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[charlequin]

they are getting all the benefits with being on steam etc in addition to the above, these are long-term plans and could fall either way, but i dont find it too difficult to see some of the reasoning behind these decisions

Oh, it's not hard to see the reasoning, it's just that it's all reasoning that reminds me very closely of reasoning I've heard from sales-oriented executives justifying pet projects before -- usually executives who got fired a year or two down the line when someone looked at what a wasteful boondoggle said projects turned out to be.

It must be working for other publishers otherwise they wouldn't keep going for it and sticking with it.... at least that's how I see it from a first glance.

"Some company did this thing, therefore it must have been successful" is rarely conclusion to draw. Lots of companies in the video game industry have spent years and years wasting money on bad ideas before someone who actually knows what they're doing steps in. (Just look at the history of DRM for a particularly obvious example.)

Steam will soon become an Indie-only platform.

This is a pretty strong claim. You have to look at the actual position of Steam in the PC games marketplace. For a variety of reasons, it's very close to synonymous with PC gaming today, in 2016, which means it has an incredibly powerful network effect. Most games that aren't towering brands in and of themselves (i.e. anything that sells less than 5 million copies) rely heavily on Steam to drive their PC sales, both through sales and through visible placement in the store.

Even for the most successful companies to pull out of Steam (i.e. EA), smaller games take a huge hit by moving to a proprietary system, and just have to be written off as costs against the benefits of higher margin and better analytics. The further you get from being that most-successful-company, the more of a hit you take by going off on your own -- and, furthermore, each additional company that does this takes a bigger hit than the previous one, because there's a limit how many distinct accounts people will register for, use, and check back on.

 

[spacemonkeynation]

This shit is annoying but it's the current market. We can't realistically demand that everything filter through a single marketplace. Just please don't make it impossibly hard to link alias in whatever launchers we choose. The biggest issue I have with this currently is the Win 10 store crap. It's a pain in the ass to get those games into my game (steam) launcher

 

[TheElgorin]

Paid mods incoming!
They got berated for it on steam, but on their own system they can control the image.

 

[tuxfool]

Paid mods incoming!
They got berated for it on steam, but on their own system they can control the image.

They got berated for them because the entire implementation was a shitshow.

If their implementation of the client is as watertight as their games then they'll have similar problems.

 

[DeathSparks]

Paid mods incoming!
They got berated for it on steam, but on their own system they can control the image.

Oh yeah I forgot that, but then again you have Nexus Mods.

Spoiler

Though they will probably find a way to actually not allow that

 

[TheRed]

I need a launcher for my launchers.

 

[Synth]

I need a launcher for my launchers.

Steam.

 

[texhnolyze]

I remember when they released their new website last year and people doubt this will happen.

 

[old manatee]

I'll try it when it is patched, content complete and on Steam sale.

 

[LUFTRAUSER]

Man, this sucks. I was already kind of annoyed at Steam anyway but thought hey, I can always go and buy these games standalone. But it looks like now I won't be able to do that anymore, either. I really hope this doesn't end up where every single company has their own launcher because if so that will be a total clusterfuck.

Steam.

Fuck man, you're probably right.

Just, ugh. This is awful.

 

[iNvid02]

Oh, it's not hard to see the reasoning, it's just that it's all reasoning that reminds me very closely of reasoning I've heard from sales-oriented executives justifying pet projects before -- usually executives who got fired a year or two down the line when someone looked at what a wasteful boondoggle said projects turned out to be.

I think the nature of the project, the direction of their future games and the repercussions it has means it's not something that can be ignored or forgotten about within the company

things like the mandate for all aaa titles to be integrated with it, distribution for an entire platform going through it and its effect on sales, the rapid development (it's progressed faster than origin which has stagnated), and with their recent announcement to shift to more online focused games, the expectations of their online infrastructure and account systems will probably be under more scrutiny and the costs and benefits weighed against other solutions, not to mention the possibility of the metrics and direct interaction with users becoming more valuable because of thrir supposed shift to games as more of a service

if it is still a pet project, maybe it's yves'. maybe that's why vivendi are trying to take over lol

 

[Frostburn]

Battle.net at least sort of makes sense for Blizzard since their games aren't on Steam anyway and they have few but high quality releases that are often updated.

