Looks like we might see the end of developers constantly changing their Steam release date

Finally! Steam visibility nowadays is given by the amount of wishlists you have before launch. You gather them as your page stays up and the closer you are to release - the less people have to click to see your game - the more views you get. The problem is, devs would put a release day, day would come close - they would hog the front page for new releases (pushing actual released games on another page, in the back) and then move it again.

A lot of games would reach release day after months with little to no wishlists because of this while the devs who did it would grow their numbers a ton (and, because of that, even get better visibility in other lists).

I'm. extremely. happy for this. It's good news - thanks Valve!

Good!
The better curated and administrated the marketplace is, the better it will be for us customers.

Imho the value of an "open store" is strictly the value of a non censored store, a place where you freely decide what is good for yourself. I wouldn't count being able to cheat customer and other devs on release date as an "openness value".


Last edited by Mal on 6 Aug 2019 at 3:12 pm UTC

Good!
The better curated and administrated the marketplace is, the better it will be for us customers.

It needs to be a good balance. I normally really like Steam's hands-off approach to the store, but humans always will find ways to abuse their freedoms, so in this case, Valve stepping in was a good thing. I can do without Steam adopting Apple-style "WE dictate what you can buy, sell and see on our store." methods, though.


Last edited by Kimyrielle on 6 Aug 2019 at 3:19 pm UTC

However I wonder when will the big elephant be addressed - namely the house's cut on each sale. That thing should definetely be more open (read: reduced), as it actually does affect the consumers. Devs aren't happy with it, at all (and for good reason) and decide to sell elsewhere, which is not ideal at all for the users.

And what cut would be cool?

However I wonder when will the big elephant be addressed - namely the house's cut on each sale. That thing should definetely be more open (read: reduced), as it actually does affect the consumers. Devs aren't happy with it, at all (and for good reason) and decide to sell elsewhere, which is not ideal at all for the users.

How does affect consumers? Because Greedy devs wants a bigger cut despite this could affect some store services like local download servers for zones or local currencies? Not even bigger cuts, it seems some of devs are swimming into the bribes they receive for their exclusive deals with Tencent/Epic store.
We assume 30% Steam cut is not justified and its because Gabe Newell wants to buy an isle somewhere in the Caribbean but as someone who live outside of your first world bubble I see where the money goes, to make gaming available for all gamers on the world, no matter where they live.

If a dev wants to leave Steam be my guest. I dont put devs on a pedestal, they are the same guys who are changing the release date to get a better position on a list.

The "Good reason" why devs wants a better cut is simply money, not offering better services for customers.

i don't think this has anything to do with open or not; it's changing a valve-controlled feature so it can't be abused, which was defeating the purpose of the feature. they COULD also just not have the feature at all, would that be more open? you're on steam to receive a service.

the first thing i thought of when i saw this, though, is EGS and those exclusivity bribes. this isn't mean to keep people from charging for preorders and then suddenly setting only the steam release date back a year? tbh that shit oughtta be illegal anyway. breach of contract, based on a common understanding of what a preorder is. of course i didn't follow that story very closely so idk how it turned out.


Last edited by doomiebaby on 6 Aug 2019 at 6:36 pm UTC

In my eyes this is a good move.

The store can't be completely open, and it cannot be completely controller either. A fine balance must be struck between what should be open, and what should be controlled. This feature is IMO a good example of something that has to be put under control, as it was heavily abused and caused more harm than good, for most people. Cleaning dirty parts like this could allow others to stay (or become) open. That is, of course, if the authority behind it (Valve) stands by the original idea - and I personally think that they are doing quite well in that regard, keeping in mind their past actions.

