[paulmd]

Steam isn’t voluntary on PC, since that’s where the users are.

And that’s the same dilemma as with any of the other gatekeepers like MS or Sony or Apple. Right now sure, you can choose not to play ball with any one of them… but if you want to have users you need to play ball with one of them, and they’re all offering the exact same deal.

People have a-priori determined that “only steam is ok” and that itself is anticompetitive and market-distorting. It’s already a monopsony at that point. It’s the Walmart situation where even if there’s notionally a market with millions of end-users… they’re all fronted by a single merchant with monopsony or oligopsony pricing power. Aka what the EU calls a “gatekeeper”. Market fairness isn’t just fairness to consumers after all, or epic wouldn’t be in court.

And from a gamedev perspective it’s the exact same as apple: if you want to access the pc market you don’t have a choice, steam is the pc market and retains a functional ~100% control of this market (in a gatekeeping sense) such that valve should be subject to DMA-style rules and restrictions. Again just like apple, you can go elsewhere, but if you want these users then valve retains a chokehold on your revenue and you don’t really have a choice.

You can decide for yourself whether that’s a reasonable perspective and consideration but that’s the one that’s been applied to apple and their own App Store. Doesn’t matter if people can sideload (altstore/altserver exists) or use a different device, they worked themselves into a gatekeeper position and should be treated as such.

People don’t like that comparison, steam is a mostly benevolent gatekeeper, at least to users… but other people are happy with apple too, and from the gamedev side the deal is equally coercive. If market access is a thing we protect then steam is a absolutely a gatekeee in the apple sense.

This is the tension with apple too: apple being a gatekeeper is largely good for me as a user (or else I’d change away, which I am very free to do). When they slap, it's generally in my interest for them to have slapped whoever was stepping over the line - like when they slapped Facebook for bribing customers to install spyware. It is, however, bad for studios and corporate entities.

Steam is just a more pronounced version of this dichotomy - they are generally a very benevolent gatekeeper, but they control ~100% of the PC market revenue, so if you are a developer who wants to release on PC, you have very little market choice. Some small indie titles do it, but you're leaving money on the table and certainly no major studio wants to do it. Hence all the third-party stores - and that proliferation is what consumers don't like. The thing is, people actually like steam gatekeeping... and others actually like apple gatekeeping.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

This sounds more like "steam does amazing marketing, I'm not willing to do it myself, but I don't want to pay 30%".

You are totally allowed to release a website and allow purchase and download of your game through that only. People can still add the game to steam (but no cloud saves!).

You cannot do that on iOS, Sony, Microsoft (xbox) and Nintendo, you are required to pay them to reach those customers.

Now, yes as a customer I prefer if your game is on steam because it gives me some guarantees: no virus, often cloud saves integration, reviews to understand the type and quality of game before purchase. These are things you don't get even if the game was added to steam with "add a non steam game".

[sickofparadox]

"Steam should be punished for delivering far and away the best user experience to the point that users actively eschew other platforms that have unique offerings simply because they are not Steam," sounds to me as a consumer like an argument for doing everything possible to maintain the status quo.

[orwin]

Steam never prevent purchase independent from steam and in fact welcome it. I use paradox store but mostly launch their games from steam for convenience. Adding a new extension/game I haven't bought on steam, on steam is easy. Same for subscription services. If Apple did the same thing I wouldn't care about the app store.

[paulmd]

It’s entered the public consciousness that these keys exist but they aren’t nearly as unlimited as you think.

> Default Release (or standard release): This is the most common type of key on Steam, which is usually tied to a Steam store or retail Steam Key package. These keys are appropriate for retail boxes or sales on other digital stores. Customers can activate this type of Steam Key at any time, but the product will unlock only after it has been released on Steam. Games and applications launching on Steam may receive up to 5,000 Default Release Steam Keys to support retail activities and distribution on other stores. After that, all Steam Key requests are reviewed on a case-by-case basis. There is no guarantee that you will be provided additional keys.

Steam is not there to be a free CDN for you; it’s one thing if it’s 5-10% of your sales or for charity like humble bundle, it is NOT unlimited and valve will refuse if you are abusing it.

Moreover this also has to be viewed in the context of valve’s forced “most favored nation” clause - if you undercut steam on the site they will reduce the price on steam accordingly, and if you still are abusing the key system they will stop granting you keys.

Again: steam’s business model wouldn’t work if they were being a cdn for people who don’t even pay for them. That’s not at all how it works, you are misinformed if that’s what you’re suggesting/implying. Sure, they allow some offsite sales… which must be at the same price as on steam, and they can “adjust” your revenue accordingly if you do the thing you are implying.