In the second instance, Warner Bros. found itself in a similar situation. In 2017, as the publisher was preparing to launch Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the company was allegedly informed by Valve that pre-orders for the game had been removed from Steam.
Valve’s reasoning was that the price was “significantly higher than what was available at other retailers for the same version of the game.” David Haddad, president of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, allegedly tried to resolve the situation directly with Valve so as not to face its ire.
I am honestly struggling to see the issue with this one. Seems to me that Valve wanted the pre-order price to be lowered on their on platform to reflect how it was elsewhere. To me that looks pro-consumer, but perhaps I’m looking at it from the wrong angle? But both examples given just seem (to me) to be them trying to get the same price or product for their platform’s consumers as other platforms and not them driving up the price on other platforms. If someone has a better angle with which to view this, please share it.
This is clearly an abuse of dominant position. If other platforms are willing to take 20% or 10%, but they still have to offer the same price that steam, they can’t compete on the lower price front, rising prices for consumers.
What’s the outcome of platforms competing on price? You get a bunch of stores with unsustainable business models and can say goodbye to your games library after a couple of years.
Price matching is fairly industry standard. And if another storefront takes less of a cut then you’d still make more on the other storefront than steam.
So is it really the price they are trying to sell or the bulkanization of the industry so everyone has 10 different storefronts with 20 different launchers on their machines in order to skip the 3rd party consumer data? Well well that might be the crux of the entire thing right there now that I think of it.
I am honestly struggling to see the issue with this one. Seems to me that Valve wanted the pre-order price to be lowered on their on platform to reflect how it was elsewhere. To me that looks pro-consumer, but perhaps I’m looking at it from the wrong angle? But both examples given just seem (to me) to be them trying to get the same price or product for their platform’s consumers as other platforms and not them driving up the price on other platforms. If someone has a better angle with which to view this, please share it.
This is clearly an abuse of dominant position. If other platforms are willing to take 20% or 10%, but they still have to offer the same price that steam, they can’t compete on the lower price front, rising prices for consumers.
What’s the outcome of platforms competing on price? You get a bunch of stores with unsustainable business models and can say goodbye to your games library after a couple of years.
Better prices for consumers? Press Steam to lower their commission rate?
How do you know if the 30% is the bare minimum? Epic might not be doing well, but that’s from incredibly crappy management.
Price matching is fairly industry standard. And if another storefront takes less of a cut then you’d still make more on the other storefront than steam.
So is it really the price they are trying to sell or the bulkanization of the industry so everyone has 10 different storefronts with 20 different launchers on their machines in order to skip the 3rd party consumer data? Well well that might be the crux of the entire thing right there now that I think of it.