I feel like Steam could remove their most favored nation clause (which is what this lawsuit is about) for any storefront that isn’t selling Steam keys specifically, and the amount of sales they’d lose would be effectively a rounding error. I don’t care if a game is 10% cheaper on EGS or itch.io or wherever else; I’m still buying it on Steam because I want to use the services Steam provides. The sole exception is GoG - but even with GoG, I still find it much less reliable than Steam for just being able to get the game working without problems (on linux specifically).
If the product being sold is a Steam key, I don’t think there’s any argument that could stand up against the MFN clause… the fact that Steam allows developers to generate Steam keys for their games for free and sell them elsewhere is pretty generous as it is now.
Has there been any evidence provided yet that they have a most favoured nation clause for anything but Steam Keys yet? Last I tried to look into it, they had evidence (or claimed there was?) of a most favoured nation clause for Steam Keys, and an individual instance of a dev being asked to not give their game away for free but nothing for non-Steam keys. I know for the longest time, the common knowledge was that Steam allowed it for anything but Steam keys (IE dwarf fortress being free off Steam or GOG offering better deals for their own games). That said, its been a little while, so I don’t remeber details of the case.
I haven’t seen the agreement itself, but I’ve never seen anything to lead me to believe it didn’t apply to non-steam key sales. EGS doesn’t sell Steam keys but games still can’t be listed for cheaper on EGS than Steam without violating Steam’s terms, for example.
I really don’t think there’s any way to reasonably argue that Steam should have to give out Steam keys for cheaper sale elsewhere. They’re paying for the servers, they’re paying for the Steam features, they’re paying for the advertising; it stands to reason that people shouldn’t be able to take advantage of that. Even if it was ruled this way, all Steam would have to do is discontinue the free Steam key distribution and instead charge 30% of the game’s price to generate keys, then remove the MFN clause. They’d still get their cut.
EGS doesn’t sell Steam keys but games still can’t be listed for cheaper on EGS than Steam without violating Steam’s terms, for example.
But are devs allowed to sell for cheaper on Epic? I haven’t see any evidence that they aren’t. On the othet hand, I can point to multiple examples where games are cheaper, on other services like the examples I gave, which seems to disprove this.
Thats why I was asking for evidence. Because so far, there is quite a bit of evidence that devs are allowed to chose their prices on other distribution channels, and to my knowledge, no real evidence made available that it is written in contract otherwise.
My understanding (again only based on articles from the past 2+ years that this lawsuit has been in the works) is that it isn’t codified in their agreements at all, but that they can / have either removed games from the store, or removed them from promotion (meaning you could find the game if you searched for it, but it would never show up on the storefront, for instance) in response to games being listed elsewhere cheaper. That’s kind of part of the basis for this lawsuit, by my understanding - I’ve read that they’re using those examples as evidence against Steam that they’re acting anti-competitively.
Ill double check the available documents, and edit this comment, but at least when I last checked like six months ago, they only had one example, and it was Steam warning a developer for giving away free copies (if I remember right, Steam keys) on their Discord. I never saw any other solid evidence.
I never saw any other solid evidence.
It’s all hearsay; anyone with a search engine can find articles making claims but what’s accurate or not is anyone’s guess. It’s all we’ve got to go on until the trial, most likely.
Okay, to reverse the question then - have you ever seen anything that supports there being something contractual to say thar non–Steam copies can’t be sold at lower prices? Like, the terms you mention above? I’ve read the public docs, and can find nothing.
I can think of multiple times when, e.g. Ubisoft games, Rockstar games, have been sold on EGS or their own launcher for far cheaper than the version on Steam - so we’re both supported by anecdata, here.
There’s been a lot of articles and discussion about it since this lawsuit first showed up, and the general gist that I’ve seen is that:
- It’s not codified in their agreements, but
- They can / have in the past either removed products from the Steam store entirely or removed them from curated marketing and promotion in response to the game being listed elsewhere at a lower price.
They seem to handle it on a case by case basis, but in those cases it’s definitely not been restricted only to the sale of Steam keys. They just don’t have any firm legalese to refer to here that I’m aware of.
