Tim Sweeney: “If Valve commits to a permanent 88% revenue share, we’ll stop making new exclusive deals” (Read Staff Post)

[StrikeFirst117]

Hm Valve are the root of all evil, nevermind the fact that your studio/company just got highlighted for overworking people on excessive crunch to keep your precious profits running as high as possible for Fortnite. So basically all your employees are working ludicrous hours for you then to toss money and moneyhat other developers off other distribution platforms.

Makes sense but sorry Tim wake me up when you aren't ruining people's lives with excessive crunch.

 

[Chief Malik]

🧢

 

[YuSuzzune]

Many devs thankt to the way Steam generates keys are able to sell their games on their sites as Steam key getting all the profit. Purchasing a game from their site IS the way to support those devs (usually indie devs). For AAA releases no matter what you see, even with a 12% cut developers will always see the same amount of money while the publishers will see new profits in their wallets, while again indie devs/company will see more money. But at this point just sell a Steam key from your site (like Wadjet Eye used to do, didn't check recently so I don't know if it's still a thing) and get 100% of the profit, while the user will also get a small save considering often those games are in USN and the conversion is lower compared to the Steam one, so you can save 1-2 euro.

 

[Darkstorne]

Are you prepared to sacrifice improvements to Steam, ability to generate free keys by developers (knee caping almost all pc games sellers), holding some functionality for developers behind paywall? Because that's what you are asking for.

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It's not what I'm asking for, unless you want to pretend Epic's method is the only possible way a reduced revenue cut can work, which presumably makes your agenda easier to push when you pretend that. It's not like Steam is balancing profit margins neatly with a 30% cut - they make a killing. And devs aren't happy about it. They can definitely afford to reduce their cut and still turn a healthy profit.

IS STEAM'S 30 PERCENT CUT WORTH IT?
Nearly all the developers interviewed for this piece, when asked if Steam's 30 percent cut of revenue was worth it, answered with a resounding "no." Many spoke fondly of the good old days, when Valve "actually did something" to earn their money. Now, many of these developers allege, those days are over.

"There used to be other companies you could use to do what Steam did, manage updates and transactions, companies like BMT Micro," another developer said. "Most of those companies would take 4 percent or 5 percent from each sale. What Steam was supposed to provide for the additional 25 percent was 'all those customers,' but now they're not providing that, and they're actually [sending] you toxic customers who leave you negative reviews who make things worse for you."

Hicks said that for him, the major difference between Valve's 30 percent and Microsoft or Sony's 30 percent was in the level of personal support and care the companies provided.

"Sony and Microsoft both provided me with personal contacts that I can pitch ideas to. They also provide contacts to pitch things regarding marketing [...] so if I have an idea for a cool promotion I can at least talk to someone about it," Hicks explained. "Additionally, they do everything they can to provide each game with a nice chunk of store visibility at launch."

Steam does not offer the same level of care.

"Valve has none of this," Hicks continued. "They stopped giving everyone a personal contact, the amount of banner support you get at launch is based off title popularity so nothing is guaranteed, and I have no one to pitch marketing ideas to. If they're going to be completely hands-off and redirect smaller developers to a message board for any type of support issues ... yeah, that's not worth 30 percent to me. Honestly, they do as much as itch.io does and itch takes 10 percent for a default percentage!"

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Also:
Just 6% of devs think Valve justifies its 30% Steam cut, says new GDC poll

 

[S I C K O]

I'm selfish just like the developers and publishers are selfish.

I will buy the game wherever it's the cheapest. Whether it Uplay, Steam or Epic. I don't let emotions get involved.

 

[RionaaM]

"We'll stop screwing customers over if Valve does this unrelated thing" doesn't sound like a very nice deal to me. This only validates my decision not to engage in business with Epic.

 

[Chief Malik]

It's not. I have more experience here than basically anyone on this forum TBH.
I have both worked with Valve/Steam for close to a decade and also spent 5 years running an independent digital store (playism)

Valve offers an absolute great value at their 30% cut because compared to other digital stores it is not a goddamn headache to release a game and
actually has easy to access data and marketing features. Not to mention the fact that you get unlimited keys (within reason) basically for free, which is not the case on any other platform.

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I'm book marking this post and will be posting it in any future egs thread, ty.

