GI: [Anno 1800 leaving Steam] might not bode well for the...strength of Steam's marketplace, it most likely is good for everyone else (See Staff Post)

[Chaosblade]

That's not the argument I'm making though. If a product turns out bad because of publishing decisions around which storefront, then it's still a bad product. Don't buy bad products.

Eventually devs and consumers will figure it out. In the long run, competition in storefronts is good.

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Where's the benefit? Like I said above, in the long term this only benefits publishers who will see smaller storefront cuts dig into their revenue, and major storefronts which will consolidate the market and eliminate smaller key selling sites because they won't be able to offer discounts.

EGS is paving the way toward a less competitive PC marketplace with more client-exclusive games, and higher prices for the consumer.

 

[GhostTrick]

That's not the argument I'm making though. If a product turns out bad because of publishing decisions around which storefront, then it's still a bad product. Don't buy bad products.

Eventually devs and consumers will figure it out. In the long run, competition in storefronts is good.

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Competition in storefront is what we had already before EGS. It was a better and tougher competition based on pricing. And yet we didnt need to compromise on features either.

Saying "competition is good" is not enough. You have to explain how we benefit from it.

 

[Kittens McMittens]

I think I heard that gog terms do not allow including steamworks api or related files. Not 100% sure on that though. If that's correct, it would be gog not allowing it, rather than Valve.

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So, I did a little digging: I don't think you can use SteamWorks matchmaking without a logged in Steam ID. If you want to match with non-Steam users you have to do that matching yourself.

So I think the original point I was making about multiplayer between different storefronts was correct: devs need to stop relying exclusively on storefront platform services. This isn't just the case for making games cross play between different storefronts, but also between different platforms - which obviously everyone here supports, right?

Where's the benefit? Like I said above, in the long term this only benefits publishers who will see smaller storefront cuts dig into their revenue, and major storefronts which will consolidate the market and eliminate smaller key selling sites because they won't be able to offer discounts.

EGS is paving the way toward a less competitive PC marketplace with more client-exclusive games, and higher prices for the consumer.

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The point I was making about piracy in developing markets is relevant. If competing storefronts don't find a way to do price segmentation then I think they are likely to see growth in piracy. It's in the interests of storefronts and publishers to solve that problem.

 

[Sandersson]

Eventually devs and consumers will figure it out. In the long run, competition in storefronts is good.

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Exclusivity is not competition.

 

[GhostTrick]

So, I did a little digging: I don't think you can use SteamWorks matchmaking without a logged in Steam ID. If you want to match with non-Steam users you have to do that matching yourself.

So I think the original point I was making about multiplayer between different storefronts was correct: devs need to stop relying exclusively on storefront platform services. This isn't just the case for making games cross play between different storefronts, but also between different platforms - which obviously everyone here supports, right?



The point I was making about piracy in developing markets is relevant. If competing storefronts don't find a way to do price segmentation then I think they are likely to see growth in piracy. It's in the interests of storefronts and publishers to solve that problem.

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The problem is already solved today.
We have a shiton of storefronts competing with each others and they all rely on the same solid backend. EGS was never needed and the fact that the only way they found to exist is to remove games from competitor services just highlight the fact they're not needed in this market.

 

[Chaosblade]

The point I was making about piracy in developing markets is relevant. If competing storefronts don't find a way to do price segmentation then I think they are likely to see growth in piracy. It's in the interests of storefronts and publishers to solve that problem.

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That was largely a solved problem. Steam allows for regional pricing, if publishers choose not to use it that's on them. GOG had their thing where they credited you back the difference, etc. With a smaller storefront cut there is a lot less wiggle room to implement solutions without running losses.

But that's not really related to the point I was making. EGS "competition" is just going to end up wiping out most of the smaller storefronts and result in less competition, not more.

 

[Raspyberry]

Even Tim Sweeney himself doesn't think Epic Store has any benefit for the consumers aside from 'more money for the devs', how is this good for everyone?