GoG is a cool idea and I love their games and support for DRM free releases but honestly if I could just have Steam installed on my system to play games on I would be extremely happy.

I am less likely to buy a game if it isn't available on Steam.

 

[Reallink]

I really have to wonder about the analysis that goes into the decision to launch one of these. Can anyone make a convincing case that uPlay has been a worthwhile endeavor for Ubi once you account for opportunity cost?

30% of the 10's of millions of digital PC games they sell is a lot of cheddar. Even if they only drive 5-10% of people to side step Steam and buy direct, you're still talking 10's of millions of dollars, which should easily cover the cost of setting up their own platform. I mean it's bad for customers, who don't want to DL, install, and keep up with 8 different logins/passes, but they don't give a shit about that.

 

[Saucycarpdog]

What's with all these stupid publisher's thinking these launchers are a good idea? It just leads to a lot of opportunity cost and eventually disdain from the community, just look at Uplay.

Battle.net is the only one that makes sense. I can understand why Blizzard would want a seperate launcher for World of Warcraft and heroes of the storm.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

The thirst to keep that 30% cut 3rd part distribution services takes is real.

What confuses me most is that they could also accomplish this by:

1) Selling Steam keys through their own website.
2) Selling standalone copies of the game that don't use any launcher.

(1) Would satisfy most people, although I do understand why Bethesda might dislike supporting another company's platform, even if they aren't sharing any revenue. (2) Might annoy a couple of people, but would annoy a lot FEWER of them, and in a single player game who really cares anyway?

 

[charlequin]

Really funny seeing people surprised and confused by this, asking "why". Why on earth not? Why would they be happy with the 70% cut they get from the Steam store? They have incredibly popular games. It's absolutely logical for them to have their own store.

It would be an unwise analyst who looked at the situation, said "100% > 70%," and kick off for the evening. That type of comparison assumes that everything else about the overall financial picture remains the same, which is just not correct.

For every company that moves away entirely from Steam for a service like this, they do see an increase in revenue, but they also see a decrease in sales -- at bare minimum, an almost complete collapse of long-tail sales, and possibly a hit to total early sales as well. On top of that, actually maintaining this service themselves costs money as well: you're looking at development costs (a team of five full-time developers, with design, QA, operations, and product people to match, is going to burn $1 million a year), hosting costs (can add up very quickly when you're running a service for millions of users that needs to be up all the time), bandwidth costs (you'll be paying something like 2 cents a gig, so it's potentially costing you a buck every single time someone installs your big AAA title), payment processing (you're taking a 5% hit for credit card purchases), support and infrastructure (you need a bunch of people to address billing/purchasing issues that you don't need if you sell through someone else), and probably a few other things I'm forgetting as well. It's very easy for all that to put you back at a lower total revenue than just paying 30% off the top of Steam would have.

Of course we are going to continue purchasing Bethesda games (well most of us anyway). They are one of the biggest publishers in gaming. But that doesn't mean we cant be annoyed by it all.

Well, people will keep buying TES and Fallout, because those are some of the biggest games in the world. But are they going to still sell 1.2 million copies of RAGE or Wolfenstein: the Last Order? 600k copies of Brink? 182 thousand copies of a random back catalog title like Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth?

 

[Synth]

Well, people will keep buying TES and Fallout, because those are some of the biggest games in the world. But are they going to still sell 1.2 million copies of RAGE or Wolfenstein: the Last Order? 600k copies of Brink? 182 thousand copies of a random back catalog title like Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth?

Probably? Because this will probably be more like uPlay and so the games will still show up on Steam also.

 

[CosmicQueso]

Probably? Because this will probably be more like uPlay and so the games will still show up on Steam also.

Yeah, assuming that they're setting up an exclusive storefront and leaving Steam is jumping the gun a little bit.

 

[Nirolak]

Yeah, assuming that they're setting up an exclusive storefront and leaving Steam is jumping the gun a little bit.

I'm guessing they would be most likely to keep their mods and/or f2p games on their client and their primary sale games on Steam.

Part of the hope would be that as people boot up their games on Bethesda.net and go looking for all their mods on it, they start buying DLC there to boot.

