The PR spins alone made me rethink my opinion of a lot of indie devs. Like fuck sake, just say you're doing it for your bottom line and end it there.
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Paradox Interactive: "The 70/30 revenue split is outrageous"
- Thread starter NoblesseOblige
- Start date
The PR spins alone made me rethink my opinion of a lot of indie devs. Like fuck sake, just say you're doing it for your bottom line and end it there.
I see where you're coming from, but if those who don't get the money upfront to cover the possible lower sales aren't doing it, then it's not that strong of a push. If the cut isn't sustainable for a platform that is actually attractive to customers, it'll only last for as long as Epic is willing to spend money on those exclusives.
I guess their bet is that people care about the games more than anything else, and will eventually all go to EGS to play the games they want before that happens. I don't even personally disagree, though I think it needs at least some basic stuff like a few payment methods (the ones I use the most aren't supported at all, not even charging me for the transaction), cloud saves, friend lists, shopping carts and seeing how many hours played you have. Forums and things like that can either not come or take much longer, but some of the things that the EGS are lacking impact the experience quite a bit.
It's no longer just the fact that it's not Steam that is the issue, but how much stuff you're missing that you'd expect from any new platform in 2019. And while paying as much as you normally would on top of that, that's probably the biggest thing.
I bought Control on EGS because I love Remedy, but above all I bought Control on EGS because of that storewide discount. Without that, I'd likely be ok with waiting for the Steam release, especially to use my preferred payment methods.
It absolutely depends on when or who you're asking. The PR releases are always glorified marketing blahblah with little to no "honest" opinions.
I still remember the shitshow on the Satisfactory Discord after the exclusivity got announced where even some of the devs were complaining about the EGS. Discord servers in general are a pretty good way to evalute the real opinions once the Devs start to talk in a more private manner. I happen to know some devs that are working on EGS exclusive titles and they really really dislike the EGS situation.
Devs are prolly less extreme in their pro-EGS and anti-EGS stances but it feels like the opinion from people "within the industry" doesn't differ that much from the opinions on Era. Think of it like an artist trying to create a piece of art and then then someone decides to limit the audience of people that will have the chance to see your artpiece.
AFAIK the only ones who had said so are house house (Untitled Goose Game)
The mental gymnastics some people are going through in order to villainize the concept of developers being human beings that live in a money-based economy in this thread is insane.
You hate Epic. You hate Steam. You like Epic. You like Steam. That's great. But there's absolutely no reason to knee jerk straight into "why do you hate Steam?" when people are talking about getting a bigger cut.
You hate Epic. You hate Steam. You like Epic. You like Steam. That's great. But there's absolutely no reason to knee jerk straight into "why do you hate Steam?" when people are talking about getting a bigger cut.
That is why I said I want a better version of what they are doing
They are (sort of) trying. But it is still very heavily weighted by "what is popular"
Similarly, as you mentioned: one title is a metroidvania. So you get ALL the metroidvanias
Try having one or more titles be shooters and deal with what THAT gives you.
So you listed three features that Steam has that EGS doesn't. You do realize that there are dozens more features that Steam offers to consumers beyond those, right?
And knock it off with that absolute nonsense about arguing against cloud saves in 2019. There are a lot of things people can do or find workarounds for. But something like cloud saves and backups have become the norm across multiple services now, even down to your operating system, consoles, multiple PC launchers, and the list goes on. It is a feature that benefits consumers. It ensures that consumers understand that they are valued.
And looking just at the main section of the Steam forums I see this:
Literally hundreds of thousands of discussion threads. Those are threads, not even counting the individual replies. It's also ignoring the thousands upon thousands of individual game forums that Steam offers.
So while they may not be the best place to go, they are usually one of the first places to go for support if something is wrong with a game. It's about convenience for the end user. I loathe the mere thought of going back to a time where you had to search for help and support for games that had no centralized location. I have already been forced to do so for a game I was reviewing that is EGS exclusive and I hated it.
And same thing with the social features. Sure, a site that specializes in social media does social features better? Shocking. That's completely ignoring the point, yet again, that having everything in one place is a matter of convenience for the user. Options. Are. Nice.
It really sounds as if you would rather Steam go the Epic route, strip all of those superfluous features out (as it seems you view them to be) and just be a pure launcher. Because hey, the consumer can just find alternatives!
This is seriously an ass backwards way of trying to rationalize the issues.
That feature is a pretty big part of Steam's feature-set so I'd be surprised if that went away anytime soon
This is basically just a nasty public fight over dollars
Most of the time when devs are talking about this cut they usually mean Steam, so the dev had to clarify here that it wasn't just about them
LOL.
ModDB is great but it pales in comparison to Steam on the convenience front.
