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Basically you're still better off going through steam's Market than anywhere else, cuz anywhere else is like opening up your own Ma and Pa shop and getting whatever you could get from the locals, in comparison to signing up on Amazon and selling your products there having the whole wide world have access to it, yes you're doing it at a loss but at the same time your numbers are higher because it's on the mainstream platform, this is why it doesn't exactly make a whole lot of sense to me when people are talking about mod authors getting money through patreon in comparison to releasing mods on bethesda's store, they're going to get more people noticing them more eyeballs on their product through Bethesda store then they will through their patreon page because one is used by the vast majority of everyone and the other simply isn't.
@@5226-p1e This my god does he sound bitter though out the video so many little digs and false context. Only at the very end does he sort of admit he has a bias and self interest. bellular needs to stop being a shill.
@@neotagatg3238He is even lying through the whole video because Valve doesn't enforce price parity as long as it isn't a steam key. You can sell on EGS or a DRM free version on your store just not a key. So either he is a bad faith lair or he is unable to read this lawsuit... Because what this developer in the lawsuit wanted to do is not to sell on Steam at all and only sell steam keys for a 0% cut on their own website...
Two separate statements im going to make. Firstly I side with the dev and against valve in this case. Valves "Rule" stifles competition for no reason other than its technically Legal. And as we all know, the law is a broken machine that needs better engineers doing maintenance so we can finally get it fixed. Secondly, IF YOU WANT A COMPETITOR TO STEAM USE GOG. DO NOT support the Epic store in any form. Tim Sweenys idea of "Competition" is bribing Devs so that players are FORCED to use the worse platform. Epic SHAMELESSLY engages in anti trust behavior and are trying to bring the bloody war hellscape that is the console wars, to Pc. Hypocrits with their own anti trust practice, except theirs hurts the consumer. Abolish it and Raze the company until that land belongs to the dinosaurs again. Use Gog instead. CDPR actually have genuine good intentions. They made witcher 3, spent the money to fix cyberpunk, and the Gog store is CDPR saying that they have a dream. Where all gamers are created equal
The problem with Epic's 'gameplan' with their store lunch was trying to present championing the issue as 'for the gamers' while also, at the same time, taking AGGRESSIVE decisions left and right which were decidedly NOT to the consumer's benefit.
On consumer side, are you better served with 10% cheaper product or Steam's review system? Obviously I'm older now so $60 itself is not like buying a game 20 years ago, still even wasting $30 and 4 hours is unpleasant experience that is almost completely mitigated on Steam. You look at %, skim 5 top reviews, check what negatives are pointed out in reviews and are they something that specifically really bugs you, if game passes this I'm certain its what it says it is. On dev side (I'm working on a game which is now in EA on Steam) it is pricey but it also delivers. They keep improving, with for example new input remapping. If this catches on it may allow keeping any kind of controller and having your profile work for different games. Maybe it won't catch on, we'll see, but innovation is happening. There are many Steam API features that you don't need to use but have ready at your convenience. Would they forgo half of their profit and give it back to devs... that would be a nice present. But right now this is more than decent value proposition if you don't spend 30% of budget on ads like in Tim's example.
@@Peteruspl thats not even touching the value of steam recommendation system which is google ad sense level of quality for recmmending simular games ive got over a dozen games just off steams recommendation based off played games and on the consumer side steam workshop is amazing and is so widely used that its hard to compete against imo only thing that comes close to the value steam offers is gog's classic games when they intergrate fan updates/ self made fixes into base games so you dont even to find it yourself
Interesting bit here, steam started as a way to automatically update games (Valve's games) in 2003. Something that was unheard of at the time. Epic popped up with the core motivation of 'Just be a steam competitor.' They had nothing to really spark a reason to go to them over steam so they bought reasons. Unfortunately in a game of throwing money to get ahead they didn't even throw enough money for Valve to think about opening its pocket let alone actually apply monetary pressure.
@@thehob3836Sweeney and Newell were competitors. Unreal Engine vs Source. When Value launched Steam Sweeney just mocked them... constantly. Even MS didn't care. Same type of mock Apple received when they launched a phone. Suddenly Unreal Tournament is not making them the type of money they want. The 3D Engine market is getting competitors. Larger companies are maintaining their own. Tim now wants a store. Will he put in the work and get his own... nah let me release some shoddy crap and then complain how his competitors are ruining everything.
I greatly fear the day of Gabe's passing. He's not perfect, and neither is Valve, but Steam has the potential to be SO MUCH WORSE than it currently is... and I believe we will discover this fact once Gabe's vision is no longer at the head.
I totally agree... Steam has its issues but it has effed me the least when compared to any other product htat I have used for such a long time. Just you wait though I am sure some greedy CEO will come sooner or later to ruin it all to the ground for all of us.
Valve is already a lot worse than some companies, but they always seem to get a pass because it's the best PC game store, and of course, daddy Gaben. I can honestly see nothing changing with Valve after his passing, but people will suddenly decide that many things that Valve are already doing are NOT ok and "would have never happened under Gabe Newell".
The same thing happened with Walmart: its founder was a SAINT. If Sam knew what his sons turned Walmart into, he'd crawl out of his grave and kick all of their asses.
The Epic Store is sort of exhibit A for Valve. They've been around for years, spending a fortune giving away games, and consumers still go to Steam to shop and to buy. Why is it that the Company that made $20 billion off of Fortnite can't manage to build a store/launcher with simple consumer-friendly features over the course of several years? Looking at Skull & Bones on their shop, I can see it has 4.1/5 stars. That's sort of surprising, given how poorly it has reviewed elsewhere. Maybe the written reviews can provide some insight -- oh. No written reviews. Well how many people reviewed it on Epic for it to get that score? Oh. The number of reviews is hidden. Why would I look to Epic when I'm shopping if they won't tell me that stuff? That lack of transparency is magnified by the fact that Epic doesn't exclude scammy NFT games. They've designed a store that lowers my trust compared to virtually every other online retailer. There are lots of things beyond Epic's control about why people don't shop there -- for example, with Steam's price protection, I can assume that the price on Epic won't be better. My friends are all on Steam too (and they don't play Fortnite), so any social features are worthless. Epic seems to have privileged the developers over the consumers to the point where their only tactic is to get locked-down exclusives. I imagine I'm not alone in deciding that I'd just play Sifu and FFVII Remake on console or wait a year. (I actually bought Alan Wake II from them though.)
From my standpoint, the Epic Game Store is the demonstration of the arrogance of Tim Sweeney. He knows better than everyone else according to him. For example, Valve provides very little value to game developers (according to him) therefore they should not be charging their 30%. Years later, many of see why Valve is the market leader for game stores; they are simply better and built their ecosystem over decades. It took 3 years for Epic to get a shopping cart and 4 years to get a rating system. There are no user reviews because (of course) Sweeney knows better than their customers about which games are good.
Also it's worth noting this Overgrowth game was HORRIBLE. I imagine he wanted to move to a store WITHOUT reviews, discount it to get some quick sales from unknowing consumers.
I believe the review system was supposed to be thumbing their nose at Valve and games getting review bombed. I don't remember how the reviews even work. I think it might have been ones the devs/publishers allow through to avoid review bombing. I also don't know if they ever got game forums. I remember Epic sniped one of the Metro games from Steam. The people that purchased the game on Epic was having to go to the Steam forums looking for help in getting the game to run. Without user reviews nor forums, you have to go outside the Epic Store to figure out if a game is broken or a scam.
***BINGO*** Years on and I see zero options from epic to make me think even a single feature they have is as good or better than Steam. WHY would I buy a game from someone who is beholden to the CCP?
it's a fine response to a long-winded emotional tirade where they call you an asshole. With that kind of tone, it loses any right to be taken seriously. Especially for a very informal "you talking shit about us in public. It's not personal, right?"-email.
I was excited about the Epic Games Store when it was announced. I thought competition would be good in this space. I bought a couple of games on the Epic Store to support them, but let's face it, they have never competed with Steam. The Epic Store is a joke. While 30% may be a little much for what Valve offers, 12% is 12% too much for what the Epic Store offers, which is basically nothing.
Steam can charge whatever they want. This is open competition and no one has come close to offering customers the suite of features and community building tools that Valve has with Steam. Epic laid down with Tencent. Epic will never be consumer driven and Sweeney knows it which is why he’s suing. He can’t compete by choice, the suits are frivolous. However, with corporatism dominating the landscape today and censorious apparatchiks attempting to control every aspect of our lives, I do not trust the courts on this issue in the least.
I saw somewhere that a game puts its best foot forward in the tutorial and to jump ship if it looks bad at that point. Kinda feel like thats what many did with Epic. It exploded onto the scene with fanfare and trumpets... and was kinda just a cardboard chinese food menu compared to steam.
I really wish Sweeney Tim would go away. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Valve are angels, but Sweeney's behavior, every time I hear about him, just drives me further and further away from ever wanting to touch anything that Epic has a hand in. The man is just such a two-faced lying bastard where he wants to present himself as a champion for consumers and small indie devs when really he just wants to *become* Valve or Apple in terms of dominating the market.
He just want to gaslight himself he is a hero here. Remember Epic games were ones that abandoned PC in rampid piracy age. WHEN EA STAYED ON PLATFROM. I stayed himself, because he is not fooling anyone.
@@RageQuitSon good they deserve to be bankrupted, Discovery will find out EGS soliciated that nonsense dev to make this a press release so they could try to use it as a pr attack on steam. Lets be real the reason they're selling it as a lower cost off steam isn't to help customers its to help those other platforms
I mean,at least,as far as i know , they did not ruin their employee's livelyhood. They did not lay off anyone. They had a good idea and they capitalised on it. Not sure how old you guys are , but back in the days , there were alot of talk about Half-Life 3. Gaben saw what happened with mass effect 3 , DA3 , and pretty much every games that can count up to 3 , and said: No. Lets make Portal 2 instead , then focus on making money via distribution, wich , i mean... imo it was a fantastic move, and nobody really complained until inflation came kicking through the door, and now lays off are happening everywhere. Now , im guessing a compromise will have to be made. This doesnt mean they dont care about the consumers of the devs in general , but with these kind of gigantic company's , you cant just make a hard turn and change everything for the better in a single week. I am confident , based on Gaben past decisions , that eventually, a compromise will be made. But , even though a compromise will be made , you have to ask yourself , who in the world would intentionally reduce their incomes if their not doing anything illegal? No one asked steam to become a distributor, they just did , and people liked it. They have no responsability to the devs. Maybe morals ones...because of their success. But their success is , imo , in no way because of the devs of others games. Its because they had one of the best reputation even before they switched to being a distribution platform. I mean...Half life,God King Gaben,Portal..amirite? But anyway. TLDR: A compromise will eventually be made. EDIT: Also , that indie dev sold more copies via others distributor than on steam , thus , making steam do free publicity for them so people can buy it somewhere else,now,im not saying that what this indie dev did was evil , but as a company , its completely understandable why they acted like they did.
@@RageQuitSonDon't be surprised if epic is bank rolling them, so they should be fine, they spend billions every year trying to take steam down so they are in good hands.
I just did a quick search of Valve layoffs and epic layoffs and yes Valve has sent their employees to the unemployment bin, but nothing compared to how many Epic has.
@knuckles7410 that's not the point. The point is Epic is trying to make themselves look like the best thing ever since sliced bread, but they are far from it considering everything they have done.
My understanding, if you compare Steam to Epic Store, Steam offers a tone more features and backend hosting over Epic. Even if you choose to put your game on Epic (without an exclusive deal), it's very unlikely many people will even know your game exists due to Epic Store's very poor discovery system. Strangers of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin was on Epic Store as a timed exclusive and huge number of people didn't have a clue it existed on PC or on the Epic Store and that's a Square Enix game!
@@lucasLSD I refuse to get that game on EGS. Square Enix is stubborn is hell, that exclusive isn't good for their company. Just look at FF7R/FFXVI, they were pretty disappointed with the sales due to not selling it on other platforms, and ironically asks why their games fails to meet their sales expectations. It's like people that runs Square lives in a hut or something.
@@BlueBeam10 to use Epic back end you need A your game to be in Unreal and B to pay the fees for it. Its not a service provided just by listing your game on there.
One thing to consider with the whole "cost per GB" price breakdown at 11:50 is that $0.0002/GB sounds a LOT lower than it actually is due to the sheer volume of data Valve serves. Steam's bandwidth usage for game downloads averages around 19-20 Tbps. Maybe a bit higher because new game releases can often spike that up pretty high. Yesterday they had a spike up to around 73 Tbps for around an hour. At a constant 20 Tbps, assuming the $0.0002/GB price is accurate, over a billion dollars per year is spent solely on providing game downloads. Not including any website content including the storefront and its huge volume of videos and screenshots, or any of the user-uploaded content, discussion forums, steamworks backend infrastructure, etc. Just game content downloads.
That 30% cut does seem to go to something, as contrary to other storefronts where money you spend doesn't seem to go anywhere but the pockets of shareholders and executives.
Don't even get me started on the multiplayer servers, those things are HELLA expensive to run and maintain. 30% of your game's revenue alone would probably pay for this.
Also, saying they are spending only 7% of gross with Fortnite is stupid, considering Fortnite makes HUGE money that other games could only dream of. So of course, what they'd spend is a much smaller percentage of the gross. You can't compare one of the biggest games in the world with the average game.
This is a joke right ? Steam cant stop shoving some porn shovelware down my throat cause in order to buy Pathfinder WOTR, I had to enable adult games. People will stay on the platform they already have games on. And due to price matching Epic clause cant win them over with cheaper prices. If Epic starts getting any real support Steam will just change their API to remove crossplay.
@@ivanmonahhov2314 A usable fucking store, I've literally given up on game purchases because it's inconvenient to even browse. The application is bad and honestly I want them to win this suite for the industry as a whole. Because they'll win and they'll get a small boost of devs and then... Unless they pay for an exclusive it still won't be used en masses because it's a genuinely incompetent storefront.
Valve's price parity clause is only for when Devs are selling Steam keys of their games - like, no shit Valve doesn't want devs to use Steam keys in order to under-cut them! I am also perfectly happy with the amount of my money that ends up in Valve's hands. They have used it to make a wonderful storefront - and no one else is even attempting to do what they do. I think 30% is just fine.
@@DaimonTrilogy That is Valve's officially stated policy, and the only "developer" contradicting that, also just happens to own the Humble Store. I'm giving Valve the benefit of the doubt.
Do you have a source for this? I could not find anything official directly from Steam... only more articles about the Wolfire case and in this case it seems that they do enforce all prices (I highly doubt that the EGS would sell Steam keys)
Valve does refunds and they are easy, and almost every other company tells you to fuck off. Valve has done well by me over the years, more so than most comapnies.
Not only that, but you can also get a refund at any time, any amount of playtime, and length of ownership. It's just after the 2 hour mark you have to provide a good reason, instead of it being a guaranteed "go right ahead, we'll refund you, no need to explain". IF a company even thinks of considering the concept of a refund, you'd need to beg the fuck out of your lungs to get anything back from a refund with an 80% chance of failure. Only time I've gotten refunds outside of Steam was xbox purchases, and 'specifically' because the purchases were gifts to another region and thus they failed because region lock, which is easy to see why that'd be a refund. And even then I had to wait a bit. Good luck if you're PlayStation. Both in getting refunds, or owning anything.
The fact tim Sweeney called someone else an asshole for making money legitimately, is hypocritical considering the way they backstabbed pubg. Besides their store is a joke.
"Generally, the economics of these 30% platform fees are no longer justifiable" Oh, that's why Epic is only targeting Steam and Mobile where they are confident of creating their own stores, on PC with EGS, an absolutely unsustainable service where they just pay, pay, pay, pay into it, directly paying devs and users to use it just so they don't use their competitors, so just paying to hurt the competitors instead of offering an actual alternative that has any value that would make it competitive itself. And that's why they haven't ever said a single word against Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo about them taking 30 % too AND AN ADDITIONAL MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION TO PAY FOR "ONLINE SERVICES" which is integrated in the 30 % of Steam, and being direct partners of those three companies, being on absolutely best terms. I don't understand the calculation of the percentages in the next paragraph. It seems to be about the revenue split per game. But why is there 30 % marketing fee PER GAME SOLD then? Doesn't really seem to make any sense to me but whatever. Maybe I just don't get this. And then they compare what they did with Fortnite and Paragon to running Steam. They offered simple download servers of games and updates of Fortnite and Paragon. That's it. That's completely it. How is this comparable to the full feature pack of Steam? E. g. we can download any version ever released of any game we have on Steam any time. We can repair our game files which wasn't possible even on the wider EGS for a very long time and is still shit compared to Steam's implementation. Workshop, sharing artworks and screenshots (without any ads to finance this compared to other services online), the [unneccessary] video streaming, offering download servers in every single region of the world where Steam is (compared to only North America and Western Europe like Sweeney said in this statement) to every single game on Steam with every single version ever released, doesn't matter how little the game sold, how little revenue the game made to Valve. Workshops with highspeed downloads without any fees, nowadays even game streaming over the internet yourself and with friends. Reviews, that don't have strange artificial points that just don't work if you ever try to compare games based on reviews. A review system that nowadays even counter review bombing. A review system directly on the store, making it easy to see if a game might have a problem and even easier (simple scroll to the end of the store site) to find out what the problem is for most users and making pc gaming a little less horrible nowadays if you are interested in AAA games where it would be an even higher gamble to buy a game every single time without those reviews. The Steam forums, an official and directy way for the publishers to talk to their users and help them with problems, so the users can resolve issues and give a good review instead of refunding the game after bugs, crashes and a negative review. Forums that can be found via search engines and help other people, unlike Discord which is so horrible for resolving technical issues simply because it's just takes away the "one time solve"-"long time help to others" advantage pretty much ever online forum ever had before (I love Discord and the amount of features they're adding and they overall exceptional quality of service is just phenomenal, but as such a "forum" it hurts everyone). Also, again, the forums are ad-free too and nicely linked to each specific game (with the current Call of Duties seemingly being the exception where the last few games somehow got one forum which makes it impossible to use apparently). All of this, within the 30 %. Are the 30 % necessary for poor Valve to make a profit? Surely not, they could definitely take less and still run Steam (mostly) as it is. But is it absolutely bullshit to talk shit about bad, evil Valve taking so 30 % for Steam as a whole service while being best buddy with the console platform holders that cost more (even if the costs is outsourced to the consumer directly) and offer waaaaay less, never ever daring to speak a word against their 30 %? Yes, absolutely. And is it stupid to complain about Steam taking 30 % with the argument of taking only 12 % themselves even if they offer a tiny fraction of the features, comparable about a 2-star hotel crying about a 4-star hotel being more expensive. Well, no shit, the all-inclusive hotel with 3 all-you-can-eat buffets, multiple pools, gym, sport fields and sauna is more expensive than the rat infested shack next door that has as beautiful doors as the 4-star hotel but is shit in every other way compared to it? The 4-star hotel should be cancelled!!! But yeah, the most important thing for me is: Epic Games and Sweeney is not doing all of this for the devs and consumers. They aren't doing it for the "good of the industry". They are doing it for themselves, for their own profit. When they dared to open their mouth against Playstation regarding crossplay, they had a crossplay platform service inside their Epic Games Online Services ready. They didn't speak out pro Crossplay to better the industry, but to sell their crossplay service and get their own engine closer to a monopoly thanks to the selling point of that services being easily integrateable inside UE. They tried to weaponized their Fornite costumers which are to a big part [manipulatable] children, and literally trying to make themselves look like saints to force Apple to open their platform, not because it's best for everyone but because it's best for themselves. They even said themselves, Apple opening up IOS would be the best course of action, not Apple lowering the revenue share as low as possible. Because in the end, they releasing the EGS on IOS would get them 100 % revenue of Fortnite and 12 % revenue of their hopeful 35-50 % percentage of IOS app sales (if we take take over their expectations of PC) with a (in relation to other stores) very cheap store that takes less money to maintain and therefore can get more profit out of a 12 % cut. They shut their mouths regarding console 30 % because they simply expect more profits from their partnerships with the console manufacturers than by trying to force them to let their EGS into the respective ecosystems. A cheap pc store that takes away so many features from consumers that still is completely unsustainable in its current state is not a healthy addition to the industry, let alone "the best for the industry". Them not offering an actual alternative that can compete and rather paying anyone to use their store as their one and only selling point next to "the store is cheaper to maintain and therefore has less revenue cut" is not "the best for the industry". I would really like to see EGS actually trying to compete with Steam, mimicking most of their features (no, I don't expect EG to make a broadcast/streaming service inside EGS), and still offering all of this for 12 %. But as long as they are seemingly even higher on a price-service-ratio perspective than Steam and only criticise where they see themselves being able to make huge profit streams, while acting like saints and underdogs and constantly claiming they fought for the industry, I just despise Epic Games more than any other company, to an extend where I really don't know if I want Apple to lose even on one point of their case simply because it would mean a win for Epic Games.
