"Valve apparently contractually forbids games to be sold at a lower price outside Steam." This quote is based on one email from a valve employee circa 2017.
Furthermore, is it not Valves right to say if you wish to offer the same product at a lower price, we reserve the right not to sell your product anymore. Keep in mind in most cases when a game is not freely purchased through steam anymore you can still download the game from the CDN, you can also still use all of the online features for the game. You just cannot purchase a new copy
I really don't understand why price parity requirement is a bad thing. If you want to take a bigger slice of the pie you can eat up the infrastructure costs yourself or take your business elsewhere, EOS, Xbox, PlayStation store ect
"There are only a few hundred people working at Valve, with 79 working on Steam, but they are making 6.5 billion USD yearly. That's extreme. One of the highest revenues per employee ratios in the world. They are spending almost nothing. The 30% are almost pure profit."
You are absolutely right. that is far too much money and to which I simply ask the question why no other serious competition? Companies have poured millions into this and always miss the first stop gap of consumer rights first meaning any attempt they have to eat away at the market share fails so hard its actually embarrassing. Anyone arguing against the current system is just arguing against capitalism.
Out of all the companies in the gamer space hardware/software Valve are the only one who actually care for their customers and have regularly extended rights that go well beyond the legal minimum requirement, this is just a fraction of a reason why they have been and will continue to be first class in the gaming space
Furthermore, is it not Valves right to say if you wish to offer the same product at a lower price, we reserve the right not to sell your product anymore. Keep in mind in most cases when a game is not freely purchased through steam anymore you can still download the game from the CDN, you can also still use all of the online features for the game. You just cannot purchase a new copy
I really don't understand why price parity requirement is a bad thing. If you want to take a bigger slice of the pie you can eat up the infrastructure costs yourself or take your business elsewhere, EOS, Xbox, PlayStation store ect
"There are only a few hundred people working at Valve, with 79 working on Steam, but they are making 6.5 billion USD yearly. That's extreme. One of the highest revenues per employee ratios in the world. They are spending almost nothing. The 30% are almost pure profit."
You are absolutely right. that is far too much money and to which I simply ask the question why no other serious competition? Companies have poured millions into this and always miss the first stop gap of consumer rights first meaning any attempt they have to eat away at the market share fails so hard its actually embarrassing. Anyone arguing against the current system is just arguing against capitalism.
Out of all the companies in the gamer space hardware/software Valve are the only one who actually care for their customers and have regularly extended rights that go well beyond the legal minimum requirement, this is just a fraction of a reason why they have been and will continue to be first class in the gaming space