this post was submitted on 08 May 2026
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You sound like a real person, so let me say, there's no time to go into depth about the issue, but Valve is a billion dollar company, and you only become a billion dollar company by acting like a billion dollar company. And those actions have been as toxic and exploitative and amoral as any other.
It just so happens that Valve, exactly like early Amazon, puts the client first. They are really good to you, the 1st-world country buying gamer. They turn their exploitation towards the rest of the economy, and play by the rules.
Playing by the rules is as evil as the rules are, and boy, do we live in bad rules.
If you want, go looking around for their plentiful controversies, like their anti-competitive practices, and attempts to enforce prices in other stores. They just pull out the moment that Shit gets any attention, and walk back.
Do you have any examples? For reference, Steam does allow developers to list games on Steam and other platforms, and even to have lower prices on the other platforms. I haven't been able to find any true examples of anti-competitive practices by Steam.
I don't have a strong hate for Valve, but I'm fairly certain that they often DO have contracts that demand their store gets the lowest price available from at least some game developers. So if you offer a game for lower on Epic, you also have to drop your price to match it on Steam. There may be "sales" caveats in there, but I do think that's generally the rule in at least many cases.
In fact, I think they've been sued over that before. (Maybe they changed the policy after the lawsuit? I'm honestly not certain; sorry.) The argument went that if a developer could offer the game for $40 to everyone, then the storefronts could argue over their own markup, and maybe other storefronts would be willing to take less than Valve does. But as it is, Valve artificially keeps prices high on other storefronts with this approach to contracts.
If your experience is different I respect that, but I don't think that's universal.
Do you have something to show for it or not?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2g1md0l23o
Also
It was filed in 2024, and given approval to go to trial at the beginning of this year. It hasn't happened yet.
/Edit: The other person responding to this suggests that the "you can't charge lower elsewhere" clause exists when you use certain Steam features. (Selling Steam keys, using Steam's multiplayer backend.) And if that's the case that seems pretty reasonable to me. (I hear they're VERY kind about keys actually.) But I hope you'll understand that when articles I see why the case don't mention them, I don't know that's the case.
At the same time, I would almost understand outlets that don't cover digital goods like this may not understand this, or may not see the importance of them. So maybe they've dropped the ball here.
There is a paragraph in their store contract that specifically demands price matching with other stores, but only if you sell steam keys on other stores or use the valve infrastructure for multiplayer. How its enforced is another question, but the rule itself is fair.
Maybe big studios have different contracts, but I at least haven't heard anything contrary.
And you may well be completely on point. I don't recall hearing those specifics in articles I've read, but at the same time, some large outlets may not be familiar enough with the industry to recognize the importance of Steam keys to the argument.
Because I posted it elsewhere, in going to repost an example of the coverage of those lawsuits:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2g1md0l23o
Also
It was filed in 2024, and given approval to go to trial at the beginning of this year. It hasn't happened yet.
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