And let's not forget them developing Steam Machines and Steam Deck with their own OS (/Linux Distribution) and introducing trackpads on gamepads of Steam Controller and Deck making games playable with controller and on an handheld that are better played with mouse, and steering the pc plattform into an amazing direction with developments like Proton, SteamVR, Steam Common Redistributables, Steam Input, Proton, Game File Verify and Repairs. This is not any reason why 30 % are justifiable today, but why the 30 % helped the pc gaming industry to get to where it stands today. And most of those things came with little competition, whereas a lot of good developments in the console industry for example only happened because competition actually forced the companies to try to better themselves, which is also shown by the multiple situations where the current console leader did some shitty things till they falled flat on their faces while the underdog did the good things. Overall, I've seen so much more shady things through all three console manufacturer lines than in the history of Steam. If they actually forced price parity, sure, fuck them (even though sales are never synced on all platforms, keys are constantly cheaper on many platforms, and Wolfire were a little bit petty on multiple occasions, so while I don't instantly refuse to believe it, I definitely don't believe it based some claims of Wolfire). But if that's the shadiest thing they did by abusing their "monopoly", I really can't complain that much. Yes, their Steam market for ingame items is trying to profit off gamers trading ingame items which is shit but afaik at least it is only allowed to be cosmetic, so no pay to win and kinda forgettable. And yes, as publishers they definitely "abused" their situation of a free cash flow and let themselves go by letting their lootbox infested CS:GO be their only "new" game anymore for a long time, only to make Artifact of all games be the next Valve game. And even after some amazing experiences like Aperture Desk Job, Aperture Hand Lab, The Lab and Half Life: Alyx, it's still definitely still very little output from Valve as a publisher.
Remember there's Humble Bundle, and GoG to get games for the pc for as well. I'm sure there's a couple others, but don't know them from the top of my head at the moment. And some developers/publishers sell directly from their sites.
i saw a comment on someone else video that makes sense ''70% of a watermelon is a lot more than 88% of a grape.'' steam has built trust and its brand over years and has the gamers wanting to use steam, the buyers hate epic because its not user friendly, it doesn't have the features of steam like profile pages, workshops and community tabs. whilst the 30% take is big, its worth it more than epic because of the access to the players because they wont use epic
And ultimately, the cut the storefront gets, regardless of the storefront itself, barely ever if at all will matter to the customer. The price will stay the same across the board to match what other games ask you to pay for on all the other platforms, and if anything, will only keep raising.
Steam's upkeep is higher than you can imagine, I can understand a bigger cut to the store that actually looks after customers rights than to get a cheap chinese alley copy where I get kicked away as soon as I hand over the money
Depends on the local law I guess. But agreements and practices like that are widely common in all sorts of areas - especially retail - so I would be surprised if this here would be handled any different though. It's a contract - take it or leave it - but then miss out on publishing the game on their platform. Now if someone could actually MAKE a monopoly claim and push that through the courts, that would be something different. But... well... bigger ones tried that in the past already... ^^
@@christopherzajonskowski7123 Doesn't really depend on local law because the clause doesn't exist like Bellular misinformation likes to suggest. The clause is that you can't sell steam keys for cheaper not that you can't sell cheaper on other stores.
So what Bellular fails to mention is this is common in retail many companies have clauses with timed or permanent price requirements. It's seen as a way to prevent devaluation of their products and prevent abuse of wholesale prices. This is one of the reasons why sometime instead of being sold or donated you'll see perfectly good goods destroyed. Bell also here claims he's not mad at valve when he's always been mad at them. He is and has been a epic fanboy for years now always giving epic the benefit of the doubt while using any chance he can to slam steam. You see it here at 10:00 where he highlight a section adds wording that was not part of the statement, and doesn't actually say the whole statement in it's original context. Instead painting a harsher picture then what the steam employee stated. He then after a soft backstep ofd it then uses the harsher wording he created in the next section of talks again pushing his out of context statement not the original. He then continues to use his made up harsher wording for the rest of the argument. This is dishonest and comes from a place of anger by bellular against steam. Basically this is another epic shot at the wall hoping it sticks in taking steam down. Steam does not force you to use it being the biggest does not equal force use. There must be actions that require steam use and prevent you from using other. Steam keys does not fulfill this as there platform items neither does price matching as this is common in the world of business. This functionality is another shot at rewriting a series of business laws to harm steam. Yet if successful and what epic ignores is it will effect everyone many in negative ways.
I had a provider that would sell discounted hardware to our toolshop under the condition we maintained a certain price margin. The boss decided to cut the price margin, and our provider cut us back in return, because we were undercutting the other shops in the area, and instead of having more sales we were just driving the prices down vs other brands. Obviously not the same as the software market, but still fun nonetheless. Also, we worked with a 45% markup.
All this price matching rules doesn't even exist. They only exist based on a verbal statement the dev in the lawsuit said he heard. The real statement is that you can't sell steam keys for cheaper than the game is on steam. They don't care if you sell cheaper on EGS.
Isn't valve's rule on not being undercut in compliance with U.S. law? I'm pretty sure there is a law that requires Devs to have equal base prices between distributers, specifically to prevent anti-competitive practices from online distributers.
This rule doesn't exist Bellular is lying. Valve only want's you to sell steam keys for the same price as the game costs on Steam. You can sell for cheaper on other stores all you want as long as you are not just only selling steam keys on that stores.
@@LasherTimoraYes it's the developer's words but he is parroting them as a fact and brings it up serval times without even mentioning there is no written rule like that and Vales stating that this allegations are false. His own source says there are only verbal statements about it and that this will be extremely hard to proof but he leaves it out because it fits his agenda.
Valve does have a policy regarding discounts and needing to offer discounts on all stores, of the same value, at the same time, or within a few weeks of each other. I forget the specifics. I read this awhile ago, on the Steam documentation for developers. :D :D
@@kieranrollinson8750 Yes? This is only when you sell Steam Keys on a discount. This rule doesn't apply when you sell the Game on EGS or GoG for cheaper. This rule exists to prevent abuse of the Steam resources by putting your game on steam for $1000 and selling a Steam Key for $50 on your own website.
I like Tim saying "Valve, your business should not charge 30%, so stop it." Like, who the hell are you to tell a different company what to do. Especially one that DIDN'T need to do mass layoffs during this time, from one who did.
I've lost sympathy for most devs over the years as well, triple A studios is filled with political bullshit and unfinished turds if not outright trying to scam customers. so what if an EA or sony owned studio makes less money
@@Dogtrio we don't know Steams actual revenue, we barely know Epics revenue. Both are privately held companies (Epic is less private because they have more outside investment) if Steam has made more money, as long as they didn't "make the deal worse" that is the purpose of capitalism. And maybe the reason Value have made more Profit has to do with a different model: Epic: Provides a game engine (free before distribution unless you are AAA), hosts and runs a Live service game, Hosts and runs a store front (where they burn money giving away a bunch of free stuff weekly), Hosts and runs a market place for developers (where they burn money giving away a bunch of free stuff monthly), has like 3K employees Valve: Hosts and runs a storefront for games, makes and releases games (mostly tech demos if you really think about it), has like 350 employees one of these companies has a lot higher of overhead.
Why are you focused on EGS? Did you miss the part that this is a small game dev sueing Steam for not ALLOWING them to charge what they want on platforms that aren't controlled by Steam. EGS isn't STEALING games with exclusivity. The game devs choose to take a large cut upfront. And sure, it's similar. (I don't remember the particulars, I think EGS approached a dev with a deal but the Dev had already promised to be on steam so the EGS deal fell through) so just remember that this is a small dev fighting a giant company Steam. Stop hating EGS just cuz it's EGS
@@RageQuitSon Its certainly a situation with alot of nuance to it. If i were to sell, say, a Car for $2000 to one dealership, but sell the exact same car at a different dealership in a year for 1500$, thats not consumer friendly. Immagine someone who bought the car the year before for the full price, and found out they could have just waited untill it was availible at a different dealership for 3/4ths the cost. But as has been pointed out, indie devs get the short end of the stick since they dont get the kickbacks that larger companies do. There's alot that could change to be better, but the truth remains that Steam is by far the best online distributor of software out there, and part of that is because of their relative transparency and consumer perks, such as curators and reviews compared to other services that either do not have them full stop (EGS) or do not have them nearly as accessible to view (GOG).
@@RageQuitSon the reason people call out EGS with their Exclusivity deals; which sometimes look a lot like, "On PC, Just don't release on Steam everywhere else is fine"; if that is what is going on, would be a direct violation of Monopoly Law. Being a Monopoly because you make a better product is Legal, Being a Monopoly because people like your product/service is Legal, Being a Monopoly because you are the only company in the segment is (on its face) Legal. it is when the company makes deals that would reduce market share for the competitor outside of the norm that is Illegal. Sometimes Sweeny is looking out for his licensees (the people using the engine), but sometimes Sweeny feels like the type who would be doing far worse if he was in the same position to those he complains about.
The problem with "30% bad" is that Valve very much reinvests that money into improving their platform even more. Take a look at how pitiful the EGS's 12% cut has been for that store's improvement. Literally took years to implement a shopping cart!
Not 100% true. Steam brings in more money per head than even Apple and Google. Linus from LTT joked that Steam just prints money, and that money is largely going into the pockets of the people behind Valve. Gabe Newell for example has an entire fleet of Yachts, those that go for millions of dollars each. Point is, don't assume its mostly directed back into platform investments.
The problem with Tim Sweeney's assessment is he thinks 100% of Steam's costs is the credit card fee and the bandwidth. While digital goods have less cost than physical ones, Sweeney does not seem to think that servers, infrastructure, and employees that is the Steam ecosystem costs money. So Epic started their own store. 5 years later their store has yet to turn a profit. I suppose running a game store costs more than the 12% Epic is charging.
Hi. What about the video subject? A small dev sueing Steam to allow them to list their game on stores that steam doesn't control at any price the dev wants to sell at and without getting punished by steam. EGS Is only involved because the judge is letting the case proceed and some emails and internal messages were included.
@@SnowRaver-p2v The email from Epic was before the developer sued. Years before if I remember right. And how is that related to the case the Epic seems to know more about what games store cost more than Valve and that Valve should lower their store fees. This was before Epic had a game store. 5 years later Epic Games Store is not turning a profit. Why do you think that is?
@@SnowRaver-p2v steam is not the only one who does this either, MS xbox has the same policy albeit it pertain to graphic quality. It is a contract you sign to do business, plus why is the dev is so hellbent on complaining when at the end he got more money? If he really believe in sweeney he can just sell on Epic only and say it cost cheaper.
@@SnowRaver-p2vBut isn't this just about steam keys? I see games on Steam being sold elsewhere for cheaper constantly, the difference is that the copies being sold elsewhere aren't Steam copies, which I presume is the case here.
Nothing? I don't know how long Steam has had the no undercutting policy but that means Epic's main draw of "you can pass the savings onto your customers" is stopped by Steam. That is not NOTHING. Knowing Epic though, they knew that policy before hand and that's why there are so many EGS exclusives. Steam HAS improved since EGS after years of stagnation, and EGS has continued to improve
@@RageQuitSon I haven't touched EGS in years because it was just a bad experience compared to Steam. What have they improved in the past 3 years or so? Are they anywhere close to parity in features these days?
I wonder if 12% would actually be good for consumers. Valve basically created the handheld PC market with the steam deck. They put a lot of resources into linux compatibility with their games. They also keep investing into their store to make it better. Epic is losing money at 12% while Valve is making money and investing back into the PC market. Maybe the 30% is worth it for that.
Valve keeps adding more and more Features Innovating and honestly now Hardware is involved STANDARDIZING the industry. He is incentivizing Optimization on PC a push to an opensource OS and making it so Archival efforts are automatically done for games. He isnt againste Emulators or Compatibility layers. SELL GAMES. MAKE IT GOOD. is basically the model right now at steam. GABE is smart and he has basically curbed PC game Piracy to a NON ISSUE by simple offering a GOOD SERVICE. The Only thing Left is to DEMAND DRM TO BE STRIPPED FROM GAMES, and given the VOLATILE STATE of DRM its very much a possibility especially since DRM now FLIPS if a game sells well or is Pirated to hell and back.
@@snintendog I agree with all of this. Valve has done a lot of good for the industry. The next time I have to travel internationally I plan to get a steamdeck or rog ally and that handheld market exists BECAUSE of valve. It means I can take my steam library and back catalog and play them and my only purchase is hardware. I don't have to buy more games. I just don't see other companies investing in the PC ecosystem and that investment has a price.
@@Immudzen it's the same for consoles. Nintendo is the only handheld on the market the rest don't bother but unlike valve it's a walled garden and it can't compete with the Deck in anything but price and exclusives. Specs I feel will only apply to towers and the handhelds will reign dominant soon enough. Really wish we could finally get away from the windows monopoly
@@snintendog steam in and of itself is technically a drm, but IIRC its up to developer to have that be a necessary thing. I think BG3 can straight up run from the exe while steam isn't even on.
@@Pulstar232 It's an Opt in DRM which is very simple and non intrusive. While in the most simple sense it is this DRM is more a formality tying it to steam as required in the EU as an option. But Gabe already said if steam dies he will remove it. Not like it matters it was cracked day 1 and it's easy to remove it yet Gabe never updated it.
Valve does not only do Steam. They also pay developers that make other things, like WINE, DXVK, MESA GPU drivers, Kernel Development (like the Case-folding for EXT4 et.el.), all of that is funded by Valve, and by extension Steam. They do not just do CDN/Forums/platform, they do lots of things.
Okay, but developers imo should be able to opt in if they want to use those other services & pay for them. Instead of just providing all of the extra services and taking the cut from the game
@@GegoXaren that is my fault. I was responding from the point of few for the other features that steam offers. Now, for your comment about Valve paying developers to create new technology, that still doesn't warrant a 30% cut from a game. If Valve wants to get developers to pay part of their revenue from their game towards these technology advancements, then steam can add an opt in option. Similar to how some places have an opt in option for if you want to donate x money towards x cause. So, I (or any developer) can opt in to letting steam keep x extra percent (or dollar amount) to go towards x cause to help fund developers to develop new technology.
@@PhantomGanhdi If devs don't want to pay for the further development of computing as a medium, they can just not launch on steam. The option is there, and you can just buy the game somewhere else.
These developers don’t understand why people use steam. Transparent review system, refunds, banning scam nft games ect. They clearly don’t understand why consumers don’t want to use a storefront that manipulates reviews and will sell them a literal crypto scam
They do understand it, but they dont want to put the effort and money to compete, so they try to go after steams revenue in an attempt to basically cause steam to degrade as a service when their funds go down, and in Sweeneys' case, he just wanted to bring this cut down as an industry standard so that he can claim that then Apple is not taking whats now "the industry standard", and then put fortnite on steam and dont have to share so much of the revenue, thats always been his sole angle, everything else is just gaslighting.
lets be real the majority of studios wouldn't lower their prices on other stores even if steam didn't have this requirement for the simple reason if a game charges the same on a store that takes 30% and another that charges 12% they are earning a lot more from that second store per sale so why lose that money. Also if your a studio selling steam keys of your game own site for cheaper im sorry but yeah you can f off, wants to benefit from exposer from being on steam and use their services to support your game without a cut is just shitty. What % they should take is a different matter.
And that's exactly what happened, remember this undercutting thing is recent, Metro Exodus launched cheaper on epic just fine, but many more AAA games had launched before it with the same price and epic and steam, the saving weren't being passed to us.
Agreed as they would likely start doing as we have seen other devs do and start pointing people to their site (for the cheaper game) on Steam's site. Wasn't that one of the main issues that Apple had with devs wanting to do just that.
Let's be real. They have. And Steam doesn't allow it. So they were EGS exclusive and branded as a traitor by us gamers. The only devs I know that were evil people for taking EGS exclusive were Ooblets devs, but that just exposed evil people for being evil. Nothing to do with EGS.
Well the idea would be that a slightly lower price on another storefront would drive more sales that charge less commission. You seemed to explain it without realizing you answered your own question.
@@lucasLSDyes, Noone is under any obligation to actually sell anything cheaper regardless of cut. so the idea that they will out of the goodness of their heart, is completely stupid and you area fool for believing they would.
@@Nick-cs4oc Have you read the terms of service for Windows 12? It grants Microsoft the right to scan any file on your system and send this metrics towards MS and in essence to the FBI/CIA and so forth. And if we consider the fuck-ups that MS had ONLY in the last year: several breaches of consumer cloud data, the whole Windows source code - even MS has no idea what exactly got lost - stolen by Russian state employed hackers, several major vulnerabilites that were known for years but not disclosed OR closed. Fun!
Steam offers both the developer and consumer a ton of systems and metrics to manage their games. Organic marketing, the Steam Workshop, the Steam Marketplace, multiplayer tools, community forums, VR solutions, Proton and Steam Deck support, patching your games for you to work on Proton and the Steam Deck, etc, etc. That 30% cut is quite justified. Also, the EGS didn't even get a shopping cart until several years after it released. It also runs horribly and is still so incredibly bare bones.
Sorry bellular, steam is doing something right since every other game store is just terrible experience after terrible experience. Them taking 30% is justified if they are the best.
Exactly , I remember gaming before steam , Valve lead the way and really made PC gaming better , i will never forget that. they had many opportunities to take advantage but stayed decent .
With those other storefronts staying in a stagnated state with the cut seemingly never going towards developing the storefront to even be comparable with the competition, if even bearable at all, but straight to pockets of executives and shareholders never to be seen again.
I'm a simple man. All I want is for Epic Games to go out of business. I'm a consumer, not a developer, I despise when my rights are being violated or just downright removed... As for supporting the developers - devs can sell Steam keys on their own websites, for that better revenue share, use that. But I also don't really want more games, I want better games and I'm not getting that most of the time. If it's not a live service then it's a souls-like or a rouge-like or another survival-crafting game. Unique experiences like Return of the Obra Dinn or Brothers: A Tale of two Sons, or Her Story are few and far between all the while the big studios make rubbish. Steam takes a bigger cut, sure, but they also offer more to the end user, more than Microsoft, more than Sony, more than anyone else in the industry. Steam takes money and builds something beyond imagination, from family sharing to in-home streaming, to Proton, to mod support built into the launcher. Then look at Epic. Epic offers me nothing, even VR support on Epic is dealt by Steam... I get the stance that developers would prefer a better revenue share but as a consumer I care more about what I get than what the developers get, it's a brutal reality. And if I am to be serviced properly by Valve then Valve needs the money for R&D. There's a little known game series called Kingdom Hearts - they're on PC, on Epic Games Store and nobody even knows about it, a Square Enix x Disney monolithic franchise and nobody noticed that it's on PC, hell, people overlooked Final Fantasy VII Remake on PC because it was a timed exclusive on EGS! Final Fantasy VII, hailed as one of the best games ever, overlooked because of EGS... and Timmy thinks he has a chance to change the industry? EGS doesn't even support Linux, they REMOVE Linux support when they purchase studios!
