• mabeledo@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    Calling Amazon just a “seller” is an understatement. It’s like saying that the Google Play store is just an hosting platform. Amazon provides ad and marketing services, hosting, support, and more importantly, logistics.

    Games sold outside of Steam have no access to Steam features, in the same sense that products sold outside of Amazon aren’t promoted and delivered by Amazon.

    • Luffy@lemmy.ml
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      10 hours ago

      Amazon provides ad and marketing services, hosting, support, and more importantly, logistics.

      Yes, but if its not sold on Amazon, they don’t do these logistics.

      Games sold outside of Steam have no access to Steam features

      And steam allows that too. Their only problem is with distributing the steam keys yourself for less.

      The act of reading is something only the fewest people can do, apparently

      • mabeledo@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        Yes, but if its not sold on Amazon, they don’t do these logistics.

        Right, exactly like Steam.

        Their only problem is with distributing the steam keys yourself for less.

        The act of reading is something only the fewest people can do, apparently

        Perhaps you should read the Bloomberg article first: https://archive.ph/YvHxF

        • Luffy@lemmy.ml
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          9 hours ago

          OK, I know English is hard, but you should at least know what alleged means.

          This article describes allegedly that that is happening. The same way I can say that alledegly my guinea pig has just started to talk to me in perfect English. It means literally nothing until either lawsuit no. 4 suddenly finds this to be true (yes, there have been at least 2 before, all of them dismissed afaik) or out of nothing you find some clause saying this is true

          Either that or Mii Mii lends you their hard drive.

          • mabeledo@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            Your asserted that

            Their only problem is with distributing the steam keys yourself for less.

            Which is not true.

            From the Bloomberg article:

            Emails indicate Valve employees once threatened to delist all editions of Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege “by end of day tomorrow” after they learned the publisher was marketing a separate $15 “starter pack” exclusively on its in-house Uplay store. In 2017, Kassidy Gerber, who works in business development at Valve, wrote to Warner Bros. executives that preorders for its new Middle-earth: Shadow of War game had been deleted from Steam because the price was “significantly higher than what was available at other retailers for the same version of the game.”

            From the lawsuit itself, point 16:

            Valve also requires game publishers to agree to give Valve veto power over their pricing in the Steam Store and across the market generally (the “Price Veto Provision”). Valve selectively enforces this provision to review pricing by game publishers on PC Desktop Games that have nothing to do with the Steam Gaming Platform at all. Through this conduct, prices set in the Steam Store serve as a benchmark that leads to inflated prices for virtually all PC Desktop Games.

            English is hard, amirite?

            This article describes allegedly that that is happening.

            Of course these are “claims”. That point is made in the Eurogamer article, and the Bloomberg one, and the lawsuit. If your point is that whatever journalists write should be summarily dismissed unless there’s a final and binding judgement from a court of law, I don’t know what to tell you other than that is not how journalism works.

    • ITGuyLevi@programming.dev
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      14 hours ago

      Have you ever bought a game via a Steam key? Those use Steam’s infrastructure for distribution while not providing them (Steam) any income.

      As someone that has entered so many Steam keys over the years (over 1,000) yet only bought maybe 20 games from Steam I almost feel bad, but the dev was following the rules and Steam is okay with it (as long as they aren’t selling those keys for less than they can be purchased on Steam for).

      • mabeledo@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        Steam keys are a drop in the bucket.

        Regardless, this case isn’t about keys either, but Valve pressuring publishers to set prices of games sold outside of the Steam ecosystem entirely.