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this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
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I put an admittedly low amount of effort into searching (skimmed a couple dozen links or so) for evidence of crimes and came up empty. I'd be curious to see trustworthy sources about this as well.
Re: HL3. It's a particularly infamous example of a game cancelation, and it does suck but studios canceling games happens.
Edit: Excepting antitrust lawsuits. I wasn't surprised to see that and glossed over it, but it does qualify as a crime and I would say is a reasonable accusation. I didn't read more in to it than that, yet.
Edit 2: The TL;DR: of the antitrust lawsuit if you weren't aware (I wasn't) is that Steam is taking a cut of up to 30% which they're arguing is excessive. Game makers don't really have a choice given that Steam is the market leader. Here's a random newer article, more about Gabe having to appear in court, but it covers the basics. https://www.techspot.com/news/100969-gabe-newell-ordered-testify-person-valve-antitrust-lawsuit.html
30% has been the industry standard rate for decades and unlike consoles or mobile, PC game developers have more choices than any other even down to self-selling. It’s such a nothing lawsuit.
This is one dev upset because their game they spent what felt like 50 years developing one of the first “big” Indie titles didn’t make them enough money.
While I won't comment as to the validity of the lawsuit (that is for the courts):
I don't know enough of the math behind the Steam CDNs and services to know if it is worth the cut. But, much like I am always going to whinge at DLC prices even as I acknowledge that it is "a good deal", I am also going to generally side with "devs deserve more money".
*: Take this with a grain of salt since it is a large claim and there are obviously no citations. But Steam did not invent digital distribution and companies like Strategy First (?) existed. And their cut for the massively inflated game prices (80 USD in the early 2000s...) was a LOT higher than 30%. Ironically, Valve used the same "you get more money if you sell with us" argument.
I read that! About it being the industry standard. The background on the developer is news to me.
I guess the question is, is 30% too much? Just because it's the standard doesn't mean it isn't too high. But I'm not knowledgeable in the financial side of the gaming industry nor do I know what valve's overhead is like so I truly don't know the answer.
Hl3 will come out if and when valve comes up with interesting new engine tech. The story of hl1 was the pitch the gravity gun and physics of source was the reason for hl2. If vr had seen mass adoption hl alyx would have been a Main line game or maybe include more post hl2 content.
Thanks! I'll give it a read.