Steam allow developers to generate keys and resell on 3rd party key resellers, and Steam earns nothing from this.
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Tim Sweeney: “If Valve commits to a permanent 88% revenue share, we’ll stop making new exclusive deals” (Read Staff Post)
- Thread starter Carlius
- Start date
Steam allow developers to generate keys and resell on 3rd party key resellers, and Steam earns nothing from this.
I think Epic will eventually bully Steam into a higher cut . That would be good. Maybe not to match EGS , but a higher cut than what they offer now.
Epic can keep on buying games up. No matter what Steam fans , or non fans of EGS say now...if all the big new games are only on EGS what are you going to do ?
Let your hate for a company beat out your love for gaming ? I'd pick gaming.
Epic can keep on buying games up. No matter what Steam fans , or non fans of EGS say now...if all the big new games are only on EGS what are you going to do ?
Let your hate for a company beat out your love for gaming ? I'd pick gaming.
I feel like they're picking on Steam's revenue because Epic doesn't need the store, they have Tencent backing them and fortnite and UE4 revenues.
At this point Steam, as a private company, should sell half or a controlling stake to Disney and watch Epic change their tune in a heartbeat
At this point Steam, as a private company, should sell half or a controlling stake to Disney and watch Epic change their tune in a heartbeat
I would quit PC gaming and PC gaming as a whole would return to 1990s pirate fest.
Many good devs understand the importance of fostering community - look at Frostpunk as a recent example - they leveraged the success of War is Mine and it translated into a huge start up sales. You're throwing a lot of that momentum into the waste basket when you take that money and put your game exclusively in one place.
I don't think Valve is predatory or evil. As I said, they are a great company. But they do have too much pricing power against their suppliers. The fact that they offer discounts to their strongest suppliers only goes to show that the power dynamic is what determines the market outcome. Strong suppliers pay 25% and even 20%, weaker suppliers pay 30%.
I'm not calling for government action, but I think it's natural for publishers to try and shift the power dynamics in their favor given how dominant Steam is on PC. Their competition with other platforms is not irrelevant but it is limited in its effect because there are gamers who only play on PC or have a strong preference for PC.
Well Epic already plans to start charging to get streamers to play games for proper marketing, although the wording on how much it will cost is quite confusing.
Also, it seems like EGS is behind schedule on getting more features; I think cloud saves were supposed to be introduced 2 months ago.
You ever heard of this service issue called "piracy?".
Note: I'm not condoning it, just saying it will become a much bigger thing again
The problem lies with the nature of each storefront.
Steam is Valve's primary source of income. It powers the entire R&D branch, provides funds for all side developments and the rest of the company. Proton for Linux, Valve Index, any ongoing game development, etc, that's all money gotten from the operation of Steam.
EGS is a side busness for Epic Games, their primary source of income being UE4 licensing and Fortnite, the actual financial returns on its operation are inconsequential to the company as long as they're not negative.
I don't think it should take an economics major to see the problem here.:
- Epic Games can afford to run EGS on minimal profit, without hurting their ongoing developments in any way.
- Valve relies on the profits from Steam to actually run their company and expand their business.
This is before even taking the difference of the featureset provided into account, i.e. Steam itself takes a lot more money to run that EGS because of the features it provides to both developers and customers. There's no fair comparison here, Epic runs EGS the way it does because they don't care how much money it makes - nobody else has that luxury.
If Steam change their revenue cut to match the one of Epic it means:
- The death of 3rd party stores like Humble and GMG. Dont believe me ? See Borderlands 3 which got a maximum discount of 10% on GMG or which isnt getting the Humble 10% off for the Monthly members.
- Higher prices in general (Since their removal of 3rd party stores, Anno 1800 and Division saw 2 saw their price raise by 15 to 20€. So good for customers).
- A chargeup for customers on multiple payment options.
- Less features to be developped since the store would run on razor thin margins.
Because you dont like EGS ? Geez .
As for the piracy thing ...I doubt it.
