At that point, it should be entirely and utterly clear to everyone that Epic entering the game store space made the industry better.
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Tim Sweeney: Epic Games Store is making the industry better but gamers don't see that
- Thread starter Komo
- Start date
They made a whole lot of sales post campaign as well. I still don't get how they didn't fight (or even ask) for the okay to give supporters steam/gog keys.
No. It isn't.
Everybody knows, that it's made everything worse.
You see I too am going to make declarative statements with no supporting evidence.
I mean, if EGS entering the sphere means Valve will reduce the cut and then EGS will disappear, as the poster i quoted as prophetizing, indeed the creation of EGS made the industry better and healthier, by redistributing some wealth to developers.
Valve doesn't really need that much revenue to keep Steam going, or for it's other projects anyway.
You can still fuck up your budgeting even with a steady revenue stream. And slacker backer money are anything but steady.
I am not really surprised they jumped at the chance of an easy pay day, especially since when the deals were penned the extend of the outcry at the exclusivity was not foreseen by any of the parties involved.
Valve talk at GDC showed that most of Asia uses payment methods that make Epic's revenue split unsustainable.
Its good like struggling franchises like Borderlands can be made with no worries because of the moneyhats. Bless Epic
You keep coming back and making declarative statements with zero evidence behind them while never addressing any arguments many of which backed with evidence that contradict you.
You just ignore them and repeat yourself.
User Banned (3 Days) - Lazy Dev Rhetoric and Misrepresnting concerns of users
You don't think moving revenue split towards developers is healthy for the industry?
I thought no one was arguing that point, but sure, let's go for it.
Valve has higher profit per employee than goddamn Apple, and hasn't really made a game or a major new feature for Steam in years.
The money Valve gets on it's cuts, meanwhile, could fund an enormous amount of developers, while funding game projects for publishers becomes less risky due to higher expected revenues (Reminder, 70 to 85 is a 25% increase, not a 15% one, due to how percentages work).
Easiness of funding projects leads to a healthier industry.
Again, i was responding to the hypothetical posted by the user i quoted. But reading comprehension is hard when you can just accuse someone else of not listening, i suppose.
Also, as a day one fan of Phoenix Point \ XCOM, EGS moneyhatted them for exclusivity enough to keep them going for "Years to come". And that's a major plus in my book, because i really want to play their games, and it selling well definitely wasn't a guarantee - Epic shouldered the risk for them, and that's making the industry better and healthier in my book.
And really, we're not talking about "Buy another console" level of hassle. This is a two-minute install of another software.
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This is the worst case to try and make a point with though. The game you are quoting is Phoenix Point, a game that was successfully kickstarted/Fig and paid for by fans of the X-Com series (750k raised of a 500k goal in 2017) who were promised a key to their platform of choice. Fast forward two years and in comes Epic with a big stack of cash to buy exclusive rights to a crowd funded and paid game with backers told the platforms of choice that had pledged and paid for is no longer available. Refunds were offered but that really isn't the point, Backers money was used to develop a game that sold out to Epic.
It's extremely scummy tactics from both Epic and the developers.
I dont really understand this comparison as the platform is the same? To me it just means valve's monopoly power gets hurt and ppl who make video games get more bargaining power for pc distribution
we can't go 10 fucking minutes without someone ignorantly saying "it's just another launcher,"
the problem is not that these games are inaccessible. the problem is that what epic is doing is fucking with the market in a way that we, as consumers, are winding up paying more. "It's just another launcher," yeah, and nobody is bitching about having to open another launcher window. They're bitching that they are winding up paying more money, because of a literal monopoly.
you know, the same way how you're like "can't hate the player" regarding devs with their money, except from a consumer perspective. It's not at all hard to grasp.
Say you want to play final fantasy 10. There used to be 10 stores selling it, and some of those stores offered a discount. But I pay to make it so you can only buy FF10 from my store. Now all those discounts are gone. The price of the game goes up. Do you say, "oh swell, that dude is going to make so much money, this is great" when it's coming at your expense?
User Banned (1 Week): Excusing Piracy
Another thing i put credence to, and sort of helps explain valve's silence (besides the highly likely possibility that they are internally thinking about reworking their contracts) is gabe talking about how he believes that pirating is more of a service-gripe than anything to do with price; maybe they believe epic's service is so poor that the exclusives will be rampantly pirated. I dont mind that either, if the video game makers are paid a lump sum for exclusivity already.