 

[Deleted member 9305]

Fuck off, Sweeney. You bark at the wrong tree.

Valve is at least providing something of value for their cut: Steam VR, Linux support, universal controller support, Steam Workshop (in client mod delivery), streaming, etc.

The industry is pro business enough. Valve is one of the few companies which are sort of pro user.

 

[Johnny]

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.

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I'm not saying that Sony's or Nintendo platforms are a blessing to developers. It wasn't me that brought up this (bad) comparison between Valve and Nintendo/Sony. Developing hardware in 5-year boom/bust cycles is not like maintaining an evergreen PC storefront. Not in capital expenditures, not in risk (see Wii-U), and not in the volatility of profits.

I understand that Valve works on tools that create value. I also conceded already that they are doing a great job. But that doesn't prove that 30% cut is a reasonable market outcome in a competitive market because the PC digital distribution market as of today is NOT competitive. I gave the 75% market share earlier, but I'm willing to be corrected with more up-to-date data.

 

[Pryme]

Because in other regions payment methods have higher cost than credit cards do in the US. There's a reason that in other regions Epic is passing their costs on to their costumers and tacking on a payment processing fee.

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I was under the impression that this problem exists in only a few other regions, and not in any of the major markets. Please correct me if I'm wrong

Also Steamworks has way more features and it is constantly updated. And now Valve offers anticheat and DDoS protection for free with dedicated servers for developers incoming (probably for free) on their private network (Valve has their own global server and infrastructure, they are not using AWS like Epic). And Steam has much more features that cost money because they operate truly global store that adapts to the different markets.
.

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Most of these features are sunk costs already. Dedicated servers will likely not be free.
I'm not sure what the 'global store' line is about since Epic Store has regional pricing too.

 

[Nameless]

Positioning himself himself as some kind of hero on a crusade to right some wrongs.

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Worked for Phil Spencer in the console side. A lot of people guzzled(and to continue to guzzle) his Kool-Aid.

 

[Deleted member 4976]

Why would anyone ever believe this promise by Tim Sweeney?

 

[GhostTrick]

It's not what I'm asking for, unless you want to pretend Epic's method is the only possible way a reduced revenue cut can work, which presumably makes your agenda easier to push when you pretend that. It's not like Steam is balancing profit margins neatly with a 30% cut - they make a killing. And devs aren't happy about it. They can definitely afford to reduce their cut and still turn a healthy profit.



Also:
Just 6% of devs think Valve justifies its 30% Steam cut, says new GDC poll

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And a lot of devs are actually not aware of what's being done or how things work. When you read that Kotaku article about regional pricing, it's scary. Because the reason is to be an indie dev means being a marketing person, a creator, a developer, an artist. It means wearing multiple hats and not a lot can do it properly.

 

[Dandy]

He is so full of shit. Why is Valve unique in being the devil for having a 30% cut?

 

[GhostTrick]

I'm not saying that Sony's or Nintendo platforms are a blessing to developers. It wasn't me that brought up this (bad) comparison between Valve and Nintendo/Sony. Developing hardware in 5-year boom/bust cycles is not like maintaining an evergreen PC storefront. Not in capital expenditures, not in risk (see Wii-U), and not in the volatility of profits.

I understand that Valve works on tools that create value. I also conceded already that they are doing a great job. But that doesn't prove that 30% cut is a reasonable market outcome in a competitive market because the PC digital distribution market as of today is NOT competitive. I gave the 75% market share earlier, but I'm willing to be corrected with more up-to-date data.

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"The PC digital distribution as of today is NOT competitive"

It is competitive as fuck. Find me as much competition on the console market.
Based on review split, here what we get:

Inform yourself:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019...ets-less-than-30-percent-of-steam-game-sales/

 

[dex3108]

I was under the impression that this problem exists in only a few other regions, and not in any of the major markets. Please correct me if I'm wrong



Most of these features are sunk costs already. Dedicated servers will likely not be free.
I'm not sure what the 'global store' line is about since Epic Store has regional pricing too.