@@LasherTimora For me those games have no value, since I couldn't play them the way I want at least not without tinkering and relying on Valve once again. Epic doesn't support Linux, so there is no PC Linux gaming without jumping hoops, same with SteamDeck. Besides that, the entire infrastructure of Epic means that when a large enough volume of players are in Fortnite then nothing works, not the store, not the launcher, not the games, not even titles outside of EGS that use Epic Online Services... So even if you have free games, you're not guaranteed to play them when and on what you want.
Yeah the Linux part sucks major ass. Some of the games that stil lstay on Steam, but thanks to Epic allowing them on their storefront, have to abide by _their_ rules, it fucks things over for me and my buddy trying to play together because of the Linux issues. Steam supports Linux. Games on Steam that function through Steam, are games I can play with him from Windows system I use. When the game gets on Epic, suddenly my buddy can't enjoy the game with me.
I understand the argument that valve is so dominant that you basically have to set the price according to steam but, using steam as free advertisement for your game and selling it at a lower price someplace else is basically using valve as your means for exposure without paying them for anything. Valve put money and effort into making their platform as popular as it is and now people basically want to use it for free without giving anything in return. That's a bit much
Um...that is called a no favored nation clause, it means you cannot charge a different price at one retailer than what you charge at another for the SAME product. This is why you see product numbers (think Samsung selling a fridge with the model number 1000BB, and then selling a fridge at Costco model number 1100CC) that are only sold at specific stores. Now you can have a sale at say the paradox store where the item is selling LESS than it is currently selling at steam for, but you will then see that discount come to steam in a different sale. This is a normal business practice and quite legal. P.S. A transaction is NOT what Valve is charging, and this is just ONE of the many reasons I hate Tim's BS rhetoric, he is deliberately misunderstanding how this shit works to make his point seem valid. Valve, Apple, and Google, and other retailers aren't charging transaction fees, they are charging access fees and the way they do this is through a percentage of your sale. This ensures you don't have to pay 100k just to get access to the store and only sell 50k. Well now you made 50k in sales and owe Valve 15k. This ensures that everyone pays a fair price for their product.
@@lucasLSDand what would you say is more “right” than ensuring that customers get equal access to products and that developers can all access a popular market platform without needing to pay millions of dollars upfront that they may or may not recoup?
And legal in one country doesn’t make it legal all around. Apple has been forced to open their AppStore and is being legally challenged (likely successfully) on not fully opening monetizing options on the store for people to not have to pay the Apple tax.
If it was the *base* price, that is the price *before* the application of fees, I think people would have less of a problem about it. That being said, I agree that it is a normal and legal business practice. It is consumer unfriendly, IMO.
Which just means a dev could technically add unique content based on platforms to make their product legally different. So special location or items based entirely around which version of the game you got. Which nets a Steam edition, an epic edition, a GoG edition, etc. Obviously you can't use steam keys for other editions of the game.
Epic can talk a big game, but they are an established platform now but still don't have any way to have user reviews which puts a lot more risk on the consumer. Platforms still need to lower that 30% to developers, but user reviews are an essential part of an online games store these days.
Yeah Timmy keeps talking big about benefiting game developers while laying off a bunch of them recently, while Valve fires nobody yet. Guy come as nothing but a big hypocrite to me.
@@RageQuitSonOh nice edit you did there Changing your whole comment. The Overgrowth devs brok MULTIPLE law including revoking steam keys SOLD on steam, without permission from steam that STARTED their Bullshit on steam when MANY users complained. They then Published on GOG at a differnt Price and let the steam version rot without updates that THEN got Steam to Act. Now The lawsuit is all on the basis steam is bullying them FOR THIS SHIT THEY CAUSED THEMSELVES. GOG is now involved and is ready to Delist them too Once they jumped ship AGAIN and went to EGS.
I'm perfectly fine with Steam getting 30% and hope it continues. Why? Because I want my game collection to be safe and enact for decades. These are digital media, we don't have physical copies. When you buy a game on Steam you aren't buying a 1 time download. You are buying the right to download that game for many decades. Steam being highly profitable actually protects its users. If games become a commodity and Steam loses market share things will change, they might even get sold/acquired. Look what is happening with Sony and other digital stores with content being removed. Nope, I want Steam to be VERY profitable so they continue to value and protect their customers.
not to mention that games that have workshop mod support also add TONS of traffic. When I install XCOM2 for example I download an extra 80gb of mods on top of the game. I would rather pay extra 30% for the steam community features than buying a game 50% cheaper on fucking epic lmao.
@@Me__Myself__and__I if steam took less of a cut games would cost less. Steam makes 18$ off a 60$ purchase it's crazy. Thank valve the next time you pay 70$ for a AAA game
@@lithium25693 ROFL. Would you like to buy a bridge? I have a great one for sale in a desert... If steam took less of a cut games would not cost less, the game developer would just get more of the money. The Epic Games store takes a smaller percentage but often the games there are priced the same as elsewhere. This has NEVER been about lowering prices for consumers. Consumers are pretty much going to pay the same amount either way, its just about game developers wanting to pay less to be on Steam.
While 12% would theoretically be a great standard, reality of Valve making lots of money at 30% while Epic hemorrhaging lots of money at 12% comes into question. Is it not just an old Amazon tactic of undercutting competition at a loss to make them close up and then bring prices back up once the competition is gone? I would be more inclined to believe Tim to do it out of conviction for healthier market if his business was actually profitable.
Yea they put in a little work like 2 years ago to improve the egs store and barely did anything with that. They have a nice free random game weekly,but all other features lack even comparing vs other online game store fronts. And it is the reason I don’t frequent it or GoG. They don’t try to compete even though all epic basically wants is money per quarter. Which shows with them and their live service games.
Epic is trash by a trash corporation for the stock holders and no one but the stock holders. They literally give away games and can’t attract anyone because it’s so crappy lololol
Only a game dev could argue that Steam charges too much and at the same time admit that he would lose money if he didn't release on steam and then follow that up with all the services steam provides that generates more sales 😂 Same guy who once said all of their games are a flat 30% more expensive to cover steam charges. Sorry Bellular, the math ain't matching on this one mate.
Speaking as an indie dev with products on Steam... any arguments about the cut they take, from gamers or rivals or whoever, can go to hell. A lot of people don't seem to understand just how much you get for that cut; you get all the community stuff associated with your product, you get actually useful and thorough testing of your initial build (I say useful, because they will actually notice if you forgot to include something in the build that was mentioned on the store page), you get support staff who are really on point to a pedantic degree, but also just as helpful when you need precise support with something, oh and of course you get all the analytics stuff... and at the same time? You maintain absolute control. You can upload updates whenever you like, you can enter sales with the click of a button, it's all you, and it all just works. Also speaking as a self-published author, this combination of support, features and control easily exceeds what any other digital store for any other product type has offered, and I would not want them to take a lesser cut - because their current business model? Seems to benefit me and all gamers. So why would I want that to change, when there is absolutely no proof that rocking the boat would actually benefit anyone? It's not like Steam has any actual competitors... and not because they've somehow unfairly dominated the market, but because nobody has offered the SERVICE that Steam does, neither to developers, nor customers.
they understand it perfectly, but its just greed, and Sweeney has a different agenda, he doesn't want to compete because that takes money and effort, so he wants to degrade steam by cutting their operating funds so that their service quality decreases, and using his fortnite cash to basically dump the prices down and eat off steams revenue, until he becomes the monopoly then he will conveniently forget all about 12% being fair. Thats how every monopoly gets established, amazon style, they basically smother the competition by selling below market value and on a loss for decades until they "condition" consumers to get the cheaper deals while everyone else just couldnt keep up anymore, because they dont have the funds to operate on a loss for so long.
@@m4nt1c0r3s True, I have no illusions that his kind don't know exactly what they're doing. I was mainly referring to the "playing devil's advocate" types among this audience going on about Steam's "monopoly" or outright complaining about the cut.
Remember, Valve cut 30% because of many good reason, when was the last time you ever heard about Valve mass layoff? Good service, servers, etc Unlike Epic store, Valve actually use those money to create more features for users
Why would they need mass layoffs when they brag about making more money per head than Apple. In other words they are taking so much money from you and the developers, that they don't need to hire more people or even worry about job security. Epic on the other hand does not have that luxury, they could if they had the kind of money Valve makes, especially with the same sized team, but Epic's approach is far different. Remember, they acquired software and games that had a price tag, and made it free. So yes, giving things away for free will certainly hurt their ability to make money. Valve is less charitable, and this is just a fact. Charity, one could argue, is not good for business and that may be true.
@@SpottedHares Unlike the Epic Games Store where it might be difficult to distinguish between garbage shovelware and actually decent games, Steam actually has a review section that can warn you that the game sucks.
@@deuswulf6193 Epic put themselves in that situation. Between their game titles and Unreal Engine, they were making hand over fist in revenue. They pissed all their money away buying exclusives, trying to compete with Steam instead of improving their storefront to make it a welcoming place to go for users. They even snatched titles *off* of Steam that already had a playerbase. It has completely soured the public's view of them, and has a lot of people refusing to play anything that has their name attached to it. Epic would rather point the finger at Steam, a company they tried to pick a fight with, after they tripped over their own laces and fell face first into the mud. They knew the model they picked wasn't going to be viable long-term, but they went with it anyway to spite Steam, and now they have to face the consequences for that decision. Also, Steam does free games and software events as well. And they do actual charity drives and give the revenue earned from sales to said charity. So Epic's not even breaking new ground in that sector either.
I'm not even mad at valve maybe 1 or 2 companies would ever "pass the savings to the consumer" most would just be companies like ea and Bethesda that would just keep the money. And you know the wages don't get higher just the ceo gets a bigger check and they get some extra investment money for the next failed game. Maybe valve can do it where only indie companies can do discounts, I'm down for that idea.
Best part is that this whole video is based on a lie. Devs a free to sell for cheaper on EGS they only have to have price parity if they sell a steam key. Don't know why Bellular has to lie in this video...
I mean, if you don't like steam's offer you can just not work with them, no once is forcing you to accept steam's rules. They provide the service, they can charge whatever they want for it.
Gabe built his house out of bricks. Tim built his house out of sticks. Tim has been shoveling investor money down an Apple shaped hole, and now he’s mad at Gabe for having a mountain of money. Don’t get mad, Tim. You made your own choices. Valve didn’t do anything to you. EGS still sucks. You spent millions of your capital on buying exclusives that got you nowhere. Now Fortnite is old hat. Kids are growing up, playing other games. What else you got, Paragon? Pfft 😂
Indie developer here, and I actually support Steam, they didn't prevent these devs from removing their game from Steam and selling it on Epic or whatever.....u gonna use their subsystem, use their bandwidth, use their playerbase to market and sell your game? they pay the damn fees! The fact that they have now high profit percentage, it is because of their hard work over the past years to build that playerbase.....and no, no one but them are entitled to such profit.
And no i dont want to use origin i dont want to use epic games and i dont want to use the blizzard lanucher and i wouldnt use the world of tanks lanucher if it didn't lock my account to the non steam version.
@@x_voxelle_x unforunately i use that for alot of older games sense i do buy them and not pirate them. basically i only use other marketplaces if I'm forced to but it really is a convenience thing not anything else and I'm sorry to devs who take the 30% though.
Problem is that I don't believe a word out of Tim Sweeney's mouth. He generally doesn't do anything worthwhile for the consumer. I don't care about you giving the devs more money when your store is dog crap, and your exclusivity deals are anti-consumer. The big thing is that there really isn't any viable competitors when it comes to online game stores really.
If the savings are passed on to the consumer then the devs are not making any more money, they are making the same amount, just the store is making less, if they charge the same then they make more, the store makes less, but the consumer is still paying the same. The simple fact is, when major games are released outside of steam, like EA Origins, U-play, Blizzard or Rockstar Games Launcher, or Epic they charge the same price so the consumer doesn't benefit from the increased profit margin of those devs. Indi games are a different story, but they also benefit so much more from Steam pushing their game to their player base then any major game with millions of dollars in marketing budget it's hard to argue that Steam isn't earning their cut.
Hypothetically, lowering the price based of the reduced store cut could increase sales. Which could generate more money. I have heard part of the reason Helldivers 2 has done so well is because of the $40 price. I would image sales wouldn't have been as robust if it was at $60 let alone the $70+ the "AAA" groups are asking for.
None of they are passing the saving to the consumers, thats the gaslight to get other companies villainized but given the chance all of them choose to pocket the difference and suddenly the new reason becomes, well now we can pay our developers more, which they also don't do, its just the shareholders getting bigger profits and management getting bigger bonuses.
I used the egs until they decided to buy exclusives. I now refuse to even think about buying games there. Even if a game is on sale for 99% off, I'd still prefer to pay full price on steam.
Guys, the reason why Epic, and Apple cases are in court is due to being apple being the only payment provider that epic has to go through. Not because of the 30% fee. Yes, epic does not want to pay that fee, but because the only payment option to go through is apple. They have no choice but to pay that fee. Not to mention that apple is basically the only place to go to to sell apps to the store other than google, the 2 dominant stores. Steam literally has a lot of competition. Regardless that they dominate the PC realm as a launcher. There's still Blizzard, Origin, Uplay, Epic, and other places they can go to. They have multiple different payment options as well, and can be sold at any store at the same time as it being on steam. Obtaining a Monopoly by superior product or service is not illegal.
Thats not the reason, the reason is some people got greedy and want to sell their stuff on other peoples stores but don't want to pay for it, I want to develop and sell skins in Fortnite, wheres my third party 100% cut store if Sweeney cares so much about "fairness", or if payment just takes 2% and bandwidth is "so cheap" whats the justification of EGS taking 12% and not 0%, when all the discovery documents show that even with 12% they are operating on a loss. Its basically me going to Walmart, opening my own stand inside and selling my own stuff to their customers and then screaming monopoly when i get kicked out.
I'd be curious to see numbers related to the cost that would be paid by an indie developer if Valve was not a thing: ie how much of the games price would be eaten by having to set up your own server infrastructure, paying for marketing to offset that if you are on Steam that in and of itself has a marketing component, etc... 30% certainly seems a bit on the high side, but I bet it would be 15-20% increase in the development cost one way or another.
Blame Epic store front for not really competing with Steam. It is like all the MMO's chasing WoW back in the day. You are not launching against Vanilla WoW you are competing with everything that they have done and entrenchment. You better offer a lot, and Epic did not. Hell to this day are they even as good as Steam?
I did find Epic defenders saying, "Well Steam started out as a buggy low feature mess. Why are you upset that Epic's store is the same." to be odd. I would reply with essentially what you pointed out. It is like a new car manufacturer staring today up and their cars lack AC, power steering, power ports, etc. Would you really defend their vehicles not having these base features because they had just started making cars?
This is why competition never works the way people think. To compete with the likes of an established corp you need to not only be flawless in your execution but you need the opponent to fumble. No one can beat CoD but CoD itself, same with google, Amazon on and on We can talk about there being alternatives but it’s just not how our brains work, we like what we know and what we’re entrenched into
To be fair, valve isn't perfect... They have a lot of inconsistent policy enforcements on NSFW content while allowing some of it so they definitely don't have all their heads together up there in valve and I feel like if Gabe wasn't there it would be a lot worse. That being said, epic is a joke... They haven't improved ANYTHING at all with their own launcher it's still a piece of garbage and it's been years already how has it not improved by now?
@@Nick-cs4oc The competition comes from no barriers to entry. If the established company is pro consumer, low price, great service, why shop anywhere else? But if they cheap out, gouge prices, and get lazy and stupid, then a smaller company can come and eat their lunch. The problem comes when the established company lobbies government for regulations that hinder market entry and prevent smaller companies from taking advantage. When big business and Government get into bed is when you should worry. That's why mega corps, too big to fail, and Communism are predatory. They kick consumers out of the loop and use government force to control our choices.
Oh boy... This whole "Steam charges too much" conversation feels like a very familiar conversation that I've been arguing against for years... Tim Sweeney has claimed that Valve has such low costs with Steam and could do things with a 12% cut, yet how is it that EGS is running in the red with less features using that model? Also, Epic trying to force Valve to use their same revenue split would constitute *price fixing*, which is anti-competitive. That said, *if* Valve is strong-arming publishers into price parity on all platforms, that's a bit questionable. I was under the impression the price parity thing was only when using Steam keys (as in, you can't sell a Steam key in another store for less than you're selling it on Steam). We'll see if Wolffire can prove their claim.
1. Valve let's me game on Linux with ease. 2. My Account is over 20 years old, I can still access titles i bought back then. 3. Steam isn't just a Shop, it's a platform. When valve launched Steam, i was skeptical at first, but over 20 years, they earned my trust. Now Epic is whining about how consumers don't immediately jump ship and run to their Epic saviour. I don't care for free games on Epic Store, because i can look behind them and my own greed. Epic tries to undercut Steam, but will raise prices the moment they gained sufficient market share. UEx titels could run on Linux natively, but somehow they never do or you get bugs and performance hits. There where some many news over the years that left me with a bad aftertaste when i hear Epic. I haven't tried it, but i bet their launcher wouldn't even run on Linux.
Epic and Tim should be the first example when looking up the definition of "Poisoning the well". Also the coffee analogy is not the best analogy since it it ignores what most consumers are looking for. True a small store that grinds its own coffee is better in quality and the money goes to the ones that made the coffee. But the vast majority of consumers dont care about that. Most consumers want security, easy accessibility and fair/cheap prices for more quantity (especially if they have families or don't have the best economic situation). Kinda reminds me of the "dark coffee roast" video Jim Sterling did years ago.
Is Sweeney just acting stupid or is he really just stupid? Does he not realize that if Valve were to reduce their 30% cut Epic would lose the only 'advantage' it has over Steam? Or is it just pure jealousy that Valve can ask 30% and still be the #1 platform and he's just venting his anger because Valve's 30% cut seems to live rent free in his head.
I would be far more sympathetic regarding the 30% if it wasnt championed by Tim Sweeney. I would rather pay 5x more on steam than get something free on EGS
Tim completely doesn't understand how much better Steam experience is. And it also doesn't delay release of other games on other platforms + doesn't ship your data to Tencent servers in China. As a gamer I find Steam to just be better and his Epic Game Store is like a lemonade stand near a Walmart wondering why they're not getting half of all Walmart's revenue.
Difficult for me to have sympathy for a company like Epic hasn't improved their store launcher at all... The only thing really different now is their epic games rewards system That allow players to get a certain amount of money back from every game purchase you make on the epic store... Which is nice but it just screams more of the same problem with epic giving away free games every 1-2 weeks they're just throwing money at the wall not really improving anything with their service.
I still remember the Phoenix Point fisaco a couple years ago where the devs whored out to epic and cut the steam and GOG release, even though a multiplatform release was a stated on their crowdfunding page. Fast forward one year and the game lands on setam and it is a solid MEH, and the latest DLC at the time was so bad it felt like it was a school project.
8:10 Honestly, no. I would not. I think 30% is totally reasonable. I would not buy nearly as many games if they didn't have the extremely extensive feature set of Steam. From the simple fact that they are available on all my devices without any fuss (including on my linux PC and Deck), to cloud saves, achievements, guides, community posts, and everything else. Those features are invaluable to me. Even if Steam had a "buy without DRM" button which cost me 25% less money (and Valve would get shafted by that difference), I would still opt for the more expensive price. Half the fun of playing games is playing them on Steam.
