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[shark sandwich]

If you care about devs themselves? Sure. 0% sure beats 12%. So if you prefer a smaller cut you should prefer direct sales over big storefronts.

Steam provides a valuable service but they are taking too big of a cut. You’re talking about the tech company with the highest profit per employee (https://www.businessinsider.com/valve-profits-2011-2)

Your argument that “either you’re okay with Steam taking 30% or you must oppose the idea of a digital storefront altogether” is completely ridiculous.

 

[KonradLaw]

Steam provides a valuable service but they are taking too big of a cut. You’re talking about the tech company with the highest profit per employee (https://www.businessinsider.com/valve-profits-2011-2)

Your argument that “either you’re okay with Steam taking 30% or you must oppose the idea of a digital storefront altogether” is completely ridiculous.

Well..12% is also too big of a cut. So your argument is completely ridiculous, because somehow you only have problem with 30% cut, but 12% one is somehow so glorious it immune to criticism.

 

[JCK75]

Epic is killing the industry, I've been a PC gamer for over 20 years and If the day comes where I'm expected to use the Epic Gamestore that is the day my time as a PC gamer comes to an end.

 

[Kadayi]

Steam provides a valuable service but they are taking too big of a cut. You’re talking about the tech company with the highest profit per employee (https://www.businessinsider.com/valve-profits-2011-2)

Your argument that “either you’re okay with Steam taking 30% or you must oppose the idea of a digital storefront altogether” is completely ridiculous.

Have you been in stasis? That's a news article from 8 years ago? Places like GMG etc didn't even exist then. Valve don't see anything from those 3rd party keys.

 

[A.Romero]

Valve pretty much created the PC gaming market as we know it today. Before them you could buy the games from retail, pretty much the same as in a console with the particularity that there was no unified ecosystem for updates and MP playing.

As developers:
You had to have a site or something similar to deploy updates
It was easier to hack/crack (No active DRM or it quickly became obsolete)
Had to take the risk of subcontracting an online platform like gamespy or something similar
No statistics other than what your own code could pick up (if you had the infrastructure to receive that info back)
Had to rely on traditional marketing to get eyes on your product (indie developers can't afford a 2 page spread in EGM)

As gamers:
You had to be able to find the game you want in retail. Easier for newer games, difficult for older titles or niche games.
You had to use third party platforms to try to have a community such as X-Fire
You had to download updates manually, files could be difficult to find, connections were slower and sometimes a 500 mb corrupted file could mess up your weekend
No sales
PC gaming outside of the main markets was pretty much piracy based (like in Mexico)


So Valve destroying the PC gaming market? Don't think so. Even if they did, they pretty much created it so I guess it could be theirs to destroy. Just as if Sony decided no to support PSN any longer (for whatever reason).


More stores equals more competition but it's only good for us as consumers if they are offering something better than the rest. As far as I know the only thing Epic is offering that is objectively better than Valve's offer is a bigger cut for devs which is awsome. However, as consumers we don't even have feature parity and savings are not being passed on to us.

So right now, as a gamer, why should I care for EGS? (other than not liking that I have to choose between waiting for an exclusivity deal to be over or playing on the technically inferior platform)

 

[KonradLaw]

Epic is killing the industry, I've been a PC gamer for over 20 years and If the day comes where I'm expected to use the Epic Gamestore that is the day my time as a PC gamer comes to an end.

PCgaming is too strong to be killed by whatever one company can do. And Epic has zero real exclusives anyway. Everything they pay for will be on Steam in 6-12 months. So it's annoying, but long term it's just annoyance.

 

[Barakov]

Yeah, I don't buy that. Steam made things easy for people to pick up or get back into PC gaming. Granted, 30% is really too much of a cut for most developers so I understand them going to EGS. But given tencent's rep and how Epic had their hand in the cookie jar so to speak should make anyone wary about installing that launcher on their PC. BL3 and other games will show up elsewhere at some point so it's mainly just a waiting game for the exclusivity period to be over.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

So far it's the only other DRM store that I have accepted to install on my computer (unless you count's MS's poor excuse for a store as an installation).

Anyway, 30% for the store is not unheard of, Sony, Apple, and Google take a similar cut, but for a digital store front it would make sense to be lower (given the service they actually provide, payment + visibility on their platform).

However, I think Steam can easily undercut them and just take back any loss ground... but I must say that I prefer the simple no-nonsense interface of the Epic store (I don't care for most of Steam's features).