I dont mean literal monopoly, i mean that steam's price isnt negotiable and seen as a standard based on the size of their reach. I think it's cool that this can be challenged and reorganized
Also i dunno if this is clear, but i am specifically talking about benefits towards devs/publishers, consumers always have an avenue for access via pirating
Also i dunno if this is clear, but i am specifically talking about benefits towards devs/publishers, consumers always have an avenue for access via pirating
Thats my bad then, i thought it was straight 30% until recently when they reacted to epic's announcement
What?
All games are monopolies. Naturally, obviously and unmistakably - the developer of a game is the sole source of that game.
There is no 'competition' in selling a game.
There's 'competition' in selling ancillary services to said game, which currently has one quasi-monopolist in the PC platform - Valve, who has enormous advantages due to being first-mover and network effects.
Does really the ancillary service of steam matter so much that it overrides making sure as much as your money is going to whoever made the art you're consuming?
And flaming endlessly about it?
Steam has innovated when absolutely forced to by competitors or regulators. See: Refunds.
This is the competition Steam needed to put a spotlight on the cut% issue.
What you're not actually getting is that the industry is healthier with as little middlemen as possible, taking as little as possible.
There's no 'competition' in the sense of companies getting more 'efficient' to make games at lesser budgets that can be sold for less. There hasn't been in a long time, and crunch \ dev underpay is already an issue enough.
the 30% cut has never, ever been set in stone. In fact, what you are referring to as "recently" more codified their stance than prior.
We are talking about stores. As in entities that I use to transact money in exchange for goods.
Come on dude, this has been gone over multiple times. Valve allows developers to generate their own keys to sell on their own stores in which Valve receive 0% of the cut. It's been shown that a large portion of games activated on Steam aren't sold through the store itself, they are sold off site in other competing stores.
Yeah i didnt know dev/publishers had bargaining power with steam already for the cut steam takes, that definitely rearranges the situatiom a bit for me
Im not talking about that but yeah i have basically attempted to avoid reading stuff about this because i find it difficult to separate the hyperbole and vitriol, but it's on me i'll opt out of the convo
Im not talking about that but yeah i have basically attempted to avoid reading stuff about this because i find it difficult to separate the hyperbole and vitriol, but it's on me i'll opt out of the convo
Yeah, and the data calc'd out ended up netting 24-28% cuts for most games.
And that's not counting the grey market shenanigans keys experience, or that keys tend to sell at a lesser price than store-bought.
Then, exactly, can somebody explain to me why i got jumped for saying "If EGS pushed Steam to lower it's cut, then it surely did make the industry healthier"?
...EGS lowers its cut by pushing fees onto the consumer. If Steam lowers its cut, it can't provide things like steam cards, processing fees, etc.
literally the answer I gave you. "Lowering your cut" = raising the price I pay.
You should read this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18YudW7kBCBTSr3kJp_4EEiEmT5I7c2B5/view
It explains everything as to why EGS isn't healthy nor being helpful to the PC Gaming market.
You, somehow, think one of the most profitable major companies on earth on a per-employee basis, is providing as efficient a service as possible and should not face competition on price?
This needs to get back into reality, soon.
This is the usual drivel written by a forum-poster who has no particular insight in any of the industry's workings.
It completely ignores the fact that a game's price is substantially arbitrary, as the marginal cost is pretty much 0.
Any and all developers try to maximize the revenue for their product. That's what allows games to get made at industrial scale.
The revenue cut being lower can have one of two possible effects:
- Game prices get lower
- Game revenues get higher, leading to more games being developed
Both effects are good. I strongly favor the second, and think that is more likely to happen, since capitalism works how it works.
I really don't understand all the defense force and corporate apologism for Steam.
Epic, with developing UE4 and it's licensing terms, has done more good for game development than any other entity in the last few years. But since this is a consumer-only forum, there's no goodwill for that like there's for sales, i suppose.
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what competition on price? EGS games are more fucking expensive!
Nothing you are saying is making any fucking sense
again, I don't give a fuck if devs are making more money per sale if it's coming at my expense. You know, like i already directly clarified to him TWICE:
also, things like Humble Bundle and itch.io take less of a cut than Epic.
