Eek, this is some scary stuff.
There’s a problem with explaining this shit away with an idle “Oh, it’ll only affect asset flippers and card farmers.” The problem is
thatÂ’s not what Sean J said. LetÂ’s take a look at what he actually wrote:
If we are denying keys for normal size batches
So we are talking about Valve denying keys for
normal size batches. Not ridiculous batches. Not huge batches.
Normal size batches.
ItÂ’s likely because your Steam sales donÂ’t reflect a need for as many keys as youÂ’re distributing, and youÂ’re probably asking for more keys because youÂ’re offering cheaper options off Steam and yet we are bearing the costs.
He said it right there: if Valve thinks “you’re offering cheaper options off Steam,” they don’t like that. They want to shut that down. They don’t want developers to have control of where and how their games are sold. Not if it means Valve isn’t nabbing as much revenue as they could be.
So at some point we start deciding that the value youÂ’re bringing to Steam isnÂ’t worth the cost to us.
“”You want to sell copies of your game? Well, what have you done for me lately?” is a
scary attitude for developers. Steam is a gatekeeper for developers of PC games. Unless you’re as big as EA or your only ambition is to sell 50 copies on itch.io, you have to sell your game on Steam, and Steam keys are where the vast majority of your sales are gonna come from. “Prove that you’re still valuable to me” is an ominous thing to hear from the guy who already happens to have a guillotine over your neck.
For example, say youÂ’ve sold a few thousand copies on Steam but have requested / activated 500K keys, then we are going to take a deeper look at your games, your sales, your costs, etc.
Sean’s example is “500K” keys, but he already said explicitly that Valve is perfectly willing to deny keys for
normal size batches as well. But notice what else Sean said here: if Valve doesn’t like how and where you choose to sell your game, they’re going to take a deeper look at your “games.” Not “game.” “Games,” plural. The threat extends to your entire portfolio of PC games. And they’re going to take a deeper look at your “costs.” What business is it of Valve’s what a developer’s costs are? Why would Valve need to know a developer’s costs? Well, the more you know about a developer’s income statement, you more you know about how reliant they are on off-Steam sales of their game, and the more you know about how much they could afford to be herded back onto your storefront...
Sean J could easily have said “We’re only ever going to deny keys to developers who are exploiting trading cards and who have requested a thousand times more keys than copies they’ve sold.”
If that were what he wanted to say, thatÂ’s what he wouldÂ’ve said. He very specifically
didnÂ’t say that.
And besides, isnÂ’t Valve supposed to be fixing these trading card exploits anyway? Why not just fix that problem directly and make it impossible for these exploits to happen? Why tackle the problem indirectly through case-by-case decisions about free key batches? Because this isnÂ’t really about trading card exploiters, which is why Sean J didnÂ’t even
claim it was about trading card exploiters.
HereÂ’s the thing: Valve is not your friend. They are not your friend if youÂ’re a consumer. They are not your friend if youÂ’re a developer. They are business men whose job is to make money, just as surely as the CEO of EA, or the CEO of Walmart for that matter. They are not your laid-back video game-loving bros. They are bloodless bureaucrats who care about what customers and developers want exactly to the degree that it helps them make money, and no further.
WeÂ’ve already seen Valve pursue what is basically a quasi-monopolistic strategy. They used incredibly deep discounts to make huge gains in popularity and force everyone on PC to invest heavily in their storefront. Then when their position was secure, they eliminated their two-tier discounts (regular sale price vs. dailies and flash sales), and voila: sales are garbage now, and Valve makes more money.
But developers can still sell their games off-Steam. So now Valve is eying those off-Steam sales. They donÂ’t like Humble. They donÂ’t like other key resellers. They want their 30% of those sales. So the next logical step is to start tightening the screws on developers who like the freedom to sell their games wherever they want.
Obviously it wonÂ’t happen all at once. TheyÂ’re not gonna shut Humble down tomorrow. But slowly, starting with borderline-illegitimate developers and moving to unpopular and unknown developers, they could very well start turning up the pressure. You want to deeply discount your game off Steam? Sorry, canÂ’t give you those keys. You want to put your game in the $1 tier of a Humble Bundle because you really want as many people to play it as possible? Ooh, sorry, youÂ’ve only sold 5,000 copies on Steam; we canÂ’t give you 25,000 keys.
Maybe they wonÂ’t do this, or they wonÂ’t do it soon. But one thingÂ’s for sure: if they want to do it, their conscience certainly isnÂ’t going to stop them. They donÂ’t care about whatÂ’s good for customers or developers any more than any corporation does. The second they think they can get away with something like this, or that the gains will outweigh the negative PR, they wonÂ’t hesitate a moment to pull the trigger, and theyÂ’ll sleep like babies that night.
And people on here will
still be insisting that these super-rich business moguls just love video games, and love developers, and are just the cuddliest most transparent most consumer-friendly bros a gamer could have. And everything is the fault of those bad evil asset flippers and card exploiters, even though theyÂ’re mostly random kids or poor dudes overseas trying to make a quick buck who have no actual power or influence, and Valve controls the entire system and holds all the cards. But Valve would never do anything anti-consumer! Poor beleaguered Valve just canÂ’t seem to get rid of those card exploiter vermin! Valve has to start carefully controlling when and where developers get to sell their own games! Because of those wicked asset flipper! Praise Gaben!