I guess we will see how things go in the future.
How much is Valve worth ? Tbh 30 percent seems ridiculous. I know everyone does it but still ...it seems like a rip off
Yup, there's a reason storefronts have to give a fuck about the customers, especially so when your goods are digital.
I know but I don't think large publishers worry about that, or in some cases even realize that.
And on what grounds is that opinion validated or informed? Do you understand why it's 30%?
I would quit because it would be in a worst state than it is now. We would be offered a shittier deal.
The entire reason why Valve can't provide a better cut for developers, is their rising to "natural monopoly" status. From a competition law point of view, a "better cut for developers" from Steam would not be "improving the market conditions", it would be "driving existing competitor stores out of business by drawing away their suppliers with superior offers and dominant market presence".
Again, Valve has option for 0% fee for ages. But ok, taking everything Steam offers, what cut isn't rip off?
Valve has such a monopoly on their suppliers that they allow for free unlimited key generation which means they dont get a single cent out of external sales and devs can get up to 100% on these keys... Which is also the reason why there's actual competition in the PC market with all these stores. For some games, there's like 40% sales done outside of Steam. Even higher for others. Despite these games redeeming on Steam and Valve offering full service for... 0 dollars.
I dont . But I see EGS can do 12. 30 seems really high .
Maybe 20 would be better .
No, I would quit because I fundamentally disagree with Epic trying to turn PC gaming into a walled garden, don't for a second think that if EGS gets the chance that they won't hesitate to push Steam and other 3rd parties out to try and monopolise the market. I don't have an irrational hatred for EGS, I just see it as something harmful to a hobby I love.
As for piracy... from anecdotal experience, I can already see it happening which is worrying.
Epic has all but outright admitted that their current split is unsustainable even now when they don't even have half of the Steam ecosystem features and are forcing transaction fees on to consumers. Not to mention Steam's 30% is only a half-truth.
What's funny is his statement is exactly right and completely misinterpreted just like he expected.
I mean yeah, Steam drops to that amount, there is no need for them to make exclusive deals. They wont be able to get them. lmao.
I mean yeah, Steam drops to that amount, there is no need for them to make exclusive deals. They wont be able to get them. lmao.
EGS cant do 12 on a sustainable way. Hence why the service has so little features. Hence why for a lot of payment options, the cost has to be paid by the customer.
Heck, having wallet cards is already a 15% cost to cover for the store. That's already out of EGS reach.
I wouldn't want Valve to change their policies for this jackass
Tim is a special kind of smarmy
Tim is a special kind of smarmy
Its funny how nobody push the rest to lower their cuts from 30% uh.
Why wouldn't they?
I can't see publishers saying no to hefty sums of money for timed exclusivity on EGS.
They do 12% while foisting fees on to the consumer, and while offering services that are frankly pathetic and basic compared to Steam's.
Higher prices and a step 10 years back in term of what we uses to get on PC in term of services and options. With the rise of piracy that'll happen because of that crap, expect also publishers to withdraw from the platform. It happened before. It can always happen.
Well I doubt many people would follow you but if you have that strong of a stance on it, I guess you would do what you feel is right .
I like games to much to care about this , what imo, is nonsense .
Can you even pirate games now and play them online?
Screw EGS and Tim Sweeney, Fortnite fever needs to start dying down so they wont have unlimited money to force exclusives on their crap store that is anti-consumer and lacks a ton of features expected in 2019. Of course he fails to mention how a much smaller cut would mean that Steam would no longer be able to cover the fees on payment methods that are very popular outside the US, resulting in the consumer paying an extra 5-10% on top of the regular price of the game. Plus, Epic isn't an open platform like Steam, they curate very specifically to mostly AA indie developers and as many AAA devs as possible, guess what they all have in common - they all have publishers who will be receiving the extra cut, we all know trickle down economics works and the publishers will be giving all the extra money to the developers, right.........
I haven't had any fees from egs , but I guess it's different in other places .