However I wonder when will the big elephant be addressed - namely the house's cut on each sale. That thing should definetely be more open (read: reduced), as it actually does affect the consumers. Devs aren't happy with it, at all (and for good reason) and decide to sell elsewhere, which is not ideal at all for the users.

afaik, valve are still only charging what people are willing to pay to sell on steam. they DO offer much more to the community and far more features than EGS, for example. i mean are they losing enough money to EGS yet? EGS exclusives seemed to be more about upfront handouts than anything else.

i also don't see the harm in having multiple places to buy videogames from. choice def puts the power right in the hands of the consumer. also the devs in this case. money talks, specially when you have the right and power to withold your own.


Last edited by doomiebaby on 6 Aug 2019 at 6:52 pm UTC

However I wonder when will the big elephant be addressed - namely the house's cut on each sale. That thing should definetely be more open (read: reduced), as it actually does affect the consumers. Devs aren't happy with it, at all (and for good reason) and decide to sell elsewhere, which is not ideal at all for the users.

How does affect consumers? Because Greedy devs wants a bigger cut

Well, of course they're greedy. It's capitalism, everyone in the game is greedy. That's the point. Developers are greedy, portal owners are greedy whether Valve or EGS or even GoG, and we consumers all want cheaper games, we're greedy too. Everyone is, in effect, forced to be greedy.
I think it's pretty clear EGS is running a strategy where they run up short term losses, which they can afford to do thanks to a huge war chest from fortnite and certain investors, in order to grab market share; once they've pushed that as far as it will go they can be expected to boost the price up again. But the question of what cut is fair remains open--we don't have information about just what the expenses and revenue are, so we're forced to judge based on not very relevant data, like wossname from EGS seeming like kind of a jerk.
In theory this whole war of each against all in the marketplace is supposed to lead to efficient pricing and not overly huge profit margins due to competition. But that lack of information (among other things, like barriers to entry, network effects creating economies of scale and many, many more) mean that doesn't necessarily happen.
So it may well be that Valve's cut of each sale is in fact excessive, giving them windfall profits while most devs barely get by, and they've been guffawing all the way to the bank for years. Or, it may not. We don't have the info we would need to tell the difference. (If it is true, EGS are still not our saviours, they're just an outfit who wants to replace Valve as the ones grabbing the dough, and they see the only way to do it is by loss leaders)

The only people in the whole biz who seem pretty clearly not driven by greed is itch.io. They're weird, I like them.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 6 Aug 2019 at 8:32 pm UTC

I don't mind Lord Gaben laughing all the way to the bank. He's the only reason I can play on linux and was able ditch windoze finally.
Epic supports blender and unreal engine is on linux. Still no store on linux...
I'm angry at GOG because galaxy is still not on linux, yet I'm still shoveling money their way. And I still need to use 3rd party launcher. God bless gamehub.
Cyberpunk2077 better be on linux. Or on wine at the minimum. Still undecided on which store I want to buy it. If it needs proton then it's steam.

However I wonder when will the big elephant be addressed - namely the house's cut on each sale. That thing should definetely be more open (read: reduced), as it actually does affect the consumers. Devs aren't happy with it, at all (and for good reason) and decide to sell elsewhere, which is not ideal at all for the users.

How does affect consumers? Because Greedy devs wants a bigger cut

Well, of course they're greedy. It's capitalism, everyone in the game is greedy. That's the point. Developers are greedy, portal owners are greedy whether Valve or EGS or even GoG, and we consumers all want cheaper games, we're greedy too. Everyone is, in effect, forced to be greedy.
I think it's pretty clear EGS is running a strategy where they run up short term losses, which they can afford to do thanks to a huge war chest from fortnite and certain investors, in order to grab market share; once they've pushed that as far as it will go they can be expected to boost the price up again. But the question of what cut is fair remains open--we don't have information about just what the expenses and revenue are, so we're forced to judge based on not very relevant data, like wossname from EGS seeming like kind of a jerk.
In theory this whole war of each against all in the marketplace is supposed to lead to efficient pricing and not overly huge profit margins due to competition. But that lack of information (among other things, like barriers to entry, network effects creating economies of scale and many, many more) mean that doesn't necessarily happen.
So it may well be that Valve's cut of each sale is in fact excessive, giving them windfall profits while most devs barely get by, and they've been guffawing all the way to the bank for years. Or, it may not. We don't have the info we would need to tell the difference. (If it is true, EGS are still not our saviours, they're just an outfit who wants to replace Valve as the ones grabbing the dough, and they see the only way to do it is by loss leaders)

