this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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Debunking the grey market beyond Steam (www.gamesindustry.biz)
submitted 1 day ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to c/games@sh.itjust.works
130 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Despite facing increased competition in the space, not least from the Epic Games Store, Valve's platform is synonymous with PC gaming. The service is estimated to have made $10.8 billion in revenue during 2024, a new record for the Half-Life giant. Since it entered the PC distribution space back in 2018, the rival Epic Games Store has been making headway – and $1.09 billion last year – but Steam is still undeniably dominant within the space.

Valve earns a large part of its money from taking a 20-30% cut of sales revenue from developers and publishers. Despite other storefronts opening with lower overheads, Steam has stuck with taking this slice of sales revenue, and in doing so, it has been argued that Valve is unfairly taking a decent chunk of the profits of developers and publishers.

This might change, depending on how an ongoing class-action lawsuit initiated by Wolfire Games goes, but for the time being, Valve is making money hand over fist selling games on Steam. The platform boasts over 132 million users, so it's perfectly reasonable that developers and publishers feel they have to use Steam – and give away a slice of their revenue – in order to reach the largest audience possible.

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[–] stevedice@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Yes. That is exactly the issue. It's not only Steam Keys either as some of the cultists would have you believe. Valve does require you to offer Steam Keys on other stores at the same price that you offer the game on Steam but that's not all. Now, while they don't specifically forbid you to offer different prices on stores that have nothing to do with Steam, they do reserve the right (do whatever the hell you want with this one simple trick!) to veto pricing on Steam for any reason. This has been historically used by Valve to block games that offer better pricing on competing stores. It goes something like this:

  1. I make a game and decide I want to make $7 per sale so I publish it on my site at $7.
  2. I want the game to be accessible to a wider audience so I publish it on other stores.
  3. Epic takes 12% so I price it at $8 there in order to keep making $7 per sale
  4. Steam takes 30% so I price it at $10 there for the same reason.
  5. Valve says $10 isn't a fair price and refuses to elaborate why, reminding me that they reserve the right to veto any price on Steam for any reason.
  6. I make my game $10 on all other stores
  7. Valve magically decides $10 was actually a fair price all along and finally publishes the game on Steam.