 

[abracadaver]

Not going to install it just like all the other clients that aren't Steam.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

This is a pretty strong claim. You have to look at the actual position of Steam in the PC games marketplace. For a variety of reasons, it's very close to synonymous with PC gaming today, in 2016, which means it has an incredibly powerful network effect. Most games that aren't towering brands in and of themselves (i.e. anything that sells less than 5 million copies) rely heavily on Steam to drive their PC sales, both through sales and through visible placement in the store.

Even for the most successful companies to pull out of Steam (i.e. EA), smaller games take a huge hit by moving to a proprietary system, and just have to be written off as costs against the benefits of higher margin and better analytics. The further you get from being that most-successful-company, the more of a hit you take by going off on your own -- and, furthermore, each additional company that does this takes a bigger hit than the previous one, because there's a limit how many distinct accounts people will register for, use, and check back on.

IS it though? Let's count how many large, western publishers have their own launcher:

1) EA, 2) Ubisoft, 3) Bethesda, 4) Blizzard, 5) CD Projekt, 6) Rockstar, 7) Epic, 8) Microsoft

Who does that leave? There aren't that many AAA game publishers out there! I count:

1) Valve, 2) Warner Brothers, 3) Take Two (but only the non-Rockstar portion), 4) Activation (but only the non-Blizzard portion)

I am SURE there are some publishers I'm forgetting. Also, this is only western publishers--but then, Japanese games still tend to be more console-centric than western ones. Plus, you CAN still buy many of these publishers's games on Steam... but they'll try their best to steer you otherwise with discounts, retail copies, etc.

Yes, Steam is still the largest single store. And yes, they still have the best brand recognition. But in my eyes, Valve is starting to look a lot weaker than they once did.

 

[GhostTrick]

If their games are exclusive to this service, I'm not buying them anymore.

I'm tired of the fragmentation of my library. I have a place with +500 games already. i dont want to deal with more accounts, more friend lists.

 

[Bonfires Down]

IS it though? Let's count how many large, western publishers have their own launcher:

1) EA, 2) Ubisoft, 3) Bethesda, 4) Blizzard, 5) CD Projekt, 6) Rockstar, 7) Epic, 8) Microsoft

Those publishers should merge their clients and have one of them handle the upkeep for a small percentage of revenue.

 

[Stumpokapow]

I'm guessing they would be most likely to keep their mods and/or f2p games on their client and their primary sale games on Steam.

Agreed, I don't expect Hearthstone to be released on Steam.

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

To bad you have to use this to get the GECK. I wish the program was still on steam so it would get auto updated with the game. It could have still pushed the mods to Bethesda's site.

 

[SchrodingerC]

Paid mods incoming!
They got berated for it on steam, but on their own system they can control the image.

Possibly.

If Bethy tries paid mods again they better implement the system now or risk causing a schism within a well established modding community once again.

For now they're just forcing those using mods to get a Bethesda account and activate mods through the service.

 

[Alex]

I don't mind off-Steam games but I'd really rather have less over-designed multi-game launchers. While it's ultimately not a huge deal and I'll tolerate most things (besides uPlay, which I do go out of my way to avoid) Steam and Battle.net are all I really feel comfortable with using.

 

[XBP]

This topic's on the front page of reddit. We did it fam!!!

 

[DSix]

Well, to be fair the Steam storefront's design is hot garbage now. So it stands to reason that publishers big enough to market their games don't see a good reason to give Valve a free 30% cut.

 

[JaseC]

Incidentally, Fallout 4's Creation Kit was going to be a Steam tool to begin with a la Skyrim's Creation Kit. It seems Bethesda changed its mind last March, a few months before the announcement of Bethesda.net.

 

[Memorabilia]

Ugh. Not another one. What misguided marketing study told Bethesda that people actually want this? I actively avoid PC games that aren't on Steam and tolerate GOG because I like their mission statement (and some of the classic titles not on Steam). uPlay is objectively shit, but I can't even be bothered to give Origin the time of day which isn't all that bad. It's just too convoluted to have a bunch of different interfaces/game launchers.

 

[calder]

A Bethesda storefront/launcher? Should I just post my username and password on pastebin now or wait for them to take care of it?

 

[HariKari]

Well, to be fair the Steam storefront's design is hot garbage now. So it stands to reason that publishers big enough to market their games don't see a good reason to give Valve a free 30% cut.

