If it was an open platform, then Apple couldn't charge any more than Steam which is on an open platform, because nobody would pay that much unless forced to.
Wait, Steam charges more?
Never mind.
Wait, Steam charges more?
Never mind.
An indie creator I follow recently implored fans to buy their next game on Steam and not other platforms... because in order to be profitable they absolutely needed to get their game to be ranked on Steam above a certain review threshold, and reviews of the game would only count towards their ranking if matched with specifically a Steam purchase. And once again, I get this weird feeling. I'm struck that at the point where a creator is begging users to reinforce the most dominant PC gaming platform because if those users buy the game somewhere else that has better creator terms and fees, the platform will (in effect) punish their store listing, something might be going wrong with the market.
Sometimes Apple advocates will point at similarly bad situations in other markets and say, "what, are you going to regulate that too?"
Don't threaten me with a good time.
I do think Steam is engaged in anti-competitive behavior, but that doesn't mean they're the full equivalent of the app store. And we can see on the PC market the large number of indie games that very literally would not exist if PCs were locked into only using Steam.
My point here is more that Steam is not really a good argument for justifying a pricing model. But it's a good clarification that in many ways Steam has "only" mostly locked down the PC gaming market, where Apple has gone further and locked down the actual software that can be loaded onto the phone.
Perhaps they just think we both say Apple a lot.
I understand you as a creator prefer steam but I wouldn't obey that, sorry. Also, reinforcing their market position is not in my best interest as a consumer.
Steam effectively punishes creators for not steering users towards their monopoly, and they have a ton of tools for user lock-in: Steam Input, Steam Workshop, etc... They may not be as egregious as Apple, but they are often pretty egregious in their own right.
In a normal market, having a diverse set of users across multiple platforms would be a good thing as a creator, it would give you security and give each platform less power over you. Steam uses their review system to punish smaller creators who have a diverse userbase, and it uses their response to cement its market dominance even more and to give itself more power over those creators and their players. I would argue this is bad for the market.
My bigger point here is that Apple advocates will sometimes point to Steam and say "they charge high fees too, what's the problem?" There's are multiple reasons that Steam is able to charge higher fees than most of its PC competitors and remain the dominant platform for PC games, some of them due to the way that it methodically weaponizes incentives for both players and creators against alternatives. Comparing Apple to Steam does not make me like Apple more.
Even more surprising, Gog's DRM'd version multiplayer may require ... STEAM! ... to run.
This is galling.
(For the game that most annoyed me, Baldur's Gate 3, this may have changed once Larian introduced their own cloud sync. I haven't tried again, the first experience was that tedious.)
Main difference is steam is pretty clever about how they do this. They will pull out very fast if customers start to complain, maybe reworking it later on (paid mods -> steam workshop). Meanwhile, devs on the wrong end of the stick can get some of the worst customer service out there behind the curtain. The only way to get steam to respond is to be lucky enough to cause enough customer ire (e.g. Stein's Gate prequel not being approved for Steam. Despite having an ESRB rating... until customers complained).
That's how you get stuff like the Wolfire lawsuit but people chastising Wolfire instead of Valve.
Most other companies don't even pretend to care and just eat the PR hit. That cynicism will build up over the years, so there's much less sympathy for Apple.
Steam offers the far superior platform, in every possible aspect. Every thing you've said is them OFFERING (not FORCING) better solutions to things.
For example, in what universe do you think it's sane to think a store front should accept random reviews from random people? Having bought the game is the one of the best metrics to tell if a review is even approaching sincerity.
Not having random reviews in the steam reviews is a feature.
And in the context of Android or iOS, the PC gaming market is SUPER DUPER EXTRA diverse. I own games in like 5 different stores, but always prefer Steam or GOG where possible.
Offering better services and getting more user because of it is not malicious or anti-competitive or monopolistic. It's the best possible outcome (assuming you like capitalism).
The biggest example I'd like to call out here is that I recently moved from Nintendo Switch to Steam Deck. I was astonished by how much the Steam Deck is just a Linux computer. And I was fully able to install Heroic Launcher, which is compatible with GOG, and install all my GOG games on my Steam Deck and have them work just fine. This is light years away from where Apple is. If Apple had anything remotely like this, I would be a customer quite quickly. But it's the lack of freedom and choice that I find so objectionable.
Not what I'm suggesting. In fact, you're making my case beautifully.
I'm agreeing that the PC being "open" isn't what makes the difference.
People are barking up the wrong tree. Your argument is much as the one I made elsewhere in this thread for why there's Amazon when there's Alibaba, and Amazon can charge not percentages more, but many times the price, for same products.
Tangentially, "imploring" people reminds me: I encourage Mac and iPhone toting friends to try SetApp. It's like Apple Arcade but for utilities. It's not from Apple, and people are confused it works for iOS. Once they try it, they set it and forget it. I don't know if it's working for the app owners there, but the value/reward seems much more balanced than the world where every widget wants $119.88 to 239.88 a year (12 x $19.99).
Less tangentially, there are ways to exploit users and ways to add value. The second is harder.
> I'm agreeing that the PC being "open" isn't what makes the difference.