The only people in the whole biz who seem pretty clearly not driven by greed is itch.io. They're weird, I like them.

i don't think asking for compensation for your time, or coming to an agreement on what time, effort or a product is worth, or renegotiation make you greedy. i don't think simply wanting something is quite the same as greed. sure you could work just for food, but what if you want to work harder and have more than just needs? i know yall wanna turn this political, but really... if you don't think an asking price for a service is reasonable, do something else. capitalism isn't even required, technically, and lack of it never stopped anyone from making agreements and trading.

I don't mind Lord Gaben laughing all the way to the bank. He's the only reason I can play on linux and was able ditch windoze finally.
Epic supports blender and unreal engine is on linux. Still no store on linux...
I'm angry at GOG because galaxy is still not on linux, yet I'm still shoveling money their way. And I still need to use 3rd party launcher. God bless gamehub.
Cyberpunk2077 better be on linux. Or on wine at the minimum. Still undecided on which store I want to buy it. If it needs proton then it's steam.

same, and i'm the anti-DRM zealot, but i consider some things a donation to the cause of getting a game market on linux. there are still better ways and one day i'll probably take em into my own hands, but hell, steamplay is idiotproof and the whole reality is pretty impressive


Last edited by doomiebaby on 6 Aug 2019 at 11:01 pm UTC

However I wonder when will the big elephant be addressed - namely the house's cut on each sale. That thing should definetely be more open (read: reduced), as it actually does affect the consumers. Devs aren't happy with it, at all (and for good reason) and decide to sell elsewhere, which is not ideal at all for the users.

How does affect consumers? Because Greedy devs wants a bigger cut

Well, of course they're greedy. It's capitalism, everyone in the game is greedy. That's the point. Developers are greedy, portal owners are greedy whether Valve or EGS or even GoG, and we consumers all want cheaper games, we're greedy too. Everyone is, in effect, forced to be greedy.

That seems like an overly negative attitude

However I wonder when will the big elephant be addressed - namely the house's cut on each sale. That thing should definetely be more open (read: reduced), as it actually does affect the consumers. Devs aren't happy with it, at all (and for good reason) and decide to sell elsewhere, which is not ideal at all for the users.

How does affect consumers? Because Greedy devs wants a bigger cut

Well, of course they're greedy. It's capitalism, everyone in the game is greedy. That's the point. Developers are greedy, portal owners are greedy whether Valve or EGS or even GoG, and we consumers all want cheaper games, we're greedy too. Everyone is, in effect, forced to be greedy.

That seems like an overly negative attitude

It's also quite an accurate summary of capitalism. You can call it the pursuit of personal gain instead of greed if you prefer. But in the end, we have to be greedy if we want to be (financially) successful in a capitalist system. That's something we should all be able to agree on, no matter our political leanings.

However I wonder when will the big elephant be addressed - namely the house's cut on each sale. That thing should definetely be more open (read: reduced), as it actually does affect the consumers. Devs aren't happy with it, at all (and for good reason) and decide to sell elsewhere, which is not ideal at all for the users.

How does affect consumers? Because Greedy devs wants a bigger cut

Well, of course they're greedy. It's capitalism, everyone in the game is greedy. That's the point. Developers are greedy, portal owners are greedy whether Valve or EGS or even GoG, and we consumers all want cheaper games, we're greedy too. Everyone is, in effect, forced to be greedy.

That seems like an overly negative attitude

It's also quite an accurate summary of capitalism. You can call it the pursuit of personal gain instead of greed if you prefer. But in the end, we have to be greedy if we want to be (financially) successful in a capitalist system. That's something we should all be able to agree on, no matter our political leanings.