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It's not. It's shit.

 

[Sandersson]

So I think the original point I was making about multiplayer between different storefronts was correct: devs need to stop relying exclusively on storefront platform services. This isn't just the case for making games cross play between different storefronts, but also between different platforms - which obviously everyone here supports, right?



.

Click to shrink...

I think its a pretty bad point imho. Using Steam (objectively best launcher there is) and buying Steam keys from whichever storefront you wish is the best of both worlds for me. No fragmentations, everything is in one place and there are multiple competing stores. On top of that no 3rd party exclusives (I would prefer no 1st party exclusives either) and it would be golden.

If EGS wants to step into the arena, let the same storefronts sell your keys like Steam does and focus on you own launcher.

 

[Azusa]

So according to GI article Steam should secure some exclusives? Maybe Steam should make another step and even secure console games and release it only on Steam instead. It would be the best for consumers, yeah.

 

[jrDev]

I am explaining you why Valve can't offer developers 88%. And if store can't sustain itself it will either close or raise cut that it takes. Telling developers NOW that they can get 88% and then changing that down the road is worse thing that they could do. And there are no small guy on Epic Store currently.

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Ok, but why does it matter to you if Epic does change it? You think you know better than the developers that made this decision?

show us the small guy who gets this cut.

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Do you really want me to answer this or are you being disingenuous?

I would like to introduce you to the concept of moneyhatting and timed exclusive. The figure they can go back to steam once the year runs out and worse case scenario all will go back to normal even though they have burned through their entire community goodwill. They imagine this is a free lunch.

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At the end of the day, the developers that made this decision did so because it may have benefited them more than your unquantifiable community goodwill...

 

[Swenhir]

Ok, but why does it matter to you if Epic does change it? You think you know better than the developers that made this decision?

Do you really want me to answer this or are you being disingenuous?

At the end of the day, the developers that made this decision did so because it may have benefited them more than your unquantifiable community goodwill...

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You asked a question and I answered. That's far from the whole argument, I would recommend reading this twitter thread for a broader view of why PC gamers are so damn pissed.

I wouldn't underestimate community goodwill that being said. Entire studios were funded on it and others died because of it. There's also the small aspect of, you know, doing the right thing which seems to have completely fallen by the wayside when it comes to defending Epic.

 

[MrBob]

As an April Fool's joke pc gaming wiki "rebranded" itself as Epic Games store wiki. Don't feel like posting a new thread but i thought it's pretty funny and in relation to all the epic exclusive talk we have had here the past month or so, including this thread.

https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Home

"In solidarity with Epic Game Store's lack of features, we have decided to drop support for: forums, refunds, parties, account sharing, version rollbacks, screenshots, groups, marketplace, mod hosting, library sorting and the entire Linux platform as Epic Game Store has no support these features. Staff members have already begun removing all non-Epic Game Store articles and the creation of non-Epic Game Store articles is now prohibited."

So good. It's an amazing repaint of pc gaming wiki for april fools.

 

[Igniz12]

Imagine if Sony sold 2 versions of Last of Us II
One comes with achievments and cloud saves, game capture and image sharing functionality, the other one doesn't.
The one with achievments etc. is also cheaper for most of the world.

How many here would buy the more expensive one? And how many would complain if Sony suddenly decided to not sell the cheaper one with more features anymore? Cause that's pretty much what this is.

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Or if there was third party Xbox online/PSN accounts with completely different purchase history and licenses. You invested time and money into one and would love to keep using that but now you are forced to use a completely new online account for some games because they are exclusive to this new company operating this new online console accounts system.

Hardware is still the same but software is soft locked to this new accounts system, one where it comes in with even less features and user accessibility options than the one you are used to not to mention a myriad of other issues and concerns that might crop up further down the line.