This is a good point, but I do think the "open" part is possibly a pre-condition to making a difference. But that's kind of squabbling over details, I completely agree that iOS being open to sideloading would not be enough to change the dynamics.
And we know this because... well, Android exists. Android is a really good example of how sideloading is great and something that I love, but also not sufficient on its own to curb anti-competitive behavior.
The issue with monopolies isn't just their existence, it's their active efforts to keep their monopoly and the negative effects this has on the customer.
Apples monopoly hurts customer, reduces freedom and extracts rent from developers that HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE.
Steams (supposed) monopoly comes entirely from offering the better product to users and developers. Did you know you can generate Steam keys of your game FOR FREE, and sell them away from Steam, giving Steam 0% cut and 99% of the distribution costs?
Compared to Apple, the vast amount of options on PC to acquire software or games means Steam isn't even close to a monopoly. At the very least, they don't have the power to do monopolistic practices and they also just don't abuse them.
Steam is genuinely the closest thing to a perfect company (at least if you like capitalism).
It's like pointing to the existence of people who willingly buy a BMW as a justification for forcing everyone to buy a BMW whether they want it or not.
You buy Adobe from Adobe, "Get" Adobe from Apple, and log in with an email.
Also, a minority of consumers by headcount choose Apple. A majority of wallet share is spent by those who do choose it. That's behind most of the sour grapes.
This is the sort of thing where Apple is playing politics, disallowing the same behavior for others while carving an exception for the ones with enough influence.
Ask yourself why Adobe can do this but not Patreon.
> Also, a minority of consumers by headcount choose Apple. A majority of wallet share is spent by those who do choose it. That's behind most of the sour grapes.
This argument makes no sense. People don't want to be paying 30% to Google Play either. Maybe this is why they complain about Apple more than Google, but the nature of the complaint is the same regardless of how the user base is distributed.
These conversations often seem to miss that Apple’s requirement is that consumer purchasing be presented as the singular option in-app, not that you have to pay Apple a cut for purchases outside the App.
Even Amazon Video supports in-app purchasing of a Prime account restricted to Prime Video access. They just know next to nobody is going to use it vs an actual Prime account.
products aren't markets. Steam is a market and many games only launch on Steam. That's a sign of a monopoly, be it deserved or not.
Still, I'd rather have some aspects investigated because monopolies are historally dangerous.
If people are willingly paying this because the promotion is worth it, that's not necessarily a monopoly. And you can tell if they're willingly paying it because they have the option to distribute to the same customers by other viable means, without paying the fee but also without getting the promotion. And then as we can see, some people pay and other people don't.
You could make the different argument that they have a monopoly on games promotion by itself. I don't know if you'd win that one or not, but regardless it's distinct from what Apple is doing.
>but the fee for the promotion
I don't think 'putting product on shelf' is 'promotion'. IF that's your only reason and begging the question leads to "becasuse we have 90% of the userbaase", that's a monopoly. Steam is lauded by their audience for only using their local history to recommend games (i.e. they have a realtively simple tagging system they rely on to serve games), so I wouldn't say this is anymore promotion that Google Search is promting "best game 2024" when I search "best game 2024" (in some utopia where the first 3 results were SEO slop).
>If people are willingly paying this because the promotion is worth it, that's not necessarily a monopoly.
I really hope people day understand the difference between "monopoly" and "monopolization", because this seems to always come up in this topic.
"Monopoly" is a very mechanical, neutral term, legally speaking.
>The term “monopoly” is often used to describe instances where there is a single seller of a good in a market...However, despite the general animosity towards monopolies, not all monopolies are illegal. Examples of permissible monopolies include... Monopolies created purely by one seller having a superior product, business acumen, or having good fortune (ex. online search engines, social media sites)
So yes, you can in fact say Steam is a monopoly (in an objective, legal sense), but also argue it not being illegal because "seller has a superiod prouct/business". Monopoly is not a scary word by itself.
In terms of its 90% marketshare and indusry warping effects, it'd be very hard to argue that Steam isn't a monopoly. It'd be easier to argue Google/Apple in mobile aren't monopolies; At least they have each other to shield from their duopoly. Steam has no contender in the US.
"Monopolization" is a scary word.
>In United States antitrust law, monopolization is illegal monopoly behavior. The main categories of prohibited behavior include exclusive dealing, price discrimination, refusing to supply an essential facility, product tying and predatory pricing.
One leads to the other, so I don't blame people for conflating one or another, but it's an important distinction if we're going to start trying to talk about what is/isn't a monopoly, or monopolizing behavior.
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So, does steam engage in monopolization? Yes, but in much more subtle ways than what Apple/Google are doing. They are very smart about it because they care a lot about consumer feedback, and consumer feedback drives a lot of discussion on social media. But that's a discussion for another inevitable day.
At least, that's the way I've seen people speak of monopolies exclusively.
Yes, and no? It's funny because steam works the opposite way. They charge 30% but reduce the cut if the publishers makes over $X million a year (I think it's 25, but I can be wrong). Apple charges 15% if you're under 1m/year or 30% otherwise.
but yes, Steam was another early adopter of digital commerce and is leveraging its (slightly illogical, IMO) network effects.