With Steam Workshop I just click Subscribe on a mod and it auto-installs directly into my game. When an update is posted by the creator, Steam auto-detects it and auto-updates my local mod save every time I open the Steam client. It's a one-click "set it and forget it" deal. I don't have to lift a finger after I hit Subscribe to keep all my mods up to date.
With ModDB I have to register, download the mod, unzip it, manually install it onto my HDD in the correct folder. When there's an update for the mod, well I hope I'm paying attention, manually browsing ModDB.com daily to see if there's anything new. Because they certainly don't tell me when there's new/updated content. Then I have to repeat the process all over.
As I said, ModDB is an incredible resource with way more content than Steam. But you'll never see anything close to the convenience of Steam Workshop thus far.
But sure, I guess I just support Valve profiting off the free labor of the mod community, lol.
I mean, many developers have had to put up stickies on their steam forums saying "We don't come here. Please come to us and we can help you". And they get ignored. Their centralized location isn't Steam, but that is where people go and where they need to allocate resources anyway.
Similarly: I know from the recent Mordhau debacle that I would REALLY have appreciated their primary forums being the first I checked. Reddit and Steam looked like the normal levels of toxicity and I never even made it to their forums where the REAL shitshow is.
From a consumer perspective, there are a lot of benefits. But there are also drawbacks. Same from a publisher/dev perspective
Nobody is saying that the devs have to be the one to help in forums. Most of the time it is down to users helping users with issues, which is the point of a public forum. Same thing with places like Reddit, Twitter, or even a game's own forums on their own site. Chances are it will be users that help others when needed. Either way, it's just a matter of trying to find support quickly and easily and for myself and others I know, a centralized starting point is the first and best stop.
As for devs that don't want to use the Steam forums, they should lock their game forum sections and have just one thread that instructs users on where to go then. I believe that is an ability they have at their disposal.
If you want to be recommended obscure games that nobody has ever heard of, then follow a Steam curator.
The system has its drawbacks, but you're never lacking for choices or information.
I don't really see the keys going anywhere either. If they do want to make devs even more happy with the cut situation though, maybe there is some solution out their that doesn't overly impact their own finances, doesn't damage other pc store options, and doesn't hurt consumers.
And if the devs/their team aren't the ones offering tech support, you tend to get a lot of FUD that sticks with things. And god help you if you get a "oh, that is spyware" debacle like with that metrics collecting library people lost their minds about a year or so ago. I similarly suspect a lot of the "denovo kills performance" stuff came from that kind of tech support.
I am not saying that there isn't a lot of value to having a highly populated board where you can ask questions. I am just pointing out why developers may not like it. Because even if they lock down THEIR boards, who knows what people are asking on the general boards? And who knows what support of dubious quality is being given.
I've been looking for decent curators to follow. You have any suggestions? The ones I see recommended tend to be obnoxious memey ones and I don't care enough to dig through
But the point is also that "what is popular" is heavily weighted on the top of the page. And if you scroll even a bit down you start getting even more trash. Thank god Will Smith mentioned there was a way to disable hardcore porn games (softcore is still an issue as I don't want to block the nudity tag entirely as I like some artsy indie titles).
Some people in this thread are just assuming that with a 11%/88% split you can't afford to have the same features as the Steam store. Obviously, time will tell if the EGS gets all of those features, but I guess nobody has any accounting of financial information to justify that 30%/70% is essential to have features like cloud saving or forums...
Oh, wait, we have one important developer called Paradox Interactive which says that 30/70 is outrageous. They know about these things, I guess.
Oh, wait, we have one important developer called Paradox Interactive which says that 30/70 is outrageous. They know about these things, I guess.
I like this one. They kind of recommend everything, so I don't necessarily read the actual review, but they do a good job of pointing out some cool and varied small games. Bigger games too, but a good mix.
Designer Plays is incredible if you're into indies.
I still can't fathom how this guy finds the time to cover all the games he does.
Cheers. From a quick glance I like their taste well enough and the text on the reviews is actually useful
Reddit is fine if you want to like, troubleshoot Fallout 76. But lots of smaller games get no subreddits (or dead ones), and furthermore, anything PC specific will often get lost in the noise if it's a multiplatform game. And this only increases as a game gets older.
Like I'm having an issue with Shakedown Hawaii, and it's basically impossible to get any real help with it. If it had been on Steam I might have been able to find fellow users easier (and the dev might have seen the thread, instead of ignoring my tweet about it).
Like I'm having an issue with Shakedown Hawaii, and it's basically impossible to get any real help with it. If it had been on Steam I might have been able to find fellow users easier (and the dev might have seen the thread, instead of ignoring my tweet about it).
Itchio is literally 100/0. How is Epic better then that?
And anyone talking about Fortnite players somehow have been blind to the same points that Steamspy/EGS guy discovered.
Lots of F2P gamers dont translate into consumers that buy games.
True, a lot of them are a bit crap.