This is not some 4000 IQ problem that people need twist themselves into a pretzel to understand whether you game on PC or console. You just need to put yourself in another persons shoe and you can at the very least get the gist of the problem but instead we end up with 30 page mega threads with the same post repeating themselves over and over again.

 

[Ge0force]

There's no bribery. These are legal business deals. Other storefronts could make exclusivity deals to make their platforms more attractive, they just haven't chosen to.

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And I hope they never will. I don't want a future where storefront owners are "competing" by moneyhatting the most popular games, instead of trying to offer the best features, policies and prices. I will vote with my money against any company/developer/publisher who tries to achieve this.

 

[Alexandros]

It is very strange to me that people can't understand the potential benefits of customer-focused competition and the bad effects of corporate competition. 'Competition' can happen in a multitude of ways and not all of them are beneficial to the customer. Epic's brand of competition is clearly focused on pandering to developers, moneyhatting them and strong-arming customers by removing all of their options. This brand of corporate competition is shit for customers, it doesn't encourage either corporation to improve and it could lead to a stupid bidding war and the erosion of customer choice in the PC space if Valve ever decides to fight fire with fire.

I see people saying "competition from Epic will force Valve to improve". Ok. Improve what, exactly? Improve why, exactly? Can anyone explain what is the thought process that starts from "a competitor is paying developers huge sums of money to not launch on our service" and ends at "we need to improve our services"? What kind of improvement would convince developers to reject the huge bag of money? Can anyone, anyone at all, honestly and with a straight face argue that developers would reject a big pile of cash upfront for slightly 'better' curation or a slightly bigger cut?

The actually beneficial competition that people are thinking of when saying "competition is good" is only one kind of competition: the customer-focused one. It's the competition that encourages companies to offer a better product instead of trying to find ways to screw each other over. You should want the kind of competition that starts with the question "our competitors are offering x, how can we offer more to convince customers to come to us?", instead of "our competitors are offering x, how can we force customers to come to us since we're offering less?". It's such an obvious and simple difference that I am honestly baffled that so many people choose to parrot the 'competition is good" line without actually understanding what it means.

And no, 'not taking sides' doesn't make you an independent thinker refusing to stan for big corporations. It makes you a passive consumer who doesn't react when big corporations are throwing anti-consumer bullshit their way. You are not stanning for anyone but yourself and your interests as a customer when saying to Epic "stop this moneyhatting crap, you have to earn my preference instead of trying to force it".

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

I wonder if a good way for Valve to fight Epic's push, in PR space, would be publicly announcing an open PC platform release incentive. Specifically, something like "Any developer releasing their game on Steam as well as at least one other major platform - be it GOG.com, Discord, or publisher-owned storefronts (including EGS) - gets a one-time reward and a spot on a separate frontpage list."

There'd have to be caveats, and a whole balancing act between the reward size and which games end up actually qualifying for it. I.e., since itch.io and Humble also distribute Steam keys, they're considered to be within Steam's "platform", and all the major competitor stores are all curated, meaning small-fry indies will have to pass some semblance of a bar in order to actually release on them. And a reward of, say, $50K would probably interest most of the less-guaranteed-to-succeed indies, but Steam probably can't afford to burn millions of dollars on this incentive program, with the thousands of games that make it on there. There's also the problem of developers possibly using the incentive program in bad faith, such as making the game in order to qualify for the requirements, and subsequently dropping it after collecting the reward and sales revenue as no-risk profit.

So the requirement of the game also launching on a curated storefront subtly filters out the usual low-end of Steam games, and the reward would have to be guaranteed, but delayed by something like a month, to guarantee - in the other direction - at least some manner of post-launch support. No idea if it'd be sustainable - or a good idea - to scale the reward size with the "size" of the developer/publisher, as there are enough larger games releasing to possibly make a financial dent in Steam if the reward for big games is large enough.

But all in all it's probably the best way I can think of for Valve to "fight fire with fire", i.e. moneyhats with more money. Epic are public about the "lower cut" they're offering, so Valve can be public about rewarding an open PC marketplace, especially for the "smaller devs" that Epic ostensibly makes things better for.