These companies so desperate to make competing stores with Steam should try actually looking at why people like Steam and copying that instead of making their stores the literal worst
Steam offers so much more than just games with their services. Reviews, communities, forums, groups, curators, news, remote play, linux compatibility, VR support, mod support, etc. Steam uses the tried and true strategy of providing the best service, while Epic is trying to cut corners with anti-competitive and more importantly anti-consumer practices. Doesn't take a genius to know who's going to stay at the top.
They don't give a damn about consumers. Remember Epic games are one of companies that LEFT PC MARKET after huge influx of piracy on platform. WIth out Valve there would be NO PC MARKET. To show you how bad that is, EA was still investing in PC. EVEN EA YOU KNOW. Now they return give half-assed service with NO REVIEWS ON BROWSER OR ANY COMMUNITY SERVICES?! And sell NFT and all other bs trash-moblie garbage that players does not care only to make quick buck?! How the hell VALVE is one been bad here?!
You also have to factor in that Steam provide a forum for each and every game. Areas where gamers can upload and save videos/images. A workshop, where they host user made mods. Experimental labs. Points shop, where they store game themed UI elements. Interactive events during sales/events. There is a lot of extra 'stuff' that Steam provide that Epic does not. 'Stuff' that requires UI and functionality development and testing and then somewhere to be hosted, 'stuff' that isn't free to setup and host. I'm not sure how much that all costs, but I think it at least shows why Steam are charging more than Epics 12%, Epics store that is frankly 'meh', very non-responsive at times and doesn't provide the same immersion/interactivity that Steam provide.
Developers will say they pass the savings on to the consumer. However we've seen time and time again that none of these epic exclusive sold a game at a cheaper price.
This is what the video is about, developers and publishers are not allowed to do so because Valve threatens them to remove their listing from Steam if they plan to do so. Did you even watch the video?
Recent example to prove you wrong. Alan Wake 2. PS5 digital $60. EGS $50. No steam release. Tell me again no dev has EVER put an exclusive at a lower cost. Sony takes 30% just like steam. I'm waiting to be told "oh that's one example. Blah blah" I am not deep diving to tell you about EGS when you'll never touch it anyways.
@@SnowRaver-p2v and then you realize games have always been 10 bucks more expensive on playstation then they are on PC. I remember being shocked when i saw the pricings in the playstation store at a friend's place.
Yes you found the one example and its a game that is published by epic themselves. So that doesn't really count. I don't advise you to go deep diving on their store anyway lol@@SnowRaver-p2v
Would it be better for consumers though? Do you have data that proves Valve is misusing that money or that Valve isn't spending that money on consumer friendly features and infrastructure support? Or do you just want to use what Valve has built for free?
Valve may hate making games or making TF2 fans not suffer, but at least they make good business decisions that don't screw over their employees and playerbase
you are kinda wrong here, it's not that stream don't allow people to sell their games for less, but that you can't use stream as your platform and when go around their store to sell it for less. it's like a dev selling stream key and take 100% of the profit, while stream is on the hook for everything.
This seems to me as people just wish to chip away at Steams control. Why should a game be cheaper on one platform than other? It's annoying enough that games already have regional prices, in the end even when things get cheaper, the prices of games goes up and the consumer has to pay. Whenever someone says it's for the consumers cost benefit, they lie.
There's this weird thing ive noticed as i have gotten older. The customer experience and the margins at which said company operates, are almost always correlated. Valve offers a good customer experience simply because they operate at such good margins that they can "do right by the customer". Money gives companies wiggle room. I remember when EVGA wanted to get out of GPUs. EVGA wanted world class customer support, but they weren't allowed by nvidia to do the prices they wanted so their dream of world class customer service went out the door. A good customer experience needs good margins from what i understand.
All these comments brought me to one conclusion: As Devs we are not just paying steam to get to ends meet, but in fact we also pay a type of development tax for the future of pc game distribution by paying those 30% cuts. When you think about it this way, devs were the ones financing steamdeck, linux support, workshop, universal controller support, family sharing and more. Makes me somewhat wonder, if more margin like this might be healthier for the industry.
@@DaimonTrilogy I believe the big problem in techspace is chasing revenue and not margin. Margin per transaction or per customer means that you can offer each customer "more". Less games with bigger sales figures means that each product will be higher quality. It also creates scarcity so that each product is more likely to sell.
@@Jazzyluvsyou100 It took me a while to fully understand what you mean by this. Yes, I agree with this in theory. But in practice people need to get financial to be able to make a game, which means they need to make smaller games to get used to make games which then floods the market. My solution to this is to make one game/system you really believe in or have a good idea for which is quite unique and fun and then stick to it for many years. Often a game is made to be sold once, instead of actually seeing your game growing in popularity in steps. That brings high longevity to your game. Examples for this are Project Zomboid or binding of Isaac, or even Baldurs Gate 3/Divinity Original Sin 2. Many though follow the mentality "out and done".
@DaimonTrilogy Quality software will always do well as long as the market isn't overly saturated. Quality software will have high margin as the distribution economics make it that way. I believe that the market is oversaturated, quite simply put, there are TOO many games right now. There are more games released last year than any other year, but revenue decresed, that means that each game made less money, inflation just exasserbated this problem. Simply put with modern player expectations on price (60 dollar price tag) the market economics are getting pretty rough. You simply need more sales per product than you did in the past in order to stay viable. A ps2 game inflation adjected to today price is 83 bucks. The market economics show that games are more expensive than ever to produce and need to move more units than ever. The way you do this is scarcity to improve sale per product. Games made to scope, less games, stop the race to the bottom. Quality software is the solution Fromsoftware operating margin Capcoms operating revenue is massive. CDPRs operating margin are insane after witcher 3. The operating margins of most companies are around 15-20 percent in the space. Your target should be 30 percent plus if you want to stay stable from any hiccups in this industry. Espcially if your previous game doesn't offer enough capital to operate until your next game, with the credit crunch happening. A pile of money is a POWERFUL asset in these turbulent times, if you are creating games to operate in 10-20 percent margin, you might as well not bother in the current state of games.
Iunno I kinda agree with valve on this. I just think its really bad to sell a product on a popular store, just to sell it for cheaper on another store. That's not fair to the popular store owner at all. You pay 100 bucks to put it on steam, and they pay for all of the advertisement and distribution of that game. If you're going to get steam keys (which by the way, completely removes the 30% you have to pay steam by the way), then steam would get no money from those sales whatsoever. That would be cataclysmic for steam if developers decided to start undercutting steams price on different stores. It's also just dumb for your business anyway. Just request the steam keys from steam and then just match the price on your own proprietary store. The more people that buy on your proprietary store, the more money you make since you no longer have to pay the 30%. Lowering the price on a different store will just confuse the market in a kind of pointless manner. Hell, i'm making my own projects i'm planning on selling on steam. 30% kind of sucks, but its the trade off you're going to have to make to be on the store that's the most respected. If epic games store wasn't crap, it would have taken over the market ages ago. I'd never sell my products on there with how they operate. Sweeny just pretends to be some kind of PC gaming savior, but if he actually cared, his storefront would already be better than steam.
Yeah then the narrative always shifts to, "well now we can pay our developers more, and create better games", when none of that happens and its just shareholders getting bigger cuts, and CEOs bigger bonuses.
The whole apple suit was such a stupid slap fight between two megacorps that was never gonna achieve Tim Sweeney's end goal, glad the judge punished both companies for having shitty practices and wasting her time. Sorry but when Apples entire fucking marketing is based on the fact that it's a safe and closed system a judge is not just gonna let you force them to abandon the foundation of there entire business model as much as I'm not personally a fan of it.
Why are there so many people who don’t understand the difference between 30% profit and 30% of revenue? If you spent $50 making something and sell it for a $100, with a 30% profit cut you make $35. With a 30% revenue cut you make $25 (the store made 30 minus operating expenses though).
I find it strange to discuss value when Steam is full of features while EGS is... A store. 30% may be high, but as a consumer there is no way I go to EGS even if games were free. Hell, there is better service on torrents than in EGS. And if consumers choose Steam - thats valuable for devs
30% is justified in long run... i can buy the game install it on any number of devices.... and i can reinstall it more than 15 years after purchase... things like saves\achievements from old times will still work also steam does ~90% publishers work
Exactly. That 30% isn't just for the purchase and download today, its for keeping those games accessible for decades. Plus things like Steam workshop, discussion forums, etc. Steam is awsome for gamers and all the competition sucks by comparison. They earned that 30%.
@@Dogtrioall of the servies steam provide? all the work thats been put into their client? steam have earned that 30%. devs know it, they can just not use steam, but they wont get the sales because stem is the go to place. they have more then earned that 30%, or would you prefer the costs of steam come onto the consumer? in some subscription service? because they gotta pay for all the extra things they provide somehow
@@Dogtrio Nobody said that. He said it's worth more. When Steam does a better job cheaper than the alternatives and still earn more money, that just means they are better at their job and earned the money. Nobody said they are non-profit.
I honestly never understood why steam's 30% take gets slammed by people for being higher than others. Steam litearlly provides so many great/unique services that no one else does. The entire overlay for games that lets you access your friends to invite them into any match you're playing is such a great boon to many games! Do you remember how hard it was to join your friend's multiplayer games before we had that? Do you remember.... the days of Hamachi for playing multiplayer... oh god. Steam made it easier not just for players, but for game developers, to implement good multiplayer. Steam supports written reviews for games, which epic does not. Steam supports making a detailed profile, with comments, which epic does not. Steam still has cloud saves of games I last played a decade ago ON A DIFFERENT COMPUTER, that will automatically let me continue where I left off with if I reinstall them onto my current computer. That's a ton of data they're storing "for free" as a part of that 30% take. Of course they're also providing the servers/data for fast downloads and updates for games. (much faster download speeds on steam than epic over my gigabit connection!) Steam family share has no other equivalent on any modern game store/launcher. The entire steam market with random/free drops for various games is very unique to steam as well. EGS's library display is ass, steam's is much more detailed yet intuitive, allowing me to make custom sorting for different parts of my games library is very useful. I have gone out of my way to rebuy a game at full price on steam that I already owned from an Epic giveaway just so that when I later bought DLC for it I could avoid giving Epic the money from that. Fuck epic, they ruin everything they touch. They've earned an awful reputation for the stunts they pulled when they bought devs/games right before launch from steam and screwed pre-order customers in the process, only to attempt to force players to use their shitty launcher instead.
Imagine thinking that Valve calling out Tim Sweeney for being a petty tyrant with a simple "U Mad, Bro?" isn't going to make me love them a billion times more.
And no one able to come out with better solutions than valve. At this stage, I would ask if Valve refused a game studio selling their game cheaper on their own website, if you are big fan of the studio, what stops you from paying that 30% directly to the studio? It's not like multiplayers are segregated, or there is a financial hurdle, the paying method is the same.
While I see your point on lowering fees, but the key point is Valve offer the better service to the customer. Epic are giving out free titles, but it's not bringing people over. I know developers deserve more money, especailly if they are going to put more back into development. However we don't trust Epic with our collection of games in a world where we can own physical copies.
To be fair I don't trust valve either with that, I trust maybe GOG with all their DRM free games but I only trust them as long as the service is there because once it's gone it doesn't matter if the games are DRM free I can't download it because the service is gone. Value has gotten away with a lot but I feel like they are also pushing their luck and being very overly arrogant with it that will eventually come to bite valve in the ass one of these days.
I have a feeling that this being the first time I've heard of this restriction says a lot about how often developers think in terms of lowering the price for consumers vs taking the bigger cut. I'm all for developers getting more money, so I have no problem with that, but I've yet to see a case where "This will be better for you, the consumer" has ever turned out to be true and hearing someone say it instantly gets me suspicious.
if the epic launcher would work half as well as steam...more people would use it ...but it's not more than a downloader for free games and a glorified ad for unreal engine
I dunno if 30% if the right cut to ask, but steam has been around for 20+ years now, almost never broken or offline, never lost my saves, hosts several gigs of my savefiles and screenshots and has some of the best CDNs on the planet, never randomly deleted a game from my library for whatever bullshit reason. And unlike apple who already made hundreds if not thousands selling you the hardware, and ask for basically free money on top of it, steam has to get virtually their entire revenue off game sales. Do these devs really think balkanizing the online game store market with a bunch of smaller shitty featureless ones that disappear some day for whatever reason is worth these smaller cuts they all want ? Do we want the current post netflix era of streaming but for video game online stores ? Epic does 12% cut sure, but bankrolled with free CCP money, probably operating at a loss (they had to cancel building their new headquarters, that doesn't sound like a money machine company to me) and their store is a disaster, is that really what you want to go towards ? It was obvious from the first minute they did that to try and attract sellers and buyers who otherwise would never had touched that thing even if it's not sustainable in the long run. And I'm pretty sure will or would have raised their cut higher in the future if conditions allowed.
Alternative headline: Steam Insists On Matching Lower Prices, Developers Refuse Now who's being anti-consumer? The spin-doctoring going on in this story is amazing. I'd bet dollars to donuts that whatever lower price point those devs were targeting, it would've allowed them to net more per game sale than what they were getting on Steam. In other words, their claims that they were lowering the price to pass their savings on to their customers is a half-truth at best.
If you let Valve keep your game on their store but make it cheaper anywhere else, literally NO ONE would buy it from Steam and Valve would just be losing storage and bandwidth space keeping it up. Why would you put it up on steam in the first place if you want to make it cheaper? Would people still buy it on Steam if they found another store sells it for less? Gabe's right.
At the end of the day, Valve's customers are gamers and game developers. Epic's customers are developers and investors. EGS is missing key features that most stores launched with in the late 00s. They don't have a useful review system. There's no forum or place to congregate and discuss games, and there's no incentive to buy from Epic vs literally any other store. Sweeney can act like he's doing the world a favor by only charging 12% to developers, but 88% of 0 is still 0.
Marketing your game on Steam and then telling customers to purchase it somewhere else is a d*** move... Steam isn't a platform for free advertising, it's a store front. Try shouting at all the customers at a retail store to go to different store and see how fast the manager kicks you out.
Good strawman. This would make sense if steam didn't let you sell on other stores. But the Dev is trying to be a good guy, sell it on a different store and keep their net profit the same and give the consumer a discount by lowering the cost according to the lower than 30% cut steam takes. Devs can go get more profit right now but to my understanding they can't advertise PC stores on steam. They can talk about console releases though. So your argument is valid... But not to this story.
@@SnowRaver-p2v Good strawman. This would make sense if the dev was hosting their own game and selling it cheaper elsewhere, but they aren't. Those guys were mass-producing STEAM KEYS and selling their steam keys in other stores for cheaper, bypassing Valve's 30% cut while still using their service and undercutting Valve in their OWN STORE. Giving the customer a discount? No, they were just trying to be smart-asses. By the way, Valve's price restriction is only on selling steam keys. If you want to host your own game somewhere else and sell if for $1, that's on you, they have nothing to do with it.
@@SnowRaver-p2v Not true. The dev can sell the game for any price they want, on any store they wish. Valve doesn't give a damn. This dev tried to sell Steam Keys for less than the listed price on Steam. I.e. Using Steam's distribution services while both undercutting their price to draw people away from the Steam storefront, while simultaneously not paying Steam a dime for the keys sold this way.
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Go to ground.news/bellular to stay fully informed and avoid media bias. Subscriptions start at less than $1 a month or you can get 30% off unlimited access this month through my link.
Basically you're still better off going through steam's Market than anywhere else, cuz anywhere else is like opening up your own Ma and Pa shop and getting whatever you could get from the locals, in comparison to signing up on Amazon and selling your products there having the whole wide world have access to it, yes you're doing it at a loss but at the same time your numbers are higher because it's on the mainstream platform, this is why it doesn't exactly make a whole lot of sense to me when people are talking about mod authors getting money through patreon in comparison to releasing mods on bethesda's store, they're going to get more people noticing them more eyeballs on their product through Bethesda store then they will through their patreon page because one is used by the vast majority of everyone and the other simply isn't.
@@5226-p1e This my god does he sound bitter though out the video so many little digs and false context. Only at the very end does he sort of admit he has a bias and self interest. bellular needs to stop being a shill.
Yes ground news because me no critical think
Why don't i just unsubscribe from you and I'll go watch them for my gaming news
@@neotagatg3238He is even lying through the whole video because Valve doesn't enforce price parity as long as it isn't a steam key. You can sell on EGS or a DRM free version on your store just not a key. So either he is a bad faith lair or he is unable to read this lawsuit... Because what this developer in the lawsuit wanted to do is not to sell on Steam at all and only sell steam keys for a 0% cut on their own website...
Two separate statements im going to make. Firstly I side with the dev and against valve in this case. Valves "Rule" stifles competition for no reason other than its technically Legal. And as we all know, the law is a broken machine that needs better engineers doing maintenance so we can finally get it fixed. Secondly, IF YOU WANT A COMPETITOR TO STEAM USE GOG. DO NOT support the Epic store in any form. Tim Sweenys idea of "Competition" is bribing Devs so that players are FORCED to use the worse platform. Epic SHAMELESSLY engages in anti trust behavior and are trying to bring the bloody war hellscape that is the console wars, to Pc. Hypocrits with their own anti trust practice, except theirs hurts the consumer.
Abolish it and Raze the company until that land belongs to the dinosaurs again. Use Gog instead. CDPR actually have genuine good intentions.
They made witcher 3, spent the money to fix cyberpunk, and the Gog store is CDPR saying that they have a dream. Where all gamers are created equal
The problem with Epic's 'gameplan' with their store lunch was trying to present championing the issue as 'for the gamers' while also, at the same time, taking AGGRESSIVE decisions left and right which were decidedly NOT to the consumer's benefit.
On consumer side, are you better served with 10% cheaper product or Steam's review system?
Obviously I'm older now so $60 itself is not like buying a game 20 years ago, still even wasting $30 and 4 hours is unpleasant experience that is almost completely mitigated on Steam. You look at %, skim 5 top reviews, check what negatives are pointed out in reviews and are they something that specifically really bugs you, if game passes this I'm certain its what it says it is.
On dev side (I'm working on a game which is now in EA on Steam) it is pricey but it also delivers. They keep improving, with for example new input remapping. If this catches on it may allow keeping any kind of controller and having your profile work for different games. Maybe it won't catch on, we'll see, but innovation is happening. There are many Steam API features that you don't need to use but have ready at your convenience. Would they forgo half of their profit and give it back to devs... that would be a nice present. But right now this is more than decent value proposition if you don't spend 30% of budget on ads like in Tim's example.
@@Peteruspl thats not even touching the value of steam recommendation system which is google ad sense level of quality for recmmending simular games ive got over a dozen games just off steams recommendation based off played games and on the consumer side steam workshop is amazing and is so widely used that its hard to compete against
imo only thing that comes close to the value steam offers is gog's classic games when they intergrate fan updates/ self made fixes into base games so you dont even to find it yourself
"For gamers" and they do literally every anti-"For gamers" moves in the book
Interesting bit here, steam started as a way to automatically update games (Valve's games) in 2003. Something that was unheard of at the time. Epic popped up with the core motivation of 'Just be a steam competitor.' They had nothing to really spark a reason to go to them over steam so they bought reasons. Unfortunately in a game of throwing money to get ahead they didn't even throw enough money for Valve to think about opening its pocket let alone actually apply monetary pressure.
@@thehob3836Sweeney and Newell were competitors. Unreal Engine vs Source. When Value launched Steam Sweeney just mocked them... constantly. Even MS didn't care. Same type of mock Apple received when they launched a phone.
Suddenly Unreal Tournament is not making them the type of money they want. The 3D Engine market is getting competitors. Larger companies are maintaining their own. Tim now wants a store. Will he put in the work and get his own... nah let me release some shoddy crap and then complain how his competitors are ruining everything.