I used to be a writer with Original Curators Group myself*. As far as I can tell, their reviews are solid and they don't post any nonsense. You might also want to consider genre or niche-specific curators. Personally, I don't pay any attention to curators that don't link to full reviews.
Unfortunately, there really isn't a way around "What's popular". You just have to work with what you're given.
*Nowadays I have my own curator page. It probably wasn't the brightest idea to start my own, but it helps keep my reviews organized.
I mean, the bags of money and much bigger audience share? Even with the shitty state EGS is in, 88/12 with a store that does trailers at E3 and TGA is worth a lot more than what Itch offers. The type of game that jumps at Epic's deal isn't usually from the type of dev that can command a following that's gonna go to Itch.
Well. You COULD have devs and publishers taking to twitter to say "What we currently have is crap" and some going so far as to tell Valve "Until you better meet our needs we are going to support your competitors". And then you hope Valve see enough of a hit that they get their shit together and try to improve what we are given.
But that is complete nonsense and would NEVER happen. No siree bob
In all seriousness though: Thanks, I'll check out both links.
Then the people involved should be talking about that, not this stupid PR bullshit of 'gives biggest share to developer' talking point. Which first isn't even true, and second isn't why anyone is signing any deals.
We haven't heard of a single exclusive deal that doesn't involve a direct money-hat with guaranteed payout.
Well no. Follow the conversation I was in. The first post I responded to was saying that it was weird for other people to try and put a value on your work. I was saying that's how it always goes. The conversation was about the relationship between Steam (the vendor of services) and the developers/publishers (the buyer of those services, via the cut they give up to use them). No one is "forgetting" anything. You're just jumping into another conversation on a tangent.
At no point has anything I've said ever referred to the selling of games to individual consumers. That wasn't what was being discussed.
The platform is the platform. Everything Sony spends on it is part of their contribution to justify the amount they take as a licensing fee or revenue split. You can't arbitrarily divide it up to pretend only some parts count. If Sony had to survive on just the hardware margin the business would not be sustainable. This is not even controversial. It's a simple and well understood strategy.
Exponentially more users and an enormous marketing budget.
So "gives developers the biggest share' is a false statement.
Or do you want to add a few asterisks to that?
Or we can literally apply this to steam's userbase? Pretty sure Risk of rain 2 has made more money then the equivalent EGS title at the same price point considering they have not annouced a single title over 1 million copies, even taking into account the different split and the short sale event.
I thought the ones that made the AMA on 8Chan were THQ Nordic.
So the strategy of Epic is to rip off consumers while giving a nice cut to developers?
Or do you have something else in your empty drive-by statement?
Well if there's competition then both consumers and developers have more leverage. But mostly I just ask the question to confirm that my understanding of the situation is correct.
"Rip off"
Interesting wording there.
And here we go with the monopoly shit again.
I didn't say it was.
For devs it's by and large about audience vs revenue split. Itch.io doesn't have the user base.
I didn't say "gives developers the biggest share", so I don't know why I'd need to asterix anything. I would be interested in you backing up your fake data about Risk of Rain compared to ??? You're not making any sense.
huh. it's almost as though these storefronts offer some value for their cut
And speaking as a consumer, I fully appreciate and endorse this strategy!
30 is fairly arbitrary but with the amount of services these storefronts are expected to provide, how much lower can it go? What's the real bandwidth cost of downloading a 80 gig game dozens of times? How much is Steamworks or GOG Galaxy worth as a dollar value?
Saying this costs "nothing" is insanely wrong. GOG barely keeps their heads above water at 30%. Does that leave only major behemoths that can work at a massive scale to sell at a fair cut (whatever that is)?
I get why publishers are pushing for this but so much of the conversation from their end is disingenuous.
Saying this costs "nothing" is insanely wrong. GOG barely keeps their heads above water at 30%. Does that leave only major behemoths that can work at a massive scale to sell at a fair cut (whatever that is)?
I get why publishers are pushing for this but so much of the conversation from their end is disingenuous.
No.Would these two games get the same revenue split?
You pay extra for subtitles.
Sorry. Next time please explain what I say wrong so I can avoid it next time.
Well by rip off I mean taking advantage of their dominant market to charge a lot of money from developers while said developers need valve to survive. Is that not true?
Speaking only as a consumer, extreme crunch would be fine too.
The thing that often goes unstated though is that, to an extent, neither does Epic. The large majority of Epic's current userbase is formed of Fortnite players, most of whom play for free. Fortnite players, especially free players, are unlikely to convert to full price game sales, as Sergey Galyonkin himself spoke about some time ago. Epic's massive userbase certainly isn't entirely illusory, but it can be overstated.
Your earlier comments about studios being eager to get on EGS for the better split even without the money hat seem to imply that we're going to see more games coming both to EGS and other PC DD platforms (Steam) in the near future. Do you think this will be the case?