Emails Between Epic & Gabe Have Leaked
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
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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.
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.
"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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
16:25 "Open PC platform" DESPITE Tim's shenanigans.
I think there is really only one way that developers/Epic could actually win something like this: by having the courts redefine the cut that storefronts/app stores such as Steam, Apple, and Epic take as a tax. This would, effectively, make passing on the savings of a lower-cost storefront like Epic possible, since the game itself could "sell" at the same price, it would just "cost" more on difference stores.
For example, a game on Steam costing $60 would be the game selling for $46.15 + Steam's 30%. On Epic, the game would then only cost $51.68: $46.15 + 12%.
You think the publishers would not instantly raise the said prices and put the burden on consumers then? THey would literally raise the prices to 100 bucks at base. They will NEVER take the hit.
@@BlueWoWTaylan Except that in my example, the publishers would still be making exactly the same amount of money, so there would be no reason at all to increase prices.
When Epic first started giving a better cut to developers compared to Steam, one of the big reasons they used was that those savings could then be passed on to consumers. This never materialized, in part because of things like Steam terms for selling games on their platform. If the cut that the platform received was deemed to be, essentially, a value-added "tax," then it would neatly bypass those terms. Games could be sold for the exact same "price" on all platforms, giving the publishers and developers exactly the same amount they currently make. However, the *platform* would only receive whatever cut they deemed appropriate for their platform, i.e. 12% on Epic, 30% on Steam, etc.
So on Steam, a game could cost the normal $60-70 for a consumer that publishers want to sell their game at, and they would make exactly the same amount they currently do. On Epic, they would cost slightly less for the consumer... but the publishers would still make exactly the same amount of money they would as if the game had been purchased on Steam. Only Epic would receive less money.
And yes, the publishers could still mandate that a game cost $60-70 on Epic... in which case, everyone would see that Epic's attempt at better revenue split to pass on savings to consumers is a complete and total lie. Developers and publishers would still make slightly more money... but it would likely hurt their storefront even more than it's already hurting right now.
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
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 ?
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).
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?!
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.
"We are going to pass this cost reduction to consumer"?
Not taking it as extra profits?!
What brand of bs is this?
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.
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.
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
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.
I'll always be on the side of Valve. None of this bullshit fee disparity was an issue until Epic. This is merely a matter stirred up by publishers and Epic because they want more money, not because they cared about consumers. If you don't like the agreement then you can stay on Epic. They're not forcing you to be on their platform. They don't even prevent you from selling your game yourself. Valve can never do anything shitty for consumers no matter how much Epic try to frame it. Valve exist because of the consumers and for consumers.
At the end of the day, as bad as it may sound, we consumers care little for what developers have to go through. If Steams provides a seemly platform expierence where i can buy and hold all my games then theres not much to think bout it. Today its steam, tomorrow it could be other platform.
@sspiegel1
It’s just funny that Tim abandoned the PC marketplace in the mid 2000s because of piracy, yet now that Gabe has fixed it (he’s almost 100%responsible for diminishing the piracy culture) Tim’s all mad that he didn’t get a piece of that cake by creating a product that was in demand right underneath the rug he tossed out.
Total l0ser sort of tactics he’s doing.
Never give your undying loyalty to a corp. valve may be awesome now but almost every bad guy today was a good guy at some point. The company isn’t owned and operated by the workers or devs. It exists as is because of the kings generosity and no king lives forever
@@Nick-cs4oc You're right, but that's in the future. If Valve is good today, then it deserves some loyalty, today. It's not loyalty in spite of bad service, but loyalty as a reward for good services. And I consider the loyalty to also be defending Steam, to call out EGS's lies and bad practices, etc.
If Valve goes corpo and tyrannical, then it will no longer inspire loyalty. In the end, loyalty is fleeting.