I actually really really love itch.io, that is my ideal storefront. Itd be great if that model could be extended or scaled to steam size
If that's your line of thinking, you may aswell pirate the goddamn games then!
That'll be a cost to you of -zero-!
...
I'm leaving the thread, this is depressing.
It's precisely that you have a black or white attitude that your position is so outlandish. Jesus fucking christ...
There is a middle ground between raising the prices I pay, and rendering the industry literally unprofitable. And, being a developer myself, I'm very much interested in that middle ground. The EGS is NOT in my best interest, despite what you keep trying to tell me. And I understand my business way better than you do.
It's honestly astonishing to see how far and how willing people are to fight against consumers best interests. This is what us PC players are discussing/moaning about, whilst you might think It's great that Epic are looking after some very select few developers the end result is that it's worse for us as consumers.
From the lack of features, higher prices, people being locked out of the store, games getting pulled weeks from release, games being restricted to a single store it's all against us.
If you can't see that by now you're being wilfully ignorant.
Good riddance, posting utter utter shite as per usual in these threads. That's what's fucking depressing, being told as a consumer how great this is for me!!! jog on.
This is presuming that the cut is what is attracting games, not the fat checks. It is entirely possible for Valve to have the exact same revenue split and lose games to EGS due to moneyhatting.
*Edit: This is ignoring the fact that matching revenue split would not even be possible for Valve as Epic has already demonstrated that its razor thin margins aren't even sustainable in many parts of the world with many payment methods. All that with how little they actually put back into the store.
I don't think anyone's really against developers negotiating a better percentage of earnings for themselves.
But Epic could at least attempt to offer a comparable service (and I know that's "to come someday") and err on the side of silence than be blatantly dishonest about their goals (controlling the depreciation of game prices).
But Epic could at least attempt to offer a comparable service (and I know that's "to come someday") and err on the side of silence than be blatantly dishonest about their goals (controlling the depreciation of game prices).
It would at least make the difference for the smaller developers that Epic don't want on their storefront as an unintended effect, anyway. Potentially. But yes, Valve would need to be making similar deals to actually "compete".
Wouldnt the route then be bidding over exclusivity? I assume that thus far valve has refused to participate in that.
Also i feel like piracy is pretty central to this discussion (I am talking about this with a broad view, not personal consumer complaints which i do find valid; let us assume that epic will be moving forward despite the moaning). The dissatisfaction with epic + the desire from consumers to day 1 every thing should prompt a spike in pirating if we go by gabe's thesis (that piracy is service-driven rather than price-driven or even things like drm).
I know many will loathe this but i am incredibly interested in this due to my own experiences interacting with music forums and how piracy created these incredible micro-communities that would interact with each other, which would in turn affect the music industry. Sites like oink or apps like soulseek; id be very interested in what comes if egs spurs ranmpant game piracy.
So it's either praise the corporations or yar har fiddle dee dee, huh? So much for the consumer (your and my) interests, right? What an awful outlook.
I wouldn't be surprised to find EGS exclusives to be some of the most pirated games online. We'll have to see what comes of this.
Going by how many pirate jokes/comments I've seen pretty much all over the place, I'd say that's pretty likely. Steam has done more to dissuade pirates than any platform I can think of, and EGS is going to work against that, whether it's pricing, or EGS as a platform, or Epic's practices; pirates will use those as excuses.
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And this coming from the company that left the market because of piracy.
Some of the people here are dense as fucking bricks. Jesus.
People on Reddit are talking about pirating games on the Epic store, and those comments don't get downvoted to oblivion. They don't even get the cross that marks them as controversial.
im surprised that you guys spent so much time arguing with someone that said
thats such an instant non-starter for arguing in good faith. If there is one thing valve has done more than literally all other platforms, including consoles, its innovated on features.
And they'll leave again if and when it becomes a less-than-stellar investment, because no matter how hands-off Tencent may be, they're 40% stakeholders that want return on that. Whatever your feelings on Valve, they have a vested interest in keeping the PC games space healthy, and the independence to pursue it as they see fit.
This is about the Epic store, not the company.
The second one is only true if you sell the same number of copies, which will probably not happen.