Valve is the prime example of rent seeking behavior. It’s a private company that collects economic rents on a market thanks to that market being the biggest. They’re a private company and their only goal is to preserve those rents. They do that by fostering goodwill. They’re everything I hate about capitalism, but I don’t hate them for doing it.
They are also a good example of positive middleman behaviour. While they take their cut, the value they provide to both sides is huge.
They are also in a position where they are still easily replaceable. Their dominance is from doing it well, not because they have an absolute lock in.
Part of why this works is because they don’t have to prioritise short term profit over long term. Most companies like this get brought up and pumped dry. Valve seems to be the exception.
no cost for keys if you sell stuff outside the Steam store
no cost for downloads
no cost for improvements to games
Valve’s customers are publishers and devs, and they’re charging a finder’s fee for connecting customers to the games. To me, that’s not rent seeking, that’s a direct exchange of money for a service. If you don’t think the service is valuable or think you can do better, then generate keys and sell them elsewhere and you won’t need to pay Valve a cut.
Valve is capitalism done right imo. You only pay when you receive a service, and only when you profit from the service. Steam also has a fantastic refund policy as well, which is surprisingly rare in the digital goods market.
I don’t think you can do that on EGS or GOG. So they ask 30%, but only if they actually helped make the sale. If you drove the revenue yourself, they’re happy to distribute the game for free on their platform.
That’s about the least scumbag model I can think of.
they have created a service that didn’t exist that’s beneficial to both the consumer and the seller, they don’t do any anti-competitive shit with it as far as I am aware.
in what world is what they do rent-seeking?
are you an edgy 15 year old that just learned a new word and didn’t understand it?
Valve is the prime example of rent seeking behavior. It’s a private company that collects economic rents on a market thanks to that market being the biggest. They’re a private company and their only goal is to preserve those rents. They do that by fostering goodwill. They’re everything I hate about capitalism, but I don’t hate them for doing it.
They are also a good example of positive middleman behaviour. While they take their cut, the value they provide to both sides is huge.
They are also in a position where they are still easily replaceable. Their dominance is from doing it well, not because they have an absolute lock in.
Part of why this works is because they don’t have to prioritise short term profit over long term. Most companies like this get brought up and pumped dry. Valve seems to be the exception.
I don’t think Steam is rent-seeking because:
Valve’s customers are publishers and devs, and they’re charging a finder’s fee for connecting customers to the games. To me, that’s not rent seeking, that’s a direct exchange of money for a service. If you don’t think the service is valuable or think you can do better, then generate keys and sell them elsewhere and you won’t need to pay Valve a cut.
Valve is capitalism done right imo. You only pay when you receive a service, and only when you profit from the service. Steam also has a fantastic refund policy as well, which is surprisingly rare in the digital goods market.
Unlike every other company in their position they’re not complete assholes to consumers :
Most companies in their position would lock their users in, they don’t. That doesn’t mean they can’t be abusive though. 30% of game revenue is huge!
At least gamedevs can generate keys and sell them on other sites to get a bigger cut
I don’t think you can do that on EGS or GOG. So they ask 30%, but only if they actually helped make the sale. If you drove the revenue yourself, they’re happy to distribute the game for free on their platform.
That’s about the least scumbag model I can think of.
Does it?
They can also just sell the game on other platforms no?
Yes, but his way you get the advantages of having it on Steam while bypassing the 30% cut of Valve.
My point was that, while Valve does take a big cut, it doesn’t stop gamedevs from bypassing it
somebody doesn’t understand what rent seeking is.
Valve is not doing rent-seeking…
they have created a service that didn’t exist that’s beneficial to both the consumer and the seller, they don’t do any anti-competitive shit with it as far as I am aware.
in what world is what they do rent-seeking?
are you an edgy 15 year old that just learned a new word and didn’t understand it?