You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments View context
20 points
*

I don’t think Steam is rent-seeking because:

  • no cost to maintaining an account
  • 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.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Linux Gaming

!linux_gaming@lemmy.world

Create post

Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.

This page can be subscribed to via RSS.

Original /r/linux_gaming pengwing by uoou.

Resources

WWW:

Discord:

IRC:

Matrix:

Telegram:

Community stats

  • 2K

    Monthly active users

  • 928

    Posts

  • 12K

    Comments

Community moderators