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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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.
Apparently a lot of games don’t have DRMs on Steam. The only thing missing is a badge indicating this.
So at least you own these..
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Steam isn't being sued by Sweeny, they are being sued on behalf of 14 million UK gamers.
Also, epic has an estimated 3% to 7% of the market share (not 42 which makes no sense with steam having the other 80%), yet they should be regulated as well. If you stopped bootlicking for half a second, you would realise that this isn't about who's the worst but the fact that they are all bad (except itch, bless them).
Your enjoyment of their product doesn't mean it isn't having a serious and negative impact on the industry. Amazon is really convenient too, can you defend them next please?
I never claimed steam was being sued by Sweeney. Sweeney made a statement about the steam lawsuit saying he agreed with it.
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/epic-games-boss-tim-sweeney-voices-support-for-usd900-million-steam-lawsuit-valve-is-the-only-major-store-still-holding-onto-the-payments-tie-and-30-percent-junk-fee/I was quickly googling market share stuff on break so I misread the Epic e-shop market share vs Epic's full market share outside that.
The fact that Steam only makes double what epic e-shop makes with literally 11 times the market influence?
What regulations are you expecting out of this? How will that have a positive effect on consumers?
I never said this was about good or bad. I pointed out pros and cons of using each service which extrapolated quite literally to why consumers choose Steam over Epic.
A monopolistic corp who uses anit-consumer/anti-competitve tactics to remain a market leader/? monopoly is illegal. And it's regulated.
The only reason steam is being investigated at all is because 2 or 3 out of literal thousands of game developers have made a claim that steam is threatening to remove their game if they try to sell it on other game stores for cheaper than steam (not steam keys, but using another stores licensing keys).
That hasn't been proven and if it is, a further investigation into how wide spread that behavior is would still be needed to prove that Valve or Steam came by their market share illegally.
Also the fact that you brought up Amazon as the foil to your argument at the end is laughable. For multiple reasons.
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Apparently a lot of games don’t have DRMs on Steam. The only thing missing is a badge indicating this.
So at least you own these..
Yes, some of them can be launched directly from the exe without the steam client, or with some modifications to the game files.
Here's a list of DRM free games: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam
Also it's kind of silly how people automatically blame Steam for this, even though Valve does not force you to use DRM to publish to Steam. It is the developers themselves that chose to add DRM or tie themselves to the Steam API so that the game can't run without it.
So for example getting Dorfromantik or Citizen Sleeper from Steam or GOG is virtually equivalent in terms of ownership.
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I never claimed steam was being sued by Sweeney. Sweeney made a statement about the steam lawsuit saying he agreed with it.
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/epic-games-boss-tim-sweeney-voices-support-for-usd900-million-steam-lawsuit-valve-is-the-only-major-store-still-holding-onto-the-payments-tie-and-30-percent-junk-fee/I was quickly googling market share stuff on break so I misread the Epic e-shop market share vs Epic's full market share outside that.
The fact that Steam only makes double what epic e-shop makes with literally 11 times the market influence?
What regulations are you expecting out of this? How will that have a positive effect on consumers?
I never said this was about good or bad. I pointed out pros and cons of using each service which extrapolated quite literally to why consumers choose Steam over Epic.
A monopolistic corp who uses anit-consumer/anti-competitve tactics to remain a market leader/? monopoly is illegal. And it's regulated.
The only reason steam is being investigated at all is because 2 or 3 out of literal thousands of game developers have made a claim that steam is threatening to remove their game if they try to sell it on other game stores for cheaper than steam (not steam keys, but using another stores licensing keys).
That hasn't been proven and if it is, a further investigation into how wide spread that behavior is would still be needed to prove that Valve or Steam came by their market share illegally.
Also the fact that you brought up Amazon as the foil to your argument at the end is laughable. For multiple reasons.
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.
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Why is Epic insignificant?
They launched with a 12% service fee, dropped that service fee to 10%, and then dropped the service fee entirely for the first $1Mn in sales per year.
In June 2025, they released a new feature enabling developers to launch their own webshops hosted by the Epic Games Store. These webshops could offer players out-of-app purchases, as a more "cost-effective" alternative to in-app purchases.
They provide developers with free to generate license keys, and keyless integration with other e-shop stores including GOG, Humble Bundle, and Prime gaming.