I wouldn't expect a relatively new store to be able to match steam , which has been around for how long ? I'm sure steam didn't start with the features it has now ?
And then Epic would be like whoops it seems like you guys were indeed pirates!
Then they would fuck off leaving a shit storm behind.
I would. Its fucking 2019 and they are sitting in billions of dollars. They could have done it if they wanted it.
Yeah those advance features like a shopping cart. Way too much for a billion dollar company like Epic.
Maybe that would happen , or maybe not much would change at all .
I dont see any reason for what egs is doing now to cause a massive rise in piracy
Not for developers who are strong in developing countries (SNK being one) where the local payment service transaction fees would be passed onto the consumer, which would drive away purchases.
If Epic ends up catching up on features and local payment services that will be a different story, but that is a big if IMO.
Let's be honest here. 99% of the people complaining about the 30% cut have absolutely no idea what kind of tools and features Steamworks offers to developers.
Does the EGS even have a robust multiplayer matchmaking API at this point? I was told that it did not yet, but I am no longer a bizdev guy so I don't take part in those conversations really anymore.
I like games too much TO NOT care about this. I'm going to continue to link this for people who want more information -
The Great Epic Store FAQ
And yes, from what I understand there are several ways these days to play pirated games online, though it's been possible for a long time through LAN tunnelling.
This continues to be the worst argument ever. Try comparing any product to one which launched 15 years ago and see how illogical that is.
Steam didn't start with these features because they weren't a standard thing back then.
Would you expect a YouTube competitor to launch without HD video, a player to control sound and video position, streaming and a search bar ?
dumb dumb dumb. this is all from the gut truthiness without a shread of insight into how software development actually works.
First of all, from the perspective of a software developer, nobody gives a shit that Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo develop their own hardware. Bespoke, exotic hardware is actually generally a hinderence to software development, which is why the trend has been towards more homogeneous architectures. Developers care about being able to reach consumers, and spread as wide of a net as possible. I don't have to pay Nvidia a royalty to develop for their video cards, I don't have to pay Intel to develop for their X86_64 cpus. And beyond all that, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, etc already charge a separate fee to develop on their hardware before you even begin to sell your game, that entities like valve do not. Nintendo isn't recouping their cost of hardware through a percentage of digital sales.
Beyond that, in terms of developer tools, steam absolutely is a platform just like Nintendo and Sony and Microsoft provide. Valve invests a ton of money into all sorts of library and tool development, they essentially prop up the entire PC development platform these days. This is most obvious when you see it applied directly to linux. Valve IS linux gaming at this point, offering steam itself (with a host of paid-by-value open source resources) as a library for developers to link against.
Your post is the exact opposite of true.
Maybe your expectations are a little unrealistic ? I'm sure they could have , but it would have taken a lot more time .
Why not release and grow , while still making money.
Do you not see how offering a worse service at a higher price point will result in increased piracy? Especially in poorer regions that epic is already implicitly telling to get fucked with their additional payment processing fees?
Steam made legal gaming a possibility in Russia. Fucking Russia, the #1 country in piracy back in the 90s.
It's already happening. Prices are getting higher. Some territories are excluded and well, EGS in 2019 is behind Steam in 2009 in term of features.
I agree not having a shopping cart is pretty weak but is that something to honestly get mad about? Its nothing more than a minor inconvenience
Because it is not my responsability as a consumer to give companies a pass for offering a shit product.
Benevolent is not what a lot of people argue Valve is, and it's disingenuous to imply it is. The whole "Good Guy Valve" meme is because they do a lot of pro-consumer and pro-developer work with Steam - APIs that are free to use, good refund system, good event sales, free key generation, and with little gatekeeping for products that want on the store. None of this is "benevolent" - it's a sound business philosophy, that benefits both consumer and developer/publisher. Could Steam be improved in both areas? Yes. Would a lower cut help devs/pubs? Yes. But this is a business, and all businesses have to be run profitably. As others have noted, a 12% cut for everything that Steam provides to devs/pubs is unsustainable.