I greatly fear the day of Gabe's passing. He's not perfect, and neither is Valve, but Steam has the potential to be SO MUCH WORSE than it currently is... and I believe we will discover this fact once Gabe's vision is no longer at the head.
Wise words .
I totally agree... Steam has its issues but it has effed me the least when compared to any other product htat I have used for such a long time. Just you wait though I am sure some greedy CEO will come sooner or later to ruin it all to the ground for all of us.
I hope he's training two successors like some anime character but he successfully kills the evil one before he dies.
Valve is already a lot worse than some companies, but they always seem to get a pass because it's the best PC game store, and of course, daddy Gaben. I can honestly see nothing changing with Valve after his passing, but people will suddenly decide that many things that Valve are already doing are NOT ok and "would have never happened under Gabe Newell".
The same thing happened with Walmart: its founder was a SAINT. If Sam knew what his sons turned Walmart into, he'd crawl out of his grave and kick all of their asses.
The Epic Store is sort of exhibit A for Valve. They've been around for years, spending a fortune giving away games, and consumers still go to Steam to shop and to buy. Why is it that the Company that made $20 billion off of Fortnite can't manage to build a store/launcher with simple consumer-friendly features over the course of several years?
Looking at Skull & Bones on their shop, I can see it has 4.1/5 stars. That's sort of surprising, given how poorly it has reviewed elsewhere. Maybe the written reviews can provide some insight -- oh. No written reviews. Well how many people reviewed it on Epic for it to get that score? Oh. The number of reviews is hidden. Why would I look to Epic when I'm shopping if they won't tell me that stuff?
That lack of transparency is magnified by the fact that Epic doesn't exclude scammy NFT games. They've designed a store that lowers my trust compared to virtually every other online retailer.
There are lots of things beyond Epic's control about why people don't shop there -- for example, with Steam's price protection, I can assume that the price on Epic won't be better. My friends are all on Steam too (and they don't play Fortnite), so any social features are worthless.
Epic seems to have privileged the developers over the consumers to the point where their only tactic is to get locked-down exclusives. I imagine I'm not alone in deciding that I'd just play Sifu and FFVII Remake on console or wait a year. (I actually bought Alan Wake II from them though.)
Yea I see the star system on Epic and get confused where the reviews are and why they make it so hard to do anything on their store front.
From my standpoint, the Epic Game Store is the demonstration of the arrogance of Tim Sweeney. He knows better than everyone else according to him. For example, Valve provides very little value to game developers (according to him) therefore they should not be charging their 30%. Years later, many of see why Valve is the market leader for game stores; they are simply better and built their ecosystem over decades. It took 3 years for Epic to get a shopping cart and 4 years to get a rating system. There are no user reviews because (of course) Sweeney knows better than their customers about which games are good.
Also it's worth noting this Overgrowth game was HORRIBLE. I imagine he wanted to move to a store WITHOUT reviews, discount it to get some quick sales from unknowing consumers.
I believe the review system was supposed to be thumbing their nose at Valve and games getting review bombed. I don't remember how the reviews even work. I think it might have been ones the devs/publishers allow through to avoid review bombing.
I also don't know if they ever got game forums. I remember Epic sniped one of the Metro games from Steam. The people that purchased the game on Epic was having to go to the Steam forums looking for help in getting the game to run. Without user reviews nor forums, you have to go outside the Epic Store to figure out if a game is broken or a scam.
***BINGO***
Years on and I see zero options from epic to make me think even a single feature they have is as good or better than Steam. WHY would I buy a game from someone who is beholden to the CCP?
I'm not saying Valve is in the right here, but the C.O.O sending an email to Tim Sweeny with just the words "u mad bro?" is *objectively* funny.
I think it is hilarious, but it's also very damaging to valve's defense.
@@supersonicgamerguru I think spiritually, he deserved to say that, but you're not wrong.
it's a fine response to a long-winded emotional tirade where they call you an asshole. With that kind of tone, it loses any right to be taken seriously. Especially for a very informal "you talking shit about us in public. It's not personal, right?"-email.
@@supersonicgamerguru
It's lovely to actually ceo's act like people.
What's the big issue?
@@supersonicgamerguru how so ?
I was excited about the Epic Games Store when it was announced. I thought competition would be good in this space. I bought a couple of games on the Epic Store to support them, but let's face it, they have never competed with Steam. The Epic Store is a joke. While 30% may be a little much for what Valve offers, 12% is 12% too much for what the Epic Store offers, which is basically nothing.
Epic doent even publish for indies so its stupid to go to them. that 12% instantly becomes 42% once a publisher is involved AT MINIMUM,
Agreed 100%
Steam can charge whatever they want. This is open competition and no one has come close to offering customers the suite of features and community building tools that Valve has with Steam. Epic laid down with Tencent. Epic will never be consumer driven and Sweeney knows it which is why he’s suing. He can’t compete by choice, the suits are frivolous. However, with corporatism dominating the landscape today and censorious apparatchiks attempting to control every aspect of our lives, I do not trust the courts on this issue in the least.
I saw somewhere that a game puts its best foot forward in the tutorial and to jump ship if it looks bad at that point. Kinda feel like thats what many did with Epic. It exploded onto the scene with fanfare and trumpets... and was kinda just a cardboard chinese food menu compared to steam.
@@snintendog They do publish indies, even ones that had kickstarted campaigns promising Steam key for the game, with EGS exclusivity deals.
I really wish Sweeney Tim would go away. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Valve are angels, but Sweeney's behavior, every time I hear about him, just drives me further and further away from ever wanting to touch anything that Epic has a hand in. The man is just such a two-faced lying bastard where he wants to present himself as a champion for consumers and small indie devs when really he just wants to *become* Valve or Apple in terms of dominating the market.
He just want to gaslight himself he is a hero here. Remember Epic games were ones that abandoned PC in rampid piracy age. WHEN EA STAYED ON PLATFROM.
I stayed himself, because he is not fooling anyone.
Valve may not be an angel, but Epic Games Store is a demon
Knowing this lawsuit; it's going to be cheaper dealing with this lawsuit than changing their policies.
@@RageQuitSonand people still be kissing their ass
@@RageQuitSon good they deserve to be bankrupted, Discovery will find out EGS soliciated that nonsense dev to make this a press release so they could try to use it as a pr attack on steam. Lets be real the reason they're selling it as a lower cost off steam isn't to help customers its to help those other platforms
I mean,at least,as far as i know , they did not ruin their employee's livelyhood. They did not lay off anyone. They had a good idea and they capitalised on it. Not sure how old you guys are , but back in the days , there were alot of talk about Half-Life 3. Gaben saw what happened with mass effect 3 , DA3 , and pretty much every games that can count up to 3 , and said: No. Lets make Portal 2 instead , then focus on making money via distribution, wich , i mean... imo it was a fantastic move, and nobody really complained until inflation came kicking through the door, and now lays off are happening everywhere. Now , im guessing a compromise will have to be made. This doesnt mean they dont care about the consumers of the devs in general , but with these kind of gigantic company's , you cant just make a hard turn and change everything for the better in a single week. I am confident , based on Gaben past decisions , that eventually, a compromise will be made. But , even though a compromise will be made , you have to ask yourself , who in the world would intentionally reduce their incomes if their not doing anything illegal? No one asked steam to become a distributor, they just did , and people liked it. They have no responsability to the devs. Maybe morals ones...because of their success. But their success is , imo , in no way because of the devs of others games. Its because they had one of the best reputation even before they switched to being a distribution platform. I mean...Half life,God King Gaben,Portal..amirite? But anyway. TLDR: A compromise will eventually be made. EDIT: Also , that indie dev sold more copies via others distributor than on steam , thus , making steam do free publicity for them so people can buy it somewhere else,now,im not saying that what this indie dev did was evil , but as a company , its completely understandable why they acted like they did.
@@RageQuitSonDon't be surprised if epic is bank rolling them, so they should be fine, they spend billions every year trying to take steam down so they are in good hands.
with the *billions* in profit they are making from the 30% each year? hell yes. The lawsuit could cost several billion, and still be worth fighting.
It's hard to side with Epic when they keep on letting go their employees, but the higher ups still get raises.
So... its easy then to side with Valve who are doing the exact same thing?? Your take is lacking so much self awareness, its sad.
I just did a quick search of Valve layoffs and epic layoffs and yes Valve has sent their employees to the unemployment bin, but nothing compared to how many Epic has.
@knuckles7410 that's not the point. The point is Epic is trying to make themselves look like the best thing ever since sliced bread, but they are far from it considering everything they have done.
@@isturbo1984speaking of self-awareness, look up Valve layoffs and Epic layoffs in any search browser.
Fuck epic, full stop.
My understanding, if you compare Steam to Epic Store, Steam offers a tone more features and backend hosting over Epic. Even if you choose to put your game on Epic (without an exclusive deal), it's very unlikely many people will even know your game exists due to Epic Store's very poor discovery system. Strangers of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin was on Epic Store as a timed exclusive and huge number of people didn't have a clue it existed on PC or on the Epic Store and that's a Square Enix game!
I can't believe the Kingdom Hearts Collection IS STILL EXCLUSIVE TO EPIC! This is insane.
@@lucasLSD I refuse to get that game on EGS.
Square Enix is stubborn is hell, that exclusive isn't good for their company. Just look at FF7R/FFXVI, they were pretty disappointed with the sales due to not selling it on other platforms, and ironically asks why their games fails to meet their sales expectations. It's like people that runs Square lives in a hut or something.
@@BlueBeam10 to use Epic back end you need A your game to be in Unreal and B to pay the fees for it. Its not a service provided just by listing your game on there.
@Xport9 then there the FFXIV devs saying screw it let's get this on Xbox.
FF origins is on pc? WHEN?
One thing to consider with the whole "cost per GB" price breakdown at 11:50 is that $0.0002/GB sounds a LOT lower than it actually is due to the sheer volume of data Valve serves. Steam's bandwidth usage for game downloads averages around 19-20 Tbps. Maybe a bit higher because new game releases can often spike that up pretty high. Yesterday they had a spike up to around 73 Tbps for around an hour.
At a constant 20 Tbps, assuming the $0.0002/GB price is accurate, over a billion dollars per year is spent solely on providing game downloads. Not including any website content including the storefront and its huge volume of videos and screenshots, or any of the user-uploaded content, discussion forums, steamworks backend infrastructure, etc. Just game content downloads.
That 30% cut does seem to go to something, as contrary to other storefronts where money you spend doesn't seem to go anywhere but the pockets of shareholders and executives.
Don't even get me started on the multiplayer servers, those things are HELLA expensive to run and maintain. 30% of your game's revenue alone would probably pay for this.
Also, saying they are spending only 7% of gross with Fortnite is stupid, considering Fortnite makes HUGE money that other games could only dream of.
So of course, what they'd spend is a much smaller percentage of the gross.
You can't compare one of the biggest games in the world with the average game.
Little Timmy has to learn that in order to compete with Valve and earn customers trust and money, he needs to provide a better service.
This is a joke right ? Steam cant stop shoving some porn shovelware down my throat cause in order to buy Pathfinder WOTR, I had to enable adult games. People will stay on the platform they already have games on. And due to price matching Epic clause cant win them over with cheaper prices. If Epic starts getting any real support Steam will just change their API to remove crossplay.
Also what epic doesnt have ? Refunds they have those. User reviews which steam tweaks on publishers demand.
@ivanmonahhov2314
Why do you have thats R18 setting turned on then??? XD
Stop making up issues that you don’t actually have.
@@SkipBaley-hb6nc Parthfinder WOTR for some reason was not visible when it was turned off. That game can get pretty dark in places.
@@ivanmonahhov2314 A usable fucking store, I've literally given up on game purchases because it's inconvenient to even browse. The application is bad and honestly I want them to win this suite for the industry as a whole. Because they'll win and they'll get a small boost of devs and then... Unless they pay for an exclusive it still won't be used en masses because it's a genuinely incompetent storefront.
Valve's price parity clause is only for when Devs are selling Steam keys of their games - like, no shit Valve doesn't want devs to use Steam keys in order to under-cut them!
I am also perfectly happy with the amount of my money that ends up in Valve's hands. They have used it to make a wonderful storefront - and no one else is even attempting to do what they do. I think 30% is just fine.
Is that really true? I am asking genuinely.
@@DaimonTrilogy That is Valve's officially stated policy, and the only "developer" contradicting that, also just happens to own the Humble Store. I'm giving Valve the benefit of the doubt.
wild that wasn't mentioned til here. that completely changes my opinion
Do you have a source for this? I could not find anything official directly from Steam... only more articles about the Wolfire case and in this case it seems that they do enforce all prices (I highly doubt that the EGS would sell Steam keys)
The steam client is a clunky piece of dog shit, though.
Valve does refunds and they are easy, and almost every other company tells you to fuck off. Valve has done well by me over the years, more so than most comapnies.
To be fair, I believe Valve was forced to offer refunds due to an Australian lawsuit.
GOG is 30 days…vALve is Shi.t
@@XShrike0but they could have made it be Australia only. Just like how Apple is USB-c but only in the EU
@@lostknight1903 Wait Apple seriously....for fucks sake....
Not only that, but you can also get a refund at any time, any amount of playtime, and length of ownership. It's just after the 2 hour mark you have to provide a good reason, instead of it being a guaranteed "go right ahead, we'll refund you, no need to explain". IF a company even thinks of considering the concept of a refund, you'd need to beg the fuck out of your lungs to get anything back from a refund with an 80% chance of failure. Only time I've gotten refunds outside of Steam was xbox purchases, and 'specifically' because the purchases were gifts to another region and thus they failed because region lock, which is easy to see why that'd be a refund. And even then I had to wait a bit. Good luck if you're PlayStation. Both in getting refunds, or owning anything.
The fact tim Sweeney called someone else an asshole for making money legitimately, is hypocritical considering the way they backstabbed pubg. Besides their store is a joke.
xD
"Generally, the economics of these 30% platform fees are no longer justifiable"
Oh, that's why Epic is only targeting Steam and Mobile where they are confident of creating their own stores, on PC with EGS, an absolutely unsustainable service where they just pay, pay, pay, pay into it, directly paying devs and users to use it just so they don't use their competitors, so just paying to hurt the competitors instead of offering an actual alternative that has any value that would make it competitive itself. And that's why they haven't ever said a single word against Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo about them taking 30 % too AND AN ADDITIONAL MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION TO PAY FOR "ONLINE SERVICES" which is integrated in the 30 % of Steam, and being direct partners of those three companies, being on absolutely best terms.
I don't understand the calculation of the percentages in the next paragraph. It seems to be about the revenue split per game. But why is there 30 % marketing fee PER GAME SOLD then? Doesn't really seem to make any sense to me but whatever. Maybe I just don't get this.
And then they compare what they did with Fortnite and Paragon to running Steam. They offered simple download servers of games and updates of Fortnite and Paragon. That's it. That's completely it. How is this comparable to the full feature pack of Steam? E. g. we can download any version ever released of any game we have on Steam any time. We can repair our game files which wasn't possible even on the wider EGS for a very long time and is still shit compared to Steam's implementation. Workshop, sharing artworks and screenshots (without any ads to finance this compared to other services online), the [unneccessary] video streaming, offering download servers in every single region of the world where Steam is (compared to only North America and Western Europe like Sweeney said in this statement) to every single game on Steam with every single version ever released, doesn't matter how little the game sold, how little revenue the game made to Valve. Workshops with highspeed downloads without any fees, nowadays even game streaming over the internet yourself and with friends. Reviews, that don't have strange artificial points that just don't work if you ever try to compare games based on reviews. A review system that nowadays even counter review bombing. A review system directly on the store, making it easy to see if a game might have a problem and even easier (simple scroll to the end of the store site) to find out what the problem is for most users and making pc gaming a little less horrible nowadays if you are interested in AAA games where it would be an even higher gamble to buy a game every single time without those reviews. The Steam forums, an official and directy way for the publishers to talk to their users and help them with problems, so the users can resolve issues and give a good review instead of refunding the game after bugs, crashes and a negative review. Forums that can be found via search engines and help other people, unlike Discord which is so horrible for resolving technical issues simply because it's just takes away the "one time solve"-"long time help to others" advantage pretty much ever online forum ever had before (I love Discord and the amount of features they're adding and they overall exceptional quality of service is just phenomenal, but as such a "forum" it hurts everyone). Also, again, the forums are ad-free too and nicely linked to each specific game (with the current Call of Duties seemingly being the exception where the last few games somehow got one forum which makes it impossible to use apparently).
All of this, within the 30 %.
Are the 30 % necessary for poor Valve to make a profit? Surely not, they could definitely take less and still run Steam (mostly) as it is. But is it absolutely bullshit to talk shit about bad, evil Valve taking so 30 % for Steam as a whole service while being best buddy with the console platform holders that cost more (even if the costs is outsourced to the consumer directly) and offer waaaaay less, never ever daring to speak a word against their 30 %? Yes, absolutely. And is it stupid to complain about Steam taking 30 % with the argument of taking only 12 % themselves even if they offer a tiny fraction of the features, comparable about a 2-star hotel crying about a 4-star hotel being more expensive. Well, no shit, the all-inclusive hotel with 3 all-you-can-eat buffets, multiple pools, gym, sport fields and sauna is more expensive than the rat infested shack next door that has as beautiful doors as the 4-star hotel but is shit in every other way compared to it? The 4-star hotel should be cancelled!!!
But yeah, the most important thing for me is: Epic Games and Sweeney is not doing all of this for the devs and consumers. They aren't doing it for the "good of the industry". They are doing it for themselves, for their own profit. When they dared to open their mouth against Playstation regarding crossplay, they had a crossplay platform service inside their Epic Games Online Services ready. They didn't speak out pro Crossplay to better the industry, but to sell their crossplay service and get their own engine closer to a monopoly thanks to the selling point of that services being easily integrateable inside UE. They tried to weaponized their Fornite costumers which are to a big part [manipulatable] children, and literally trying to make themselves look like saints to force Apple to open their platform, not because it's best for everyone but because it's best for themselves. They even said themselves, Apple opening up IOS would be the best course of action, not Apple lowering the revenue share as low as possible. Because in the end, they releasing the EGS on IOS would get them 100 % revenue of Fortnite and 12 % revenue of their hopeful 35-50 % percentage of IOS app sales (if we take take over their expectations of PC) with a (in relation to other stores) very cheap store that takes less money to maintain and therefore can get more profit out of a 12 % cut. They shut their mouths regarding console 30 % because they simply expect more profits from their partnerships with the console manufacturers than by trying to force them to let their EGS into the respective ecosystems. A cheap pc store that takes away so many features from consumers that still is completely unsustainable in its current state is not a healthy addition to the industry, let alone "the best for the industry". Them not offering an actual alternative that can compete and rather paying anyone to use their store as their one and only selling point next to "the store is cheaper to maintain and therefore has less revenue cut" is not "the best for the industry". I would really like to see EGS actually trying to compete with Steam, mimicking most of their features (no, I don't expect EG to make a broadcast/streaming service inside EGS), and still offering all of this for 12 %. But as long as they are seemingly even higher on a price-service-ratio perspective than Steam and only criticise where they see themselves being able to make huge profit streams, while acting like saints and underdogs and constantly claiming they fought for the industry, I just despise Epic Games more than any other company, to an extend where I really don't know if I want Apple to lose even on one point of their case simply because it would mean a win for Epic Games.
