• RamRabbit@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    alleges Valve “forces” game publishers to sign up to conditions which prevents them from selling their titles earlier or for less on rival platforms.

    Epic gives away games for free that cost money on Steam. The fuck is this person talking about?

    • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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      23 minutes ago

      That doesn’t conclude anything.

      Are these the same games that are part of this lawsuit? If they are not, then what does Epic giving away different games conclude that this is a false premise for the lawsuit?

      Critically think about that statement, it’s not logical.

    • KubeRoot@discuss.tchncs.de
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      46 minutes ago

      Valve gives you free steam keys for your game on request, which you can sell off steam, without paying Valve a cut. This has a specific rule that disallows selling those keys for a lower price. However, not sure if it’s this case, there was an email from a Valve employee submitted as evidence telling a game developer that selling their game for less in general would be undercutting steam, and something they wouldn’t want. If the email is real and not a misinterpretation, Valve indeed was/is pressuring developers to not sell games cheaper elsewhere.

      Also, sales and giveaways are exempt from the steam key price parity rule, which I would assume epic’s free games would fall under, if you applied the rule to that despite not involving steam keys.

    • criticalinvite@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Valve forces price parity with all platforms. So if they have lower charges, that saving cannot be passed on to the customer and so stops price competition.