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Valve faces a £656 million lawsuit in the UK for 'overcharging 14 million PC gamers'
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this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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I'm open to the idea steam puts restrictions on publishers. But the obvious answer would be that the publisher is taking the extra profit for themselves instead
They certainly do pocket the difference. But the point is the behavior we see is that what we would see if Steam wasn't enforcing uniform pricing. Publishers would pick some list price on other platforms / their own sites that undercuts Steam and also gives higher margin for themselves.
E.g. a $60 game on Steam with a 30% cut nets you ~$42. If you list the game on for $50 on Epic with a 12% cut, you net $44. The price differential works in favor of the consumer and publisher, and would convince more people to buy on the high-margin platform. A greedy publisher isn't going to keep the $60 price tag, because that just pushes consumers to buy on Steam (which has the most features).