Valve is being sued in the UK for $843 million for 'overcharging 14 million PC gamers”
- Thread starter JonRGV250
- Start date
Soldato
Try reading the story....
Soldato
Their sale prices are certainly nowhere near as competitive* as they used to be.
5-6 years ago you could pick up most 10 year old AAA games for less than £5 if you waited for a sale, these days you're lucky if they drop lower than 50% a lot of the time.
Not sure if this is really "overcharging" as such though, or more just me being a tight****
If you really want to talk about overcharging, just take a look at what EA and Ubisoft are asking for their latest games!
I guess ultimately, games are a "luxury" item, not an essential - nobody "needs" to buy games, so they should be free to charge what they want and allow the market to dictate the "appropriate" price; too high and people will just go without (or more likely pirate).
* not sure if the word "competitive" is the right one to use when there isn't really any competition!
5-6 years ago you could pick up most 10 year old AAA games for less than £5 if you waited for a sale, these days you're lucky if they drop lower than 50% a lot of the time.
Not sure if this is really "overcharging" as such though, or more just me being a tight****
If you really want to talk about overcharging, just take a look at what EA and Ubisoft are asking for their latest games!
I guess ultimately, games are a "luxury" item, not an essential - nobody "needs" to buy games, so they should be free to charge what they want and allow the market to dictate the "appropriate" price; too high and people will just go without (or more likely pirate).
* not sure if the word "competitive" is the right one to use when there isn't really any competition!
Soldato
I still dont understand how they justify 30%. It's obviously stood the test (Epic vs Apple) but still not sure it adds up for me!
Associate
I think that's the point - those keys from other sites are from outside the UK we are getting done.
Soldato
This will open a can of worms as nearly all the big services rip off English speaking countries.
Soldato
All I know is... game prices are basically staying at MSRP now, and they don't slowly reduce like they used to. This seems extremely intentional. Horizon Zero Dawn was released on PC in 2021. The price? 49 dollars. lol. Wild.
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I've noticed this as well. Most Steam sales from even 5 or 6 years ago there was games with 60-90% off that you'd add to your library and never play. These days Steam sales are filled with 50% or less off, sometimes even as low as 15 or 20% only and that can be for stuff that's years old too. Please don't get me started on older stuff as well, especially the likes of older CoD installments still sitting at £40 or £50 too! Both Infinite and Advanced Warfare base games are still £40!
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Soldato
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Commissario
As I understand it that's not really Steam, as it's the developers/publishers who set the pricing.
What I think is very noticeable is that games are still available now 5+ years after release, I remember having to hunt round for copies of games that were just 2-3 years old going back, looking for the original version, then the GOTY and budget versions, these days once a game is released it tends to remain easily available to buy for much longer.
Soldato
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The reddit view is that this will fail as it did in the US, with the ones bringing it to court having a reputation for little to argue about.
Steam is fine, the layout is a bit pants, and i prefer disc, but overall it's a solid platform that offers huge amounts. The big games that ask for top money are just reacting to consumer behaviour. There's more affordable content on there than ever seen on any media platform.
Steam is fine, the layout is a bit pants, and i prefer disc, but overall it's a solid platform that offers huge amounts. The big games that ask for top money are just reacting to consumer behaviour. There's more affordable content on there than ever seen on any media platform.
1) how do you even argue that price matching is illegal? I go into a supermarket and they're bragging about how much price matching they're up to.
2) again, how do you argue this, if the game is purchased and run through steam, how could steam be responsible for non-steam purchased content working with it?
3) who's the third party that dictates what profit a private company can make?
Good luck wrestling in that mud.
and this is why i haven't bought a game in ages.
Point 1 I’d fine on Steam itself, it’s Valve’s Marketplace. The issue is they don’t allow different pricing anywhere else so if CD Project Red wanted to discount CP2077 on GMG or another site or platform they’d have to do so on Steam too.
I paid around £10 for HZD from CDKeys.com. Worked first time.
Associate
Not bought a cod since BO3 and who buys a game from Ea/Ubi for £80!? 
an ever increasing MSRP
from 50 to 70 seems to have became normal in the blink of an eye .
These companies outsource loads of artwork etc to china where its cheap... they use AI and other tools to streamline everything and need less employees.
then the games are the most generic crap....
AAA doesn't exist anymore, AA barely exists
It's not really steam that destroyed gaming, it's all the big publishers gobbling up all the little studios and then destroying them until the only competition left is from indie devs.
now the bar is really low and they don't really try anymore.
In another universe valve spent the last 20 years buying and saving all the indie devs and having them as subsidiaries, blasting out triple AAA games on a monthly basis.
we got the lazy valve that might as well be an accounting firm or pension fund.
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Not to. mention PC Games have become the same price as Console games with their 20-30% licensing fees. That's the greed.
People refusing to buy from other stores or launchers haven't helped. Loads of stories here and across the Internet along the lines of 'NOT on Steam, won't buy' or 'oh great yet another launcher, just put it on Steam!' which has lead to a monopolistic position.