 

[Alexandros]

I wonder if a good way for Valve to fight Epic's push, in PR space, would be publicly announcing an open PC platform release incentive.

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Valve doesn't need PR for this, in my opinion. Customers are angry at Epic and the developers taking these deals, not Valve. If Gabe Newell and Co want it to stay that way, they should keep doing what they're always doing and avoid getting dragged into moneyhat or PR wars. Epic is not going to be able to moneyhat developers indefinitely, Valve needs to keep its customer-first stance and wait it out. There is literally nothing they can do as long as Epic is moneyhatting developers.

 

[oni-link]

Valve doesn't need PR for this, in my opinion. Customers are angry at Epic and the developers taking these deals, not Valve. If Gabe Newell and Co want it to stay that way, they should keep doing what they're always doing and avoid getting dragged into moneyhat or PR wars. Epic is not going to be able to moneyhat developers indefinitely, Valve needs to keep its customer-first stance and wait it out. There is literally nothing they can do as long as Epic is moneyhatting developers.

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I agree Valve should just keep on trucking

My concern is Valve will watch Epic start to gain market share and act in kind

Once money hat wars begin, I feel like there won't be any turning back

 

[unicornKnight]

I feel like Epic are trying too much to turn this into a platform war, not saying that the article was paid or anything like that, just that this is my general feeling of all this "steam is evil, finally we have a true savior blah blah". Too desperate imo, I already see it backfiring.

 

[Kyougar]

Do you really want me to answer this or are you being disingenuous?

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No, Show me the little guy who profits from the Epic cut right now. All of the "indies" who got chosen by epic either have a big Publisher behind them or had million sellers on Steam.

 

[Alexandros]

My concern is Valve will watch Epic start to gain market share and act in kind

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I really don't think so. Valve has made a lot of good decisions so far, I seriously doubt that they'll take Epic's bait.

I feel like Epic are trying too much to turn this into a platform war, not saying that the article was paid or anything like that, just that this is my general feeling of all this "steam is evil, finally we have a true savior blah blah". Too desperate imo, I already see it backfiring.

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It did, because customers aren't idiots. They see that Epic's sales pitch is basically "we'll lock the games you want to play on our store and you'll have no choice but to buy from us" and they rightly say "no, fuck that and fuck you".

 

[jrDev]

No, Show me the little guy who profits from the Epic cut right now. All of the "indies" who got chosen by epic either have a big Publisher behind them or had million sellers on Steam.

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Do you know what makes an indie studio? (Hint: has nothing to do with money)...

 

[Deleted member 3058]

Do you know what makes an indie studio? (Hint: has nothing to do with money)...

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Maybe that's why their original post used "small guy" and not "indie"?

 

[jrDev]

Maybe that's why their original post used "small guy" and not "indie"?

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So now we are just arguing semantics because indies are still the "small guy" by the definition of being indie...

 

[Deleted member 3058]

So now we are just arguing semantics because indies are still the "small guy" by the definition of being indie...

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Their question was about which small guys benefitited from the EGS.

Pretty sure they were looking for an answer and instead got a non-sequitur in the form of a semantic debate.

I think the answer stands at "zero".

 

[Swenhir]

Their question was about which small guys benefitited from the EGS.

Pretty sure they were looking for an answer and instead got a non-sequitur in the form of a semantic debate.

I think the answer stands at "zero".

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Just like the amount of press articles critical of EGS's tactics and flaws.

 

[Kyougar]

Their question was about which small guys benefitited from the EGS.

Pretty sure they were looking for an answer and instead got a non-sequitur in the form of a semantic debate.

I think the answer stands at "zero".

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wasn't expecting anything substantial, tbh. Just like the Media who can't tell us why Epic is good for us.

 

[jrDev]

Their question was about which small guys benefitited from the EGS.

