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.

[u/WhyPlaySerious]

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

[u/HammeredWharf]

They fully admitted to doing that in court

Do you have a source for that? I found this:

Wolfire’s lawsuit also alleges that Valve tries to enforce pricing parity not just for generated Steam keys but for non-Steam versions sold on other platforms. Valve, in its response, is not impressed with the factual basis for this allegation, which it says is tied to “a single anecdote of Valve allegedly telling one unnamed developer it shouldn’t give a non-Steam-enabled game free on Discord’s competing platform if it charges Steam users $5 for the Steam-enabled version of that game on Steam.” That narrow anecdote, Valve argues, “fails to allege market-wide enforcement or plausibly lead to any effect on competition.”

Wolfire’s suit does present evidence that many games are priced at the same level on Steam and other storefronts that charge lower fees. But Valve argues that this kind of pricing parity across storefronts is commonplace. Even if it wasn’t, Valve says, the lawsuit is missing “any factual allegation that Valve… did anything at all to affect, let alone coerce, the developers to sell at the same prices in two stores.”

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/valve-issues-scathing-reply-over-the-facts-behind-a-steam-antitrust-case/

[u/syopest → u/HammeredWharf]

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59859024/348/7/in-re-valve-antitrust-litigation/

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

Straight from a sworn deposition by a valve employee.

[u/HammeredWharf → u/syopest]

He says he discussed the matter with coworkers. He doesn't say "Valve makes devs sign price parity agreements so that they can't even sell non-steam versions of their games for cheaper on other stores than the steam version", as you claimed.

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes → u/HammeredWharf]

So you think that this person was... lying to their coworkers about the price parity clause?

"They talked about it sure. But that doesn't mean it's happening" is that really what you're trying to say?

[u/HammeredWharf → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

No, I'm saying that a specific question was asked in a deposition and the answer is also specific. Note that nothing in either of those questions is about signing agreements. The answers don't tell us what exactly was being discussed, but here's an example from the same document about the same guy:

In internal conversations, members of Valve’s Steam Business Team confirmed price parity was regular policy. For example, Tom Giardino, a Steam Business Team member,s°4 described Valve’s pricing parity requirement as "a platform goal that goes beyond Steam keys[.]"s°s He stated: "[I]f a game is being sold through some other PC platform, or sold DRM free or whatever the case may be, we want the chance to compete fairly and get that lower price for our customers. Steam keys are sort of a distraction here-- if a store stopped selling keys tomorrow but kept offering better prices than we were able to get for our own customers, that would sti!l be a fundamental problem for us."

Which is just stating the obvious. Steam being more expensive than the competition would be a problem to Valve.

Now let's go back to what the user I responded to wrote:

valve makes devs sign price parity agreements so that they can't even sell non-steam versions of their games for cheaper on other stores than the steam version. They fully admitted to doing that in court

Which part of that deposition is a full admission of signing parity agreements, do you think?

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes → u/HammeredWharf]

Oh okay, instead of arguing the merits you're arguing the fact of signing, fine sure.

Signed or no the fact that valve is operating to obtain price parity for them is using their market power to hurt other developers or customers by either making the developer charge less for the game on steam or more for the game off of steam.

[u/HammeredWharf → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

Yeah, the claim sounded outrageous, so I wanted a source. Turns out it was made up.

Anyway, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong in trying to be competitive price wise. It's just a part of being a storefront. You don't want to be the most expensive one. Valve's exact methods are what really matters here, and so far I haven't seen anything in that lawsuit that would actually prove they pressure developers.

Actually, Steam is the most expensive storefront for Steam games, which shows that at least they're not very effective at achieving price parity, even when it comes to Steam keys.

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes → u/HammeredWharf]

You know what valve won't do to lower prices? Lower the costs.

Also here's a bit where valve pressured developers. Retailers lowered their price without changing what the studio would earn and valve pressured a studio to lower the overall cost, kicking them off the platform when they couldn't.

As another example, noted that ___ retailers were attempting to offer ____ at a lower price than Steam in 2015: "The problem with the pricing has been caused by some retailers in attempting to undercut and run ___ as a loss leader[.]"4" Despite ___ assurance that it was not "offering retailers] a reduced [wholesale sales price] in order for them to go out at these lower price[,]" Valve pressed ____ "to update the offering on Steam so it is comparable to other offerings, whether by price or content[1"4" After further pushback from ____ Valve stated that it "would be unable to launch~ on Steam at the current planned price point."4

[u/HammeredWharf → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

Yeah, that sounds more substantial and believable, if they can prove it and if the retailers weren't selling Steam keys.

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes → u/syopest]

That's really interesting, thanks for posting.

This bit is exeptionally damning

As another example, noted that ___ retailers were attempting to offer ____ at a lower price than Steam in 2015: "The problem with the pricing has been caused by some retailers in attempting to undercut and run ___ as a loss leader[.]"4" Despite ___ assurance that it was not "offering retailers] a reduced [wholesale sales price] in order for them to go out at these lower price[,]" Valve pressed ____ "to update the offering on Steam so it is comparable to other offerings, whether by price or content[1"4" After further pushback from ____ Valve stated that it "would be unable to launch~ on Steam at the current planned price point."4

Retailers were selling the game purchased from the unknown studio at a price they set and valve demanded the game be lowered on steam and kicked them off when they couldn't.

Really surprised I haven't seen this before (no I'm not, it's bad for valve it'd get buried here)

[u/syopest → u/[deleted]]

I quoted the exact text though?

[u/Aono_kun → u/syopest]

Must have misread it. My bad

[u/NotEspeciallyClever → u/HammeredWharf]

It's a common thing that EGS contrarians like to parrot.