Valve has a monopoly, true, but its not by choice, meanwhile Epic WANTS a monopoly, but is failing miserably at it. Steam would not have a monopoly if there was a gaming store platform as good oreven better than it, there simply isnt. GoG exists, and GoG is awesome, but its still nowhere as big as Steam. Also I find the distribution take quite interesting. I dont believe steam is telling these stores what the prices should be, I think its more to do with, if you're on steam, and you try to undercut them on other platforms, that is literally a net loss on their part. And I dont know why you'd agree to Steams terms if you're going to sell your game for cheaper somewhere else. Steam is 100% in the right to kick you off their platform.
The nature of the PC makes monopolies impossible (for now. Looking at effing microshaft and Apple) Just install the game directly from the website with an EXE. GOG is BUILT on that idea and why GOG and Steam Users crossover so much.
Its not a monopoly, people like to throw that term around to anyone that just gets big enough, its the means through which you establish your market dominance that makes a company a monopoly and Steam does none of it, they dont dump prices trying to smother other stores that don' have the money to just operate on a loss(amazon style killing of small businesses), they dont force exclusivity, they dont have policies the restrain competition in any way, other than the organic market share that they have build by just offering a service consumer deem good.
Valve has no monopoly. Steam is doing NOTHING to stop them from competing. It has the biggest market share only because it offers the best service, people are free to compete with them but they fail even when trying to undercut them (Epic) because their service is so bad..
@@Homiloko2 an involuntary monopoly is still a monopoly. Steam doesnt have to be an absolute tyrant to have a monopoly. They dont even have to do anything to have a monopoly. Defending valve on a comment defending valve is redundant and stupid. Its almost as if people only read the first half and get defensive.
Maybe if epic provided the same ultra basic features steam does, an interface that works and isn't laggy or impossible to navigate they wouldn't have flopped like ubisoft launcher, origin, and more before them.
Sony and Nintendo also take 30%. I think Xbox takes 30% on console games, 15% on apps and 12% on PC games. Xbox's website is confusing though, feel free to correct me. All those platforms also have subscription fees to play said games online. Amazon's general pricing rule requires that your lowest online price be on their website. Are these fair practices? No, but valve is king for a reason. No other platform comes close for the consumer experience. Amazon rules its market for the exact same reason. Epic is worth around three times as much as valve, they could figure out how to make a better store if they put their money into it. And if they can't, I guess valve deserves that 30%.
Also, remember, everyone goes for the consumers. If the Consumers like the platform/store-front then you can make it. If the Consumers don't...welp, you cant force it down peoples throats without someone getting mad, especially a company like Valve which has (for the huge part) remained a positive for the consumer.
Most of the gamers I know don't even have EGS installed. They lost us the second they started announcing exclusives. I still haven't bought Metro Exodus, Borderlands 3, Tony Hawk 1+2 Remastered etc. even though they are now available on Steam. Tim can go eat a sausage, nothing out of his mouth makes sense or is completely hypocritical. People hate on Valve but they did the work, continue doing the work, and have an unrivaled platform of features that have done nothing but make the gaming ecosystem better. So much of what they do at face, and behind closed doors is part of the 30% cut they take.
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.
To be clear, Epic could offer 2 models, 1. where you give Epic less and 2. you give Epic 30% and then Epic could reward their customers with Epic credits that they can use to buy more games.
Then the developer and publisher follows the Steam rules and Epic can give games a better marketplace.
Or games can preferer to pay more to get the game on Steam.
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.
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.
I can't really understand how the sort of 'price underselling' described in the lawsuit would be illegal or anti-trust, when the many industries have far worse anti-compete standards. You publish an audiobook to audible, it can ONLY be on audible. Go work for a major chain of sandwhich shops? Anti-compete clause says no moving to another or starting your own sandwich shop for a year or more now. Making a videogame for playstation? It will probably stay locked on playstation. Same for Oculus. Used to be the same for xbox, etc.