And let's not forget them developing Steam Machines and Steam Deck with their own OS (/Linux Distribution) and introducing trackpads on gamepads of Steam Controller and Deck making games playable with controller and on an handheld that are better played with mouse, and steering the pc plattform into an amazing direction with developments like Proton, SteamVR, Steam Common Redistributables, Steam Input, Proton, Game File Verify and Repairs. This is not any reason why 30 % are justifiable today, but why the 30 % helped the pc gaming industry to get to where it stands today. And most of those things came with little competition, whereas a lot of good developments in the console industry for example only happened because competition actually forced the companies to try to better themselves, which is also shown by the multiple situations where the current console leader did some shitty things till they falled flat on their faces while the underdog did the good things. Overall, I've seen so much more shady things through all three console manufacturer lines than in the history of Steam. If they actually forced price parity, sure, fuck them (even though sales are never synced on all platforms, keys are constantly cheaper on many platforms, and Wolfire were a little bit petty on multiple occasions, so while I don't instantly refuse to believe it, I definitely don't believe it based some claims of Wolfire). But if that's the shadiest thing they did by abusing their "monopoly", I really can't complain that much. Yes, their Steam market for ingame items is trying to profit off gamers trading ingame items which is shit but afaik at least it is only allowed to be cosmetic, so no pay to win and kinda forgettable. And yes, as publishers they definitely "abused" their situation of a free cash flow and let themselves go by letting their lootbox infested CS:GO be their only "new" game anymore for a long time, only to make Artifact of all games be the next Valve game. And even after some amazing experiences like Aperture Desk Job, Aperture Hand Lab, The Lab and Half Life: Alyx, it's still definitely still very little output from Valve as a publisher.
Remember there's Humble Bundle, and GoG to get games for the pc for as well. I'm sure there's a couple others, but don't know them from the top of my head at the moment. And some developers/publishers sell directly from their sites.
Yup.
Pretty much.
i saw a comment on someone else video that makes sense ''70% of a watermelon is a lot more than 88% of a grape.'' steam has built trust and its brand over years and has the gamers wanting to use steam, the buyers hate epic because its not user friendly, it doesn't have the features of steam like profile pages, workshops and community tabs. whilst the 30% take is big, its worth it more than epic because of the access to the players because they wont use epic
Epic games builded trust by abandoning PC platform in for PS3/ x360/ wii generation. When EA stayed. EA STAYED!!!!
And ultimately, the cut the storefront gets, regardless of the storefront itself, barely ever if at all will matter to the customer.
The price will stay the same across the board to match what other games ask you to pay for on all the other platforms, and if anything, will only keep raising.
Steam's upkeep is higher than you can imagine, I can understand a bigger cut to the store that actually looks after customers rights than to get a cheap chinese alley copy where I get kicked away as soon as I hand over the money
I'll be shocked if that developer wins.
Depends on the local law I guess. But agreements and practices like that are widely common in all sorts of areas - especially retail - so I would be surprised if this here would be handled any different though.
It's a contract - take it or leave it - but then miss out on publishing the game on their platform. Now if someone could actually MAKE a monopoly claim and push that through the courts, that would be something different. But... well... bigger ones tried that in the past already... ^^
"that developer" setup and ran the humblebundle store
@@christopherzajonskowski7123 Doesn't really depend on local law because the clause doesn't exist like Bellular misinformation likes to suggest. The clause is that you can't sell steam keys for cheaper not that you can't sell cheaper on other stores.
@@christopherzajonskowski7123 not how civil law works
I mean, they are unlikely to win due to valve probably having better lawyers but I do kind of agree with him.
So what Bellular fails to mention is this is common in retail many companies have clauses with timed or permanent price requirements. It's seen as a way to prevent devaluation of their products and prevent abuse of wholesale prices. This is one of the reasons why sometime instead of being sold or donated you'll see perfectly good goods destroyed.
Bell also here claims he's not mad at valve when he's always been mad at them. He is and has been a epic fanboy for years now always giving epic the benefit of the doubt while using any chance he can to slam steam. You see it here at 10:00 where he highlight a section adds wording that was not part of the statement, and doesn't actually say the whole statement in it's original context. Instead painting a harsher picture then what the steam employee stated. He then after a soft backstep ofd it then uses the harsher wording he created in the next section of talks again pushing his out of context statement not the original. He then continues to use his made up harsher wording for the rest of the argument. This is dishonest and comes from a place of anger by bellular against steam.
Basically this is another epic shot at the wall hoping it sticks in taking steam down. Steam does not force you to use it being the biggest does not equal force use. There must be actions that require steam use and prevent you from using other. Steam keys does not fulfill this as there platform items neither does price matching as this is common in the world of business. This functionality is another shot at rewriting a series of business laws to harm steam. Yet if successful and what epic ignores is it will effect everyone many in negative ways.
Thanks for the grounded comment.
I had a provider that would sell discounted hardware to our toolshop under the condition we maintained a certain price margin. The boss decided to cut the price margin, and our provider cut us back in return, because we were undercutting the other shops in the area, and instead of having more sales we were just driving the prices down vs other brands. Obviously not the same as the software market, but still fun nonetheless.
Also, we worked with a 45% markup.
@@dudebruh8534Could swear he was offered to, but declined.
All this price matching rules doesn't even exist. They only exist based on a verbal statement the dev in the lawsuit said he heard. The real statement is that you can't sell steam keys for cheaper than the game is on steam. They don't care if you sell cheaper on EGS.
@@wyred so price matching of non drm games with no steam keys are a lie?
Isn't valve's rule on not being undercut in compliance with U.S. law? I'm pretty sure there is a law that requires Devs to have equal base prices between distributers, specifically to prevent anti-competitive practices from online distributers.
This rule doesn't exist Bellular is lying. Valve only want's you to sell steam keys for the same price as the game costs on Steam. You can sell for cheaper on other stores all you want as long as you are not just only selling steam keys on that stores.
@@wyred It's the developer's words, not his.
@@LasherTimoraYes it's the developer's words but he is parroting them as a fact and brings it up serval times without even mentioning there is no written rule like that and Vales stating that this allegations are false.
His own source says there are only verbal statements about it and that this will be extremely hard to proof but he leaves it out because it fits his agenda.
Valve does have a policy regarding discounts and needing to offer discounts on all stores, of the same value, at the same time, or within a few weeks of each other. I forget the specifics. I read this awhile ago, on the Steam documentation for developers. :D :D
@@kieranrollinson8750 Yes?
This is only when you sell Steam Keys on a discount. This rule doesn't apply when you sell the Game on EGS or GoG for cheaper.
This rule exists to prevent abuse of the Steam resources by putting your game on steam for $1000 and selling a Steam Key for $50 on your own website.
Not sure I can trust Gabe Newell's son to be an unbiased source in reporting this story
I like Tim saying "Valve, your business should not charge 30%, so stop it." Like, who the hell are you to tell a different company what to do. Especially one that DIDN'T need to do mass layoffs during this time, from one who did.
I mean, Epic has 13× the employees as steam and makes a third of the revenue... soooo maybe steam is over charging a bit.
I've lost sympathy for most devs over the years as well, triple A studios is filled with political bullshit and unfinished turds if not outright trying to scam customers. so what if an EA or sony owned studio makes less money
Maybe Epic’s Leadership is just incompetent?
@@Dogtrio we don't know Steams actual revenue, we barely know Epics revenue. Both are privately held companies (Epic is less private because they have more outside investment)
if Steam has made more money, as long as they didn't "make the deal worse" that is the purpose of capitalism. And maybe the reason Value have made more Profit has to do with a different model:
Epic: Provides a game engine (free before distribution unless you are AAA), hosts and runs a Live service game, Hosts and runs a store front (where they burn money giving away a bunch of free stuff weekly), Hosts and runs a market place for developers (where they burn money giving away a bunch of free stuff monthly), has like 3K employees
Valve: Hosts and runs a storefront for games, makes and releases games (mostly tech demos if you really think about it), has like 350 employees
one of these companies has a lot higher of overhead.
The mass layoffs were done to appease investors (as part of the Gartner Hype Cycle).
and yet paying devs to NOT be one steam and only epic is all fair
Why are you focused on EGS? Did you miss the part that this is a small game dev sueing Steam for not ALLOWING them to charge what they want on platforms that aren't controlled by Steam. EGS isn't STEALING games with exclusivity. The game devs choose to take a large cut upfront. And sure, it's similar. (I don't remember the particulars, I think EGS approached a dev with a deal but the Dev had already promised to be on steam so the EGS deal fell through) so just remember that this is a small dev fighting a giant company Steam. Stop hating EGS just cuz it's EGS
@@RageQuitSon Its certainly a situation with alot of nuance to it. If i were to sell, say, a Car for $2000 to one dealership, but sell the exact same car at a different dealership in a year for 1500$, thats not consumer friendly. Immagine someone who bought the car the year before for the full price, and found out they could have just waited untill it was availible at a different dealership for 3/4ths the cost. But as has been pointed out, indie devs get the short end of the stick since they dont get the kickbacks that larger companies do.
There's alot that could change to be better, but the truth remains that Steam is by far the best online distributor of software out there, and part of that is because of their relative transparency and consumer perks, such as curators and reviews compared to other services that either do not have them full stop (EGS) or do not have them nearly as accessible to view (GOG).
@@irishijo1 TLDR if your gonna drop the price it has to be Universal across platforms.
@@irishijo1 That analogy doesn't work, if you're selling to a dealership you're selling to a retailer/reseller, not the end consumer.
@@RageQuitSon the reason people call out EGS with their Exclusivity deals; which sometimes look a lot like, "On PC, Just don't release on Steam everywhere else is fine"; if that is what is going on, would be a direct violation of Monopoly Law.
Being a Monopoly because you make a better product is Legal, Being a Monopoly because people like your product/service is Legal, Being a Monopoly because you are the only company in the segment is (on its face) Legal.
it is when the company makes deals that would reduce market share for the competitor outside of the norm that is Illegal.
Sometimes Sweeny is looking out for his licensees (the people using the engine), but sometimes Sweeny feels like the type who would be doing far worse if he was in the same position to those he complains about.
The problem with "30% bad" is that Valve very much reinvests that money into improving their platform even more. Take a look at how pitiful the EGS's 12% cut has been for that store's improvement. Literally took years to implement a shopping cart!
Not 100% true. Steam brings in more money per head than even Apple and Google. Linus from LTT joked that Steam just prints money, and that money is largely going into the pockets of the people behind Valve. Gabe Newell for example has an entire fleet of Yachts, those that go for millions of dollars each. Point is, don't assume its mostly directed back into platform investments.
@@deuswulf6193 More is reinvested than at EGS, because EGS is not profitable or sustainable, by Tim Sweeny's own admission.
The 30% fee is justifiable if it means that they don't have to fire lots of employees every year
Yeah, obviously, Gabe is a businessman n Steam is a product and not your right.@@deuswulf6193
The problem with Tim Sweeney's assessment is he thinks 100% of Steam's costs is the credit card fee and the bandwidth. While digital goods have less cost than physical ones, Sweeney does not seem to think that servers, infrastructure, and employees that is the Steam ecosystem costs money. So Epic started their own store. 5 years later their store has yet to turn a profit. I suppose running a game store costs more than the 12% Epic is charging.
Hi. What about the video subject? A small dev sueing Steam to allow them to list their game on stores that steam doesn't control at any price the dev wants to sell at and without getting punished by steam. EGS Is only involved because the judge is letting the case proceed and some emails and internal messages were included.
@@SnowRaver-p2v The email from Epic was before the developer sued. Years before if I remember right. And how is that related to the case the Epic seems to know more about what games store cost more than Valve and that Valve should lower their store fees. This was before Epic had a game store. 5 years later Epic Games Store is not turning a profit. Why do you think that is?
@@SnowRaver-p2v steam is not the only one who does this either, MS xbox has the same policy albeit it pertain to graphic quality. It is a contract you sign to do business, plus why is the dev is so hellbent on complaining when at the end he got more money? If he really believe in sweeney he can just sell on Epic only and say it cost cheaper.
@@KPX01 to benefit from discovery of steam and at the same time hide behind egs lack of reviews to sell their supposd cheaper game.
@@SnowRaver-p2vBut isn't this just about steam keys?
I see games on Steam being sold elsewhere for cheaper constantly, the difference is that the copies being sold elsewhere aren't Steam copies, which I presume is the case here.
Love how valve doesn't have to do a thing for tim and epic being salty.
Nothing? I don't know how long Steam has had the no undercutting policy but that means Epic's main draw of "you can pass the savings onto your customers" is stopped by Steam. That is not NOTHING. Knowing Epic though, they knew that policy before hand and that's why there are so many EGS exclusives.
Steam HAS improved since EGS after years of stagnation, and EGS has continued to improve
@@RageQuitSon I haven't touched EGS in years because it was just a bad experience compared to Steam. What have they improved in the past 3 years or so? Are they anywhere close to parity in features these days?
@@RageQuitSonJust reading your name and :) keep coping.
@@GrimnirsGrudgeThey added a shopping cart. That's all I remember them changing.
LoL taking 30% with low costs Is indeed nothing.
Selling your game cheaper on other stores is different to selling steam keys cheaper on other stores.
I wonder if 12% would actually be good for consumers. Valve basically created the handheld PC market with the steam deck. They put a lot of resources into linux compatibility with their games. They also keep investing into their store to make it better.
Epic is losing money at 12% while Valve is making money and investing back into the PC market. Maybe the 30% is worth it for that.
Valve keeps adding more and more Features Innovating and honestly now Hardware is involved STANDARDIZING the industry. He is incentivizing Optimization on PC a push to an opensource OS and making it so Archival efforts are automatically done for games. He isnt againste Emulators or Compatibility layers. SELL GAMES. MAKE IT GOOD. is basically the model right now at steam. GABE is smart and he has basically curbed PC game Piracy to a NON ISSUE by simple offering a GOOD SERVICE. The Only thing Left is to DEMAND DRM TO BE STRIPPED FROM GAMES, and given the VOLATILE STATE of DRM its very much a possibility especially since DRM now FLIPS if a game sells well or is Pirated to hell and back.
@@snintendog I agree with all of this. Valve has done a lot of good for the industry. The next time I have to travel internationally I plan to get a steamdeck or rog ally and that handheld market exists BECAUSE of valve. It means I can take my steam library and back catalog and play them and my only purchase is hardware. I don't have to buy more games.
I just don't see other companies investing in the PC ecosystem and that investment has a price.
@@Immudzen it's the same for consoles. Nintendo is the only handheld on the market the rest don't bother but unlike valve it's a walled garden and it can't compete with the Deck in anything but price and exclusives. Specs I feel will only apply to towers and the handhelds will reign dominant soon enough. Really wish we could finally get away from the windows monopoly
@@snintendog steam in and of itself is technically a drm, but IIRC its up to developer to have that be a necessary thing. I think BG3 can straight up run from the exe while steam isn't even on.
@@Pulstar232 It's an Opt in DRM which is very simple and non intrusive. While in the most simple sense it is this DRM is more a formality tying it to steam as required in the EU as an option. But Gabe already said if steam dies he will remove it. Not like it matters it was cracked day 1 and it's easy to remove it yet Gabe never updated it.
Valve does not only do Steam. They also pay developers that make other things, like WINE, DXVK, MESA GPU drivers, Kernel Development (like the Case-folding for EXT4 et.el.), all of that is funded by Valve, and by extension Steam.
They do not just do CDN/Forums/platform, they do lots of things.
Okay, but developers imo should be able to opt in if they want to use those other services & pay for them. Instead of just providing all of the extra services and taking the cut from the game
@@PhantomGanhdi
How would that work?
They are literally paying developers to build the technology that computers run on.
@@GegoXaren that is my fault. I was responding from the point of few for the other features that steam offers.
Now, for your comment about Valve paying developers to create new technology, that still doesn't warrant a 30% cut from a game.
If Valve wants to get developers to pay part of their revenue from their game towards these technology advancements, then steam can add an opt in option. Similar to how some places have an opt in option for if you want to donate x money towards x cause.
So, I (or any developer) can opt in to letting steam keep x extra percent (or dollar amount) to go towards x cause to help fund developers to develop new technology.
@@PhantomGanhdi
How?
@@PhantomGanhdi If devs don't want to pay for the further development of computing as a medium, they can just not launch on steam. The option is there, and you can just buy the game somewhere else.
These developers don’t understand why people use steam. Transparent review system, refunds, banning scam nft games ect. They clearly don’t understand why consumers don’t want to use a storefront that manipulates reviews and will sell them a literal crypto scam
They do understand it, but they dont want to put the effort and money to compete, so they try to go after steams revenue in an attempt to basically cause steam to degrade as a service when their funds go down, and in Sweeneys' case, he just wanted to bring this cut down as an industry standard so that he can claim that then Apple is not taking whats now "the industry standard", and then put fortnite on steam and dont have to share so much of the revenue, thats always been his sole angle, everything else is just gaslighting.
lets be real the majority of studios wouldn't lower their prices on other stores even if steam didn't have this requirement for the simple reason if a game charges the same on a store that takes 30% and another that charges 12% they are earning a lot more from that second store per sale so why lose that money.
Also if your a studio selling steam keys of your game own site for cheaper im sorry but yeah you can f off, wants to benefit from exposer from being on steam and use their services to support your game without a cut is just shitty. What % they should take is a different matter.
And that's exactly what happened, remember this undercutting thing is recent, Metro Exodus launched cheaper on epic just fine, but many more AAA games had launched before it with the same price and epic and steam, the saving weren't being passed to us.
Agreed as they would likely start doing as we have seen other devs do and start pointing people to their site (for the cheaper game) on Steam's site. Wasn't that one of the main issues that Apple had with devs wanting to do just that.
Let's be real. They have. And Steam doesn't allow it. So they were EGS exclusive and branded as a traitor by us gamers. The only devs I know that were evil people for taking EGS exclusive were Ooblets devs, but that just exposed evil people for being evil. Nothing to do with EGS.
Well the idea would be that a slightly lower price on another storefront would drive more sales that charge less commission. You seemed to explain it without realizing you answered your own question.
@@lucasLSDyes, Noone is under any obligation to actually sell anything cheaper regardless of cut. so the idea that they will out of the goodness of their heart, is completely stupid and you area fool for believing they would.
The exact same thing could be said about windows. Try making a game that only works in Linux...
Even HDMI just doesn’t care about Linux. Meanwhile I’m getting more and more ads and bloat on the platform I PAID FOR. It’s exhausting
@@Nick-cs4oc Have you read the terms of service for Windows 12? It grants Microsoft the right to scan any file on your system and send this metrics towards MS and in essence to the FBI/CIA and so forth. And if we consider the fuck-ups that MS had ONLY in the last year: several breaches of consumer cloud data, the whole Windows source code - even MS has no idea what exactly got lost - stolen by Russian state employed hackers, several major vulnerabilites that were known for years but not disclosed OR closed. Fun!
Steam offers both the developer and consumer a ton of systems and metrics to manage their games.
Organic marketing, the Steam Workshop, the Steam Marketplace, multiplayer tools, community forums, VR solutions, Proton and Steam Deck support, patching your games for you to work on Proton and the Steam Deck, etc, etc.
That 30% cut is quite justified.
Also, the EGS didn't even get a shopping cart until several years after it released. It also runs horribly and is still so incredibly bare bones.
Sorry bellular, steam is doing something right since every other game store is just terrible experience after terrible experience. Them taking 30% is justified if they are the best.
Exactly , I remember gaming before steam , Valve lead the way and really made PC gaming better , i will never forget that. they had many opportunities to take advantage but stayed decent .
With those other storefronts staying in a stagnated state with the cut seemingly never going towards developing the storefront to even be comparable with the competition, if even bearable at all, but straight to pockets of executives and shareholders never to be seen again.
I'm a simple man. All I want is for Epic Games to go out of business. I'm a consumer, not a developer, I despise when my rights are being violated or just downright removed... As for supporting the developers - devs can sell Steam keys on their own websites, for that better revenue share, use that. But I also don't really want more games, I want better games and I'm not getting that most of the time. If it's not a live service then it's a souls-like or a rouge-like or another survival-crafting game. Unique experiences like Return of the Obra Dinn or Brothers: A Tale of two Sons, or Her Story are few and far between all the while the big studios make rubbish.
