Everything except making a store people wanted to use? Ethan Evans, who was previously Vice President of Prime Gaming at Amazon, has a short retrospective of trying to take on Steam.
Everything except making a store people wanted to use? Ethan Evans, who was previously Vice President of Prime Gaming at Amazon, has a short retrospective of trying to take on Steam.
Neat.
Explaining how they got the monopoly doesn’t change that they have a monopoly. Amazon or Epic could do all that - and they genuinely could, god knows they have the money - but the result would not be the same. They exist in the context of Steam already running shit. Adoption is a feature you cannot design. That’s why Valve had to force it on people via Half-Life 2.
What an absurd read. As if middlemen taking a third of revenue is pro-consumer.
Considering this was a shift from retail where getting games to retail cost a great deal more, how exactly is that bad?
Also you know nothing stops gamedevs from selling their keys elsewhere and getting all of the revenue right?
That shift was a quarter-century ago. ‘It used to suck worse’ is a bad excuse even when it’s fresh. I don’t care what Steam would cost if they were a brick-and-mortar store; they have only ever done digital distribution, and they have done it for a while.
Their cut is so huge that they can afford to let devs sell keys elsewhere, knowing it makes no difference to their immense profit margin.
Largely because their monopoly is self-reinforcing, and the number of off-site sales is a rounding error.
Meanwhile:
What Epic means by “for developers” is, developers keep more of the money. Walk me through how that’s bad for you.
Why should we accept an objectively worse storefront run by psychopaths because developers make more money under some circumstances? EGS is not supporting open-source software, Linux, VR. Their online backend is awful, with their chat and multiplayer still sucking years later. No remote play or remote play together. They don’t allow user tags or reviews. They are missing incredibly basic library sorting controls. No easily accessible news/update notes from developers. They have adopted virtually none of the pro-consumer moves such as identifying dead games, DRM, or third-party launchers before you buy. No custom profile pictures.
Also worth noting the featured/recommended list in the Steam store does a good job, even sending me the odd game with like 5 reviews that might actually suit my interests. I have on more than one occasion bought games I’d probably never see without this, and I’m in some communities with indie devs. I’ve demoed and tested games no one has ever heard of. If Steam can find me gems in the rough while I’m that low to the ground, they’re doing a good job.
If that feature alone isn’t worth Steam’s cut to you, frankly you deeply misunderstand the marketplace in general and just how damned hard it is to sell a game as a nobody. EGS and Prime will never support indie devs or niche titles this way, because it doesn’t make them money. Steam will, because it does. Think about that.
Incorrect.
What Epic means by “for developers,” is… developers keep more of the money. Walk me through how that, specifically, is bad for you.
I am not interested in general attacks against Epic. I make no general defense of Epic. Fortnite’s business model should be illegal. But what you’re doing is bad argumentation. You’re reaching for ways to say ‘Epic bad’ as if that’s gotta be relevant. As if attacking Epic in general constitutes a defense of one specific thing Valve does. As if promoting Valve in general means this one specific thing can’t be wrong.
As for indie support - Valve doesn’t need to push big games on their store, because they have a monopoly. There is no sense telling people ‘if you’re gonna buy it on PC, buy it on Steam!,’ because of course you will. Indie games ‘don’t make Epic money’ because Alan fucking Wake barely makes them money. Their market share is garbage. Steam has the freedom and the incentive to push more game sales, of any kind, and there’s a lot more little games than big ones.
None of what Valve is doing would suddenly disappear if they took only one-quarter of gross revenue. Or a fifth. Or less. They’re shaving straight off the top for nearly the entire PC gaming market. Their war-chest is ridiculous. They have such a “petro curse” that they briefly forgot to make games. Yet they treat the studios that make them all of their money the same way Nintendo and Sony squeeze console developers.
Would criticizing this specific cut be easier, if we talked about Apple’s iron grip on the App Store? Because it’s the same damn policy. Feel free to talk shit about when Apple does it, if you insist on judging whole entities instead of what they do.