Steam Is Under Fire

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Valve isn't anti-competitive, it's competitors are just anti-consumer...

The only reason Steam can be considered a monopoly is because their competitors keep shooting themselves in the feet with anti consumer bullshit. Steam is the peoples monopoly, it wouldn't exist as it is unless most people agreed that it's the superior platform.

It's sad when having better consumer interactions compared to other storefronts results in being accused of being anti-competitive.

Viet guy here. Our local devs either pump out cash grabbing mobile games registered to Singapore or import trash P2W MMOs and expect people to whale for their profits. We stopped doing that since like 2010s.

Domestic games distribution in Vietnam is getting licenses from Chinese devs to distribute Chinese games. mostly gacha games. It sucks. As a Vietnamese, once u tried Steam u cant go back to these "blood sucking" games

Main reason GOG is still a thing is because they are legit competition to Steam. They offer a feature that valve doesn't and for some is VERY valuable. That is of course DRM free games. On the other hand EGS didn't bring anything new to the table other then pissing people off with exclusives.

Steam only looks like a monopoly because all their competitors keep slamming their cod piece in car doors and expecting us to clap.

As a Vietnamese, I LOL'ed real hard when I heard that statement. Most of the "local" game here are just rebranded Chinese crap, with horrible gameplay and gacha stuff. They can't even make a good game, and they dare to said that Steam is "anti-competitive" while Steam is providing a better experience. All gamer in Vietnam are absolutely pissed because of this. Another example is miHoYo games (Honkai Impact 3rd, Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail). They can't publish these game by themselves because of various reason (mostly tax and censorship imo), so they are distributing them via a Vietnamese distributor and all those games got rated 18+ while it's 12+ in Europe. That's just ridiculous. That's why a bunch of talented Vietnamese dev preferred going overseas or working for a foreign company. Making a company in Vietnam is hell.

My God, I HATE how much garbage people throw into "Strategy" tag

Also another thing with Poland and Steam, Polish prices are highest in Europe, but Poles earn 4 time less that Germany, and there is petition to Valve to adjust the prices because prices calculation were before covid and don't take inflation in consideration.

Steam may have a stranglehold on digital games, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t had earnest competition. They were just the least shit out of several publishers trying to corner the market with their AAA games. Breaking up Steam will almost certainly be worse for the industry.

"...restrictions on the sale of games and ancillary content on competing platforms..." Isn't that what Epic was doing when it brought those exclusive game titles?

An important note because people misinterpet what having a monopoly means: Steam is not a monopoly. Valve is not like facebook. They don't buy out competitors and force them to fail, Steam is just a good platform. No other company provides what Valve does. The only reason why Epic dragged customers over was by buying out games and making them exclusive instead of providing a good service. I bet the only reason 99% of people who have u-play or EA's thing is because their games "require" it, not because they're actually any good. Provide something better than Steam and competitiom will happen. But thats expensive and risky. It's easier to throw a tantrum and try to get them taken down by convincing people who don't know what they're talking about that they're anti-competetive than it is to just make a good and consimer friendly service.

The banning in Vietnam is almost pure corruption. Steam had for years an official partnership with VTC (a major local game publisher, the one you mentioned) and other Vietnamese payment methods (think Visa and mastercard like) in order for locals to purchase games. About 5 days before the ban, Steam did not want to renew the contracts with them thus they pushed the Govt to ban the platform (because they're all govt own/controlled entities). Another excuse from VN was taxes, Steam doesn't apply VAT (10% by law) which is a fair enough point itself BUT like I mentioned they had official partnerships with local banks and publishers etc. this means that they too were complicit in selling games without VAT...but it's fine if the local companies do it, but not the foreign one. No one here is chasing the fact that VTC et Al were selling games without the proper taxes.

In summary : 1) Being the only competent service ≠ Monopoly 2) China disturbing the water again 3) Poland earns least and pays most

Steam provides steam keys to competitors such as Humble Bundle, Greenman Gaming and even creators such as Cohhcarnage with his own game shop. They literally host the game of another company's sales to provide a fair market. They would have a stronger case against Apple, Nintendo and Sony. They all have had extremely shady consumer practices in the past. The U.S. government had to intervene with Sony to make them stop bullying indie developers and try to get them to give money despite not being sold on their platform.

Polish gamer here, would be nice to actually pay the same amount yall out there are paying. It absolutely isn't fun having to pay more than my friends from USA for example even though we get the same product.

You guys are missing some big context here in Vietnam. Short story is that Vietnamese government is trying to invest big money again into the newly sprouting game industry. A substantial number of universities and private college-level schools here are implementing game design / game developing trainings to kick off the scene. It was, and probably still, speculated that this "censorship" move is actually Vietnamese government trying to weed off competing platforms like Steam from the market. Personally I think it's more complex than that, and the notion above is generally debunked by some leaked news that a major publisher in Vietnam - VNG - is going to partner with Epic Games to establish their platform here. The narrative is still being played out. This is really something you guys should keep an eye on, and I would be very glad if you do.

A bit of background on PL situation. The main reason why Steam is being investigated here are the prices. Prices for PL are one of the highest on Steam (the conversion Valve is using for USD ---> PLN seams to be the issue here). There was a bit of public backlash about the price of Hades 2. I mean, it was roughly more expensive than everywhere else by around of 8 USD. In context of EU common market it's ridiculous. Though Super Giant Games (not Steam!) did a right thing and reimbursed that 8 USD difference to everyone who bought their game on Steam in PL.