 

[shark sandwich]

Well..12% is also too big of a cut. So your argument is completely ridiculous, because somehow you only have problem with 30% cut, but 12% one is somehow so glorious it immune to criticism.

I’m not saying it’s immune to criticism. I’m saying a 30% cut is probably too much. Is that hard to understand?

 

[KonradLaw]

I’m not saying it’s immune to criticism. I’m saying a 30% cut is probably too much. Is that hard to understand?

And how hard is it to undersant 0% cut is better than 12% one?

 

[daveonezero]

Oh also all the Steam Dev tools. Those are free but give developers apis to implement into their game to increase functions.

All the things Steam offers has value.

 

[KonradLaw]

However, I think Steam can easily undercut them and just take back any loss ground.

Wouldn't work. Games land on Epic Store as exclusives because devs get moneyhatted, not because of 12% rate. So even if Steam would reduce their fee it wouldn't change much. Valve would need to start to money hat devs too.
Plus such a drop in fees would be enourmous. Epic would have to buy hundred of exclusives for Valve's bottom line to get hit enough to make it financially viable for them to lower their fees.

 

[RedVIper]

I think you are smart enough to realize that creating and running a game store for a dev studio to just sell their own games just isn't financially feasible.

Except they can do exactly that, they don't because they want acess to the Steam userbase (Or epic moneybags). There's nothing preventing them from selling the game directly to the costumers.

 

[Iorv3th]

30% bullshit again. Anyone who uses that argument as their main purpose is beating a dead horse and has no real argument to begin with.

 

[johntown]

That is such BS. While I cannot speak to the 30% cut and what actual operating cost are incurred by Valve I would assume they could probably cut it back a bit. I will post this article again so people can see that Steam does not always get 30%.

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

Publishers never complained about having to pay a company to put their games on a disc. Or the 10k required by Sony to issue a patch for a game. Why is Steam the big evil greedy corporation here? They offer a service that is great! Download speeds are top notch, there is an offline mode, there are great sales etc. I don't think I need to go on and explain all the benefits.

Epic store does not have half of this. Publishers are the ones who are greedy and trying to force people to a sub-par experience.

As I have said many times before I have no issue with games being on Epic as competition is good. Forcing people to a crappy half featured platform because these big companies are greedy for every little dollar they can get is what I take issue with.

Steam is the just the cost of doing business when putting games on PC. This is no different then charges that Sony and Microsoft and disc manufactures charge to be on their platforms.

 

[demigod]

Valve pretty much created the PC gaming market as we know it today. Before them you could buy the games from retail, pretty much the same as in a console with the particularity that there was no unified ecosystem for updates and MP playing.

As developers:
You had to have a site or something similar to deploy updates
It was easier to hack/crack (No active DRM or it quickly became obsolete)
Had to take the risk of subcontracting an online platform like gamespy or something similar
No statistics other than what your own code could pick up (if you had the infrastructure to receive that info back)
Had to rely on traditional marketing to get eyes on your product (indie developers can't afford a 2 page spread in EGM)

As gamers:
You had to be able to find the game you want in retail. Easier for newer games, difficult for older titles or niche games.
You had to use third party platforms to try to have a community such as X-Fire
You had to download updates manually, files could be difficult to find, connections were slower and sometimes a 500 mb corrupted file could mess up your weekend
No sales
PC gaming outside of the main markets was pretty much piracy based (like in Mexico)


So Valve destroying the PC gaming market? Don't think so. Even if they did, they pretty much created it so I guess it could be theirs to destroy. Just as if Sony decided no to support PSN any longer (for whatever reason).


More stores equals more competition but it's only good for us as consumers if they are offering something better than the rest. As far as I know the only thing Epic is offering that is objectively better than Valve's offer is a bigger cut for devs which is awsome. However, as consumers we don't even have feature parity and savings are not being passed on to us.

So right now, as a gamer, why should I care for EGS? (other than not liking that I have to choose between waiting for an exclusivity deal to be over or playing on the technically inferior platform)

Well said, its easier to find flaws of Steam instead of praising for the good it has done. I hated Steam when it first launched because of the clunky ass UI.

30% is not a lot if you compare it to consoles where they make even less than that. On that note, thanks publishers for jacking up pc prices to be on par with consoles.

 

[lukilladog]

What a load of crap, companies charge as much as they can, and Epic is doing exactly the same thing. Probably they are gonna lower their cut even more.

