Nope. This policy is only about "Steam" keys, it's literally the title of the page! And the first section explicitly refers to the purchase of "steam keys."
Surprisingly,
not even Wolfire's own case claims otherwise. But amusingly, they used Origin, GFWL(XBL/MS store?) and EGS' failure to reach Steam's popularity as evidence to the effects of this policy. Go figure...
Obviously. The cases of Origin and EGS underline that Valve has a chokehold on the digital distribution market, and the underlying reasons are limitations on access to the market because of Steam's dominant position. How explicit the policies of Steam really are, is irrelevant, if the result of policy is that market access is problematic for companies in the actual practice, you have a possible case.
The Steam Key is often the only way for developers to access the market without creating their whole own ecosystem, infrastructure etc. Steam is the gatekeeper here, but it is inherently much more than that - it also defines
how you sell
your product. Steam doesn't own your product or your license, they're just supposed to handle digital distribution and take a cut for it. Not influence the way it is priced, either inside or outside the store. That's exactly the inequality that is at stake here. The component 'steam key' is of questionable relevance. Its just a means to an end.
And let's translate this to practice: say you can sell your own game for 40 bucks and make a solid margin. Now Steam takes 30% of the distribution cake. You can't sell your game on Steam for 40 bucks plus 30%. Steam is directly eating into your margins. Say you created an offline-only game ; Steam is nothing more than what you could do with a simple fileserver supported by some cheap ID-based game key security against piracy (effectively, that IS Steam's DRM too), but still eats 30%. Now, as a seller of your own product, you're unable to use the premier distribution channel in the market, that is trusted by consumers and well known, unless you're willing to hand in 30% of product's entire capacity to make buck. That is the equivalent of not being able to get your products 'on shelves' in any physical store but only through your own shitty webshop nobody knows, or by driving to your house in the middle of nowhere. This is where the market alternatives like EGS and Origin come in: do
they offer somewhat similar access to the market, a similar 'premier' distribution channel? Of course not, because that is what Steam's dominant position underlines. So its pay the higher price, or die in obscurity.
That's pretty steep. Perpetual in this case is meaningless, because
effectively, you're not allowed to price below Steam even though economically, common sense dictates you should because Steam offers comfort of life which can easily cost a bit extra. Games sell over long periods of time. How does Valve measure, and how does it enforce? Its a big black box. And how are you, sad little dev studio, going to fight big Valve based on that? This topic is a good example of the uncertainty related to Steam policies. Also, consider that Valve
owns Steam's data. So there is also a power inequality in terms of transparency here, apart from what Valve chooses to offer, and it is the basis of store visibility, product placement, etc.
Its ratty, its filthy, and its exactly how these things work. The epiphany comes after seeing results - and the results are clear. Valve dominated, and it still does, and not just because it is 'better'. Its really not, its f'ing expensive and took its sweet time to present the so called fantastic featureset it has today. Other than that Steam is nothing more than a glorified shopping cart that drives your stuff home for you.
