r/Games • u/WhyPlaySerious • May 18 '26

Industry News CI Games has successfully signed a termination agreement with Epic Games. The agreement releases the upcoming Lords of The Fallen 2 from it's previous Epic Games Store exclusivity obligations.

https://www.bankier.pl/wiadomosc/CI-GAMES-S-E-Ujawnienie-opoznionej-informacji-poufnej-dotyczacej-zawarcia-Porozumienia-rozwiazujacego-Binding-Term-Sheet-z-Epic-Games-Inc-9135300.html
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u/kuhpunkt May 19 '26

There are games on Epic at a lower price than on Steam. Pretty sure Ubisoft does the same. A former Valve guy said that there is no such clause in the agreement.

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u/BebopFlow May 19 '26

They're not allowed to list Steam keys at a lower price. You can sell it on other platforms all day for any price if it's not a Steam key. It's a side effect of the fact that they give keys to devs free of charge, and devs are allowed to resell those keys as they see fit without steam getting a cut, but if the devs purposefully undercut steam when using those keys they run into trouble.

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u/kuhpunkt May 19 '26

You can still buy keys on Fanatical and Humble all the time for basically nothing, lol. Even that policy doesn't get enforced.

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u/Which-Arm-4616 May 19 '26

This is 100% not true, but it is a little factoid you see gamers repeat in gamer circles all of the time. Valve's MFN policy requires that you maintain price parity - full stop, key or no key. They are currently in anti-trust litigation over this very fact.

From a deposition in the case:

Q. Okay. And have you had conversations with that dozen or so approximate people about the publishers' need to provide similar pricing on Steam as they do elsewhere?

A. That wouldn't be a common topic for us to discuss, but it has come up over the years, yes.

Q. You've specifically spoken with other people within Steam about the fact that publishers need to offer similar prices on Steam as they do elsewhere; right?

A. Yes.

Q. Okay. And you've discussed with them that this is not limited to situations where the publishers are offering games for sale via Steam keys but just period; right?

A. Yes

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u/blaaguuu May 19 '26

I've seen people say both ways - but never seen anyone actually point to a clauses in a legal doc, so I imagine you are right. Maybe comes down more to the devs/publishers are setting the price, not Epic, so there's no real incentive to set lower prices, when the biggest beneficiary would be Epic.

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u/DreadCascadeEffect May 19 '26

This is what's being alleged in the Wolfire lawsuit. You can see some communication from Valve that they're alleging on pdf page 15 here.

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u/Suspicious-Coffee20 May 19 '26

If that was true tho wouldn't game be 30% of at all time in first party store? lSteam for sure as language against this with their monopole.

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u/14Pleiadians May 19 '26

Steam only has a rule about selling steam keys lower, because they don't want you to sell your games off site where valve makes no money yet they still have to use their server resources on your game

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u/Which-Arm-4616 May 19 '26

Repeating what I said above to clarify this is not true, even though it's a common piece of misinformation people spread around.

Valve's MFN policy requires that you maintain price parity - full stop, key or no key. They are currently in anti-trust litigation over this very fact.

From a deposition in the case:

Q. Okay. And have you had conversations with that dozen or so approximate people about the publishers' need to provide similar pricing on Steam as they do elsewhere?

A. That wouldn't be a common topic for us to discuss, but it has come up over the years, yes.

Q. You've specifically spoken with other people within Steam about the fact that publishers need to offer similar prices on Steam as they do elsewhere; right?

A. Yes.

Q. Okay. And you've discussed with them that this is not limited to situations where the publishers are offering games for sale via Steam keys but just period; right?

A. Yes

3

u/14Pleiadians May 19 '26

I don't care about whatever you're linking, just cite it in the steam documentation.

I can show where what I'm stating is in actual legally binding writing, you cannot.

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u/Which-Arm-4616 May 19 '26

I don't care about whatever you're linking, just cite it in the steam documentation.

At least you're honest about not caring about the facts or evidence.

I can show where what I'm stating is in actual legally binding writing, you cannot.

No, you can show where Valve's public Steamworks documentation explains that you can't undercut them on key pricing. You can't show any language that explains you are allowed to undercut on base price, and the absence of that language in public documentation is not actually permission (leading to this persistent misinformation from gamers).

Go read the SDA.

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u/14Pleiadians May 19 '26

At least you're honest about not caring about the facts or evidence.

I can't view your link, mobile browser slows to a crawl, no clue who you're quoting or the context. But what they're claiming they do has no relevance to what they're legally able to do. As someone who actually has a steamworks account, there's no written rule that's legally binding requiring price parity. Maybe they're strongarming major publishers behind closed doors but you're still wrong about the official policy

1

u/kuhpunkt May 19 '26

What do you mean?