 

[petran79]

Valve also contributed to Linux gaming and Vulkan. Lets see if Epic and the rest will release their clients there and on Macs

 

[MadAnon]

Except they can do exactly that, they don't because they want acess to the Steam userbase (Or epic moneybags). There's nothing preventing them from selling the game directly to the costumers.

Ehmmm... you basically explained my point. Trying to sell your game exclusively on your own platform would be financial suicide.

 

[MadAnon]

Valve also contributed to Linux gaming and Vulkan. Lets see if Epic and the rest will release their clients there and on Macs

Their only "contribution" to Linux was their self-interest with Steam machine project which failed miserably. Proving that Linux is irrelevant and that there's nothing to contribute.

 

[Hinedorf]

Nintendo did the same exact thing with the costs of cartridges to some of their most talented third party developers.

Neither group is hurting today, nor their competitors.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Having so many launchers will suck

Someone will probably come up with a "unified" launcher, or a way to show your Steam library in the Epic launcher (or vice-versa).

 

[petran79]

Their only "contribution" to Linux was their self-interest with Steam machine project which failed miserably.

Their client runs indendently and natively on any linux distribution and they embedded a custom Wine version for the Windows games

 

[Stuart360]

The ironic thing is that PC gaming was on its death bed before Steam, and the Epic Store has done nothing but harm the PC gaming scene since its introduction, and has turned PC gaming into a warzone, business wise and user wise.

 

[Fuz]

This guy is super salty with Valve.

The first clients of platform are always the developers.
I think it fair to fight for Devs with revenue share.

IT'S NOT FOR THE DEVS, IT'S FOR THE PUBLISHERS.
CAN EVERYONE PLEASE STOP SAYING IT'S FOR THE DEVS ALREADY? Goddammit.

 

[sol_bad]

What drugs is this guy on? I'm pretty positive publishers make more money from digital sales than they do from physical sales? Going digital made them more money because their expenses were less, no more printing of cd's, manuals and covers.

 

[demigod]

The ironic thing is that PC gaming was on its death bed before Steam, and the Epic Store has done nothing but harm the PC gaming scene since its introduction, and has turned PC gaming into a warzone, business wise and user wise.

Man where’s that reddit post that was linked here on gaf about how epic said F U to pc gamers and now crawling back to them.

 

[Stuart360]

Also games are as expensive on the Epic Store than anywhere else, more so with some of the games, so i dont know how they are helping us gamers.

 

[NahaNago]

The epic store was always going to have to fight dirty if they wanted to become successful instead of just barely existing in the pc space. When fighting a store that is completely decked out in features and its biggest weakness is how much it charges game studios to sell games on it, just saying "hey we give these game studios more money is the reason why you should buy games at our store", was not going to make much of an impact.

 

[Stuart360]

And to think, all this shite is down to one fucking thing, Fortshite.
If they ever invent a time machine....

 

[Zog]

Epic is killing the industry, I've been a PC gamer for over 20 years and If the day comes where I'm expected to use the Epic Gamestore that is the day my time as a PC gamer comes to an end.

Did you say this about Steam?

I am not defending the Epic store, just think things like this are empty threats. Kind of like how people would stop playing on Playstation if Sony started charging for online play.

 

[Helios]

Ah, another hot take to put Epic back in the news and get people to argue about the same shit non-stop.

 

[JCK75]

Did you say this about Steam?

I am not defending the Epic store, just think things like this are empty threats. Kind of like how people would stop playing on Playstation if Sony started charging for online play.

Why would I say it about Steam? steam is about as free as it gets, they are paying to keep games off other stores.
Before Fortnite was a thing I had to use Epic Launcher for projects in UE, I stopped using it when done and they were compromised several times and my username and passwords were obtained from Epic, I went through hell recovering my account because their support sucks.. once I got it back Fortnite was a thing and even though I changed the password and enabled 2FA all hackers needed was my email to fail a few times and lock me out of my account consistently. Now had they made a store and put a LOT of work into making worthwhile features and proving to me the dark days I experienced are long behind them I'd wait it out and bit and give it a go... but since they decided to just pull the most vile method of trying to force me to come back.. I'm sorry but fuck them, I'm NEVER using their store, ever. And since you mentioned Steam, 13 year user, account worth tens of thousands of dollars.... number of times my account has been hacked? ZERO!!

 

[Arkage]

Epic is killing the industry, I've been a PC gamer for over 20 years and If the day comes where I'm expected to use the Epic Gamestore that is the day my time as a PC gamer comes to an end.