Steam takes a bigger cut, sure, but they also offer more to the end user, more than Microsoft, more than Sony, more than anyone else in the industry. Steam takes money and builds something beyond imagination, from family sharing to in-home streaming, to Proton, to mod support built into the launcher. Then look at Epic. Epic offers me nothing, even VR support on Epic is dealt by Steam... I get the stance that developers would prefer a better revenue share but as a consumer I care more about what I get than what the developers get, it's a brutal reality. And if I am to be serviced properly by Valve then Valve needs the money for R&D.
There's a little known game series called Kingdom Hearts - they're on PC, on Epic Games Store and nobody even knows about it, a Square Enix x Disney monolithic franchise and nobody noticed that it's on PC, hell, people overlooked Final Fantasy VII Remake on PC because it was a timed exclusive on EGS! Final Fantasy VII, hailed as one of the best games ever, overlooked because of EGS... and Timmy thinks he has a chance to change the industry? EGS doesn't even support Linux, they REMOVE Linux support when they purchase studios!
I got quite a bit of value out of the Epic Games Store. Free games, cheapest prices when they do their coupon thing.
@@LasherTimora For me those games have no value, since I couldn't play them the way I want at least not without tinkering and relying on Valve once again. Epic doesn't support Linux, so there is no PC Linux gaming without jumping hoops, same with SteamDeck. Besides that, the entire infrastructure of Epic means that when a large enough volume of players are in Fortnite then nothing works, not the store, not the launcher, not the games, not even titles outside of EGS that use Epic Online Services... So even if you have free games, you're not guaranteed to play them when and on what you want.
"Steam takes a bigger cut".......... NOT ACCURATE!!!!!!!!!!! Steam takes 30% (BEFORE 2018 CHANGES). Sony takes 30% cut, XBOX takes 30% cut!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You don't sound like a consumer when you are arguing for anti-consumer practices.
Yeah the Linux part sucks major ass.
Some of the games that stil lstay on Steam, but thanks to Epic allowing them on their storefront, have to abide by _their_ rules, it fucks things over for me and my buddy trying to play together because of the Linux issues.
Steam supports Linux. Games on Steam that function through Steam, are games I can play with him from Windows system I use.
When the game gets on Epic, suddenly my buddy can't enjoy the game with me.
I understand the argument that valve is so dominant that you basically have to set the price according to steam but, using steam as free advertisement for your game and selling it at a lower price someplace else is basically using valve as your means for exposure without paying them for anything. Valve put money and effort into making their platform as popular as it is and now people basically want to use it for free without giving anything in return. That's a bit much
Um...that is called a no favored nation clause, it means you cannot charge a different price at one retailer than what you charge at another for the SAME product. This is why you see product numbers (think Samsung selling a fridge with the model number 1000BB, and then selling a fridge at Costco model number 1100CC) that are only sold at specific stores. Now you can have a sale at say the paradox store where the item is selling LESS than it is currently selling at steam for, but you will then see that discount come to steam in a different sale.
This is a normal business practice and quite legal.
P.S. A transaction is NOT what Valve is charging, and this is just ONE of the many reasons I hate Tim's BS rhetoric, he is deliberately misunderstanding how this shit works to make his point seem valid. Valve, Apple, and Google, and other retailers aren't charging transaction fees, they are charging access fees and the way they do this is through a percentage of your sale. This ensures you don't have to pay 100k just to get access to the store and only sell 50k. Well now you made 50k in sales and owe Valve 15k. This ensures that everyone pays a fair price for their product.
Legal does not mean right.
@@lucasLSDand what would you say is more “right” than ensuring that customers get equal access to products and that developers can all access a popular market platform without needing to pay millions of dollars upfront that they may or may not recoup?
And legal in one country doesn’t make it legal all around. Apple has been forced to open their AppStore and is being legally challenged (likely successfully) on not fully opening monetizing options on the store for people to not have to pay the Apple tax.
If it was the *base* price, that is the price *before* the application of fees, I think people would have less of a problem about it. That being said, I agree that it is a normal and legal business practice. It is consumer unfriendly, IMO.
Which just means a dev could technically add unique content based on platforms to make their product legally different. So special location or items based entirely around which version of the game you got. Which nets a Steam edition, an epic edition, a GoG edition, etc. Obviously you can't use steam keys for other editions of the game.
Epic can talk a big game, but they are an established platform now but still don't have any way to have user reviews which puts a lot more risk on the consumer. Platforms still need to lower that 30% to developers, but user reviews are an essential part of an online games store these days.
@@RageQuitSonYou cant refend of EGS still not a feature implemented so yes reviews missing is still an issue Sweet baby.
@@RageQuitSonI hope Tim reads this bro.
Yeah Timmy keeps talking big about benefiting game developers while laying off a bunch of them recently, while Valve fires nobody yet. Guy come as nothing but a big hypocrite to me.
@@RageQuitSonOh nice edit you did there Changing your whole comment. The Overgrowth devs brok MULTIPLE law including revoking steam keys SOLD on steam, without permission from steam that STARTED their Bullshit on steam when MANY users complained. They then Published on GOG at a differnt Price and let the steam version rot without updates that THEN got Steam to Act.
Now The lawsuit is all on the basis steam is bullying them FOR THIS SHIT THEY CAUSED THEMSELVES. GOG is now involved and is ready to Delist them too Once they jumped ship AGAIN and went to EGS.
@@RageQuitSonnonsense.
I'm perfectly fine with Steam getting 30% and hope it continues. Why? Because I want my game collection to be safe and enact for decades. These are digital media, we don't have physical copies. When you buy a game on Steam you aren't buying a 1 time download. You are buying the right to download that game for many decades. Steam being highly profitable actually protects its users. If games become a commodity and Steam loses market share things will change, they might even get sold/acquired. Look what is happening with Sony and other digital stores with content being removed. Nope, I want Steam to be VERY profitable so they continue to value and protect their customers.
not to mention that games that have workshop mod support also add TONS of traffic.
When I install XCOM2 for example I download an extra 80gb of mods on top of the game.
I would rather pay extra 30% for the steam community features than buying a game 50% cheaper on fucking epic lmao.
Okay just don't complain when developers raise game prices to cover their dev cost
@@lithium25693 Um, what? Steam has been 30% for a very long time. The cost is already factored in.
@@Me__Myself__and__I if steam took less of a cut games would cost less. Steam makes 18$ off a 60$ purchase it's crazy. Thank valve the next time you pay 70$ for a AAA game
@@lithium25693 ROFL. Would you like to buy a bridge? I have a great one for sale in a desert...
If steam took less of a cut games would not cost less, the game developer would just get more of the money. The Epic Games store takes a smaller percentage but often the games there are priced the same as elsewhere. This has NEVER been about lowering prices for consumers. Consumers are pretty much going to pay the same amount either way, its just about game developers wanting to pay less to be on Steam.
While 12% would theoretically be a great standard, reality of Valve making lots of money at 30% while Epic hemorrhaging lots of money at 12% comes into question. Is it not just an old Amazon tactic of undercutting competition at a loss to make them close up and then bring prices back up once the competition is gone? I would be more inclined to believe Tim to do it out of conviction for healthier market if his business was actually profitable.
Valve is built by gamers, for gamers. Epic is built by businessmen, for businessmen. Is it any wonder that Valve are top and Timmy just goes nuts?
Yea they put in a little work like 2 years ago to improve the egs store and barely did anything with that. They have a nice free random game weekly,but all other features lack even comparing vs other online game store fronts. And it is the reason I don’t frequent it or GoG. They don’t try to compete even though all epic basically wants is money per quarter. Which shows with them and their live service games.
Epic is trash by a trash corporation for the stock holders and no one but the stock holders. They literally give away games and can’t attract anyone because it’s so crappy lololol
100% incorrect.
You clearly don't know much about any of the key figures involved.
@@deuswulf6193You clearly know nothing on the topic
Egs is so they can get fortnite out so they can print money. They don't give 2 shits about anyone not playing fortnite,24/7
Only a game dev could argue that Steam charges too much and at the same time admit that he would lose money if he didn't release on steam and then follow that up with all the services steam provides that generates more sales 😂
Same guy who once said all of their games are a flat 30% more expensive to cover steam charges.
Sorry Bellular, the math ain't matching on this one mate.
And regardless of the cut, the pricing would stay the same anyway.
You just described a monopoly. It costs you everything but at the same time you can't avoid it because there is no other alternative
@@lithium25693 There are alternatives.
Just that those alternatives are ran by people who don't give a shit about providing a good service.
@@lithium25693 there are alternatives, and they all suck. you are free to try to make a platform better than Steam, best of luck.
'I'm not angry with valve'
Man knows who butters his bread 😂
Speaking as an indie dev with products on Steam... any arguments about the cut they take, from gamers or rivals or whoever, can go to hell. A lot of people don't seem to understand just how much you get for that cut; you get all the community stuff associated with your product, you get actually useful and thorough testing of your initial build (I say useful, because they will actually notice if you forgot to include something in the build that was mentioned on the store page), you get support staff who are really on point to a pedantic degree, but also just as helpful when you need precise support with something, oh and of course you get all the analytics stuff... and at the same time?
You maintain absolute control. You can upload updates whenever you like, you can enter sales with the click of a button, it's all you, and it all just works.
Also speaking as a self-published author, this combination of support, features and control easily exceeds what any other digital store for any other product type has offered, and I would not want them to take a lesser cut - because their current business model? Seems to benefit me and all gamers. So why would I want that to change, when there is absolutely no proof that rocking the boat would actually benefit anyone?
It's not like Steam has any actual competitors... and not because they've somehow unfairly dominated the market, but because nobody has offered the SERVICE that Steam does, neither to developers, nor customers.
they understand it perfectly, but its just greed, and Sweeney has a different agenda, he doesn't want to compete because that takes money and effort, so he wants to degrade steam by cutting their operating funds so that their service quality decreases, and using his fortnite cash to basically dump the prices down and eat off steams revenue, until he becomes the monopoly then he will conveniently forget all about 12% being fair.
Thats how every monopoly gets established, amazon style, they basically smother the competition by selling below market value and on a loss for decades until they "condition" consumers to get the cheaper deals while everyone else just couldnt keep up anymore, because they dont have the funds to operate on a loss for so long.
@@m4nt1c0r3s True, I have no illusions that his kind don't know exactly what they're doing.
I was mainly referring to the "playing devil's advocate" types among this audience going on about Steam's "monopoly" or outright complaining about the cut.
Remember, Valve cut 30% because of many good reason, when was the last time you ever heard about Valve mass layoff? Good service, servers, etc
Unlike Epic store, Valve actually use those money to create more features for users
Why would they need mass layoffs when they brag about making more money per head than Apple. In other words they are taking so much money from you and the developers, that they don't need to hire more people or even worry about job security. Epic on the other hand does not have that luxury, they could if they had the kind of money Valve makes, especially with the same sized team, but Epic's approach is far different.
Remember, they acquired software and games that had a price tag, and made it free. So yes, giving things away for free will certainly hurt their ability to make money. Valve is less charitable, and this is just a fact. Charity, one could argue, is not good for business and that may be true.
All the assets flips and shovelware sure are a good service…. when the only thing you eat is shoe polish.
How can epic compete in that regard when epic doesn’t have that kind money steam is clearly making?
Why would steam need to layoff anyone?
@@SpottedHares Unlike the Epic Games Store where it might be difficult to distinguish between garbage shovelware and actually decent games, Steam actually has a review section that can warn you that the game sucks.
@@deuswulf6193 Epic put themselves in that situation. Between their game titles and Unreal Engine, they were making hand over fist in revenue. They pissed all their money away buying exclusives, trying to compete with Steam instead of improving their storefront to make it a welcoming place to go for users. They even snatched titles *off* of Steam that already had a playerbase. It has completely soured the public's view of them, and has a lot of people refusing to play anything that has their name attached to it. Epic would rather point the finger at Steam, a company they tried to pick a fight with, after they tripped over their own laces and fell face first into the mud. They knew the model they picked wasn't going to be viable long-term, but they went with it anyway to spite Steam, and now they have to face the consequences for that decision.
Also, Steam does free games and software events as well. And they do actual charity drives and give the revenue earned from sales to said charity. So Epic's not even breaking new ground in that sector either.
I'm not even mad at valve maybe 1 or 2 companies would ever "pass the savings to the consumer" most would just be companies like ea and Bethesda that would just keep the money. And you know the wages don't get higher just the ceo gets a bigger check and they get some extra investment money for the next failed game. Maybe valve can do it where only indie companies can do discounts, I'm down for that idea.
true this doesnt really unsettle me too much either, however that may change greatly when gabe retires
Best part is that this whole video is based on a lie. Devs a free to sell for cheaper on EGS they only have to have price parity if they sell a steam key. Don't know why Bellular has to lie in this video...
I mean, if you don't like steam's offer you can just not work with them, no once is forcing you to accept steam's rules. They provide the service, they can charge whatever they want for it.
@@wyredthats what he said
Gabe built his house out of bricks. Tim built his house out of sticks. Tim has been shoveling investor money down an Apple shaped hole, and now he’s mad at Gabe for having a mountain of money. Don’t get mad, Tim. You made your own choices. Valve didn’t do anything to you. EGS still sucks. You spent millions of your capital on buying exclusives that got you nowhere. Now Fortnite is old hat. Kids are growing up, playing other games. What else you got, Paragon? Pfft 😂
Valve doesn't even make games. All they do is sell others people games.
Indie developer here, and I actually support Steam, they didn't prevent these devs from removing their game from Steam and selling it on Epic or whatever.....u gonna use their subsystem, use their bandwidth, use their playerbase to market and sell your game? they pay the damn fees!
The fact that they have now high profit percentage, it is because of their hard work over the past years to build that playerbase.....and no, no one but them are entitled to such profit.
the average consumer hating Valve has no idea how bad PC gaming could be if they lose marketshare
honestly i as a consumer like haveing everything on one market place. its just convenient.
And no i dont want to use origin i dont want to use epic games and i dont want to use the blizzard lanucher and i wouldnt use the world of tanks lanucher if it didn't lock my account to the non steam version.
@@MoldyMcdonut I guess you also don't want to use GoG either?
@@x_voxelle_x unforunately i use that for alot of older games sense i do buy them and not pirate them. basically i only use other marketplaces if I'm forced to but it really is a convenience thing not anything else and I'm sorry to devs who take the 30% though.
Problem is that I don't believe a word out of Tim Sweeney's mouth. He generally doesn't do anything worthwhile for the consumer. I don't care about you giving the devs more money when your store is dog crap, and your exclusivity deals are anti-consumer.
The big thing is that there really isn't any viable competitors when it comes to online game stores really.
If the savings are passed on to the consumer then the devs are not making any more money, they are making the same amount, just the store is making less, if they charge the same then they make more, the store makes less, but the consumer is still paying the same. The simple fact is, when major games are released outside of steam, like EA Origins, U-play, Blizzard or Rockstar Games Launcher, or Epic they charge the same price so the consumer doesn't benefit from the increased profit margin of those devs. Indi games are a different story, but they also benefit so much more from Steam pushing their game to their player base then any major game with millions of dollars in marketing budget it's hard to argue that Steam isn't earning their cut.
Hypothetically, lowering the price based of the reduced store cut could increase sales. Which could generate more money.
I have heard part of the reason Helldivers 2 has done so well is because of the $40 price. I would image sales wouldn't have been as robust if it was at $60 let alone the $70+ the "AAA" groups are asking for.
None of they are passing the saving to the consumers, thats the gaslight to get other companies villainized but given the chance all of them choose to pocket the difference and suddenly the new reason becomes, well now we can pay our developers more, which they also don't do, its just the shareholders getting bigger profits and management getting bigger bonuses.
Lack of competition means they have no reason to change anyway
I used the egs until they decided to buy exclusives. I now refuse to even think about buying games there. Even if a game is on sale for 99% off, I'd still prefer to pay full price on steam.
Guys, the reason why Epic, and Apple cases are in court is due to being apple being the only payment provider that epic has to go through. Not because of the 30% fee. Yes, epic does not want to pay that fee, but because the only payment option to go through is apple. They have no choice but to pay that fee. Not to mention that apple is basically the only place to go to to sell apps to the store other than google, the 2 dominant stores. Steam literally has a lot of competition. Regardless that they dominate the PC realm as a launcher. There's still Blizzard, Origin, Uplay, Epic, and other places they can go to. They have multiple different payment options as well, and can be sold at any store at the same time as it being on steam.
Obtaining a Monopoly by superior product or service is not illegal.
Thats not the reason, the reason is some people got greedy and want to sell their stuff on other peoples stores but don't want to pay for it, I want to develop and sell skins in Fortnite, wheres my third party 100% cut store if Sweeney cares so much about "fairness", or if payment just takes 2% and bandwidth is "so cheap" whats the justification of EGS taking 12% and not 0%, when all the discovery documents show that even with 12% they are operating on a loss.
Its basically me going to Walmart, opening my own stand inside and selling my own stuff to their customers and then screaming monopoly when i get kicked out.
I'd be curious to see numbers related to the cost that would be paid by an indie developer if Valve was not a thing: ie how much of the games price would be eaten by having to set up your own server infrastructure, paying for marketing to offset that if you are on Steam that in and of itself has a marketing component, etc... 30% certainly seems a bit on the high side, but I bet it would be 15-20% increase in the development cost one way or another.
Blame Epic store front for not really competing with Steam. It is like all the MMO's chasing WoW back in the day. You are not launching against Vanilla WoW you are competing with everything that they have done and entrenchment. You better offer a lot, and Epic did not. Hell to this day are they even as good as Steam?
I did find Epic defenders saying, "Well Steam started out as a buggy low feature mess. Why are you upset that Epic's store is the same." to be odd. I would reply with essentially what you pointed out.
It is like a new car manufacturer staring today up and their cars lack AC, power steering, power ports, etc. Would you really defend their vehicles not having these base features because they had just started making cars?
@@XShrike0exactly
This is why competition never works the way people think. To compete with the likes of an established corp you need to not only be flawless in your execution but you need the opponent to fumble. No one can beat CoD but CoD itself, same with google, Amazon on and on
We can talk about there being alternatives but it’s just not how our brains work, we like what we know and what we’re entrenched into
To be fair, valve isn't perfect... They have a lot of inconsistent policy enforcements on NSFW content while allowing some of it so they definitely don't have all their heads together up there in valve and I feel like if Gabe wasn't there it would be a lot worse.
That being said, epic is a joke... They haven't improved ANYTHING at all with their own launcher it's still a piece of garbage and it's been years already how has it not improved by now?
@@Nick-cs4oc The competition comes from no barriers to entry. If the established company is pro consumer, low price, great service, why shop anywhere else? But if they cheap out, gouge prices, and get lazy and stupid, then a smaller company can come and eat their lunch.
The problem comes when the established company lobbies government for regulations that hinder market entry and prevent smaller companies from taking advantage. When big business and Government get into bed is when you should worry.
That's why mega corps, too big to fail, and Communism are predatory. They kick consumers out of the loop and use government force to control our choices.
How does a dev make less money than steam from their own game ? They have 70/30 shouldn't the dev still get the 70% from the purchase ?
what about taxes?
Oh boy... This whole "Steam charges too much" conversation feels like a very familiar conversation that I've been arguing against for years... Tim Sweeney has claimed that Valve has such low costs with Steam and could do things with a 12% cut, yet how is it that EGS is running in the red with less features using that model? Also, Epic trying to force Valve to use their same revenue split would constitute *price fixing*, which is anti-competitive.
That said, *if* Valve is strong-arming publishers into price parity on all platforms, that's a bit questionable. I was under the impression the price parity thing was only when using Steam keys (as in, you can't sell a Steam key in another store for less than you're selling it on Steam). We'll see if Wolffire can prove their claim.
