Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
One Former Valve Dev Says that Steam's 30% Take of Profits is a 'Tax on an Entire Industry' - MMORP
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
One Former Valve Dev Says that Steam's 30% Take of Profits is a 'Tax on an Entire Industry' - MMORPG.com News
Richard Geldreich, a former developer at Valve, has come out swinging against his former employer's backbone, Steam. Geldreich was a participant in a thread with Epic's Tim Sweeney as he tried to rebut those who allege that the Epic Game Store client is rife with spyware and that it collects too much information about users. Geldreich weighed in base on his experience and said that Valve collected volumes of information on players but doesn't have to deal with what he sees happening to Epic.
Comments
Steam or Epic it's the same old thing.
Only interested in making money,don't give a shit about customers.
I use Steam because Linux and a better launcher.
But that is all!
And that war between Epic and Steam is getting ridiculous...
All I can do is vote with my wallet as I have done recently by not purchasing anything from them. If they build up their store into something even remotely comparable to Steam I'd have no problems buying games there but they are many years away from being close to that.
Also, as someone who actually owned Fortnite years before the BR mode was even an idea, I've have more attempted account hijackings on their platform than on any website I've ever been registered on. Now that might not necessarily be their fault, but it makes me extra worried about using them.
It's these backasswards takes that kill me. Who the hell is "forcing" you to purchase products from Epic? It's the height of selfish entitlement that gamers rant about inconvenience or waiting a few months, in the face of developers who spent YEARS of their lives and (in many cases) health to create said product getting a fair cut.
He comes off to me like he is slamming Steam while at the same time pledging his 100% loyalty to 'the other guy' with hopes of getting a job. A little more middle ground and little less bitter ex employee would do this guy some good in my opinion.
Not worth 30%.
As for the data collection, clearly the point is being missed here. Steam will spy on what you do with Steam and check how good your hardware is. Epic will dig into your install of a competitor's software and take the information the competitor collected. For me that crosses a very distinct line. You don't touch other people's stuff.
If you like Steam, then you'll dismiss these obvious lies !
As always, the "truth" is those things that most closely rhyme with your pre-existing bias...
Developers don't need Steam for digital distribution, though. Developers can do it themselves. This is why AoC, Vanguard, Warhammer, EQ2, SWG, etc etc etc all had their own launchers. Very simple to do. Moreover, Steam doesn't have multi-player server hosting. That's completely different. You would have to host and pay a different entity (something like Photon) for multi-player play. Steam is just like a glorified Facebook for gamers.
Not that it's easy to do it if you're not an indie or have an already established key distribution platform.
Steam has enjoyed a near monopoly on PC gaming for over a decade. Yes there are smaller competitors, but they're not big enough to create a real dent in Steam's revenues, and gamers have grown so used to using Steam, that they don't really see the negative aspects that it has on the industry itself.
Steam is "good" for consumers through all of its social features, but it's simply terrible for developers, in particular indie developers, because Steam takes a huge 30% off the sale. This is partly what's influenced the rise of prices in the video game industry too, due of the ever increasing game development costs and a shrinking profit margin. The Steam Store is also a massive mess of asset-flips because they've stop curating their store, which means that it can be a lot harder for your game to get the visibility it needs to succeed.
Here comes Epic, offering to take only 12%, and waiving the royalty fees for developers using UE4. That's 18% more money per sale in profit compared to Steam, and make that 23% if the developers used UE4 (there's a 5% royalty for selling a game made with UE4). That's a HUGE difference in revenue for a game developer studio. Even better, the store is curated so you don't get all that asset-flip filth.
Sure, the Epic Store is missing some features at the moment, many of which are being worked on if you look at their Store roadmap. The Store came out in December I think, and it seems to be doing quite well already, and let's not forget that Steam started out as only a fraction as what it is today. It took time to introduce all of these new features.
Also, I'm kind of glad that the Epic Store doesn't have player reviews at the moment. I think player reviews are important to warn potential players of good/bad games, but its currently being misused for review bombing older games by immature gamers, so I could imagine review bombing being used to try and destroy newly released games on the Epic Store if they were to release that feature too early.
Anyway, TLDR: Competition is good, especially if it favors developers.
Hypocrisy is funny.
More stores more competition, that is good for customers. Monopoly was and will always be bad for us.
All this rage against Epic exclusives is a mix of stupidity and double standards.
The rage is because they are bribing them and then blocking it from getting on other platforms, which is the same thing as having a monopoly on it. Why is it ok for epic to do it? but no one else? Think about it, how would releasing borderlands 3 n both steam and epic store at the same time hurt them? if anything it'd be more profitable. Sadly I won't be buying borderlands 3 till its on steam, like I said all my friends are on steam, and i'd like to play games online with my friends. As for single player, there are lots of ways to get to play the game both legally and otherwise if your so inclined.
I also own all the other borderlands games on steam, so I'd really hate to have to use the epic store client just for the borderlands 3 when I have everything else on steam.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
This, in my eyes, is only beneficial to the bigger companies that are pretty much guaranteed to sell more than 50 million dollars. Everyone else, AKA the smaller studios that could benefit from a 12-88% split are stuck with 30-70%
True, no developer absolutely needs Steam if they are able and willing to sell their products on their own or elsewhere. However for some developers it makes sense to let Valve handle the sale of their products. I think people tend to ignore just how complex it is to process financial transactions internationally and manage all the various tax laws.
it was a monopoly. If you didn't release your game on Steam, and therefore accept only a portion of the revenue, your game was doomed. I think they were, in a way, killing PC gaming outside of their platform.
Where you buy the game doesn't affect your gameplay or "where your friends are". You're just using it as an excuse to throw a fit, really. If you really wanted to you could still run Steam within the game anyway. You just choose not to think.
I hate having launchers at all, but if I'm going to choose one I'm going to choose either a) the cheapest option or b) the one that gives the developer the most amount of money.
Steam created a place that some consumers liked to use and kept raising their rates to suck more money from developers without earning it.
Steam doesn't deserve my money. They didn't earn it.
Steam is a big reason the PC platform remained relevant. The other big reason is that PCs are entry level electronic equipment for the majority of people, while consoles are luxury devices.
Valve/Steam put their work and time in to building their consumer base and distribution platform. Everyone was giving them s#!% in the beginning.
Nobody has a problem with EPIC providing an alternative (outside of it being garbage in comparison).
The problem is all these jaded crybaby developers (and the knobbers who cosign them) who don't like the idea of paying a 30% split can't grasp the concept of going independent or leveraging ALL major platforms to maximize revenue. They're picking a side in a platform war they have no business getting involved in. Maybe they think if they put their crumby Battle Royale game exclusively on EPIC next to Fortnite they can buy a Lambo.
Bottom line is Steam is feature rich and super convenient for people who use it. Trying to draw a line in the sand and make people leave feature rich convenience for bare bones trash so you can make more money is dumb and fucks the industry up. BETA MAX vs VHS anyone?
I'm not a developer, and I don't make money off your exclusive better split with EPIC. As a consumer I'm on the better platform (clearly), FUCK any developer who won't distribute to me in addition to lesser pleb platforms.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yet these people comes out crying steam needs competition just for the sake of competition. The best part about this is the assumption that you have to put games on steam in the first place, having your own launcher for a specific game has never been done before apparently.
These devs are willingly putting their games on Steam, and there for accepting that steam takes a percentage of their profit, and then go and bitch about it on twitter.
It's fitting that he likes a launcher with an opt in rating system by the devs, his game on steam is a trainwreck, and I guess he doesn't want people to know that before asking for money.