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Gabe Newell ordered to make in-person deposition for Valve v. Wolfire Games lawsuit
(www.gamesindustry.biz)
this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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They used to have a price parity clause in their steam distribution agreement. They loosely enforced it, depending on what game and what service. I think they quietly removed it because I read through the agreement recently and didn't see it but I remember it influencing choices I made for pricing my games on itch.io.
I see, thanks for the clarification. That does sound a bit shitty on their part, especially because when most people are asked "gaming on PC?" they answer "Steam". Lower prices elsewhere might have given a better chance to other storefronts, although I don't think that would have made a huge difference, since Steam is THE storefront
Steam wants to keep it that way. Any references to other storefronts in your demo or game aren't allowed either. So if you're demo has a list of every place to buy the game, it's rejected, can only contain steam. Steam is deathly afraid of losing the advantage.
What role do you think the Steam workshop plays in this?
Obviously the people playing the AAA franchises don't care, but when you see the sheer quantity of workshop content for some games (Cities:Skylines and Space Engineers come to mind for me, no doubt there's other examples in genres I'm less familiar with), you see how much the modding community has contributed to the commercial success of these games. I'm wondering how this factors in to steam as a whole.
One of steams major profit points is the market place from what I can tell. The workshop less so. Modding might be a factor but a minor one compared to things that make money actively instead of passively.