Pretty sure they were looking for an answer and instead got a non-sequitur in the form of a semantic debate.

I think the answer stands at "zero".

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It's funny because I'm the one that said "little guys" and others started semantics differentiating what a little guy was when it meant "Indie". I'm done arguing about what Indie means to you.

Also, one example is Night School Studio!

 

[Deleted member 42]

No, Show me the little guy who profits from the Epic cut right now. All of the "indies" who got chosen by epic either have a big Publisher behind them or had million sellers on Steam.

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Mostly depends on how big of a publisher you think Annapurna Interactive or Team17 are (Annapurna aren't really a big player yet, and Team17 aren't too huge). Observation I'll leave out for now (Devolver) and Afterparty too (Oxenfree is an indie game and one of my favorites, but I believe it did do quite well).

I'll list games vs devs since I'm old

Ashen
Close to the Sun (up for debate)
Dangerous Driving
Industries of Titan
Kine

I admittedly just looked at the exclusives list I have right now too, and I don't know every game, so it is likely more.

 

[mxbison]

Anti consumer practices are never good for any industry

Also market leader != monopoly

Its weird to me that Era being so progressive and at the same time is so pro-corporate and anti consumer.

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"No Steam, no buy" is not pro-corporate?

 

[GhostTrick]

Ashen is published by Annapurna.
Close to the Sun by "Wired Production" while not a big publisher still has published a lot of titles such as Victor Vran, Grip or Shaq Fu Reborn.
Industries of Titan is published by Brace Yourself Games (Crypt of the Necrodancer, Phantom Brigade).

The only small ones here are Kine and Dangerous Driving.

"No Steam, no buy" is not pro-corporate?

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Of course not. How is it pro-corporate to prefer better features ? People aren't attached to Steam because of a corporation but because of a service, a feature and policies (such as refunds, which you seem to be against).

 

[Deleted member 42]

Ashen is published by Annapurna.
Close to the Sun by "Wired Production" while not a big publisher still has published a lot of titles such as Victor Vran, Grip or Shaq Fu Reborn.
Industries of Titan is published by Brace Yourself Games (Crypt of the Necrodancer, Phantom Brigade).

The only small ones here are Kine and Dangerous Driving.

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Too late sucker they all count I WIN I DID IT GET THE CONFETTI

 

[texhnolyze]

"No Steam, no buy" is not pro-corporate?

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It's not about pro-corporate. It's about using the most convenient, feature complete and easier to access store compared to the other stores.

Do you seriously believe that people choose Steam just because they love Steam as an entity?

 

[Kittens McMittens]

I think its a pretty bad point imho. Using Steam (objectively best launcher there is) and buying Steam keys from whichever storefront you wish is the best of both worlds for me. No fragmentations, everything is in one place and there are multiple competing stores. On top of that no 3rd party exclusives (I would prefer no 1st party exclusives either) and it would be golden.

If EGS wants to step into the arena, let the same storefronts sell your keys like Steam does and focus on you own launcher.

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You missed the point I was making.

Other posters were complaining about multiplayer fragmentation on PC, and blaming other stores for not letting games ship steam API libraries. I looked and I'm still pretty certain that in order to use those steam APIs you need a logged in steam ID. It's not unreasonable for competing stores like EGS or GOG to refuse to sell games that require a steam login.

The move to platform agnostic matchmaking is surely something everyone wants, as it's necessary to support crossplay. You cant use steam APIs to match with XBL or switch players either. So, if a dev is shipping a multiplayer game consumers should expect that they should do the work of implementing crossplay matchmaking.

Note that this is purely matchmaking, as Devs /pubs have always had to host their own servers. Steam has recently announced they will start letting games run on steam servers. That presumably is a competitive move to show value for the 30% cut they take, and is clearly a sign that competition is having a positive impact for Devs.