How about access to millions of users? Is that not worth something? Games like Mass Effect and Battlefield suffer because they're not on Steam.

 

[Nzyme32]

Well, the reply you made to the previous poster claimed that what he/she stated wasn't true. It was though. A game sold on their own store is worth more than a game sold on Steam. Even if they sold Steam keys, it would still be worth more to them than it would be if the same game was bought on Steam. A sale of the game on their store that isn't a Steam key is even more valuable, because not only do they get 100% of the price, but it also helps work towards not paying Valve 30% on the next purchase, by not sending that customer to Steam to actually receive the game.

Now sure, they can try to come up with other means of incentivising the user to buy from them... but that requires concessions that they simply don't need to make otherwise. Why give away free DLC, just to try and get that money back? That's leaving money on the table still, because you otherwise would have sold that DLC also... it's pretty much a different means of offering a price cut (except in your example, they actually give this advantage away too Steam as well anyway). All the other community stuff you refer to is applicable whether or not they sell on Steam. Those things have nothing to do with the store or the sale itself. EA doesn't care about trying to tell its customer base about how much a direct sale benefits them. The average Battlefield customer won't give a shit, and will buy it off Steam anyway. These sort of initiatives make sense for smaller desvelopers/publishers/games where the average person buying them is more interested and invested in the success and wellbeing of those that made it... but saying that this works for Ubisoft selling The Division, is like suggesting these publishers hit up Kickstarter to fund a new Burnout. The number of people that care isn't going to make any business sense.

The reason why most won't do what EA does (yet), is because so many gamers are trained to shop only on Steam, and so they're worried about potentially losing more customers than the 30% would balance out. It's for this reason however, that it doesn't really make sense for them to sell Steam keys, because it simply continues to train customer to shop on Steam instead. Smaller development studios will probably not have a choice anyway, lacking the ability to create and sustain their own distribution platform, and make it visible enough for customers to find. Larger publishers like EA, Ubisoft, ActiBlizzard and the like don't have this problem... after all they are publishers... it's what they do. In the digital space however they've been paying someone else to do a job they're more than capable of doing themselves.

If your point is that these dedicated launchers and storefronts have been shown not to work... then you're going to need to provide some evidence of that beyond "people on the internet complain". That's like suggesting microtransactions, season passes, persistent online etc doesn't work because we all complain about those things too. They don't give a shit it the numbers are working out. And considering we keep seeing new launchers and storefronts appearing, and basically none reversing course, it would seem that it actually is working well for them. If it wasn't they'd drop them and go back to how things were before.

Reselling Steam keys makes a lot of sense for companies that basically act like the digital equivalent to Gamestop. Where without the Steam keys, they'd simply have no product, and so no business. It makes far less sense to sell a Steam key of a game you yourself created.

Basically, this...

..sums up why they won't care.

The exact comment was:

they see it as no longer paying Valve a royalty to supply their game to the consumer. A game sold on their digital distribution network is worth more than a game sold on steam (bigger margins).

Which as I said isn't entirely true since devs / pubs can get 100% and go around Valve through alternate stores, not to mention the bigger margins from completely cutting out Steam are not a guarantee of greater revenue if people are not choosing to shop their / the store is struggling to scale and have the same player base due to those who lock themselves to Steam or other services / initial costs / support etc.

Regardless, you entirely misinterpret my point to you. There should be competition. That is what is great about the PC as an open platform vs pretty much everything else. The only issues come from single use services, poor support / stability, poor interaction with other services if they take that route / locking out communities of people etc, which many people simply don't want to invest themselves in and find a hindrance to use.

With enough time and development, I'm sure any can be successful. There needs to be some diversification for people to feel a service is worthwhile.

 

[8-Bit Sunset]

I wonder if EA have made a profit through Origin vs sales through Steam?
What I mean is (If we took say the next Fifa for example) I wonder if it would generate a bigger overall income on Origin or through Steam minus the 30% cut they take?

 

[Nokterian]

From all these launchers like i said earlier? Only 2 remain open since like someone else said Blizzard never had there games on steam that made sense and i use steam everyday. Already to many of these launchers on my desktop and it is getting way to cluttered and way too many accounts.