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Regional pricing is not what makes your store operate on global level. Operating on global level means adapting to specific markets and not imposing your rules to those markets. That is what Epic is doing. One of those imposed things are payment methods. They support and cover payment fees for payment methods they consider fair and for other payment methods they don't cover payment fees or outright don't support them. They have regional pricing but not regional currency for many countries. I am not sure if they even offer support in other languages beside English. There is much more work to operate globally than what is Epic doing.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

Sure Tim, whatever you say. You're full of shit and know full well your featureless store would collapse the moment you cease buying up third party exclusives.

 

[Anya7890]

A true piece of shit. Truly.

 

[Johnny]

"The PC digital distribution as of today is NOT competitive"

It is competitive as fuck. Find me as much competition on the console market.
Based on review split, here what we get:

Inform yourself:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019...ets-less-than-30-percent-of-steam-game-sales/

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From your link: "The results (for non-free-to-play titles) show that on average, 72 percent of games are purchased through Steam, while 28 percent are purchased through third parties."

Is that your definition of thriving competition?

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

Whether or not gamers believe in his good intentions, developers obviously care about their cut. It's something Valve will eventually have to address as their storefront marketshare shrinks, just as Nintendo did in the 90s.

 

[WellbornWarrior]

I'm selfish just like the developers and publishers are selfish.

I will buy the game wherever it's the cheapest. Whether it Uplay, Steam or Epic. I don't let emotions get involved.

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No offense but that's shortsighted and exactly why strategies like Epics moneyhatting work.

 

[MonthOLDpickle]

competition

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Where else can you buy games exclusive to EGS? Nowhere. That isn't competition. You say that yet EGS is delivering no such competition. Its being more monopolistic then steam.

 

[Nateo]

Fortnite devs create them, for TF2/CS it's the community. My beef with it is that these things used to be free when I was younger and played the games, I think it was before Steam Workshops.

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If items and skins go into the game officially you buy them and a percentage goes back to the creator of the item. People were making bank on CSGO, DOTA and TF2 doing this.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

From your link: "The results (for non-free-to-play titles) show that on average, 72 percent of games are purchased through Steam, while 28 percent are purchased through third parties."

Is that your definition of thriving competition?

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72% is not a monopoly, no, not considering the head start Steam got, and considering how big some of those F2P titles are.

 

[Johnny]

It's not like Steam is balancing profit margins neatly with a 30% cut - they make a killing. And devs aren't happy about it. They can definitely afford to reduce their cut and still turn a healthy profit.

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Exactly. They are already lowering the cut to 20% if you're a blockbuster publisher with a big game (and hence negotiation leverage). They just won't do it for the smaller games that need this the most. The difference between 30% and 20% is huge. Could mean doubling net profits for small projects.

 

[GhostTrick]

From your link: "The results (for non-free-to-play titles) show that on average, 72 percent of games are purchased through Steam, while 28 percent are purchased through third parties."

Is that your definition of thriving competition?

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On average yes. Now did you check the picture here ?

Did you check the isthereanydeal picture ?
This is competition.

Your ideal of competition is a 12% cut that will lead to 2 stores existing: EGS and Steam. Maybe they'll have a 50/50 split in a few years. How is that competition when you drastically reduced the number of actors and on top of that, killed the price competition ?
You're throwing blanket statements yet fail to demonstrate anything. In theory, you're right. More competition is better. In reality, what you call a Valve monopoly is an actual competition and actual competition based on Prices, which leads to different splits (DMCV has saw like 50% of its sales OUTSIDE of Steam). What you're advocating for is the opposite of competition but oligopoly.

 

[GhostTrick]

Exactly. They are already lowering the cut to 20% if you're a blockbuster publisher with a big game (and hence negotiation leverage). They just won't do it for the smaller games that need this the most. The difference between 30% and 20% is huge. Could mean doubling net profits for small projects.

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They are lowering their cut after a certain threshold indeed. But they all start at 30%.

 

[BasilZero]

Just Valve? Literally everyone else is cool?

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Which is why his claim is pretty much bullshit.

 

[Johnny]

On average yes. Now did you check the picture here ?

Did you check the isthereanydeal picture ?
This is competition.