 

[Zog]

Why would I say it about Steam?

I was thinking that maybe sometime around 2006 when Steam was fairly new and you could still buy PC games in retail stores that weren't tied to a Steam account, did you say 'If I am ever forced to use Steam , my PC gaming days will come to an end'?

You do remember the days when PC gaming was mostly physical, right?

 

[Woo-Fu]

Disgruntled Employee Still Disgruntled. It's an Onion story that writes itself.

 

[JCK75]

I was thinking that maybe sometime around 2006 when Steam was fairly new and you could still buy PC games in retail stores that weren't tied to a Steam account, did you say 'If I am ever forced to use Steam , my PC gaming days will come to an end'?

You do remember the days when PC gaming was mostly physical, right?

By 2006 I was using Steam for 3 years, I was never forced onto Steam, I chose to go to it because it was a superior new way to buy games, if you're going to force me onto another launcher you're going to have to give me a reason to want to use it.

 

[JimmyJones]

As much as I don’t want 10 different launchers, he’s right. Competition is a good thing.

 

[Zog]

By 2006 I was using Steam for 3 years, I was never forced onto Steam, I chose to go to it because it was a superior new way to buy games, if you're going to force me onto another launcher you're going to have to give me a reason to want to use it.

If you had not chosen Steam, you would have eventually been forced to use it as more and more games were tied to a Steam account.

 

[Sentenza]

As much as I don’t want 10 different launchers, he’s right. Competition is a good thing.

I mean, no, it's the opposite: he's objectively not, regardless of how much you like all the other launchers.

 

[SlashBringingHasher]

idk if egs is saving it but steam doesn't give me too much motivation to look for games. it has too much crap and am not a fan of the platform.

 

[Sentenza]

idk if egs is saving it but steam doesn't give me too much motivation to look for games. it has too much crap and am not a fan of the platform.

Try buying a PS4. PSN will make Steam look a marvel in comparison, under any possible metric. "Discoverability" included.

 

[Solomeena]

ITT anti-epic crybabies move the goal posts even farther back while trying to act like they are anything but lazy fanboys for a man that gives zero shits about them.

This is such a douche comment that screams you have an agenda against Steam/Valve so you won't mind if i ignore this shitty biased reply.

 

[JimmyJones]

I mean, no, it's the opposite: he's objectively not, regardless of how much you like all the other launchers.

Why is he wrong?

 

[Solomeena]

And just so any other troll knows this EX-Valve guy has an axe to grind against Valve, he hated his time while employed at Valve and shits on them any chance he gets, so you will have to forgive me when i think his opinion about EGS is biased as fuck.

https://www.pcgamer.com/ex-valve-employee-describes-ruthless-industry-politics/

 

[Solomeena]

Why is he wrong?

Because he has an axe to grind against Valve that is well documented, see my reply above. He is biased as fuck because he hated how Valve let employees run the company.

Edited to add another discussion about Rich from Neogaf as well. https://www.neogaf.com/threads/form...ctivity-cliques-bad-management-office.964018/

 

[Sentenza]

Why is he wrong?

Because regardless of how much someone could like or dislike it, Steam has OBJECTIVELY been a revitalizing force for the PC gaming market in the middle 2000s.
I've been a PC gamer for more than 30 years at that point and I still have a bitter aftertaste about how things were going back then, with devs fleeing into the console market left and right, until Steam came, gained traction and proved the the entire industry that the PC market could be profitable.
It could also be argued that Steam is the reason big console games, especially the ones from Japan, become multiplatform by default in the last 10 years.

 

[angelic]

Steam is better, but 30% is horrendous. I don't see how anyone could argue Valve deserve that cut, especially for how little they do.

 

[Solomeena]

Steam is better, but 30% is horrendous. I don't see how anyone could argue Valve deserve that cut, especially for how little they do.

For how little they do? I mean, like hosting developers games worlwide available for downloading and patching at any time of the day or night? Giving developers a place to communicate with their fans? To advertise their games? Giving access to the Valve network that powers games like CS:GO and Dota? Does Epic do this? NO? i thought so. Gamer's apologizing for Epic and China being evil douchebags is getting old at this point. Gabe should shut down Steam just to see the kind of shit PC gaming would be in if all that is left is places like Epic.

 

[MayauMiao]

I'm not sure how he sees Epic Games is saving PC gaming when they resort to time exclusive.