Cyberpunkd
Member
Can you provide us with your analysis and cost breakdown of operating a store such as Steam instead of shitposting “which is not much”?
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Tim Sweeney emailed Gabe Newell calling Valve 'you assholes' over Steam policies, to which Valve's COO simply replied 'you mad bro?'
James Sawyer Ford
Member
Can you provide us with your analysis and cost breakdown of operating a store such as Steam instead of shitposting “which is not much”?
That tells you all you need to know about how much it costs to run a friggin’ digital store….
Cyberpunkd
Member
Try again. I would for sure imagine Valve having less employee bloat than Google, who throws shit at the wall to see what sticks. Also - what does Facebook and X need thousands of engineers for?
Sleepwalker
Member
See:
Game Dev - Tim Sweeney emailed Gabe Newell calling Valve 'you assholes' over Steam policies, to which Valve's COO simply replied 'you mad bro?'
Just a reminder that valve literally made drm attractive to the point people moaned at one point if a game didn't use steamworks. Like c'mon, what other company managed to do that? Tbf, part of it is also their drm is basically water.www.neogaf.com
That post sums it up if you don’t agree with what I consider “consumer friendly”
Steam's DRM is dogshit, most of the times you can bypass it by deleting a file on your computer. It's not denuvo.
Second hand market on PC? What second hand market? PC prices are better than even second hand console prices (which don't offer alternatives at all for digital games). Eneba, Greenmangaming, cdkeys etc are more often than not cheaper than console discounts or steam sales but you cannot get a PS5 game code at eneba, I wonder why that is?
Valve has less than 400 employees, expecting them to be Apple is hilarious.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Mr. Sony over here talking about “stanning”.
Without Steam in the picture, Epic would turn PC gaming into a console style ghetto with paid cloud and online subscriptions.
They wouldn’t have implemented refunds. They still haven’t bothered to implement any sort of VR functionality or controller compatibility.
Acting like they’re all interchangeable is just plain ignorance.
James Sawyer Ford
Member
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KaiserBecks
Member
Indie gaming would be vastly different today if it wasn't for valve. They created a new paradigm in gaming.
theHFIC
Member
Because Steam has the most complete platform available on PC. It is one of those "If you come at the king, you better not miss" scenarios and all Epic loves doing is throwing money at various misses in gaming technology until they hope that something sticks.
GOG is a decent competitor too though but they also know their current role in the digital storefront landscape.
DaciaJC
Gold Member
Go back to Lost island, Sawyer, your brain clearly got rattled when you left.
Little Chicken
Member
A fine example of Steam abusing their market power.
Shake Your Rump
Member
When the vast majority of your money comes from children and addicts, you can afford to be careless.
Sonik
Member
Seriously? You don't need to be a fucking expert to calculate that they expenses can't be too much. They only host the game files on their servers and some relatively low quality videos, which are probably their biggest expenses other than workforce and R&D. 30% for that is fucking robbery, yes Steam is an excellent service but it's still annoying that they're ripping off developers, especially indie ones
Topher
Gold Member
Isn't 30% pretty much the standard for most stores outside of EGS?
Senua
Member
30% for putting your game onto the largest online gaming store out there, (sans mobile?) If they don't like it they can go to epic with a much lesser percentage and sell 10 games
Sonik
Member
Yes and it's bullshit, at least consoles are physical and need pretty big R&D costs, they are a huge risk and they're often even losing money with each console sold, what risks do online storefronts have?
Congrats, you're bragging for Valve having a monopoly. It's because of people like you that corporations are ripping everyone off
Senua
Member
I'm not bragging lol it's just reality.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
What do you think GoG is?
And if you’re going to write GoG off for being minor competition, then what do you think Epic is?
Topher
Gold Member
Valve took some big R&D risks with Steam Deck. Linux gaming has come a long way with their support. I think you are to easy to hand out excuses to mega-billion, trillion dollar corporations who lay folks off when profit margins take a dip. Seriously....if I'm going to get high and mighty about anything then I'll start there and then come down to Valve's level.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Except Nintendo makes a profit on every Switch sold, as does Sony, while making YOU pay for Cloud Storage and online gaming. Oh, and Sony sells advertising space on your console do they not?