 

[jrDev]

Of course not. How is it pro-corporate to prefer better features ? People aren't attached to Steam because of a corporation but because of a service, a feature and policies (such as refunds, which you seem to be against).

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Of course they do (I do it sometimes too). Watch when EGS gets "Feature rich", you will see the same people screaming "No Steam, no buy"; which come to think of it, is an aggressive form of port begging to me.

 

[SteveWinwood]

It's funny because I'm the one that said "little guys" and others started semantics differentiating what a little guy was when it meant "Indie". I'm done arguing about what Indie means to you.

Also, one example is Night School Studio!

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the point they're trying to make is that epic isn't putting in the work to find the next super meat boy, or subnautica, or axiom verge, they're just buying those games

theyre buying games from people who have already had success on other stores

which is fine, not a big deal

except that they're saying they're going to help with the little guy (there's that term again!) who has lost visibility on the steam store

very few people they've bought were going to have an issue with that in the first place, oxenfree sold a million copies for example!

now im not saying visibility isn't an issue, or that we're not at the most competitive time for indie video games ever, or that once you have one success you're set for life

but games like the outer worlds, anno, and phoenix point were probably not going to have an issue, or at the very least the cards are stacked heavily in their favor

meanwhile tons of other actual "indie" (I dunno define it how you want) are sitting on the sidelines watching with bated breath because they think their hidden gem that got missed on steam is next for an epic game store pay day (spoiler: it's not)

Of course they do (I do it sometimes too). Watch when EGS gets "Feature rich", you will see the same people screaming "No Steam, no buy"; which come to think of it, is an aggressive form of port begging to me.

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i would bet they give up before it becomes even remotely as feature rich as steam because everything else about this venture is opportunistic and lazy and I don't think it will catch on. fundamentally eschewing features that customers have shown to value such as reviews and discussion boards are not going to help

which is why stuff like this is so frustrating because they're ultimately throwing money in the fire and hurting some of these games long term futures, just to strong arm themselves into a market that wasn't asking for them in the first place

so yeah I guess we'll see, but probably not!

 

[RionaaM]

You missed the point I was making.

Other posters were complaining about multiplayer fragmentation on PC, and blaming other stores for not letting games ship steam API libraries. I looked and I'm still pretty certain that in order to use those steam APIs you need a logged in steam ID. It's not unreasonable for competing stores like EGS or GOG to refuse to sell games that require a steam login.

The move to platform agnostic matchmaking is surely something everyone wants, as it's necessary to support crossplay. You cant use steam APIs to match with XBL or switch players either. So, if a dev is shipping a multiplayer game consumers should expect that they should do the work of implementing crossplay matchmaking.

Note that this is purely matchmaking, as Devs /pubs have always had to host their own servers. Steam has recently announced they will start letting games run on steam servers. That presumably is a competitive move to show value for the 30% cut they take, and is clearly a sign that competition is having a positive impact for Devs.

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This isn't true. GameNetworkingSockets is platform agnostic and doesn't require Steam.

 

[Kittens McMittens]

This isn't true. GameNetworkingSockets is platform agnostic and doesn't require Steam.

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A point of discussion so far has been how different storefronts have caused multiplayer fragmentation on PC. The point I'm making is that there are storefront agnostic approaches that devs should take.

So, an assumption I'm making is that the games that have multiplayer fragmentation on PC are doing something silly like using SteamWorks for matchmaking, which I think does require a logged in SteamID. But thank you for pointing out that there are approaches devs could be taking to avoid those issues.

 

[FantaSoda]

I see people saying "competition from Epic will force Valve to improve". Ok. Improve what, exactly? Improve why, exactly? Can anyone explain what is the thought process that starts from "a competitor is paying developers huge sums of money to not launch on our service" and ends at "we need to improve our services"? What kind of improvement would convince developers to reject the huge bag of money?

