Based on your take, I agree with you. If valve is providing services, then developers should not be selling steam keys for cheaper elsewhere. It dilutes trust in their business model too if people start assuming that they can get the same services, provided by valve, for cheaper elsewhere.
However, is that what this article is talking about? The games mentioned, specifically R6 Siege and SoM, both appear to run stand alone without steam integration. I’m not intimately familiar with either one, just what I can gather based off the article and a pair of quick online searches.
The article is alleging. We don’t yet have proof of the veracity of the documentation that has been collected. When the trial finishes and the court has determined whether or not those documents and other information gathered during the course of the case have been proven to be true, then and only then do we have something that says that Valve actually did this.
I don’t trust WB and I don’t trust Ubisoft. I’m not sure I trust Valve either but I can say that my distrust for them isn’t as extreme as my distrust for the other two companies.
If Valve did this, throw the book at them. But at the same time, I want to see difinitve proof.
Both games have steam integration, as all games do on steam. They can be run without it, like most games, but that doesn’t change the fact these developers want steam’s audience and integration (since users want steam integration) and thus they voluntarily agreed to this stipulation.
Ubisoft has their own store, if R6S is so good, it should be able to drive traffic and users to that store and they could just set their own price without worrying about what steam is doing. Fortnite proves you don’t need steam integration to make a good game that people want to play. So does minecraft.
So steam isn’t a monopoly, as proven by those two examples, Ubisoft just wants more money without the restriction that comes with that money.
Does R6S use steam integrations if bought through Uplay? Based on what I can find, the answer is no, and therefore valve shouldn’t be setting the price because, at that level, they have no involvement with the product.
It’s the same product. Ubisoft, at any point, can just stop selling on steam and redirect users to their own store and then have full pricing control. Epic did this with Rocket League. This is fully an option a multi-billion dollar company owned by a billionaire can do at any point. Being on steam is voluntary for all parties, because there are alternate streams.
If you want to sell your product in walmart, you will be signing a similar non-compete agreement. If you want to sell your product at any competent store, you will be signing a non-compete agreement.
Because there is no reason for a store to LET you use their platform otherwise. Your product isn’t that good. There’s 3k games released per month. You aren’t that important individually, or even as a developer. If you want to go the easy route, then like literally ALL PRODUCTS SOLD, you will need to sign an agreement like this.
This is the part that is holding me up. Is it actually the same product? The version on Steam comes with server hosting, achievements, voice chat, etc. If I purchased the game through Uplay, would I still have access to those services on Steam? For example, many years ago, I bought “Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale” at Walmart, but it basically just came with an asset disc and a code to register the game on Steam. So buying it at Walmart gave me access to the same features as if I’d bought it directly from Steam. Does Uplay do the same thing?
Based on your take, I agree with you. If valve is providing services, then developers should not be selling steam keys for cheaper elsewhere. It dilutes trust in their business model too if people start assuming that they can get the same services, provided by valve, for cheaper elsewhere.
However, is that what this article is talking about? The games mentioned, specifically R6 Siege and SoM, both appear to run stand alone without steam integration. I’m not intimately familiar with either one, just what I can gather based off the article and a pair of quick online searches.
The article is alleging. We don’t yet have proof of the veracity of the documentation that has been collected. When the trial finishes and the court has determined whether or not those documents and other information gathered during the course of the case have been proven to be true, then and only then do we have something that says that Valve actually did this.
I don’t trust WB and I don’t trust Ubisoft. I’m not sure I trust Valve either but I can say that my distrust for them isn’t as extreme as my distrust for the other two companies.
If Valve did this, throw the book at them. But at the same time, I want to see difinitve proof.
Both games have steam integration, as all games do on steam. They can be run without it, like most games, but that doesn’t change the fact these developers want steam’s audience and integration (since users want steam integration) and thus they voluntarily agreed to this stipulation.
Ubisoft has their own store, if R6S is so good, it should be able to drive traffic and users to that store and they could just set their own price without worrying about what steam is doing. Fortnite proves you don’t need steam integration to make a good game that people want to play. So does minecraft.
So steam isn’t a monopoly, as proven by those two examples, Ubisoft just wants more money without the restriction that comes with that money.
Does R6S use steam integrations if bought through Uplay? Based on what I can find, the answer is no, and therefore valve shouldn’t be setting the price because, at that level, they have no involvement with the product.
It’s the same product. Ubisoft, at any point, can just stop selling on steam and redirect users to their own store and then have full pricing control. Epic did this with Rocket League. This is fully an option a multi-billion dollar company owned by a billionaire can do at any point. Being on steam is voluntary for all parties, because there are alternate streams.
If you want to sell your product in walmart, you will be signing a similar non-compete agreement. If you want to sell your product at any competent store, you will be signing a non-compete agreement.
Because there is no reason for a store to LET you use their platform otherwise. Your product isn’t that good. There’s 3k games released per month. You aren’t that important individually, or even as a developer. If you want to go the easy route, then like literally ALL PRODUCTS SOLD, you will need to sign an agreement like this.
This is the part that is holding me up. Is it actually the same product? The version on Steam comes with server hosting, achievements, voice chat, etc. If I purchased the game through Uplay, would I still have access to those services on Steam? For example, many years ago, I bought “Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale” at Walmart, but it basically just came with an asset disc and a code to register the game on Steam. So buying it at Walmart gave me access to the same features as if I’d bought it directly from Steam. Does Uplay do the same thing?