Your ideal of competition is a 12% cut that will lead to 2 stores existing: EGS and Steam. Maybe they'll have a 50/50 split in a few years. How is that competition when you drastically reduced the number of actors and on top of that, killed the price competition ?
You're throwing blanket statements yet fail to demonstrate anything. In theory, you're right. More competition is better. In reality, what you call a Valve monopoly is an actual competition and actual competition based on Prices, which leads to different splits (DMCV has saw like 50% of its sales OUTSIDE of Steam). What you're advocating for is the opposite of competition but oligopoly.

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Should we cherry-pick games to suit your point or should we look at the overall data? The data shows that the market is not competitive. Publishers are right to be upset that it isn't.

 

[Johnny]

They are lowering their cut after a certain threshold indeed. But they all start at 30%.

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That's just a funny way to sugar coat their better terms for bigger games. Do you think many indie developers are enjoying this?

Steam is great for users which is why the majority of Era (steam users) is extremely biased in its favor.

 

[GhostTrick]

Should we cherry-pick games to suit your point or should we look at the overall data? The data shows that the market is not competitive. Publishers are right to be upset that it isn't.

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I didn't cherry picked. I took a high profile, recent release.
Yes, on average, it's a 70% split toward Steam. But you know why ? Because it often happens because some games are only offered through steam or physical copies.
In fact, if anything this picture shows: The more store selling, the lower the Steam share is.
The data shows the market is highly competitive:
Prices differences up to 20%
On a game by game basis, from 80 to 50% of split for sales.

What should be a competitive market according to you ?
Valve being at a 20% marketshare ?

That's just a funny way to sugar coat their better terms for bigger games. Do you think many indie developers are enjoying this?

Steam is great for users which is why the majority of Era (steam users) is extremely biased in its favor.

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Indie devs can also enjoy this.
You know what many indie developers cant enjoy ? Releasing their game on a store. Which is what you're advocating for. Then again: Steam allow for key generation for free. Which can nets them up to 95% of revenue.

 

[Florin4k4]

Does anyone trust a billionaire CEO?

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Are billionaire CEOs excluded from being trusted? And trusted in what way? To do what they say they do?

 

[MasterOfMagnet]

"The PC digital distribution as of today is NOT competitive"

It is competitive as fuck. Find me as much competition on the console market.
Based on review split, here what we get:

Inform yourself:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019...ets-less-than-30-percent-of-steam-game-sales/

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This is the big thing that people continuously gloss over. There is more, healthier, pro consumer competition within Steams own ecosystem than there is in all other game store/clients combined.

 

[Necromanti]

Should we cherry-pick games to suit your point or should we look at the overall data? The data shows that the market is not competitive. Publishers are right to be upset that it isn't.

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But you didn't touch upon the second part of that post. How is the solution, then, to further concentrate the market to a smaller number of competitors? You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

It's like how the argument is made that discoverability is lacking on the Steam store, therefore, the Epic store (which has...no form of discoverability) is the solution. It's completely farcical.

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

Is that your definition of thriving competition?

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This is data taken from reviews posted by people who own the game on Steam, so that is a very indicative metric, yes. We have no way of tracking and compating cross-store releases, and Steam does nothing to prevent games released on it from also releasing elsewhere. So even on Steam, on average two out of seven people reviewing have not paid Valve anything.

Exactly. They are already lowering the cut to 20% if you're a blockbuster publisher with a big game (and hence negotiation leverage). They just won't do it for the smaller games that need this the most. The difference between 30% and 20% is huge. Could mean doubling net profits for small projects.

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Small projects and small teams don't need an extra 10% "the most". What they need the most, is a solid distribution platform and visibility tools. Steam is already pretty solid, and visibility is an ongoing issue that even curated stores like GOG have run into.

 

[Era of not Yakuza]

Gabe response: we will do, but only if you treat your employees as human beings

 

[Johnny]

But you didn't touch upon the second part of that post. How is the solution, then, to further concentrate the market to a smaller number of competitors? You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

It's like how the argument is made that discoverability is lacking on the Steam store, therefore, the Epic store (which has...no form of discoverability) is the solution. It's completely farcical.

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Going from one strong player to two would be a start. Not ideal, but better than a single player owning most of the market share, and a bunch of small players fighting for scraps. None of the smaller stores are a threat to Steam. Epic games are. That's in itself is a healthy thing. If you don't have competitors that keep you up at night, it means you're not really competing. Steam had it too good for too long. Has that made them evil? No. They're a great company. But publishers are right that they want them to sweat a little.