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You run under the assumption that Epic is going to moneyhat games forever. Simply put, they are almost certainly not making a positive return on moneyhatting these games. The only reason they are currently doing it is that they cannot compete with Steam without exclusive games. Even if they had complete feature parity people would still use Steam because Steam is the established market leader. You have always bought games from Steam so unless something drastic happens you are going to keep buying from Steam. That isn't to pat Valve on the back, that is just the nature of consumers.

Epic is using exclusivity to actually carve out a marketshare in a ridiculously competitive market. At a certain point, they are going to stop doing it because Steam isn't going away and they(Epic) are a business. Businesses exist to make money and buying exclusivity isn't profitable, it is just part of the start-up costs of gaining marketshare. Epic is hitting Valve in a meaningful way and Valve is eventually going to have to respond. What that response is, I have no clue. However, as someone who is very frustrated with Valve over their direction to let algorithms dictate user experience and champion GaaS over single player experiences, I want Valve to do something.

If that means something user-facing, then great. Maybe it will be Valve's own suite of exclusive games that wouldn't have otherwise existed. If it is developer-facing only, then good for them, better financial terms for developers will allow easier profitability and make it easier for them to succeed in the PC gaming market. If it is easier for developers to succeed in the PC market then that means more developers will enter the space and that means more games for us. Even if that doesn't happen (more games), better terms might allow developers to survive who would have otherwise folded.

 

[Resiverence]

You run under the assumption that Epic is going to moneyhat games forever. Simply put, they are almost certainly not making a positive return on moneyhatting these games. The only reason they are currently doing it is that they cannot compete with Steam without exclusive games. Even if they had complete feature parity people would still use Steam because Steam is the established market leader. You have always bought games from Steam so unless something drastic happens you are going to keep buying from Steam. That isn't to pat Valve on the back, that is just the nature of consumers.

Epic is using exclusivity to actually carve out a marketshare in a ridiculously competitive market. At a certain point, they are going to stop doing it because Steam isn't going away and they(Epic) are a business. Businesses exist to make money and buying exclusivity isn't profitable, it is just part of the start-up costs of gaining marketshare. Epic is hitting Valve in a meaningful way and Valve is eventually going to have to respond. What that response is, I have no clue. However, as someone who is very frustrated with Valve over their direction to let algorithms dictate user experience and champion GaaS over single player experiences, I want Valve to do something.

If that means something user-facing, then great. Maybe it will be Valve's own suite of exclusive games that wouldn't have otherwise existed. If it is developer-facing only, then good for them, better financial terms for developers will allow easier profitability and make it easier for them to succeed in the PC gaming market. If it is easier for developers to succeed in the PC market then that means more developers will enter the space and that means more games for us. Even if that doesn't happen (more games), better terms might allow developers to survive who would have otherwise folded.

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Why would they have to improve in that case then? They already are putting out features for devs and consumers alike even now (new ui and steam servers with ddos proofing+anticheat for devs) but say even if they stopped developing anything new right now what difference would it make to compete with just a more incompetent store which doesnt have any reasons to even use it other than its exclusives

 

[spineduke]

; which come to think of it, is an aggressive form of port begging to me.

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i thought it was just another launcher icon :)

 

[jrDev]

i thought it was just another launcher icon :)

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And this post referring to...??

 

[FantaSoda]

Why would they have to improve in that case then? They already are putting out features for devs and consumers alike even now (new ui and steam servers with ddos proofing+anticheat for devs) but say even if they stopped developing anything new right now what difference would it make to compete with just a more incompetent store which doesnt have any reasons to even use it other than its exclusives

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Are the improvements that Valve announced better financial terms for developers? Have they reached parity with what Epic is offering? For consumers, are any of those new announcements exclusive games? Because those are the only meaningful things that matter to those two audiences. Developers are trying to survive and consumers want to play the games they care about. Anything that isn't related to those two points (developer profitability, exclusive games players care about) don't really move the needle. Valve is going to have to improve on one of those two areas (probably both) unless they want to see Epic continue to eat their marketshare.