1. Valve let's me game on Linux with ease.
2. My Account is over 20 years old, I can still access titles i bought back then.
3. Steam isn't just a Shop, it's a platform.
When valve launched Steam, i was skeptical at first, but over 20 years, they earned my trust.
Now Epic is whining about how consumers don't immediately jump ship and run to their Epic saviour.
I don't care for free games on Epic Store, because i can look behind them and my own greed.
Epic tries to undercut Steam, but will raise prices the moment they gained sufficient market share.
UEx titels could run on Linux natively, but somehow they never do or you get bugs and performance hits.
There where some many news over the years that left me with a bad aftertaste when i hear Epic.
I haven't tried it, but i bet their launcher wouldn't even run on Linux.
Epic and Tim should be the first example when looking up the definition of "Poisoning the well".
Also the coffee analogy is not the best analogy since it it ignores what most consumers are looking for.
True a small store that grinds its own coffee is better in quality and the money goes to the ones that made the coffee. But the vast majority of consumers dont care about that. Most consumers want security, easy accessibility and fair/cheap prices for more quantity (especially if they have families or don't have the best economic situation). Kinda reminds me of the "dark coffee roast" video Jim Sterling did years ago.
Is Sweeney just acting stupid or is he really just stupid? Does he not realize that if Valve were to reduce their 30% cut Epic would lose the only 'advantage' it has over Steam? Or is it just pure jealousy that Valve can ask 30% and still be the #1 platform and he's just venting his anger because Valve's 30% cut seems to live rent free in his head.
I would be far more sympathetic regarding the 30% if it wasnt championed by Tim Sweeney. I would rather pay 5x more on steam than get something free on EGS
Tim completely doesn't understand how much better Steam experience is. And it also doesn't delay release of other games on other platforms + doesn't ship your data to Tencent servers in China.
As a gamer I find Steam to just be better and his Epic Game Store is like a lemonade stand near a Walmart wondering why they're not getting half of all Walmart's revenue.
Difficult for me to have sympathy for a company like Epic hasn't improved their store launcher at all... The only thing really different now is their epic games rewards system That allow players to get a certain amount of money back from every game purchase you make on the epic store... Which is nice but it just screams more of the same problem with epic giving away free games every 1-2 weeks they're just throwing money at the wall not really improving anything with their service.
Sorry, you can't give me your games for free with Epic Spyware involved. I'd rather buy it on Steam.
16:25 "Open PC platform" DESPITE Tim's shenanigans.
I still remember the Phoenix Point fisaco a couple years ago where the devs whored out to epic and cut the steam and GOG release, even though a multiplatform release was a stated on their crowdfunding page.
Fast forward one year and the game lands on setam and it is a solid MEH, and the latest DLC at the time was so bad it felt like it was a school project.
8:10 Honestly, no. I would not. I think 30% is totally reasonable.
I would not buy nearly as many games if they didn't have the extremely extensive feature set of Steam.
From the simple fact that they are available on all my devices without any fuss (including on my linux PC and Deck), to cloud saves, achievements, guides, community posts, and everything else.
Those features are invaluable to me.
Even if Steam had a "buy without DRM" button which cost me 25% less money (and Valve would get shafted by that difference), I would still opt for the more expensive price.
Half the fun of playing games is playing them on Steam.
If Visa takes 2% then why Epic is taking 15%? 🤣🤣
btw:
ALL HAIL OUR LORD GABEN 🙏
and if you pay via VISA on EGS that means the consumer is losing 17% total and or + paypal fees
These companies so desperate to make competing stores with Steam should try actually looking at why people like Steam and copying that instead of making their stores the literal worst
Steam offers so much more than just games with their services. Reviews, communities, forums, groups, curators, news, remote play, linux compatibility, VR support, mod support, etc. Steam uses the tried and true strategy of providing the best service, while Epic is trying to cut corners with anti-competitive and more importantly anti-consumer practices. Doesn't take a genius to know who's going to stay at the top.
They don't give a damn about consumers. Remember Epic games are one of companies that LEFT PC MARKET after huge influx of piracy on platform. WIth out Valve there would be NO PC MARKET. To show you how bad that is, EA was still investing in PC. EVEN EA YOU KNOW.
Now they return give half-assed service with NO REVIEWS ON BROWSER OR ANY COMMUNITY SERVICES?! And sell NFT and all other bs trash-moblie garbage that players does not care only to make quick buck?! How the hell VALVE is one been bad here?!
One thing it’s worth noting is that Wolfire also hosted the first Humble Bundle, and Humble itself was founded by David Rosen’s brother Jeff.
You also have to factor in that Steam provide a forum for each and every game. Areas where gamers can upload and save videos/images. A workshop, where they host user made mods. Experimental labs. Points shop, where they store game themed UI elements. Interactive events during sales/events. There is a lot of extra 'stuff' that Steam provide that Epic does not. 'Stuff' that requires UI and functionality development and testing and then somewhere to be hosted, 'stuff' that isn't free to setup and host. I'm not sure how much that all costs, but I think it at least shows why Steam are charging more than Epics 12%, Epics store that is frankly 'meh', very non-responsive at times and doesn't provide the same immersion/interactivity that Steam provide.
Developers will say they pass the savings on to the consumer. However we've seen time and time again that none of these epic exclusive sold a game at a cheaper price.
This is what the video is about, developers and publishers are not allowed to do so because Valve threatens them to remove their listing from Steam if they plan to do so. Did you even watch the video?
@@arioaminNote the words "epic exclusive" in his post. Did you even read the comment?
Recent example to prove you wrong. Alan Wake 2. PS5 digital $60. EGS $50. No steam release. Tell me again no dev has EVER put an exclusive at a lower cost. Sony takes 30% just like steam. I'm waiting to be told "oh that's one example. Blah blah" I am not deep diving to tell you about EGS when you'll never touch it anyways.
@@SnowRaver-p2v and then you realize games have always been 10 bucks more expensive on playstation then they are on PC. I remember being shocked when i saw the pricings in the playstation store at a friend's place.
Yes you found the one example and its a game that is published by epic themselves. So that doesn't really count. I don't advise you to go deep diving on their store anyway lol@@SnowRaver-p2v
Would it be better for consumers though? Do you have data that proves Valve is misusing that money or that Valve isn't spending that money on consumer friendly features and infrastructure support? Or do you just want to use what Valve has built for free?
Valve may hate making games or making TF2 fans not suffer, but at least they make good business decisions that don't screw over their employees and playerbase
you are kinda wrong here, it's not that stream don't allow people to sell their games for less, but that you can't use stream as your platform and when go around their store to sell it for less. it's like a dev selling stream key and take 100% of the profit, while stream is on the hook for everything.
This seems to me as people just wish to chip away at Steams control. Why should a game be cheaper on one platform than other? It's annoying enough that games already have regional prices, in the end even when things get cheaper, the prices of games goes up and the consumer has to pay.
Whenever someone says it's for the consumers cost benefit, they lie.
There's this weird thing ive noticed as i have gotten older.
The customer experience and the margins at which said company operates, are almost always correlated.
Valve offers a good customer experience simply because they operate at such good margins that they can "do right by the customer". Money gives companies wiggle room.
I remember when EVGA wanted to get out of GPUs. EVGA wanted world class customer support, but they weren't allowed by nvidia to do the prices they wanted so their dream of world class customer service went out the door.
A good customer experience needs good margins from what i understand.
All these comments brought me to one conclusion:
As Devs we are not just paying steam to get to ends meet, but in fact we also pay a type of development tax for the future of pc game distribution by paying those 30% cuts.
When you think about it this way, devs were the ones financing steamdeck, linux support, workshop, universal controller support, family sharing and more.
Makes me somewhat wonder, if more margin like this might be healthier for the industry.
@@DaimonTrilogy I believe the big problem in techspace is chasing revenue and not margin.
Margin per transaction or per customer means that you can offer each customer "more".
Less games with bigger sales figures means that each product will be higher quality. It also creates scarcity so that each product is more likely to sell.
@@Jazzyluvsyou100 It took me a while to fully understand what you mean by this.
Yes, I agree with this in theory.
But in practice people need to get financial to be able to make a game, which means they need to make smaller games to get used to make games which then floods the market.
My solution to this is to make one game/system you really believe in or have a good idea for which is quite unique and fun and then stick to it for many years.
Often a game is made to be sold once, instead of actually seeing your game growing in popularity in steps.
That brings high longevity to your game.
Examples for this are Project Zomboid or binding of Isaac, or even Baldurs Gate 3/Divinity Original Sin 2.
Many though follow the mentality "out and done".
@DaimonTrilogy
Quality software will always do well as long as the market isn't overly saturated.
Quality software will have high margin as the distribution economics make it that way.
I believe that the market is oversaturated, quite simply put, there are TOO many games right now. There are more games released last year than any other year, but revenue decresed, that means that each game made less money, inflation just exasserbated this problem.
Simply put with modern player expectations on price (60 dollar price tag) the market economics are getting pretty rough. You simply need more sales per product than you did in the past in order to stay viable. A ps2 game inflation adjected to today price is 83 bucks. The market economics show that games are more expensive than ever to produce and need to move more units than ever. The way you do this is scarcity to improve sale per product.
Games made to scope, less games, stop the race to the bottom.
Quality software is the solution
Fromsoftware operating margin
Capcoms operating revenue is massive.
CDPRs operating margin are insane after witcher 3.
The operating margins of most companies are around 15-20 percent in the space. Your target should be 30 percent plus if you want to stay stable from any hiccups in this industry.
Espcially if your previous game doesn't offer enough capital to operate until your next game, with the credit crunch happening.
A pile of money is a POWERFUL asset in these turbulent times, if you are creating games to operate in 10-20 percent margin, you might as well not bother in the current state of games.
Iunno I kinda agree with valve on this.
I just think its really bad to sell a product on a popular store, just to sell it for cheaper on another store. That's not fair to the popular store owner at all.
You pay 100 bucks to put it on steam, and they pay for all of the advertisement and distribution of that game. If you're going to get steam keys (which by the way, completely removes the 30% you have to pay steam by the way), then steam would get no money from those sales whatsoever. That would be cataclysmic for steam if developers decided to start undercutting steams price on different stores.
It's also just dumb for your business anyway. Just request the steam keys from steam and then just match the price on your own proprietary store. The more people that buy on your proprietary store, the more money you make since you no longer have to pay the 30%. Lowering the price on a different store will just confuse the market in a kind of pointless manner.
Hell, i'm making my own projects i'm planning on selling on steam. 30% kind of sucks, but its the trade off you're going to have to make to be on the store that's the most respected. If epic games store wasn't crap, it would have taken over the market ages ago. I'd never sell my products on there with how they operate. Sweeny just pretends to be some kind of PC gaming savior, but if he actually cared, his storefront would already be better than steam.
The moment the percentage drops would affect 0 prices, in fact might even increase because the mega corpos think they could get away with it.
Yeah then the narrative always shifts to, "well now we can pay our developers more, and create better games", when none of that happens and its just shareholders getting bigger cuts, and CEOs bigger bonuses.
The whole apple suit was such a stupid slap fight between two megacorps that was never gonna achieve Tim Sweeney's end goal, glad the judge punished both companies for having shitty practices and wasting her time. Sorry but when Apples entire fucking marketing is based on the fact that it's a safe and closed system a judge is not just gonna let you force them to abandon the foundation of there entire business model as much as I'm not personally a fan of it.
Why are there so many people who don’t understand the difference between 30% profit and 30% of revenue? If you spent $50 making something and sell it for a $100, with a 30% profit cut you make $35. With a 30% revenue cut you make $25 (the store made 30 minus operating expenses though).
I find it strange to discuss value when Steam is full of features while EGS is... A store. 30% may be high, but as a consumer there is no way I go to EGS even if games were free. Hell, there is better service on torrents than in EGS. And if consumers choose Steam - thats valuable for devs
"We are going to pass this cost reduction to consumer"?
Not taking it as extra profits?!
What brand of bs is this?
30% is justified in long run... i can buy the game install it on any number of devices.... and i can reinstall it more than 15 years after purchase... things like saves\achievements from old times will still work
also steam does ~90% publishers work
I mean self publishing indies use steam because the 30% is cheaper than the 12% on EGS + 30-40% Publisher Fees alone.
This is such cope for your fanboy love of steam, its weird dude. You are saying that the servers just to download the game cost 1/3 of the dev costs?
Exactly. That 30% isn't just for the purchase and download today, its for keeping those games accessible for decades. Plus things like Steam workshop, discussion forums, etc. Steam is awsome for gamers and all the competition sucks by comparison. They earned that 30%.
@@Dogtrioall of the servies steam provide? all the work thats been put into their client? steam have earned that 30%. devs know it, they can just not use steam, but they wont get the sales because stem is the go to place. they have more then earned that 30%, or would you prefer the costs of steam come onto the consumer? in some subscription service? because they gotta pay for all the extra things they provide somehow
@@Dogtrio Nobody said that. He said it's worth more. When Steam does a better job cheaper than the alternatives and still earn more money, that just means they are better at their job and earned the money. Nobody said they are non-profit.
I honestly never understood why steam's 30% take gets slammed by people for being higher than others. Steam litearlly provides so many great/unique services that no one else does. The entire overlay for games that lets you access your friends to invite them into any match you're playing is such a great boon to many games! Do you remember how hard it was to join your friend's multiplayer games before we had that? Do you remember.... the days of Hamachi for playing multiplayer... oh god. Steam made it easier not just for players, but for game developers, to implement good multiplayer.
Steam supports written reviews for games, which epic does not. Steam supports making a detailed profile, with comments, which epic does not. Steam still has cloud saves of games I last played a decade ago ON A DIFFERENT COMPUTER, that will automatically let me continue where I left off with if I reinstall them onto my current computer. That's a ton of data they're storing "for free" as a part of that 30% take. Of course they're also providing the servers/data for fast downloads and updates for games. (much faster download speeds on steam than epic over my gigabit connection!)
Steam family share has no other equivalent on any modern game store/launcher. The entire steam market with random/free drops for various games is very unique to steam as well. EGS's library display is ass, steam's is much more detailed yet intuitive, allowing me to make custom sorting for different parts of my games library is very useful.
I have gone out of my way to rebuy a game at full price on steam that I already owned from an Epic giveaway just so that when I later bought DLC for it I could avoid giving Epic the money from that. Fuck epic, they ruin everything they touch. They've earned an awful reputation for the stunts they pulled when they bought devs/games right before launch from steam and screwed pre-order customers in the process, only to attempt to force players to use their shitty launcher instead.
agree
Could not say any more
Imagine thinking that Valve calling out Tim Sweeney for being a petty tyrant with a simple "U Mad, Bro?" isn't going to make me love them a billion times more.
And no one able to come out with better solutions than valve. At this stage, I would ask if Valve refused a game studio selling their game cheaper on their own website, if you are big fan of the studio, what stops you from paying that 30% directly to the studio? It's not like multiplayers are segregated, or there is a financial hurdle, the paying method is the same.
While I see your point on lowering fees, but the key point is Valve offer the better service to the customer. Epic are giving out free titles, but it's not bringing people over. I know developers deserve more money, especailly if they are going to put more back into development. However we don't trust Epic with our collection of games in a world where we can own physical copies.
To be fair I don't trust valve either with that, I trust maybe GOG with all their DRM free games but I only trust them as long as the service is there because once it's gone it doesn't matter if the games are DRM free I can't download it because the service is gone. Value has gotten away with a lot but I feel like they are also pushing their luck and being very overly arrogant with it that will eventually come to bite valve in the ass one of these days.
I have a feeling that this being the first time I've heard of this restriction says a lot about how often developers think in terms of lowering the price for consumers vs taking the bigger cut. I'm all for developers getting more money, so I have no problem with that, but I've yet to see a case where "This will be better for you, the consumer" has ever turned out to be true and hearing someone say it instantly gets me suspicious.
if the epic launcher would work half as well as steam...more people would use it ...but it's not more than a downloader for free games and a glorified ad for unreal engine
Let’s be realistic, the amount of companies/people who would drop the prices on epic over steam is extremely low
I dunno if 30% if the right cut to ask, but steam has been around for 20+ years now, almost never broken or offline, never lost my saves, hosts several gigs of my savefiles and screenshots and has some of the best CDNs on the planet, never randomly deleted a game from my library for whatever bullshit reason.
And unlike apple who already made hundreds if not thousands selling you the hardware, and ask for basically free money on top of it, steam has to get virtually their entire revenue off game sales.
Do these devs really think balkanizing the online game store market with a bunch of smaller shitty featureless ones that disappear some day for whatever reason is worth these smaller cuts they all want ?
Do we want the current post netflix era of streaming but for video game online stores ?
Epic does 12% cut sure, but bankrolled with free CCP money, probably operating at a loss (they had to cancel building their new headquarters, that doesn't sound like a money machine company to me) and their store is a disaster, is that really what you want to go towards ? It was obvious from the first minute they did that to try and attract sellers and buyers who otherwise would never had touched that thing even if it's not sustainable in the long run. And I'm pretty sure will or would have raised their cut higher in the future if conditions allowed.
If steam had the most expensive price , it can be a possibility that you will look for good games on steam and buy them elsewhere.
Alternative headline: Steam Insists On Matching Lower Prices, Developers Refuse
Now who's being anti-consumer? The spin-doctoring going on in this story is amazing. I'd bet dollars to donuts that whatever lower price point those devs were targeting, it would've allowed them to net more per game sale than what they were getting on Steam. In other words, their claims that they were lowering the price to pass their savings on to their customers is a half-truth at best.
If you let Valve keep your game on their store but make it cheaper anywhere else, literally NO ONE would buy it from Steam and Valve would just be losing storage and bandwidth space keeping it up. Why would you put it up on steam in the first place if you want to make it cheaper? Would people still buy it on Steam if they found another store sells it for less? Gabe's right.
At the end of the day, Valve's customers are gamers and game developers. Epic's customers are developers and investors. EGS is missing key features that most stores launched with in the late 00s. They don't have a useful review system. There's no forum or place to congregate and discuss games, and there's no incentive to buy from Epic vs literally any other store. Sweeney can act like he's doing the world a favor by only charging 12% to developers, but 88% of 0 is still 0.
Marketing your game on Steam and then telling customers to purchase it somewhere else is a d*** move... Steam isn't a platform for free advertising, it's a store front. Try shouting at all the customers at a retail store to go to different store and see how fast the manager kicks you out.
Good strawman. This would make sense if steam didn't let you sell on other stores. But the Dev is trying to be a good guy, sell it on a different store and keep their net profit the same and give the consumer a discount by lowering the cost according to the lower than 30% cut steam takes. Devs can go get more profit right now but to my understanding they can't advertise PC stores on steam. They can talk about console releases though. So your argument is valid... But not to this story.
@@SnowRaver-p2v Good strawman. This would make sense if the dev was hosting their own game and selling it cheaper elsewhere, but they aren't. Those guys were mass-producing STEAM KEYS and selling their steam keys in other stores for cheaper, bypassing Valve's 30% cut while still using their service and undercutting Valve in their OWN STORE. Giving the customer a discount? No, they were just trying to be smart-asses.
By the way, Valve's price restriction is only on selling steam keys. If you want to host your own game somewhere else and sell if for $1, that's on you, they have nothing to do with it.
@@SnowRaver-p2v Not true. The dev can sell the game for any price they want, on any store they wish. Valve doesn't give a damn.
This dev tried to sell Steam Keys for less than the listed price on Steam. I.e. Using Steam's distribution services while both undercutting their price to draw people away from the Steam storefront, while simultaneously not paying Steam a dime for the keys sold this way.
@@Homiloko2 bro stop, he is already dead 😂