Yeah i have Uplay with a bunch of ubi games and the division for example but i won't be playing that until they fixed there game. And origin? Well last time i opened it was i think 1,5 years ago i use it so little.

Yes choice is nice but to much will not get me going i will leave it behind and stick what i prefer most and for the ease of use.

 

[JaseC]

I wonder if EA have made a profit through Origin vs sales through Steam?
What I mean is (If we took say the next Fifa for example) I wonder if it would generate a bigger overall income on Origin or through Steam minus the 30% cut they take?

Here's my take on Origin:

I don't think it's countered or just a small amount of customers as EA's games always fly up [Steam's] Top Sellers list when they're on sale and yet Origin's performance metric changed from total number of accounts to total number of "installs" (i.e. downloads). Origin is successful enough without the more recent games being available on Steam, that much is absolutely true, but I think it's quite obvious at this point that people who are introduced to EA's games on Steam are, by and large, not moving to Origin to play the more recent entries and so there is most definitely a sizeable amount of money being left on the table.

It's not much of a secret that EA left Steam behind because of Valve implementing a policy that DLC for games sold on Steam must be available on Steam as well, but this is no longer an issue. The other shoe is going to drop eventually.

 

[Bl@de]

GOG Galaxy. My favourite client next to Steam.

I have Origin installed but the only games on that are Mass Effect 1-3 (and I start up Origin only to play those).

I have no interest in other clients. If a game requires uPlay I start the game from steam and force uPlay to stay in the background (and close after I finish the game).

 

[Mub!]

maybe if they keep games exclusive to it i'll never see a new bethesda game and pretend they don't exist like i do with EA and origin

seems like a good deal to me

 

[Synth]

The exact comment was:

Which as I said isn't entirely true since devs / pubs can get 100% and go around Valve through alternate stores, not to mention the bigger margins from completely cutting out Steam are not a guarantee of greater revenue if people are not choosing to shop their / the store is struggling to scale and have the same player base due to those who lock themselves to Steam or other services / initial costs / support etc.

Regardless, you entirely misinterpret my point to you. There should be competition. That is what is great about the PC as an open platform vs pretty much everything else. The only issues come from single use services, poor support / stability, poor interaction with other services if they take that route / locking out communities of people etc, which many people simply don't want to invest themselves in and find a hindrance to use.

With enough time and development, I'm sure any can be successful. There needs to be some diversification for people to feel a service is worthwhile.

The option to sell a Steam key doesn't make that comment untrue. Sure, it's an alternative way to get 100% of a sale... but it's not a very appealing one because it makes having that 30% cut off the next sale that much more likely, and perpetuates this cycle forever. I didn't misinterpret what you wrote. I added what's basically a "the problem with that approach however, is...". If they don't want to pay 30% to Valve, then they shouldn't make unnecessary decisions that make doing so in general increasing likely. Steam keys do this. For the second bit you bolded... that remains true regardless of if you're talking Steam keys or not. The comment specificly states "a game sold on their digital distribution network" is worth more than it having been bought through Steam. This is equally true for Origin selling EA games, or a Steam reseller selling Steam keys. It never becomes false.

There is competition here. Valve doesn't have some inherent right for all purchases of PC games to be redeemed through them. If this is like uPlay, then you can buy the game directly off their store, or you can still buy it through Steam... how is that not competition? Conversely as I stated in my previous example, if instead of directly selling you an iPhone, the Apple Store sold you a voucher to redeem an iPhone at Walmart, that wouldn't really be competing against Walmart at all... it basically makes you their partner. The Steam key argument as being the only legitimate "competition" for PC games makes no sense, and has pretty much no parallel to sales of goods in any other market ever. Resellers of vouchers are typically the way non-content creators work, because they otherwise have nothing to sell. But they act to strengthen the marketplace the voucher redeems to. You say stuff like the PC market actually allows for competition due to the open platform... but then suggest that they should only sell a Steam redeemable product on this "open" platform. It's contradictory. It being an open platform is why they can make their own unique store separate from Steam, and take actions that don't continue to bolster it.

