this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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if prices are the same, then the publisher is the one paying the premium.
Not of the publisher is just pricing it 30% higher. Remember: they wanted to sell it for a lower price on their own stores and valve was against that.
So now the consumer has to pay more everywhere
the deal the publishers make with valve is that steam versions of games need to be priced the same everywhere. if they're not offering steam keys they're free to set any price.
also, if a publisher "wanted" to sell it for a lower price all they needed to do was lower the price everywhere. that's not what's happening.
It's insane how many people are spreading this bullshit. This is explicitly for stores not using Steam keys! You're right that they should be free to set their own prices. If you actually believe this, you need to be against Valve in this, assuming it proves to be true (which there is solid evidence already it is true).
but... it's not. if you read the article, they made a dlc bundle on their own store where all the dlc was on steam, for cheaper than they were on steam.
Their own store, which does not use Steam keys. That means they should be free to set their own price, right? Steam should only have a say when it's using Steam. They shouldn't get to dictate the price on other stores.
You're arguing against your own best interest here. I don't know if you understand that. A game being cheaper to buy somewhere else is good for all consumers. Sure, their store is worse. That's why they're competing with a lower price. You can choose to pay more and use the better service or pay less and use the worse one. It may even cause Valve to try to compete with the lower price by lowering it themselves. This is good for consumers. We get cheaper games for no cost.
rainbow six siege is an online game that uses steam's backend. as such, all the dlc uplay is selling is in the form of steam keys.
i would love to have cheaper games. i would also love if people learned to read.
Do you have a source for that claim? I have seen no evidence that the uplay version of the game uses the Steam backend to verify ownership. They have their own store that does this. Why would it use Steam? That makes no sense. The article does not make this claim, and I've seen no one else making this claim. Valve doesn't even seem to be making the claim you are.
The only claim is that Ubisoft, on their own store using their own systems, was selling it at a cheaper price than is available on Steam, not that they were using Steam for this. Youre claiming I need to learn to read, but I think you might be reading something that isn't there.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59859024/348/7/in-re-valve-antitrust-litigation/
page 120ish, section 5.2.2, footnotes 519 and forward.
it's the emails in question. i'm reading it as "content parity" is the most important thing for valve.
Dude, you keep changing what you're arguing against. It was about price parity, then it was about them using Steam keys, and now it's content parity.
First, this document has a lot of detail about them forcing price parity. I don't know if you just skipped that, or if you're no longer arguing about that. It's wrong, correct?
Second, I still see no evidence they're using Steam for their sales on their platform.
Third, the case we were talking about has content parity. The DLCs are available on both platforms, but they're cheaper on uplay. That's content parity but not price parity. Are you just trying to throw out so much garbage I forget what we're talking about and just go along with your premise?
Also, content parity isn't good either. For example, if a studio wants to create a small bonus DLC for buying the game somewhere that gives them more money, they should be allowed to. Why should Valve be dictating what a developer can create off of their platform? That doesn't benefit consumers. It only benefits Valve. Let's be clear though, they are also forcing price parity. I'm not agreeing to the premise it's only about content parity, as I discussed above.
no, i'm just easily confused.
my reasoning is this: if players on steam and uplay can play together, and see the dlc other players have, and prices of that dlc vary between stores, that counts as "the same product" having a different price. potentially players could transfer dlc from uplay to steam if they require a uplay account everywhere. in that case, ubisoft are violating the terms.
if that doesn't hold, then valve are overreaching.
overall it's muddy.
I'm pretty confident you can't just transfer a purchase between play and Steam. If you can, it's something that Valve has allowed explicitly. It isn't a normal behavior of Steam. Valve can choose to stop allowing that anytime they want.
If they were threatening to remove this function (which I don't think exists), then fine. That's not the case though. They're threatening to remove them from the Steam store in total for selling it for a cheaper price elsewhere.
last time i played a ubisoft game on steam it required uplay, i don't know if that holds for r6s but if it does then that's probably not something valve likes. maybe you can't transfer items, but you can fire up uplay through steam and get cheaper dlc for your "steam version" that way?
again, i don't know.
Read the fucking article. They're being sued BECAUSE they threatened to remove a game because a different version that isn't on steam (no steam key) was being sold elsewhere for cheaper.
The thing you said isn't happening is EXACTLY THE THINGS THEY'RE BEING SUED FOR DOING.
Stop it
the starter pack was not available on steam. that means it's a collection of dlc. the online nature of the game means that dlc is also available on steam, it's just the package deal that isn't. that's textbook the thing they outline in their policy.
That is not what will happen in practice.