Is saying 'you can sell wherever you'd like, including our platform, but follow our pricing guidelines' really that egregious by comparison? Perhaps this is a bigger issue after international pricing was removed from steam, but as far as anticompetitive or antitrust, I feel like it's the one with the least impact.
Valve is only blocking people from selling their STEAM KEYS somewhere else cheaper, not the game. If the devs want to host their own game and sell it for $1, that's on them. But these guys were trying to mass-produce steam keys and sell them for cheaper elsewhere, bypassing Valve's 30% cut and undercutting them IN THEIR OWN PLATFORM! These devs are scammers and don't deserve any respect.
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.
The first step for me to take anything Epic does as valid, they need to break ties with the CCP
It's an interesting take against Valve, though a quick glance across literally all of commerce would suggest that the use of Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) is everywhere you look: (new)cars, game console hardware, etc. etc. Many products appear to have some level of MAP implemented in plain sight, the only notable difference is that it is Valve saying they will not *participate* as a distributor if another storefront is allowed to undercut them for the sale and hosting of the same funny bits of code, you can call it spartan but I fail to see it fall into any antitrust tomfoolery.
You cannot compel Valve to do business.
I blame the "competition" at the end of the day, the other storefronts continue to feel blatantly unappealing... I wonder if Origin has forgotten that I own BF4... again... people have said people are unwilling to part with Steam's extensive features but my experience suggests it is bare bone basics the competitors fail at, not some shiny bell or whistle.
It's funny isn't it. When I open some e-commerce platform like Amazon or e-bay, they have essentially the same feature of Steam. And yet on gaming store case we only has steam that has those decent feature while the other suck ass.
I loved Epic from their beginning while growing up. When they left PC and Tim claimed nothing but hackers and pirates play there and it's a dead platform, it was a downward spiral. Once they went selling off their IP and getting in bed with the CCP in exchange for a boatload of money, the change was too glaring. That moved them into the EA/Activision/Ubisoft pool of companies.
What's obvious is Epic isn't making money and in fact losing a ton of it trying to get the EGS to take hold. You cannot sell something at a loss to gain marketshare without yourself being flagged as anti-competitive in ANY OTHER industry. There's that gorilla that nobody wants to touch. So Epic wants to be number one by dethroning Valve/Steam and what they will do next is the long-term question as it's likely to not be good. This is the point in time to worry about as you know they'll be looking to finally recoup the years of financial sacrifice.
Valve has been there from the beginning and single-handedly "saved" PC. They've done so much for the platform and with Steam that it's a hall-of-fame kind of effort.
I heavily trust only one of these companies while refusing to support the other.
The following would make your show more fun to watch: having interesting objects behind you during the broadcast. There are many streamers that have pretty light panels and other gaming paraphernalia behind them for this very reason. This would increase the visual interest of your show. Additionally, it would make me feel like I am sharing an interesting space with you. With what you have now I feel as though we're sharing an empty lonely space; a forgotten attic in someones house; a random vestibule in a nearly abandoned residential office. It doesn't have to be expensive, but I really think putting some thought and time into your set design would greatly improve your product. I'm a regular watcher, so keep up the good work!
There's nothing stopping some developer from publishing their own game on their own. That's their call. Steam is not their platform lmao.
Here's a silly idea, if valve made a tier with a lower cut but the seller had no access to analytics or steamworks how long till they ask for the 30% cut back?
Almost instantly. People don't realize that there's a lot of backend involved in that 30%. Access to their network backbone for increased stability, real-time sales data, automated patching, and even taking care of things like fraud, payments and conversions, keys, and community forums/hubs. That 30% goes a long way especially compared to other storefronts or companies like Apple or Nintendo
@@user-jr6fw4qw7s Don't forget the holding of a substantial amount of assets for sold games and refunds. Iirc steam has a monthly payout system. so by holding the amount of money for a big game - think Palworld or Enshrouded - that exploded over a course of days, is not a so small financial risk.
@@user-jr6fw4qw7s For real, how much would you have to pay in order to get all of that stuff on the open market? And especially for smaller devs who don't have the economies of scale.
The Epic games store is pretty crap compared with steam. They need to at least make their interface less of a chore to deal with.
As a user of EGS, Steam and a number of of storefronts I agree EGS is clunky, they tried piggybacking the store development on their unreal engine launcher and it has been a mess
Steam has never locked a game to only their platform, unlike epic game store, ie, Kingdom hearts 3, Alan wake 2, metro exodus(when it just came out)
If that isn't anti consumer, I'm not sure what is. Sorry, but these games just lost a sale, I don't want to use another platform just to play a game.
The notion that 12% being the industry standard would make the industry healthier is dubious.
The reason gaming makes more money than any other entertainment industry is because of the volume of sales.
If storefronts weren't successful, people might very well be buying movies instead.
Just sell your game yourself. You'll make a bigger cut ... of a much smaller pie.
Had the standard been 12% from the beginning, stores might not even exist. At all.
Epic is already thinking of rasing the 12% due to the tencent deal drying up and Tencent dying in china.
And I HIGHLY doubt that %12 change would pass the 'savings' on to customers. I mean do we really think they will just go ''yea, why not cut our profits down?'' when they already complain about the %30 and want MORE profit. They are not gonna give that profit to the customers.
The biggest issue comes when you have a public company, it could be private, public, doesn't matter. People try to find trends and the most common is that it's public distributors like Ubisoft, Nintendo, Sony, Apple and 2K removing digital products that gamer's purchased. As a developer, you rely on a distributor to reach more people. As a gamer, you rely on a distribution platform that doesn't attempt to screw you. If a developer can guarantee that their game would always be available to the gamer and make sure that's in the contract and put that in a faq, that'd be beneficial.
The features of Steam to gamers are crazy. There's even a curator system built in Steam, Total Biscuit is the #1 rated curator on Steam. They have drivers for controllers and have the best system to program your controllers in the form of Steam Input. Proton is far too big to not mention, it allowed some devs to release on windows while Proton takes care of the Linux version. Also with the release of Steam Deck, Proton is now a bigger focus and even more games work in Linux. Why is that important? For a similar reason as the protecting your games from being deleted argument above, if Microsoft ever decides to block all distribution of games outside of the XBox PC Game Pass or the XBox/MS Store, you still have a way to play your games that you purchased due to Proton.
If developers want a "fare" share they should cut out the publishers that are taking the majority of profits and pushing unfinished and buggy games to release like cyberpunk 2077. Instead developers should find cheaper ways to advertise like pall world,helldivers 2 and Dave the diver
I can't say I really care about the revenue split. Tim and devs have no problem with 30% being charged by console companies, that 30% ends up going to some of the most detrimental companies to gaming, what with Sony and their constant pushes to pay for timed exclusives and exclusive Sony content, Xbox with their acquisitions, and Nintendo with their anti-consumer full priced re-releases of games we bought years ago being locked to incredibly weak and terrible hardware with the worst online connectivity you'll ever experience.
Don't even get me started about what a big ego devs get when they start rolling in money, we've seen former PC focused developers dumb down their games or straight up drop PC as a platform because the money from console gamers was better. People can say what they want about Valve but at least they've been putting money back into the platform with stuff like Proton, steamdeck, SteamVR, etc. Valve uses the money they've earned to make PC as a platform better in ways that are clear and tangible, I can't say the same about Tim and his perceived threat of a monopoly that's supposedly harming PC gaming. The guy makes billions off of fortnite and then starts to get ideas about the metaverse and opening up a mobile store on iOS, what good is that to PC gamers?
Settled law already. Amazon and Walmart have both won multiple lawsuits about this.
Honestly even if they offer lower prices on Epic, I'd still buy all my games from Steam.
I thought this was based on a misunderstanding. Because valve wont kick you off the store, they just wont let you use steam keys, which is their free service that they offer. I think you can undercut them all you like, as long as you arent enrolled in the steamkey program for your game,.
Exactly. This person didn't do proper research.
8:00 No, I don't care about devs, they can go stock shelves for all I care once the game is out. I want the money to go to the people who make sure I can still play the games I bought 20 years ago, which is Valve.
wierd analogy being the the farmer makes the coffee the roaster is more like a publisher and tesco coffee more like tripple A pub/dev compines
its apt. all these pricing are just smoke and mirrors. at most only the publishers benefit. the devs, like the farmer, still get their shitty cut. Be it steam or egs.
If only they invested in the platform instead of trying to bribe people with free games. 🙂↔️🙂↔️
Yep and the exclusivity and free games actually turned most people away . I wouldn't even use it for free games , i hate their exclusivity nonsense.
"...and of course we do know Gabe had a very large knife collection" - like that phrase:)
I still think that other companies could actually compete with Valve. If they would manage to build up a good infrastructure "for the gamers". Steam is simply the better place to be a gamer. And it's not all about the fact that so many games are there. Friends list, personal profile, community groups, curators, game reviews, blogs, forums, public screenshot libraries, the workshop. The list goes on.
23:10 This isn't new news Valve hid how much profit they made in a lawsuit in Australia. Business partners knowing how much they make would eat into Valve's profits and they know it. It's why they hide their numbers as hard as they can and will never go public because of it. Valve would suffer greatly if companies all demand better rates.
they are a private company, they can choose not to sell whatever products they want, in what world does this case have any basis, its not like they sue them for selling at lower prices, they just remove them.
If he really wanted to sell on epic "to benefit the customer" he would just say nps. He obviously wanted epics money but steams relevance
Also going against steam is kinda dumb because they will just refuse to sell any future games this guy is involved with
if you didnt have a publisher tho you would have made 70% to valves 30%. not their fault you have a second middle man ie publisher. are publishers still needed? cant you just self publish with steam or is that not a thing?
The issue is funding. Games are expensive and some people go the route of getting a publisher to fund the development of the game instead of working two jobs till success.
@@SenkaZver then what's the problem? You get your funding, you pay it back with interest. Steam's cut has nothing to do with it.
And no, games aren't necessarily expensive, you can realistically make a good game with the only investment being $100 to publish it on Steam. I mean, also your time, but that's a given.
@@SenkaZver sure but there are ways of getting funding without resorting to a publisher for example kickstarter.
Valve can absolutely afford to take less of a cut and really should. That being said, you can see in how well Steam works that the money isn't going to waste. If companies like Epic want to be competitive, they really need to work on their platforms so they run responsively and have basic features that someone would expect from a library/storefront. Steam just offers the best user experience. Other platforms could be more competitive outside of price if they really worked to beat that experience, but no one seems interested too. Just a bunch of companies making poorly optimized, terribly laid out launchers in hopes of getting that line up without effort
What if steam was able to make an avenue for indie developers to not get hit by the 30% unless they started making it big like AAA developers? Like someway to prove that you're an indie company to get like a 15% or 20% cut instead of 30%. Idk how that would work or how it could work but valve has made the impossible possible before.
I hate that we're stuck between a store that takes more money than they need to and muscles out competition...and a store that fails at every turn at actually being a store. Neither of our two options are good.
Muscling out competition? Valve is doing nothing to stop others from competing lmao. These other stores are the ones muscling themselves out..
As a LInux gamer yes Valve takes a higher % of game sales but has an Linux Based game launcher/store and also has the ongoing Proton project and have developed the Steam Deck opening up a wider market for PC games. Epic doesn't even have a Linux version of thier game/store launcher.
I love steam, BUT I think they can still do better. Even if it's just dropping that 30% to 20%.
Well to be fair, Valve did drop it down to 20% after you hit the $50million mark. The joke here though is that it largely is for the big publishers, while the smaller devs won't get that luxury.
It's like this is the first time people have seen someone undercut the industry leader and purchase market share until that old company collapses. Then the company that was super cheap and a real good guy suddenly jacks up prices and becomes a bad guy. Anyone who thinks Epic is undercutting Steam's prices and policies out of the kindness of their heart is an idiot or a child. Stick around and watch. I used to work for Blockbuster.
One thing , having the power Steam has, that has surprised me. Is them not UPPING the % of that deal. Having this ammount of market share and time being the top dog. Have they tried upping the share they take? That for me is a big point for valve.
As someone that actually understands the cost of infrastructure for servers, data storage, data movement, and god knows the cost of developers and software development is high as fuck. The idea that Epic was going to compete at less than 25% was completely insane
20% still can work, but you need to sell boatloads of games, probably on the level of what Steam moves every year. 20% on the level of what EGS seems to move? That's not going to work, never mind the bullshit 12%. Considering the fixed costs versus the per-use costs.. EGS isn't going to work.
Plus EGS incurs costs on the consumer which Steam does 'eat' themselves in comparison and is even security wise nowhere near parity. If EGS were to offer even just a fraction of what Steam offers both front- and backend, even Epic's Fortnite money wouldn't be able to save it.
All those extra services Steam offers for games - such as matchmaking, cloud saves, updates, etc. - cost money. If Valve were only publisher, then 30% cut would seem unreasonable.
Valve has a toxic cult following and the comments on this video are proof of it. They're more than capable of being as predatory as any of their competitors, I have experienced first-hand horrible customer support from them. Gabe also comes across as a petulant child, Tim Sweeney on the other hand makes incredibly valid arguments that people are keen to dismiss because of he's CEO of EPIC.
Make no mistake, Valve's services are not worth a 30% cut of your product. They're screwing over developers. When you put your game on Steam you are paying for access to their market, that's it. The other features are just an added convenience. It's a monopoly.
Good on Wolfire games, and thanks for your own anecdote.
If steam charges 30% and a developer doesn’t want to pay that go somewhere else. Yes steam is well known platform that has a large user base but that’s part of the reason they charge 30%, if you want access to the steam user base that’s the price you have to pay.
The fact I can buy a steam key from anywhere that isn’t steam is a service steam choses to provide. Just imagen going into a supermarket and buying a voucher for milk, then walking into a completely unrelated supermarket picking up milk and not paying anything for it because you purchased a voucher somewhere else.
honestly id rather just have steam. I specifically dont buy any games that use a secondary launcher such as Origin and UbiPlay because its so annoying. I miss being able to play a game fresh from install without needing to log into a stupid game launcher. At least with steam its a one stop shop. Also what happens if Valve ever goes under, i lose all my games? no thank you
To be honest no AAA publisher would lower their prices if it was allowed
Wait... So it's non-competitive to not only allow people selling a product on your platform to also sell it on other competing platforms, but do so at the same price, but not less. But it is not non-competitive to literally ban them from ever so much as considering to sell their product on a competitor?
One of these does seem non-competitive, but not the one valve is doing that's for sure.
I don't think non-compete is supposed to be about literally forcing any successful business to allow their co-contractors to flat out undercut them with their competitors, but about preventing big businesses from stopping competitors from succeeding. Allowing your co-contractors to do business with your competitor is allowing competition.
"the games would be cheaper if this happened!" where have I heard this before? Oh yes, when studios wanted to only sell digital copies, good thing the prices have dropped since...
It should be pointed out that as a publisher Steam is great 30 percent and you never have to worry about them forcing you to turn your game into a live service or rushing you to push it out before it's ready. The only reason that pc gaming even still exists now is because of Valve. Publishers had written it off as an afterthought in the early 2000s. Steam cut out alot of the drama in the industry that prevented games from being successful. Epic and EA and their gaming exclusives were much more monopolistic and anti consumer. the premium price allows you to sell your product to a loyal customer base that Valve has built up through their reputation. compare this to the deal between Obsidian and their publisher Bethesda. Obsidian was paid a lump sum for their game and will never receive a single royalty for the financial success of fallout new vegas. Valve was still around in those days and so was Epic games. What steam has created with this system is stability in the market. they have grown much larger than their much more unethical competition like EA and ubisoft. And if Steam were to be diminished in this way we would eventually go back to those dark days. you wouldn't be paying 15 percent to Epic you wouldn't even get to keep a percentage of your sales. You would be paid a lump sum and give up all rights to your IP.
Actually, that's exactly the opposite of how income taxes work. The more you make, the greater a percentage of your income you pay in taxes. The Superwealthy pay 50% or more in income tax.
Funny that epic is saying they are doing it rn with paragon since they closed it in 2018..
I do wish Indie games got more of a reduced rate on Steam, unless it becomes wildly successful like Palworld, at which point you'd revert back to the default rate. Because now you are servicing millions of people. But I feel no pity for the bigger publishers and I often times wish that AAA games would be a thing of the past. 70 dollars for a bloated open world of with 400-600 dollars of "micro-transactions" at launch.
Solution is have two different game versions, one slightly different than the other just so you can say it's not the same game and sell it cheaper on epic.
This is the Most Favored Nation clause. It exists pretty much in every major platform. Amazon and Apple are notorious for it. I would be pleasantly surprised if they won, but its unlikely.
Isn't lowering the rate because of higher volume a form of volume scaling? "You sell more games (i.e. we get more $) and we'll give you a better rate". Do you complain to your grocery store when a 150g of Vegemite costs $4 ($2.67/100g) but Costco sells a 950g tub for $13.59 ($1.44/100g)? Or a 6 pack of beer is $22, but a 24 case is $59? You generally get better deals when dealing in larger volumes.
Honestly, people saying Steam is being anti-competitive for this is just full of crap. Costs for Steam to run and provide everything they offer aside, they are not forcing you to sell your game only on their service. They are not forcing you to sell the game cheap on their platform and making you sell on other platforms at a higher price. They are asking you to keep the game fair. It's not anti-competitive to tell someone that they will not market their product when you are clearly undercutting the one handling the marketing and sales. That is a normal response from any marketing and sales company that you essentially hire and then go off and undercut their efforts elsewhere. Them telling you that they won't sell your product if you do that is not anti-competitive, they are well within their right to tell you no.
Now, including the costs and benefits of selling on steam vs other platforms; Steam provides a massive list of services and goods. From selling your game for you, marketing your game for you, providing server hosting for your game if you need it for multiplayer/co-op services, an easy way to integrate and host player made mods for your game, a forum for your game where you can communicate directly with your community, streaming services that you can put on your store page and people's library, player feedback and review hosting, a ton of goods for your consumer like friends list integration, chat, screenshot and video hosting, a market for in-game items like trading cards and point redemption items like profile decorations and emotes (of which the dev does get a market cut for), etc. All of this, Steam provides for Devs as part of the agreement to host your game, and all they ask is follow ToS including don't undercut Steam prices. If you do promotional sales like at an event, that's fine. That's a big part of why they offer steam keys. But they don't want you to drive the traffic away from them to other services by offering a better price elsewhere just because you found it cheaper there and wanted to offer the savings to your customers. That drives sales away from Steam which means that drives the steam sales from yourself, and you're expecting Steam to host and carry the burden of costs for keeping support for your game on their platform. No. Bad.
Epic is such a shit store that it’s funny how they go about it like “look we did it for cheap why can’t you?” Yah epic we can see how cheap and shit your store is and it was baffling to see how they think they are a real competitor to steam, can you even find reviews on epic, how about refunds I would not even buy some genre of games without being able to refund
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 ?
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 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@myBeam10 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.
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
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.
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.
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.