They offer a user review system.
They also added cloud saves in July of 2025.
The thing is, they offer none of the other features Steam offers:
- In-Home Streaming
- Remote Play with Friends
- Family Accounts
- Achievements
- Price Adjusted Bundles
- Gifting Games
- Shopping Cart
- TV/Big Screen Mode
Epic launched their service in 2018. It's been 7 years. The only reason not to offer feature parity (for a company that makes $4.6Bn - 5.7Bn in revenue, and a shop that makes $1.09Bn, you'd think they would be enticing users with the services they want.
What they have done instead is exclusivity deals that plenty of consumers complain about but devs don't seem to care about so long as they're getting paid.
So, the excuse that Steam got there first (as if it's just about that and the reason their market share is what it is is because they have refined, adapted, and improved their service offering over time) doesn't make a whole lot of sense when steam has a significant percent of the market share (79.5% to epic's 42.3%) but is only making twice the revenue of their rival store.
It makes sense for GOG or Itch.io who's market cap is smaller by quite a lot to not offer the same feature parity. Each of those platforms has figured out they can offer other things to devs and consumers to make themselves competitive over time.
Sweeny's attack is basically just a pity party he's throwing for himself because he doesn't want to compete.
Edit
This is a sanity check because I wasn't correct with my numbers by mistake.So, the excuse that Steam got there first (as if it's just about that and the reason their market share is what it is is because they have refined, adapted, and improved their service offering over time) doesn't make a whole lot of sense when steam has a significant percent of the market share (79.5% to epic's 42.3%) but is only making twice the revenue of their rival store.
These numbers are not correct and I was mistaken. In actuality Valve's revenue is approximately 16 times that of Epic e-shop. It looks like an estimate of Steam's game sales is that about $4Bn of their revenue last year was from Steam's game sales. I am trying to corroborate that from other sources.
I'm still looking into and trying to parse out what percentage of steams sales last year were hardware (epic to my knowledge doesn't have a hardware arm of their business), and it's not immediately clear how much they made on the e-shop portion of their business alone so I can get more comparable numbers.
What I have been able to find so far I've posted below, and I'll try to remember to come back and do some math on that after I focus on the first thing.
https://gamalytic.com/blog/steam-revenue-infographic
https://80.lv/articles/valve-earned-over-usd4-billion-on-steam-alone-in-2025-analysts-say
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.
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Seems like buying games to remove them from your competitor is a scummier thing to do.
Rocket League had a native Linux version, but they also pulled that.
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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.
But Steam didn't kill the idea of ownership of games? It never existed for digital distribution (or even physical with DRM), which existed before Steam.
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It does remove easy Linux compatibility. Also you can run any storefront on steam deck, so not sure what your point is about hardware
A hypothetical Epic console.
Heroic gives Linux support and has the added benefit of being third party.
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hey, I'm going to give you a $5 Million exclusivity deal
This isn't something they need to.do, as they have a monopoly.
They could still compete on I don't know, features, quality instead of anti-consumer practices.
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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 when you bought a physical disk you didn't own the game. Microsoft is the one you should be blaming for how software is licensed over actually being sold to you. It was them who really pushed for that shit in the fucking 80s.
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To be honest, Epic is doing a good job of tearing down walled gardens in places like mobile, and we'll probably be better off for it. But yeah, they've done a terrible job of competing with Steam.
The problem there comes from Epic taking secret deals to settle those cases instead of let any precedent be set that would actually benefit customers.
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Notably, almost none of those are indie games, and almost any indie game that you did list came out in the 2000s like Roblox, before Steam was the behemoth it is today. Half of them are games by the same sets of AAA studios like Epic Games, Blizzard, and MiHoYo, and most Blizzard games have an entire franchise of games older than Steam itself to piggyback off of. Speaking of, anything by Blizzard isn't even true... their most recent games like Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 are both on Steam. Tarkov is also on Steam now, but I'll admit I'm splitting hairs here since it spent nearly a decade off of it. Though the fact that it released on Steam with its 1.0 update does say something.
So I really don't think any of those games aside from debatably Tarkov shows that the average modern indie dev can be successful outside of Steam.
You asked a question, I answered. You didn't like the answer so now you move the goalposts.
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Rocket League had a native Linux version, but they also pulled that.
And a Mac client.
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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.
