time and time again where even Facebook launched without ads and look at it now.
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Well that's stupid. If Steam charged less, the price of games wouldn't change.
Developers and publishers would just pocket the difference.
Best example is Ubisoft and EA when they took their games off Steam and Epic wasn't around but didn't sell their games any cheaper despite 0% cut. Or Final Fantasy 7 Remake released as an Epic exclusive, but was priced at $70.
It is weird. Every other product people know that companies want to charge as much as the market will take to maximize profits. Most noticeable examples being GPU prices over the years and now ram and storage.
But, gamers for some reason think companies want to price things lower as though game companies are so noble they escape the greed of capitalism to seek out exponential profits.
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That's not true, it only applies if you're selling a steam key. Devs are free to set the price on any platform they want, want proof? Check out the currently free game on epic which has never been free on Steam.
Steam provides developers with infinite steam keys that they can sell outside of steam for 100% profit, however those keys cannot be sold at a lesser price than what it's sold on steam. Which honestly sounds like common sense.
That itself is false too with a quick look at isthereanydeals showing lot of steam games being sold cheaper outside of the steam store.
Even the Steam key guidelines don't explicitly state that steam keys can't be sold cheaper.
It's OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time.
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
Key word being comparable which is why if you are a user of isthereanydeals or /r/gamedeals you've likely gotten most of your steam games from outside the official Steam store.
I think some people just assume Steam sales must be the cheapest and don't look beyond it.
I am puzzled why people believe Steam keys can't be sold cheaper outside Steam unless they never looked outside the Steam store.
This is one example of a game that isnt too old is Silent Hill F.
https://isthereanydeal.com/game/silent-hill-f/info/
Historical low is $31.49 from Fanatical and Steam low is $41.99
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They could remove that competition by making a better product, but that is somehow always the last thing they'd ever think about. It never stops being so fucking weird with all these business people who go to great lengths to do shitty stuff and always end up making it worse for everyone except a quick buck for themselves, even though they could easily make a lot more for a longer time by simply doing a good job. But no, that would require anything other than immediate greed. Absolutely vile people.
Their approach feels like how lot of companies are currently focusing on AI to market to investors and AI data centers directly, and ignoring what consumers want assuming their opinions are of little relevance. Like how Microsoft doesn't care if people dont want copilot, and keeps talking up the corporate side with the assumption that they know people will use Microsoft no matter what.
Which is much like Epic with them focusing more on giving money to publishers to lock up titles in the past like Final Fantasy 7 Remake from Square Enix over concerning themselves with the demographic of people buying the product.
Its not a consumer focused business model, because the idea of consumers not buying it is impossible to comprehend. Their headlines never seem to be around how its better for the consumer and the benefits to using them over the competition.
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Which isn’t accurate and is more nuanced involving Steam keys like another user said. For instance, Prey is on sale for $6 on the PlayStation store but still $30 on Steam.
That's because they can't intimidate Bethesda with an email.
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Seems like buying games to remove them from your competitor is a scummier thing to do.
I didn't know Fall Guys got bought out. But then again, that was a flavor-of-the-week kind of game where streamers tried to care, then moved on and Fall Guys became irrelevant.