 

[Nzyme32]

The option to sell a Steam key doesn't make that comment untrue. Sure, it's an alternative way to get 100% of a sale... but it's not a very appealing one because it makes having that 30% cut off the next sale that much more likely, and perpetuates this cycle forever. I didn't misinterpret what you wrote. I added what's basically a "the problem with that approach however, is...". If they don't want to pay 30% to Valve, then they shouldn't make unnecessary decisions that make doing so in general increasing likely. Steam keys do this. For the second bit you bolded... that remains true regardless of if you're talking Steam keys or not. The comment specificly states "a game sold on their digital distribution network" is worth more than it having been bought through Steam. This is equally true for Origin selling EA games, or a Steam reseller selling Steam keys. It never becomes false.

There is competition here. Valve doesn't have some inherent right for all purchases of PC games to be redeemed through them. If this is like uPlay, then you can buy the game directly off their store, or you can still buy it through Steam... how is that not competition? Conversely as I stated in my previous example, if instead of directly selling you an iPhone, the Apple Store sold you a voucher to redeem an iPhone at Walmart, that wouldn't really be competing against Walmart at all... it basically makes you their partner. The Steam key argument as being the only legitimate "competition" for PC games makes no sense, and has pretty much no parallel to sales of goods in any other market ever. Resellers of vouchers are typically the way non-content creators work, because they otherwise have nothing to sell. But they act to strengthen the marketplace the voucher redeems to. You say stuff like the PC market actually allows for competition due to the open platform... but then suggest that they should only sell a Steam redeemable product on this "open" platform. It's contradictory. It being an open platform is why they can make their own unique store separate from Steam, and take actions that don't continue to bolster it.

At no point do I say this. That's the whole point. Does merely pointing out the existence of an option suddenly mean I'm arguing that no other options are possible or plausible?

 

[Synth]

At no point do I say this. That's the whole point. Does merely pointing out the existence of an option suddenly mean I'm arguing that no other options are possible or plausible?

Obviously you're not arguing that they're not possible/plausible in a thread discussing how numerous companies are selecting these options. You were arguing though that these other options "has been shown not to work well at all".

I was just saying why they're likely not going with the Steam key option... and now I'm also saying that Steam keys don't make the original post you replied to untrue.

 

[witchedwiz]

sigh..
i understand everybody wants a "platform"..
but steam success, was because it was an unified platform..
if every "developer" starts having their own platform this will become a mess...

 

[Nzyme32]

Obviously you're not arguing that they're not possible/plausible in a thread discussing how numerous companies are selecting these options. You were arguing though that these other options "has been shown not to work well at all".

I was just saying why they're likely not going with the Steam key option... and now I'm also saying that Steam keys don't make the original post you replied to untrue.

Again, that is not what I am saying. I am not saying ipso facto it can't work - I was specifically referring to single use - eg Frontier's elite dangerous; I also referred to those that attempt to poorly integrate with other services - eg Uplay; as well as those that are poorly supported / unstable - eg Uplay. Battle.net is a great example of this working well entirely on its own.

 

[bodyboarder]

sigh..
i understand everybody wants a "platform"..
but steam success, was because it was an unified platform..
if every "developer" starts having their own platform this will become a mess...

Or maybe cause valve to lower their cut to stay competitive.

 

[Krappadizzle]

I don't really care that they launch their own platform, hell they can sell games for cheaper on it for all I care, but I do hope they don't abandon Steam, as I prefer to have all my games in the same place.

 

[Turin Turambar]

Soon we're gonna have to use 4 or 5 launchers instead of just Steam

Yep. If soon means "already". Overwatch in Battle.net, Battlefield in Origin, Witcher 3 in Galaxy, etc.

 

[Synth]

Again, that is not what I am saying. I am not saying ipso facto it can't work - I was specifically referring to single use - eg Frontier's elite dangerous; I also referred to those that attempt to poorly integrate with other services - eg Uplay; as well as those that are poorly supported / unstable - eg Uplay. Battle.net is a great example of this working well entirely on its own.

Cool, then there should have been no problem with my original post. They can do Steam keys, but likely aren't for reasons XYZ. It wasn't a completely different point from to what you were mentioning. It was an reply on why the option you mentioned isn't being selected by all these publishers.

And the previous poster's comment remains true regardless of the option of Steam keys.

 

[strafer]

So when will we have a launcher for all of our launchers?

 

[Lashley]

Just as well I never buy Bethesda games