 

[Imran]

Also from now on, GameInformer should be renamed to the more fitting GamePromoter.

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The "Our Take" section is the author's thought about a subject. Whether it's an individual writer on staff or, in this case, an intern, if they have a thought about a news story, they can share it there. As head of news, I can say with absolute confidence we haven't treated anything on Epic or Steam differently regardless of what we've thought. If anyone, staff or intern or whoever, has a thought about it that isn't insulting to someone else, I have no problem with them putting it down there.

 

[Armaros]

Are the improvements that Valve announced better financial terms for developers? Have they reached parity with what Epic is offering? For consumers, are any of those new announcements exclusive games? Because those are the only meaningful things that matter to those two audiences. Developers are trying to survive and consumers want to play the games they care about. Anything that isn't related to those two points (developer profitability, exclusive games players care about) don't really move the needle. Valve is going to have to improve on one of those two areas (probably both) unless they want to see Epic continue to eat their marketshare.

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So you still believe with a straight face a minor shift in the store margin will stop epic getting exclusives by spending their millions?

I have a bridge to sell you in Alaska, its a good deal.

 

[inner-G]

And this post referring to...??

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People were saying pc is a platform itself and launchers don't matter, therefore it couldn't be 'port begging' in that line of thought

 

[Lothars]

Are the improvements that Valve announced better financial terms for developers? Have they reached parity with what Epic is offering? For consumers, are any of those new announcements exclusive games? Because those are the only meaningful things that matter to those two audiences. Developers are trying to survive and consumers want to play the games they care about. Anything that isn't related to those two points (developer profitability, exclusive games players care about) don't really move the needle. Valve is going to have to improve on one of those two areas (probably both) unless they want to see Epic continue to eat their marketshare.

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There is no proof Epic has eaten into Valve's Marketshare because if game's were actually selling well on the epic store, you would hear devs, publishers and epic yelling at how successful it has been but instead we haven't really gotten anything which is pretty telling.

 

[FantaSoda]

So you still believe with a straight face a minor shift in the store margin will stop epic getting exclusives by spending their millions?

I have a bridge to sell you in Alaska, its a good deal.

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It isn't going to stop that. That isn't the point I'm arguing. I'm arguing that Epic isn't going to continue to spend millions to secure exclusives because it isn't a profitable long term strategy. They are just trying to carve out a marketshare, but in the process may actually spur the market leader into doing things that will benefit consumers or developers (or both). Before Epic Valve didn't have a reason to change anything, now it does.

 

[eonden]

It isn't going to stop that. That isn't the point I'm arguing. I'm arguing that Epic isn't going to continue to spend millions to secure exclusives because it isn't a profitable long term strategy. They are just trying to carve out a marketshare, but in the process may actually spur the market leader into doing things that will benefit consumers or developers (or both). Before Epic Valve didn't have a reason to change anything, now it does.

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Before Epic even had competition, Steam was improving its service.

This has been said like 3 times in this same thread, and it gets annoying how people just keeps saying that Epic coming to PC will push Valve to change, when they were already always changing.
Epic moneyhatting will not force Steam to change, because the only solution for moneyhatting is moneyhatting from your own. Epic adding new functions that help the user? yeah that might force Steam to change... but they are clearly not targetting that, as they have clearly said that current stores are "good enough for users".

Also, in the PC landscape, there is a big competition that people seem to forget about: piracy. Piracy is a service issue that can only be fought by making it easier for the user to buy and enjoy the games. Adding new extra value functionality to the service you provide is more effective than some of the harshest DRM, which will in the end be broken. As Paradox said: "Steam Workshop is our best DRM"

 

[unknownspectator]

No, Show me the little guy who profits from the Epic cut right now. All of the "indies" who got chosen by epic either have a big Publisher behind them or had million sellers on Steam.

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forgive the devil's advocate here but vblank is only ran by three people, they develop shakedown hawaii.