this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2026
466 points (96.4% liked)

Games

45442 readers
1261 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform

By type

By games

Language specific

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Seems like buying games to remove them from your competitor is a scummier thing to do.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] kinsnik@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I am definitely not on epic side here, but the reason they had to pay for exclusivity for games is because valve doesn't allow any games on steam to be sold cheaper elsewhere. Which developers follow because steam brings in a lot of revenue.

Without that, epic could try to compete with steam (and its extra features) by offering lower prices, and letting the consumer make the choice of features vs price.

But valve policies effectively make it impossible for any new marketplace to compete.

[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's false. They do not allow steam keys (free to generate steam licenses of games) to be sold cheaper anywhere else for less than the game is sold for on steam. And in exchange, the profits on those game licenses sold elsewhere the developer gets to keep 100% of.

It is alleged by one developer that steam told them they can't sell their game for less on other stores even if they use a different company to generate the license keys. But that hasn't been proven. And since only 2 other developers are backing the new class action lawsuit out of literally thousands of devs who would be effected this way if it were true, it logically doesn't make sense. The dev who brought the first lawsuit that go thrown out? Their game is still up on Steam.

The fact is, Epic is making half the revenue Steam is with 11 times less market share, and not gaining market share because customers don't want to use their store. Customers don't want free games they want services that work.

You're alleging that Valve is doing something anti-competitive to maintain their market share here and you still haven't given me what I asked for.

What regulations are you expecting to be imposed, and how will that detrimentally or positively effect the consumers?

[–] Lfrith@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

They do not allow steam keys (free to generate steam licenses of games) to be sold cheaper anywhere else for less than the game is sold for on steam.

That itself is false too with a quick look at isthereanydeals showing lot of steam games being sold cheaper outside of the steam store.

Even the Steam key guidelines don't explicitly state that steam keys can't be sold cheaper.

It's OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time.

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys

Key word being comparable which is why if you are a user of isthereanydeals or /r/gamedeals you've likely gotten most of your steam games from outside the official Steam store.

I think some people just assume Steam sales must be the cheapest and don't look beyond it.

[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago

By sold cheaper I meant MSRP price, not sale price.