@dzimm: but the store doesn’t set the price, it’s the developer that sets the price, negotiating with the store.
And saying that the developer had the option to leave is fine if this was a more competitive market but it’s not. it’s still an anti-competitive policy because Steam has a huge market share.
@dzimm: I think an example would help illustrate the problem here:
Let’s say there’s a game like The Medium, which is sold on both Steam and Epic, and it’s sold for the same price. Since it’s the same price, everyone is buying on Steam, and no one buys it on Epic. Now, to try to generate some sales and compete, Epic decides to cut a deal with the publisher and agrees to cut its commission by half if the price of the game is lowered by $10. Consumers benefit here because they now have an option to pay a lower price.
But the problem is that right now, Steam policy prevents this from happening. It would force the price to be the same on both platforms, so It makes having a deal like that pointless and prevents Epic from competing on price.
@dzimm: Of course it keeps prices higher, because it removes any incentive for Steam's competitors to reduce their prices. It basically eliminates price-based competition. From a consumer's point of view, this is bad.
I like Steam but it is a bit of a monopoly and I think forcing the publishers/devs to have the same price on all PC platforms is a bit anti-competitive.
Of course, Steam is by far the best platform. But if another store wants to lure customers with a lower price, they should be allowed to do that. I might buy a game from the Epic Games Store if it costs $10 less, for example... even though the Epic store is far inferior.
Of course you can say that other stores should improve their features. Yes, they should but when Steam has a massive head start, it's impossible to catch up in a reasonable timeframe and they need to be able to compete on price.
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