Talk about getting ripped off. You excuse it.
Valve a much smaller company makes a portable gaming PC and a VR headset.
So big R&D costs right? Right??
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Sonik
Member
You guys need to read my original post again, I'm not saying that Valve isn't a great company or I don't prefer it over Epic, I'm saying that the 30% split is absolutely ridiculous
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
It’s the industry standard.
Epic can’t even sell gift cards because their 18% cut is too small to do them. Screw that. Take a bigger cut, and cater to your users.
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Demigod Mac
Member
Apple makes a great physical product at about the same cadence that Valve makes a new game, not that often anymore. Beyond going ARM with their M chips being a smart choice, everything else about them has been iterative boring hardware since Steve Jobs died. Their VR headset barely innovates anything, their hardware breaks more than people would admit, and they're still anti-consumer to moon on top of most of their product line being overpriced. Valve has done more to make the platform better through software services (Steam Input, Proton, Big Picture Mode, etc.) that actually add value other competing companies don't, while I can't think of a single piece of new software in the last decade Apple made that wasn't done better by a third-party.
Valve isn't without criticism, but pretty much all tech companies that aren't the major hardware makers for fundamental components like semidconductors could die, and the market would adapt fine because there is competition in every major space.
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
They don't have a monopoly, they do have the best service, and have built loyalty over decades of excellent service.
They are way out on top, but there are a ton of other stores out there that have in general failed to compete on the quality of service they offer.
Steam doesn't even have a monopoly on selling games for steam.
LordCBH
Member
The other companies should try harder to make appealing services.
Epic? Still trash
EA? Still trash
Ubisoft launcher? Still trash
Blizzard launcher? Still trash
Hell even the Xbox PC app is still not very good.
Having a monopoly isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but abusing it is.
ZoukGalaxy
Member
You mad bro ?
StereoVsn
Member
What the heck are you talking about? Steamworks does not require always online. Steam doesn’t require DRM. And the DRM the Steamworks introduces can be readily hacked.
StereoVsn
Member
Yep, Valve has under 1,000 people now days, probably significantly less. That’s smaller than Ubisoft head count for latest AC game, and Valve headcount is for everything they do (Steam customer service is I think outsourced).
Fbh
Member
Why though?
One could make the argument for something like PSN or iOS since they are walled gardens where you don't have an option.
PC is an open platform, if the service and platform that Valve is providing isn't worth a 30% cut then devs/publishers are free to not release there.
Also everyone keeps saying how easy it is to make an online store and how valve is doing nothing special. But somehow every other PC storefront is kinda crap and doesn't even come close to having the same features and functionalities as Steam
Kaleinc
Banned
No shit, when you buy crap in Walmart you don't care about Nancy selling you that crap either
OmegaSupreme
advanced basic bitch
And?
He's running at 5th the power of that machine.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
is all about that.
Sentenza
Member
Coming from one of the most rabid PlayStation groupies on this board, for context.
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Self_Destructive
Member
Hey Tim, when you fuckwads were bitching and moaning about PC gamers and labeling them pirates while shifting focus to console development during the 360/PS3 era.. Valve was building up the best gaming store/client to ever exist. They've earned their ability to do fuck all but laugh while you struggle.
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OmegaSupreme
advanced basic bitch
Epic is just salty that despite taking less they are losing money on their store. Which probably explains why their shitty store has been over run with shovelware now. They're desperate.
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ChorizoPicozo
Member
OmegaSupreme
advanced basic bitch
Its steams price to set. I don't see the issue. More developers are making more money on steam than epic. It's not even close.
You're also forgetting all the money epic are spending to give away games.
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GHG
Member
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mansoor1980
Gold Member
obligatory....................
recursive
Member
I read it until cross eyed and came to same conclusion. It is just some internal talk that we all do everyday in our day jobs.The mongs at PC Gamer don't even check the source. Valve did not reply to Sweeney.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
the only issue i see, is people and "pundits" talking/analyzing/commentating what's going on with the industry (including this) seem to forget how fucking important is that 30% cut.
Kaleinc
Banned
Then why don't you run a friggin’ digital store and make billions sitting on a fat ass with a dick in right hand
IFireflyl
Gold Member