 

[Grand Galvantula]

Known liar Tim Sweeney lies again, big shocks abound.

 

[dsk1210]

Somebody should tweet Tim and ask him if they are going to enable 100% share revenue for developers like Steam allows for shits and giggles.

 

[psilocybe]

Why are people mad at Epic instead of Steam and their unsustainable monopoly pricing of 30%? I thought Era was pro-developers?

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Valve's cut is already less than 30% due to keys. We had a thread about it.

 

[Opa-Opa]

.
Just 6% of devs think Valve justifies its 30% Steam cut, says new GDC poll

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Why was this not quoted yet?
I think it's the most important argument here.

Also, it sucks for us, but I always thought Steam's and Gog strategy of "sales" would someday collapse. I'm so conditioned to discounts my mind just look at most games if they have a 70% off or more tag and that's good only for me, probably not devs.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I'm not sure why you people are even bothering with Johnny.
This is going on since the first page and it's pretty damn obvious at this point that he's just "concern trolling" the topic and he has absolutely no interest in being better informed.

 

[GhostTrick]

Going from one strong player to two would be a start. Not ideal, but better than a single player owning most of the market share, and a bunch of small players fighting for scraps. None of the smaller stores are a threat to Steam. Epic games are. That's in itself is a healthy thing. If you don't have competitors that keep you up at night, it means you're not really competing. Steam had it too good for too long. Has that made them evil? No. They're a great company. But publishers are right that they want them to sweat a little.

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So your solution is to kill the small players "fighting for scraps" ?
Because it's better for the market (based on nothing) to have 2, 3 or even 4 big actors ?

 

[MasterOfMagnet]

If you are an indie developer and are depending on the store client to try to get visibility then quite frankly you've failed already. Everyone talking about magical curating solving their problem is living in a fantasy, they need to get the word of mouth and hype going long before the game is available for sale.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

I'm not sure why you people are even bothering with Johnny.
This is going on since the first page and it's pretty damn obvious at this point that he's just "concern trolling" the topic and he has absolutely no interest in being better informed.

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Yep.
Ya'll are better off ignoring him and moving on.

Why was this not quoted yet?
I think it's the most important argument here.

Also, it sucks for us, but I always thought Steam's and Gog strategy of "sales" would someday collapse. I'm so conditioned to discounts my mind just look at most games if they have a 70% off or more tag and that's good only for me, probably not devs.

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Every storefront worth a damn has sales though.

 

[Necromanti]

Going from one strong player to two would be a start. Not ideal, but better than a single player owning most of the market share, and a bunch of small players fighting for scraps. None of the smaller stores are a threat to Steam. Epic games are. That's in itself is a healthy thing. If you don't have competitors that keep you up at night, it means you're not really competing. Steam had it too good for too long. Has that made them evil? No. They're a great company. But publishers are right that they want them to sweat a little.

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Of course publishers want them to sweat a little. And of course they want a larger share of the pie.

That is why everyone is eager to endorse an attempt to get rid of official key resellers that--like with physical media--see reductions in prices and sales as stores compete with each other, rather than having games be sold solely through a storefront that can tightly control prices for a longer period of time. Starving off other smaller storefronts isn't just collateral, but by design.

It's blatantly obvious what their intentions are, and as a consumer, I cannot endorse it. But trying to sell it as something it is not is the thing that's really gross.

 

[Deleted member 28523]

dude literally gets blasted on twitter every single day for his shitty exclusive deals and his genius plan is to try and somehow blame valve for EGS having exclusive games.

you're worth 7 billion dollars, tim. pay fortnite employees more and hire some PR people.

 

[Threekola Miroswish]

Fuck Tim Sweeney

 

[Deleted member 135]

I give EGS two years at most before it collapses in on itself.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Why was this not quoted yet?
I think it's the most important argument here.

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Because it's pre-selective bullshit, asking the wrong question as well to people who are hardly equipped to answer knowingly and fairly in the first place.
It's like asking to entrepreneurs "Do you think you should pay less taxes?" and expecting a balanced response.

Also, despise the recent efforts from some publications to paint Valve as the villain, the overwhelming majority of developers still love working with them apparently: