And being OS-gated is a much lower barrier for the vast majority of consumers.
I get where you're coming from. I do, and I'm with you: the fact that programs aren't all OS and hardware and launcher-neutral sucks for consumers. Ideally, it would've never happened. We can rabble-rouse about it if you like; I'm a huge fan of consumers acknowledging a less-than-ideal situation for themselves. Let's sabre-rattle about it, then. I'll bring my antique Civil War-era sabre. We can rattle all night long.
But that's an ideal, and it's far from reality. Once we're done rattling, we have to accept the reality that there's a balance in these things, and one part of that balance is folks need an incentive to put in the work required to innovate. That incentive is, in this world, money. It's competing to extract the most cash from the consumer base. As such, you (and developers) weren't going to get a new platform built by Tibetan monks for the good of humanity to compete with Valve. You'll get another juggernaut attempting to steal some of that sweet, sweet market share from Valve, largely by trying to tie you into their own platform. And how has it been easiest and most effective to draw players from one platform to another (whether it be OS, console, or launcher)? By having titles gamers want to play that they can't get elsewhere. Did you really not expect that?
You're assuming that people will subscribe to the multiple of fragmented little eco-systems. I think the more likely outcome is to have what is happening in the media service provider eco-system (Netflix etc.). People will subscribe to one service and torrent/pirate the rest.
You can already see the signs in this very thread.
Edit: As it stands right now, Metro Exodus really needs Denuvo. Otherwise the majority will stick with Steam and just pirate the game.
Consumers breaking the law isn't a good argument for why competition shouldn't exist, though.
You can ignore the pirating if you wish. Just focus on them picking one service and ignoring the rest.
Is that inherently a bad thing? So then the businesses compete to offer the best products to get gamers to pick THEIR content platform other others.
That's why Netflix is continuing to increase it's spending on original content, and why you get the great Netflix Originals you now get. Do you remember the first generation of Originals? Low-budget trash, almost completely.
Remember when every MMO had it's own patcher/launcher?
How is this case of "too many storefronts" a whole lot different than that?
I'm not buying this kind of opinion.
It's like.. we all do our weekly food shopping, right? If we had to get bread from one store, fruit from a different store, milk from another, canned goods and cereal from another, frozen food from a different one, meat from another, soda from another, wine from another, etc. etc.
That analogy makes no sense. Its more like, we have one grocery store (PC) and people claim that one aisle (Steam) is better then another aisle (Epic Store) for one reason or another.
That argument works for consoles though!
Digital platforms on PC that sell games are different shops, literally. The analogy is fine.
We aren't buying games from 'PC' are we..?
Until Wal-Mart, Kroger, trader Joe's, and Food Lion share the same building so going from one to another costs, like, no time at all.. it's a poor analogy.
Time spent is nothing to do with the point I was trying to make, but it is still more effort to use more than one storefront, even if you think it's not enough to bother you. What about people who do online food shopping and get it delivered? Now it takes way less time to buy from different stores.. do people still do it? I doubt it. All the supermarkets are free to access and order from online.
Because groceries can't be delivered digitally. That's a separate issue that has to do with the nature of the product being some (physical vs. digital).
Well, yeh, but you can arrange for them all to be delivered at the same time with minimal effort, if you really wanted to. You can get every delivery for free these days as well so it wouldn't cost extra. That might depend on where you live though.
Anyway, we're just waffling and overdoing it, the point I was trying to make is that some people like to shop at one place, for whatever reason. Using another launcher might not bother you personally, but it bothers some people and the reasons for that are completely obvious. Telling people they shouldn't complain about using more launchers is being narcissistic. We aren't all the same and we can all make our own decisions about what we want and don't want.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
And being OS-gated is a much lower barrier for the vast majority of consumers.
I get where you're coming from. I do, and I'm with you: the fact that programs aren't all OS and hardware and launcher-neutral sucks for consumers. Ideally, it would've never happened. We can rabble-rouse about it if you like; I'm a huge fan of consumers acknowledging a less-than-ideal situation for themselves. Let's sabre-rattle about it, then. I'll bring my antique Civil War-era sabre. We can rattle all night long.
But that's an ideal, and it's far from reality. Once we're done rattling, we have to accept the reality that there's a balance in these things, and one part of that balance is folks need an incentive to put in the work required to innovate. That incentive is, in this world, money. It's competing to extract the most cash from the consumer base. As such, you (and developers) weren't going to get a new platform built by Tibetan monks for the good of humanity to compete with Valve. You'll get another juggernaut attempting to steal some of that sweet, sweet market share from Valve, largely by trying to tie you into their own platform. And how has it been easiest and most effective to draw players from one platform to another (whether it be OS, console, or launcher)? By having titles gamers want to play that they can't get elsewhere. Did you really not expect that?
You're assuming that people will subscribe to the multiple of fragmented little eco-systems. I think the more likely outcome is to have what is happening in the media service provider eco-system (Netflix etc.). People will subscribe to one service and torrent/pirate the rest.
You can already see the signs in this very thread.
Edit: As it stands right now, Metro Exodus really needs Denuvo. Otherwise the majority will stick with Steam and just pirate the game.
Consumers breaking the law isn't a good argument for why competition shouldn't exist, though.
You can ignore the pirating if you wish. Just focus on them picking one service and ignoring the rest.
Is that inherently a bad thing? So then the businesses compete to offer the best products to get gamers to pick THEIR content platform other others.
That's why Netflix is continuing to increase it's spending on original content, and why you get the great Netflix Originals you now get. Do you remember the first generation of Originals? Low-budget trash, almost completely.
Depends on how fragmented the market will become. I've been reading that the amount of people pirating movies etc started increasing considerably and in direct relation to the increase of exclusive series.
You're assuming that people will subscribe to the multiple of fragmented little eco-systems. I think the more likely outcome is to have what is happening in the media service provider eco-system (Netflix etc.). People will subscribe to one service and torrent/pirate the rest.
You can already see the signs in this very thread.
Edit: As it stands right now, Metro Exodus really needs Denuvo. Otherwise the majority will stick with Steam and just pirate the game.
Consumers breaking the law isn't a good argument for why competition shouldn't exist, though.
Lol that is true, but it is a good reason for developers, marketers, and publishers to reconsider a poor choice. What kind of harm will come to any developer working with Steam (or any other launcher) going forward after this if Steam tries to safeguard themselves from being used in such a way again? More contracts, more red tape. Less game design.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
You guys don't seem to understand. Steam is a plague on the indie and even triple A market - they demand 30% of all sales from developers product.
That's INSANE!
The game distribution platform genre needs this shake-up for Valve to do absolutely anything to keep in competition with Epic, but they aren't doing much. At all. For all I care, and as a person who has thousands in Steam economy currently, I HOPE that Valve crashes and burns for what they did not only to their storefront with the mass amount of garbage, but also to the developers by charging them so much money to host it.
I don't understand why people keep saying "lol no steam no buy" when it's only a detriment to YOU, as a customer, because eventually that 30% cost will trickle down to you as either microtransactions or DLC.
Think about this a little before you open your mouth. Competition is good in any form. Don't tell me Origin tried because they were doomed from the start, being hosted by EA. Epic is the only one currently that can do it.
Who are you to say "That's INSANE!"?
I think you have no idea how much money a publisher needs to pay to advertise his game in "front" of 90 mil ? monthly active users which Steam has. Sure, you will never reach that 90 mil mark, but still .. you'll pay a lot to advertise your game outside of Steam for a fraction of that 90 mil. So I think you will end up at least with the same % invested in publishing your game at the end of the day, if you wish to go "outside" Steam.
The big difference is , if you go outside Steam, you will need to have cash to start promoting your game, while with Steam, they take 30% from the sales. This is a HUGE plus developers , at least for the smaller ones.
Steam helped many companies , including Indie ones, to be at least decent successful. If you want to bitch Steam for taking 30% , that's fine, but saying you want them to BURN, while you invested thousands in Steam games, is a bit .. to much.
Don't get me wrong, EPIC's new Game Store is very, very good for the industry since they will take 12% instead of 30% which Steam currently takes = Competition, but don't expect things to change fast, since well .. 90 mil active users is a big plus for Steam for years to come.
I care if the prices for customers also gets lower on Epic's store, but as far as I can see, I see the same prices as on Steam. Sure, more money for developers is good, but who can guarantee me that they will actually invest in making better games?!
So in the end, more money for the companies , but what about the gamers? Currently The Division 2 , on Ubisoft website is 59.99 euros. On Epic? Same price! 59.99 euros. So why should I choose Epic?
I'm an indie developer with projects in the works, that's who I am to say it's insanity.
And yes, I do know the costs. I know how difficult it to for games to be seen, and I know how much money it takes.
People seem to think games are made on the cheap and this 30% take from steam means absolutely nothing because we're making a shit ton of money anyways, and that's not always the case. In fact, it's about 80% of the time not the case if you game doesn't take off within the first couple of months.
And no, I don't think it's a bit too much to say. Valve knows they have a monopoly in this, and they are pretty much extorting developers because people like you just stay with their platform no matter what they do, and then fight tooth and nail AGAINST competition for no reason other than it's more convenient for you to be on one platform.
As a small time developer making a non-triple A game, usually the max you can charge for your work is about 20 bucks, depending on assets and time invested ( e.g. Supergiant games like Bastion, Transistor, and Hades that just came out on Epic because they experienced the same thing with Steam). After Steam cuts? 14 bucks per copy sold. Taxes? 11. Advertisement on the store front? You profit margin is just slipping away.
So don't tell me that wanting Valve to fail is too much. I want them to slip so they can actually feel the burn of Epic games store front - maybe then they'll update their freaking platform that hasn't changed in 10 years.
Edit: Oh. I forgot to add the BS extra features that every Steam user wants on their games now - a big one is Cloud Saving if you have a single player game. That's another cut from Steam. Good bye money and 5 years of my life to get a return that I could have made in a year of bagging groceries!
You don't want to pay for the millions of users Steam has in their community that will see your game in the feed. That's what you are saying. You want to do nothing and profit everything. All the features they have is included into that 30% cut which is a huge suite of features, minus the VAC system which is a whole contact us process.
Sorry to say but it takes money to make money. Your focus should be how can I make my game engaging and fun enough that everyone wants to buy it. Because then no matter the price point you will be making bank. If your game sucks, ya you aren't going to sell anything and that point you don't deserve to. You aren't entitled to money just cause you made something. Being able to pick up scraps alone on a failed concept is more than anyone should deserve. There has been many indie devs that made it big on the Steam platform and none of them are complaining. It is just the ones that didn't find a community cause there was very little excitement for said game.
To that end, good luck on your game.
[[ DEAD ]] - Funny - I deleted my account on the site using the cancel account button. Forum user is separate and still exists with no way of deleting it. Delete it admins. Do it, this ends now.
So developers aren't allowed to shop around for deals? Only gamers are allowed to? That's some privilege right there.
If a developers can get a 6 figure deal, and a better split of sales... They probably should take it.
It works out for steam users to since in 6 months the exclusivity deal likely ends. So they'll have a game without the launch bugs.
It's disingenuous for a studio or publisher to use Steam as an advertising platform for FREE and then bait and switch at the last moment. Shopping is fine. Saying one thing to your partners and customers and the pulling a switch at the last moment isn't. At least in the US it's generally a frowned upon business tack. If a company wants to shop then they should do so before choosing a partner.
I can see Steam changing how that works in a very short period of time Metro and Ashen (they played Microsoft on this too) got huge exposure on Steam. I'm not sure what, or if they're do anything, but it would be wise to shore that up. Maybe they'll need to adjust their pricing structure, maybe not. The other 30%'ers (stores that also charge 30%) haven't even publicly acknowledged the issue. Also Epic and other studios haven't even tried to break that hold. This is personal with Steam, not because it affects them industry wide. Industry wide 30% and unfriendly terms are still the norm.
TL;DR: This is Epic/Tencent trying to break Valve, not make the industry change for the better.
I agree the timing sucks, but competition has almost always led to innovation within an industry. In that sense, "breaking Valve" is incredibly likely to make the industry change for the better.
You weren't going to some kind of open source, OS-neutral, non-profit with the resources to compete with Valve. It had to be a juggernaut with it's own interests.
How is it going to lead to innovation? Valve has been innovating like hell. In the past few years Valve has helped take WINE and SteamPlay from something that sort of works to making over 80% of my games library work on Ubuntu, no Windows needed. It literally gets better by the week and month.
I wasn't expecting any of that. I was happy with studios publishing on Steam, PlayStation, Microsoft Store, GoG, Xbox, Nintendo, Uplay, etc. I don't care if these studios publish on Tencent/Epic. I care that they exclusively publish on Tencent/Epic. I care that they're openly hostile to my platform mostly because of DRM.
Most of all I'm pointing out that these stores aren't all in one building, aisles away from each other. They're completely different buildings. Epic/Tencent isn't even a choice because they're openly hostile to a truly DRM free OS. They support Denuvo, DRM, and publishers/studios to the detriment of their users.
Gamers have forgotten how exclusives used to screw us over and how we had to fight that philosophy from consoles. Tim Sweeny whine and whined how Microsoft Store exclusives would break the PC industry. Gamers raged at Microsoft and the Store as a great exlcusives evil. Oh the irony of a gullible user base and a predatory company like Tencent/Epic.
Valve has been innovating alright; their sales have gone to shit, they've completely stopped curating their store to the detriment of gamers, and they fuck indie devs hard unless the indie devs reach breakout hit status of epic proportions.
You're acting like this is all bad, and it's not. Growing pains are inevitable. But maintaining the status quo because Valve happens to be taking one iniative that serves a rather small percentage of total gamers (including yourself) doesn't seem very convincing to me.
Steam Controller, Vive, SteamOS, wtf didn't they innovate?
Controller support under the sun even if the game doesn't support it. Push for Vulkan to be the open API so people not locked to 1 OS. New chat system and so on. They are innovating but very slow rate. Epic just innovate so far is their engine and how cheap they can go selling other people games.
So developers aren't allowed to shop around for deals? Only gamers are allowed to? That's some privilege right there.
If a developers can get a 6 figure deal, and a better split of sales... They probably should take it.
It works out for steam users to since in 6 months the exclusivity deal likely ends. So they'll have a game without the launch bugs.
It's disingenuous for a studio or publisher to use Steam as an advertising platform for FREE and then bait and switch at the last moment. Shopping is fine. Saying one thing to your partners and customers and the pulling a switch at the last moment isn't. At least in the US it's generally a frowned upon business tack. If a company wants to shop then they should do so before choosing a partner.
I can see Steam changing how that works in a very short period of time Metro and Ashen (they played Microsoft on this too) got huge exposure on Steam. I'm not sure what, or if they're do anything, but it would be wise to shore that up. Maybe they'll need to adjust their pricing structure, maybe not. The other 30%'ers (stores that also charge 30%) haven't even publicly acknowledged the issue. Also Epic and other studios haven't even tried to break that hold. This is personal with Steam, not because it affects them industry wide. Industry wide 30% and unfriendly terms are still the norm.
TL;DR: This is Epic/Tencent trying to break Valve, not make the industry change for the better.
I agree the timing sucks, but competition has almost always led to innovation within an industry. In that sense, "breaking Valve" is incredibly likely to make the industry change for the better.
You weren't going to some kind of open source, OS-neutral, non-profit with the resources to compete with Valve. It had to be a juggernaut with it's own interests.
How is it going to lead to innovation? Valve has been innovating like hell. In the past few years Valve has helped take WINE and SteamPlay from something that sort of works to making over 80% of my games library work on Ubuntu, no Windows needed. It literally gets better by the week and month.
I wasn't expecting any of that. I was happy with studios publishing on Steam, PlayStation, Microsoft Store, GoG, Xbox, Nintendo, Uplay, etc. I don't care if these studios publish on Tencent/Epic. I care that they exclusively publish on Tencent/Epic. I care that they're openly hostile to my platform mostly because of DRM.
Most of all I'm pointing out that these stores aren't all in one building, aisles away from each other. They're completely different buildings. Epic/Tencent isn't even a choice because they're openly hostile to a truly DRM free OS. They support Denuvo, DRM, and publishers/studios to the detriment of their users.
Gamers have forgotten how exclusives used to screw us over and how we had to fight that philosophy from consoles. Tim Sweeny whine and whined how Microsoft Store exclusives would break the PC industry. Gamers raged at Microsoft and the Store as a great exlcusives evil. Oh the irony of a gullible user base and a predatory company like Tencent/Epic.
Valve has been innovating alright; their sales have gone to shit, they've completely stopped curating their store to the detriment of gamers, and they fuck indie devs hard unless the indie devs reach breakout hit status of epic proportions.
You're acting like this is all bad, and it's not. Growing pains are inevitable. But maintaining the status quo because Valve happens to be taking one iniative that serves a rather small percentage of total gamers (including yourself) doesn't seem very convincing to me.
Steam Controller, Vive, SteamOS, wtf didn't they innovate?
Vive is largely irrelevant. The VR market still blows in terms of total market penetration.
Steam Controller? You act as if PCs can't support any other controller.
You all are acting as if this is all bad and no good. That's, quite frankly, an ignorant way to look at it. Is it all good and no bad? Nope, not that either. But competition in general is good for the parties receiving the products or services, even if there are growing pains along the way.
It must be fun hiding under a rock. No matter your personal thoughts on said product doesn't change the fact it was innovative.
Vive has VR technologies developed inhouse at Valve, it is truly innovative.
The steam controller has true haptic feedback on a track pad, again innovation.
SteamOS is a technical marvel itself, being able to trim all that extra crap background crap a named OS has will make your games run much more smoother/quicker. It's a fuckin OS just for gamers! To be able to create something that games that don't necessarily support and make them work is one hell of an achievement.
I think you let your feelings get the best of you sometime.
That's all largely irrelevant to the Stean platform as a digital games delivery service. That's hardware, except for the hyper-focused OS that is likely self-defeating due to its hyper-focus.
Epic isn't competing with Steam in creating a friggin' controller.
Analogous examplee: an innovative marketing campaign is not an example of John Deere improving its product horsepower and efficiency versus Cub Cadet's tractors, and is irrelevant to that comparison between brands.
So developers aren't allowed to shop around for deals? Only gamers are allowed to? That's some privilege right there.
If a developers can get a 6 figure deal, and a better split of sales... They probably should take it.
It works out for steam users to since in 6 months the exclusivity deal likely ends. So they'll have a game without the launch bugs.
It's disingenuous for a studio or publisher to use Steam as an advertising platform for FREE and then bait and switch at the last moment. Shopping is fine. Saying one thing to your partners and customers and the pulling a switch at the last moment isn't. At least in the US it's generally a frowned upon business tack. If a company wants to shop then they should do so before choosing a partner.
I can see Steam changing how that works in a very short period of time Metro and Ashen (they played Microsoft on this too) got huge exposure on Steam. I'm not sure what, or if they're do anything, but it would be wise to shore that up. Maybe they'll need to adjust their pricing structure, maybe not. The other 30%'ers (stores that also charge 30%) haven't even publicly acknowledged the issue. Also Epic and other studios haven't even tried to break that hold. This is personal with Steam, not because it affects them industry wide. Industry wide 30% and unfriendly terms are still the norm.
TL;DR: This is Epic/Tencent trying to break Valve, not make the industry change for the better.
I agree the timing sucks, but competition has almost always led to innovation within an industry. In that sense, "breaking Valve" is incredibly likely to make the industry change for the better.
You weren't going to some kind of open source, OS-neutral, non-profit with the resources to compete with Valve. It had to be a juggernaut with it's own interests.
How is it going to lead to innovation? Valve has been innovating like hell. In the past few years Valve has helped take WINE and SteamPlay from something that sort of works to making over 80% of my games library work on Ubuntu, no Windows needed. It literally gets better by the week and month.
I wasn't expecting any of that. I was happy with studios publishing on Steam, PlayStation, Microsoft Store, GoG, Xbox, Nintendo, Uplay, etc. I don't care if these studios publish on Tencent/Epic. I care that they exclusively publish on Tencent/Epic. I care that they're openly hostile to my platform mostly because of DRM.
Most of all I'm pointing out that these stores aren't all in one building, aisles away from each other. They're completely different buildings. Epic/Tencent isn't even a choice because they're openly hostile to a truly DRM free OS. They support Denuvo, DRM, and publishers/studios to the detriment of their users.
Gamers have forgotten how exclusives used to screw us over and how we had to fight that philosophy from consoles. Tim Sweeny whine and whined how Microsoft Store exclusives would break the PC industry. Gamers raged at Microsoft and the Store as a great exlcusives evil. Oh the irony of a gullible user base and a predatory company like Tencent/Epic.
Valve has been innovating alright; their sales have gone to shit, they've completely stopped curating their store to the detriment of gamers, and they fuck indie devs hard unless the indie devs reach breakout hit status of epic proportions.
You're acting like this is all bad, and it's not. Growing pains are inevitable. But maintaining the status quo because Valve happens to be taking one iniative that serves a rather small percentage of total gamers (including yourself) doesn't seem very convincing to me.
Steam Controller, Vive, SteamOS, wtf didn't they innovate?
Vive is largely irrelevant. The VR market still blows in terms of total market penetration.
Steam Controller? You act as if PCs can't support any other controller.
You all are acting as if this is all bad and no good. That's, quite frankly, an ignorant way to look at it. Is it all good and no bad? Nope, not that either. But competition in general is good for the parties receiving the products or services, even if there are growing pains along the way.
It must be fun hiding under a rock. No matter your personal thoughts on said product doesn't change the fact it was innovative.
Vive has VR technologies developed inhouse at Valve, it is truly innovative.
The steam controller has true haptic feedback on a track pad, again innovation.
SteamOS is a technical marvel itself, being able to trim all that extra crap background crap a named OS has will make your games run much more smoother/quicker. It's a fuckin OS just for gamers! To be able to create something that games that don't necessarily support and make them work is one hell of an achievement.
I think you let your feelings get the best of you sometime.
That's all largely irrelevant to the Stean platform as a digital games delivery service. That's hardware, except for the hyper-focused OS that is likely self-defeating due to its hyper-focus.
Epic isn't competing with Steam in creating a friggin' controller.
Analogous examplee: an innovative marketing campaign is not an example of John Deere improving its product horsepower and efficiency versus Cub Cadet's tractors, and is irrelevant to that comparison between brands.
Workshop, Cloud Saves, VAC integration, Community Hub, Curators, Reviews (Specific Metric Filtering, with focus on review bombing), Wishlist (Filters to sort for discounts), New Chat Engine, STEAM API
Jesus christ dude, now go and narrow it down even more so I can make you look like a fool again.
[[ DEAD ]] - Funny - I deleted my account on the site using the cancel account button. Forum user is separate and still exists with no way of deleting it. Delete it admins. Do it, this ends now.
So developers aren't allowed to shop around for deals? Only gamers are allowed to? That's some privilege right there.
If a developers can get a 6 figure deal, and a better split of sales... They probably should take it.
It works out for steam users to since in 6 months the exclusivity deal likely ends. So they'll have a game without the launch bugs.
It's disingenuous for a studio or publisher to use Steam as an advertising platform for FREE and then bait and switch at the last moment. Shopping is fine. Saying one thing to your partners and customers and the pulling a switch at the last moment isn't. At least in the US it's generally a frowned upon business tack. If a company wants to shop then they should do so before choosing a partner.
I can see Steam changing how that works in a very short period of time Metro and Ashen (they played Microsoft on this too) got huge exposure on Steam. I'm not sure what, or if they're do anything, but it would be wise to shore that up. Maybe they'll need to adjust their pricing structure, maybe not. The other 30%'ers (stores that also charge 30%) haven't even publicly acknowledged the issue. Also Epic and other studios haven't even tried to break that hold. This is personal with Steam, not because it affects them industry wide. Industry wide 30% and unfriendly terms are still the norm.
TL;DR: This is Epic/Tencent trying to break Valve, not make the industry change for the better.
I agree the timing sucks, but competition has almost always led to innovation within an industry. In that sense, "breaking Valve" is incredibly likely to make the industry change for the better.
You weren't going to some kind of open source, OS-neutral, non-profit with the resources to compete with Valve. It had to be a juggernaut with it's own interests.
How is it going to lead to innovation? Valve has been innovating like hell. In the past few years Valve has helped take WINE and SteamPlay from something that sort of works to making over 80% of my games library work on Ubuntu, no Windows needed. It literally gets better by the week and month.
I wasn't expecting any of that. I was happy with studios publishing on Steam, PlayStation, Microsoft Store, GoG, Xbox, Nintendo, Uplay, etc. I don't care if these studios publish on Tencent/Epic. I care that they exclusively publish on Tencent/Epic. I care that they're openly hostile to my platform mostly because of DRM.
Most of all I'm pointing out that these stores aren't all in one building, aisles away from each other. They're completely different buildings. Epic/Tencent isn't even a choice because they're openly hostile to a truly DRM free OS. They support Denuvo, DRM, and publishers/studios to the detriment of their users.
Gamers have forgotten how exclusives used to screw us over and how we had to fight that philosophy from consoles. Tim Sweeny whine and whined how Microsoft Store exclusives would break the PC industry. Gamers raged at Microsoft and the Store as a great exlcusives evil. Oh the irony of a gullible user base and a predatory company like Tencent/Epic.
Valve has been innovating alright; their sales have gone to shit, they've completely stopped curating their store to the detriment of gamers, and they fuck indie devs hard unless the indie devs reach breakout hit status of epic proportions.
You're acting like this is all bad, and it's not. Growing pains are inevitable. But maintaining the status quo because Valve happens to be taking one iniative that serves a rather small percentage of total gamers (including yourself) doesn't seem very convincing to me.
Steam Controller, Vive, SteamOS, wtf didn't they innovate?
Vive is largely irrelevant. The VR market still blows in terms of total market penetration.
Steam Controller? You act as if PCs can't support any other controller.
You all are acting as if this is all bad and no good. That's, quite frankly, an ignorant way to look at it. Is it all good and no bad? Nope, not that either. But competition in general is good for the parties receiving the products or services, even if there are growing pains along the way.
It must be fun hiding under a rock. No matter your personal thoughts on said product doesn't change the fact it was innovative.
Vive has VR technologies developed inhouse at Valve, it is truly innovative.
The steam controller has true haptic feedback on a track pad, again innovation.
SteamOS is a technical marvel itself, being able to trim all that extra crap background crap a named OS has will make your games run much more smoother/quicker. It's a fuckin OS just for gamers! To be able to create something that games that don't necessarily support and make them work is one hell of an achievement.
I think you let your feelings get the best of you sometime.
That's all largely irrelevant to the Stean platform as a digital games delivery service. That's hardware, except for the hyper-focused OS that is likely self-defeating due to its hyper-focus.
Epic isn't competing with Steam in creating a friggin' controller.
Analogous examplee: an innovative marketing campaign is not an example of John Deere improving its product horsepower and efficiency versus Cub Cadet's tractors, and is irrelevant to that comparison between brands.
Workshop, Cloud Saves, VAC integration, Community Hub, Curators, Reviews (Specific Metric Filtering, with focus on review bombing), Wishlist (Filters to sort for discounts), New Chat Engine, STEAM API
Jesus christ dude, now go and narrow it down even more so I can make you look like a fool again.
you actually make me remember another plataform who are having a digital store, discord, and more then likely people will use discord, so again like I said competition is all nice and well, but epic is not even on that consideration, at least yet
I can understand not putting a game on Steam, but this seems like using Steam to drum up interest then ditching it for a bigger slice of the pie.
I don't think that was intentional. I think Metro was on Steam before the Epic Store was even announced. It's way more likely they just assessed the options after and changed their mind.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
"Exclusives" have nothing to do with "competition", lol, if anything they're the exact opposite.
If all online stores are allowed to sell a game, there might well be a price war, as they undercut the opposition. The gamer wins in that scenario.
If Epic does start impacting Steam's revenue, we're going to see more and more of the store-exclusive deals, as the vendors lock their margins in place...
I can understand not putting a game on Steam, but this seems like using Steam to drum up interest then ditching it for a bigger slice of the pie.
I don't think that was intentional. I think Metro was on Steam before the Epic Store was even announced. It's way more likely they just assessed the options after and changed their mind.
That is fine if company change their mind. On good fate Metro would offer it on both store, even if it was $10 off on epic store then it would not of been a big deal. Giving the gamer choice where they want to play on is good competition then pulling it off from steam making exclusice.
Workshop, Cloud Saves, VAC integration, Community Hub, Curators, Reviews (Specific Metric Filtering, with focus on review bombing), Wishlist (Filters to sort for discounts), New Chat Engine, STEAM API
Jesus christ dude, now go and narrow it down even more so I can make you look like a fool again.
Your Google skills are fucking impeccable, thanks for using them to offer some actual relevant examples! Those items are indeed improvements Steam has made to their store.
Next time though, it makes it a little less clear you're just Googling keywords to support your point if you DON'T lead support of your argument with the most obvious, yet most irrelevant, examples.
And none of it changes my original post you were responding to: Valve has fucked the smaller devs for a long time, has increased the fucking lately by effectively having small indie devs subsidize revenue in order to give breaks to their most popular titles (generally AAA titles for obvious reasons of marketing budgets), has given up on curation in favor of a review system that still lacks basic functionality such as attempting to separate a technical issue that prevents a player from actually experiencing a game from those who experienced a game but disliked it. It simultaneously offers no assistance to said smaller studios in trying to facilitate communication between dev and gamer on said technical issues via any kind of title-specific support ticket management system that provides devs with player system information standard on forums or reviews where these issues get posted so often, leading devs to literally have to engage players through the review or Steam forums to even collect the data needed to help troubleshoot the gamers' issues.
Nor does Steam provide what could be objectively considered adequate support regarding obvious trolls reviews (which is why they copped the fuck out and added the histograph, likely) or support issues that created a review that had since been resolved. All that shit is crippling for a startup dev company trying to get it's first title off the ground. And yet, somehow Steam manages to keep giving games like Sergey Titov's zombie debacle a space on Steam because, hey, even if the game is a total sham that's been repackaged three times on Steam to dump prior bad reviews, cash is cash right? And where else are players gonna go? Somehow, Steam managed to figure out a way to make their review system fail spectacularly all the while SEEMING like they're actually doing something about it.
All of THIS, and I invite you to go reread my post thread you replied to, and show me where I ever even claimed Steam doesn't or (more apropos) didn't innovate at all in the past. (Hint: you won't find that quote, because I never typed it. You've been raging against a stance I never fucking took. I've been responding to your irrelevant examples for being irrelevant since you first replied to Torval.)
EDIT- @Bloodaxes editing out the quote pyramid is a PITA on mobile, so I had to wait til I got to my desktop to do it. But it is now fixed!
I can understand not putting a game on Steam, but this seems like using Steam to drum up interest then ditching it for a bigger slice of the pie.
I don't think that was intentional. I think Metro was on Steam before the Epic Store was even announced. It's way more likely they just assessed the options after and changed their mind.
That is fine if company change their mind. On good fate Metro would offer it on both store, even if it was $10 off on epic store then it would not of been a big deal. Giving the gamer choice where they want to play on is good competition then pulling it off from steam making exclusice.
My biggest question or issue with this whole thing right now is why is it only the US that gets a cheaper version on Epic? It's the same price as it was on Steam, in the UK, if you didn't know... despite it being reported that it was cheaper by news sites.
Until that kind thing is addressed then the argument about the savings being passed onto the customers doesn't apply to everyone. They need to justify why the US, and maybe some other countries, are getting a better deal when the others aren't.
This is a massive issue.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
I can understand not putting a game on Steam, but this seems like using Steam to drum up interest then ditching it for a bigger slice of the pie.
I don't think that was intentional. I think Metro was on Steam before the Epic Store was even announced. It's way more likely they just assessed the options after and changed their mind.
That is fine if company change their mind. On good fate Metro would offer it on both store, even if it was $10 off on epic store then it would not of been a big deal. Giving the gamer choice where they want to play on is good competition then pulling it off from steam making exclusice.
My biggest question or issue with this whole thing right now is why is it only the US that gets a cheaper version on Epic? It's the same price as it was on Steam, in the UK, if you didn't know... despite it being reported that it was cheaper by news sites.
Until that kind thing is addressed then the argument about the savings being passed onto the customers doesn't apply to everyone. They need to justify why the US, and maybe some other countries, are getting a better deal when the others aren't.
This is a massive issue.
I think Epic store was put together in the last moments in adding more games other then own in a rush. My guest something to do with regional pricing still being worked out. Who know maybe we get to know or not to know.
Workshop, Cloud Saves, VAC integration, Community Hub, Curators, Reviews (Specific Metric Filtering, with focus on review bombing), Wishlist (Filters to sort for discounts), New Chat Engine, STEAM API
Jesus christ dude, now go and narrow it down even more so I can make you look like a fool again.
Your Google skills are fucking impeccable, thanks for using them to offer some actual relevant examples! Those items are indeed improvements Steam has made to their store.
Next time though, it makes it a little less clear you're just Googling keywords to support your point if you DON'T lead support of your argument with the most obvious, yet most irrelevant, examples.
And none of it changes my original post you were responding to: Valve has fucked the smaller devs for a long time, has increased the fucking lately by effectively having small indie devs subsidize revenue in order to give breaks to their most popular titles (generally AAA titles for obvious reasons of marketing budgets), has given up on curation in favor of a review system that still lacks basic functionality such as attempting to separate a technical issue that prevents a player from actually experiencing a game from those who experienced a game but disliked it. It simultaneously offers no assistance to said smaller studios in trying to facilitate communication between dev and gamer on said technical issues via any kind of title-specific support ticket management system that provides devs with player system information standard on forums or reviews where these issues get posted so often, leading devs to literally have to engage players through the review or Steam forums to even collect the data needed to help troubleshoot the gamers' issues.
Nor does Steam provide what could be objectively considered adequate support regarding obvious trolls reviews (which is why they copped the fuck out and added the histograph, likely) or support issues that created a review that had since been resolved. All that shit is crippling for a startup dev company trying to get it's first title off the ground. And yet, somehow Steam manages to keep giving games like Sergey Titov's zombie debacle a space on Steam because, hey, even if the game is a total sham that's been repackaged three times on Steam to dump prior bad reviews, cash is cash right? And where else are players gonna go? Somehow, Steam managed to figure out a way to make their review system fail spectacularly all the while SEEMING like they're actually doing something about it.
All of THIS, and I invite you to go reread my post thread you replied to, and show me where I ever even claimed Steam doesn't or (more apropos) didn't innovate at all in the past. (Hint: you won't find that quote, because I never typed it. You've been raging against a stance I never fucking took. I've been responding to your irrelevant examples for being irrelevant since you first replied to Torval.)
Oh google skills huh, how about running one of the popular steam guides that is documenting and recording every feature that is on the site and any future requests. I know the inside and out of Steam because I use it daily, it is essential to my phone. Nah google skills...
Anyway on the topic at hand, you seem to think Steam is still 2014 Steam. Where they curated and gave a shit what went on steam. They opened it up, anything can be on Steam, it is up to the customer to do their research on the game to know if it is a sham or not. In all honesty who cares anymore since you can refund anything you buy that you find out is complete dogshit or a scam. Sergey Titov still has a spot because they didn't threaten Gabe's life.
That's what it equates to, you go on steam fill out your tax and developer info, pay the $100 for a title, Upload the game, type in all the info for everything including your personal store page and community aspects. Setup the launchers, set up the distros, select the cost of the game and any deals you want to run. Submit for approval. Someone on that staff then checks to make sure you followed some really basic extremely exploitable guidelines and after you are approved. You hit that big fuckin RELEASE button. The support needed for that, is zero. It's all well documented even using Steam CMD in a basic capacity works well.
Devs can not delete reviews that is true, could imagine what it would be like if they could?!? There is no fine line here, giving control on either side doesn't make a win. So showing the review bombing absolutely in fact helps the customer, it also can show when the game actually started to peak, this is good for early access games that have active development. It tells you the time to jump on board if you care. I don't feel that needs support from Steam. The only support that should and does exist is technical "My game has issues when customer buys it" or sales "My game is not showing the correct currency value even when selecting it in the options of prices" Community support does not need to exist and if it did there would be an active suicide rate in that development. It's like if someone curated 4chan. LMAO
To end it, you did exactly say Steam doesn't innovate their platform. I put some recent big time accomplishments that Valve produced. Then you said, not on the hardware side but the store front. So I listed all the store front innovations.
Don't get pissy of facts.
[[ DEAD ]] - Funny - I deleted my account on the site using the cancel account button. Forum user is separate and still exists with no way of deleting it. Delete it admins. Do it, this ends now.
I think you're just arguing to argue. This actually affects me. A shooter I was interesting in playing is now no longer available because the publisher added Denuvo and moved it to an exclusive platform on Tencent/Epic.
Up until a couple days ago the publisher and studio were friendly to the Linux community. The previous 2 Metro games work on Ubuntu with native clients. They were advertising the game and I expected it might at least work through SteamPlay even if there wasn't a native client. Instead I got a big screw you promoting WIndows lockin and DRM. Of course I'm pissed.
DRM is a pain in general even for windows users. I am running Linux with dual boating Windows. I can feel your pain.
I think you're just arguing to argue. This actually affects me. A shooter I was interesting in playing is now no longer available because the publisher added Denuvo and moved it to an exclusive platform on Tencent/Epic.
Up until a couple days ago the publisher and studio were friendly to the Linux community. The previous 2 Metro games work on Ubuntu with native clients. They were advertising the game and I expected it might at least work through SteamPlay even if there wasn't a native client. Instead I got a big screw you promoting WIndows lockin and DRM. Of course I'm pissed.
DRM is a pain in general even for windows users. I am running Linux with dual boating Windows. I can feel your pain.
I'm not even sure DRM has ever even truly effected me ever.
Ccleaner active monitoring takes up more memory than most DRM's i find in games,
I mean let's be real here it's just nice to pirate. I get it. Used to love it too. But come on you are telling me in this day and age of like 56 cores DRM is causing you frame rates guys?
Like Oh boy that 16 meg processes is just destroying my frame rates on my Vsync 60 fps.
Shut the fuck up. I'm with you all. I won't buy a game these days without "Demoing" it too.
But come on lol acting like it's breaking your game immersion....2007 ass shit there.
Well, I don't care either way which distribution platform does what, all I know is that people are being shortsighted on Epic's (or even Discord's) "bringing competition and bigger cuts for devs!".
It's the Amazon model. Undercut everyone until you're big, then do whatever you want. If developers think Epic is going to stick to 12% or that Epic, for some reason, cares more about them than Valve, they're all morons.
That isn't to say they shouldn't act rationally and grab that 12% rate while they can, but it's going to go up. It's like cable and streaming and so on. It always sounds like a great deal at first, and then every chance those companies have to make more money, they take.
Everyone remembers the entire reason you paid for cable was to watch TV without ads. Then the ads came. First it was just ads for programming on their network, and then it was ads in general. And then prices kept going up, until finally they're charging $150/mo.
Then Netflix shows up and everyone's a "cord cutter", then everyone realizes they can just have their own streaming platform and pulls their shows from Netflix. So now if you want everything, you have to go around subscribing to a bunch of services.
Basically, the TLDR of this is, ya'll are fighting for nothing. They're gonna get their money one way or the other. You might have a window of time while the getting is good, but not too long from now you'll be in the same spot as you were, just with having to publish to multiple platforms to try to catch a splintered market.
I think you're just arguing to argue. This actually affects me. A shooter I was interesting in playing is now no longer available because the publisher added Denuvo and moved it to an exclusive platform on Tencent/Epic.
Up until a couple days ago the publisher and studio were friendly to the Linux community. The previous 2 Metro games work on Ubuntu with native clients. They were advertising the game and I expected it might at least work through SteamPlay even if there wasn't a native client. Instead I got a big screw you promoting WIndows lockin and DRM. Of course I'm pissed.
DRM is a pain in general even for windows users. I am running Linux with dual boating Windows. I can feel your pain.
I'm not even sure DRM has ever even truly effected me ever.
Ccleaner active monitoring takes up more memory than most DRM's i find in games,
I mean let's be real here it's just nice to pirate. I get it. Used to love it too. But come on you are telling me in this day and age of like 56 cores DRM is causing you frame rates guys?
Like Oh boy that 16 meg processes is just destroying my frame rates on my Vsync 60 fps.
Shut the fuck up. I'm with you all. I won't buy a game these days without "Demoing" it too.
But come on lol acting like it's breaking your game immersion....2007 ass shit there.
Are you implying that everyone who rejects DRM just wants to pirate?
When I purchase a game (non mmo, obviously) I expect to own that game until the day I die. DRM, from what I understand, ties the game to the distribution service so if the store goes down i lose the game. That is the bullshit i don't accept, not even from Steam. That applies to any OS version i pay for.
I think you're just arguing to argue. This actually affects me. A shooter I was interesting in playing is now no longer available because the publisher added Denuvo and moved it to an exclusive platform on Tencent/Epic.
Up until a couple days ago the publisher and studio were friendly to the Linux community. The previous 2 Metro games work on Ubuntu with native clients. They were advertising the game and I expected it might at least work through SteamPlay even if there wasn't a native client. Instead I got a big screw you promoting WIndows lockin and DRM. Of course I'm pissed.
DRM is a pain in general even for windows users. I am running Linux with dual boating Windows. I can feel your pain.
I'm not even sure DRM has ever even truly effected me ever.
Ccleaner active monitoring takes up more memory than most DRM's i find in games,
I mean let's be real here it's just nice to pirate. I get it. Used to love it too. But come on you are telling me in this day and age of like 56 cores DRM is causing you frame rates guys?
Like Oh boy that 16 meg processes is just destroying my frame rates on my Vsync 60 fps.
Shut the fuck up. I'm with you all. I won't buy a game these days without "Demoing" it too.
But come on lol acting like it's breaking your game immersion....2007 ass shit there.
DRM generally has a massive effect on systems using certain cracks for Microsoft products. It causes the system to constantly run security checks on all data transfers. In most cases it will cause an almost maximum CPU load when running a game. Not all Microsoft cracks do this.
Do people have the right to complain when they are using cracked software? Probably not.. but it is what it is.
Other times though, it depends on your security software. Certain antiviruses will constantly check the DRM processes too because they consider it unusual behaviour. That causes a similar effect. Windows Defender, the most commonly/automatically used one, definitely does this.
You may have a really good system that can hit 60 fps no matter what but not everyone does.
It does cause some serious issues for some people, is all I'm saying.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Like I said, that you guys seem to be ignoring in the interest of just arguing for the sake of arguing: this is not all good or all bad. But competition in general is good, and should be encouraged, even if we criticize the specific decisions of some of the competition.
I think you're just arguing to argue. This actually affects me. A shooter I was interesting in playing is now no longer available because the publisher added Denuvo and moved it to an exclusive platform on Tencent/Epic.
Up until a couple days ago the publisher and studio were friendly to the Linux community. The previous 2 Metro games work on Ubuntu with native clients. They were advertising the game and I expected it might at least work through SteamPlay even if there wasn't a native client. Instead I got a big screw you promoting WIndows lockin and DRM. Of course I'm pissed.
I get it, and not to sound like a dick, but only about 2-4% of the private home (EDIT- personal sounded redundant here) PC market uses Linux. And you had to know that when you decided that was your OS of choice.
It's almost like importing a Russian car to the U.S. then bitching when most mechanics here in the U.S. won't/can't work on it.
Comments
That's why Netflix is continuing to increase it's spending on original content, and why you get the great Netflix Originals you now get. Do you remember the first generation of Originals? Low-budget trash, almost completely.
Anyway, we're just waffling and overdoing it, the point I was trying to make is that some people like to shop at one place, for whatever reason. Using another launcher might not bother you personally, but it bothers some people and the reasons for that are completely obvious. Telling people they shouldn't complain about using more launchers is being narcissistic. We aren't all the same and we can all make our own decisions about what we want and don't want.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Sorry to say but it takes money to make money. Your focus should be how can I make my game engaging and fun enough that everyone wants to buy it. Because then no matter the price point you will be making bank. If your game sucks, ya you aren't going to sell anything and that point you don't deserve to. You aren't entitled to money just cause you made something. Being able to pick up scraps alone on a failed concept is more than anyone should deserve. There has been many indie devs that made it big on the Steam platform and none of them are complaining. It is just the ones that didn't find a community cause there was very little excitement for said game.
To that end, good luck on your game.
Epic isn't competing with Steam in creating a friggin' controller.
Analogous examplee: an innovative marketing campaign is not an example of John Deere improving its product horsepower and efficiency versus Cub Cadet's tractors, and is irrelevant to that comparison between brands.
Jesus christ dude, now go and narrow it down even more so I can make you look like a fool again.
If all online stores are allowed to sell a game, there might well be a price war, as they undercut the opposition. The gamer wins in that scenario.
If Epic does start impacting Steam's revenue, we're going to see more and more of the store-exclusive deals, as the vendors lock their margins in place...
Next time though, it makes it a little less clear you're just Googling keywords to support your point if you DON'T lead support of your argument with the most obvious, yet most irrelevant, examples.
And none of it changes my original post you were responding to: Valve has fucked the smaller devs for a long time, has increased the fucking lately by effectively having small indie devs subsidize revenue in order to give breaks to their most popular titles (generally AAA titles for obvious reasons of marketing budgets), has given up on curation in favor of a review system that still lacks basic functionality such as attempting to separate a technical issue that prevents a player from actually experiencing a game from those who experienced a game but disliked it. It simultaneously offers no assistance to said smaller studios in trying to facilitate communication between dev and gamer on said technical issues via any kind of title-specific support ticket management system that provides devs with player system information standard on forums or reviews where these issues get posted so often, leading devs to literally have to engage players through the review or Steam forums to even collect the data needed to help troubleshoot the gamers' issues.
Nor does Steam provide what could be objectively considered adequate support regarding obvious trolls reviews (which is why they copped the fuck out and added the histograph, likely) or support issues that created a review that had since been resolved. All that shit is crippling for a startup dev company trying to get it's first title off the ground. And yet, somehow Steam manages to keep giving games like Sergey Titov's zombie debacle a space on Steam because, hey, even if the game is a total sham that's been repackaged three times on Steam to dump prior bad reviews, cash is cash right? And where else are players gonna go? Somehow, Steam managed to figure out a way to make their review system fail spectacularly all the while SEEMING like they're actually doing something about it.
All of THIS, and I invite you to go reread my post thread you replied to, and show me where I ever even claimed Steam doesn't or (more apropos) didn't innovate at all in the past. (Hint: you won't find that quote, because I never typed it. You've been raging against a stance I never fucking took. I've been responding to your irrelevant examples for being irrelevant since you first replied to Torval.)
EDIT- @Bloodaxes editing out the quote pyramid is a PITA on mobile, so I had to wait til I got to my desktop to do it. But it is now fixed!
(I know, I know, it's a bug of this site...but still)
Until that kind thing is addressed then the argument about the savings being passed onto the customers doesn't apply to everyone. They need to justify why the US, and maybe some other countries, are getting a better deal when the others aren't.
This is a massive issue.
Come on dude a fifty five paragraph summary is not a good sign of not getting called out lol.
Anyway on the topic at hand, you seem to think Steam is still 2014 Steam. Where they curated and gave a shit what went on steam. They opened it up, anything can be on Steam, it is up to the customer to do their research on the game to know if it is a sham or not. In all honesty who cares anymore since you can refund anything you buy that you find out is complete dogshit or a scam. Sergey Titov still has a spot because they didn't threaten Gabe's life.
That's what it equates to, you go on steam fill out your tax and developer info, pay the $100 for a title, Upload the game, type in all the info for everything including your personal store page and community aspects. Setup the launchers, set up the distros, select the cost of the game and any deals you want to run. Submit for approval. Someone on that staff then checks to make sure you followed some really basic extremely exploitable guidelines and after you are approved. You hit that big fuckin RELEASE button. The support needed for that, is zero. It's all well documented even using Steam CMD in a basic capacity works well.
Devs can not delete reviews that is true, could imagine what it would be like if they could?!? There is no fine line here, giving control on either side doesn't make a win. So showing the review bombing absolutely in fact helps the customer, it also can show when the game actually started to peak, this is good for early access games that have active development. It tells you the time to jump on board if you care. I don't feel that needs support from Steam. The only support that should and does exist is technical "My game has issues when customer buys it" or sales "My game is not showing the correct currency value even when selecting it in the options of prices" Community support does not need to exist and if it did there would be an active suicide rate in that development. It's like if someone curated 4chan. LMAO
To end it, you did exactly say Steam doesn't innovate their platform. I put some recent big time accomplishments that Valve produced. Then you said, not on the hardware side but the store front. So I listed all the store front innovations.
Don't get pissy of facts.
I'm not even sure DRM has ever even truly effected me ever.
Ccleaner active monitoring takes up more memory than most DRM's i find in games,
I mean let's be real here it's just nice to pirate. I get it. Used to love it too. But come on you are telling me in this day and age of like 56 cores DRM is causing you frame rates guys?
Like Oh boy that 16 meg processes is just destroying my frame rates on my Vsync 60 fps.
Shut the fuck up. I'm with you all. I won't buy a game these days without "Demoing" it too.
But come on lol acting like it's breaking your game immersion....2007 ass shit there.
It's the Amazon model. Undercut everyone until you're big, then do whatever you want. If developers think Epic is going to stick to 12% or that Epic, for some reason, cares more about them than Valve, they're all morons.
That isn't to say they shouldn't act rationally and grab that 12% rate while they can, but it's going to go up. It's like cable and streaming and so on. It always sounds like a great deal at first, and then every chance those companies have to make more money, they take.
Everyone remembers the entire reason you paid for cable was to watch TV without ads. Then the ads came. First it was just ads for programming on their network, and then it was ads in general. And then prices kept going up, until finally they're charging $150/mo.
Then Netflix shows up and everyone's a "cord cutter", then everyone realizes they can just have their own streaming platform and pulls their shows from Netflix. So now if you want everything, you have to go around subscribing to a bunch of services.
Basically, the TLDR of this is, ya'll are fighting for nothing. They're gonna get their money one way or the other. You might have a window of time while the getting is good, but not too long from now you'll be in the same spot as you were, just with having to publish to multiple platforms to try to catch a splintered market.
Heads they win. Tails you lose. That's the game.
When I purchase a game (non mmo, obviously) I expect to own that game until the day I die. DRM, from what I understand, ties the game to the distribution service so if the store goes down i lose the game. That is the bullshit i don't accept, not even from Steam. That applies to any OS version i pay for.
Do people have the right to complain when they are using cracked software? Probably not.. but it is what it is.
Other times though, it depends on your security software. Certain antiviruses will constantly check the DRM processes too because they consider it unusual behaviour. That causes a similar effect. Windows Defender, the most commonly/automatically used one, definitely does this.
You may have a really good system that can hit 60 fps no matter what but not everyone does.
It does cause some serious issues for some people, is all I'm saying.
It's almost like importing a Russian car to the U.S. then bitching when most mechanics here in the U.S. won't/can't work on it.