But calling _everybody_ greedy... that's kinda insulting. Even the less offensive "pursuit of personal gain" is hard to swollow. Is everything you do just for your personal gain? Don't you share things? Don't you gift other people presents? Don't you think others should be treated and compensated fairly?

If you think that's how all people are... that would be just sad.

Don't you share things? Don't you gift other people presents? Don't you think others should be treated and compensated fairly?

Of course I do all of this and more, but the point was that in the end, all of this works outside or even against the system, not for it. Thankfully, most of us aren't mindless cogs in the machine.

If you think that's how all people are... that would be just sad.

Yes, it would be sad. Good thing I don't think that way. It's perfectly possible to see faults in how things work without falling into abject despair. Otherwise nothing would ever get fixed.

However I wonder when will the big elephant be addressed - namely the house's cut on each sale. That thing should definetely be more open (read: reduced), as it actually does affect the consumers. Devs aren't happy with it, at all (and for good reason) and decide to sell elsewhere, which is not ideal at all for the users.

How does affect consumers? Because Greedy devs wants a bigger cut

Well, of course they're greedy. It's capitalism, everyone in the game is greedy. That's the point. Developers are greedy, portal owners are greedy whether Valve or EGS or even GoG, and we consumers all want cheaper games, we're greedy too. Everyone is, in effect, forced to be greedy.

That seems like an overly negative attitude

It's also quite an accurate summary of capitalism. You can call it the pursuit of personal gain instead of greed if you prefer. But in the end, we have to be greedy if we want to be (financially) successful in a capitalist system. That's something we should all be able to agree on, no matter our political leanings.

But calling _everybody_ greedy... that's kinda insulting. Even the less offensive "pursuit of personal gain" is hard to swollow. Is everything you do just for your personal gain? Don't you share things? Don't you gift other people presents? Don't you think others should be treated and compensated fairly?

If you think that's how all people are... that would be just sad.

Well, let me give a contrast. Imagine there was a system where everyone got a certain amount of credit every year that they could dedicate to paying creative people via sort of patreon/kickstarteresque portals (and that's all--it's not money, it's just a sort of vote to award someone money). Musicians, writers, game developers and so on. They'd all get paid from that. The amount any given creator could get per year would have a sort of soft cap, with rapidly diminishing returns past a certain point--but that point would involve a pretty solid living. But then the stuff they created would be free to all, available on public websites, steam-like portals or what have you built with open source code.
Of course this would all involve a fair amount of tax money. And might be inefficient, and so on, so it might not turn out to be a desirable setup, that's not my point.
But it would not push anyone to be greedy. The game designers could make a decent living without coming up with all kinds of tricks to boost revenue; they could just get on with making cool stuff. The "Steam" things would be public, not for profit. The public would get all the games, music, books or whatever they wanted, for free. Incentives would be very different. Our current system, for better or for worse, is based on greed, on harnessing the power of greed to (in theory) motivate productive effort. It is possible to imagine other systems based on other things, on harnessing different aspects of human motivation, but those would be different systems. Could be worse; the feudal system was largely based on pride and bloodthirstiness.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 7 Aug 2019 at 9:03 am UTC

However I wonder when will the big elephant be addressed - namely the house's cut on each sale. That thing should definetely be more open (read: reduced), as it actually does affect the consumers. Devs aren't happy with it, at all (and for good reason) and decide to sell elsewhere, which is not ideal at all for the users.

How does affect consumers? Because Greedy devs wants a bigger cut

Well, of course they're greedy. It's capitalism, everyone in the game is greedy. That's the point. Developers are greedy, portal owners are greedy whether Valve or EGS or even GoG, and we consumers all want cheaper games, we're greedy too. Everyone is, in effect, forced to be greedy.

That seems like an overly negative attitude

It's also quite an accurate summary of capitalism. You can call it the pursuit of personal gain instead of greed if you prefer. But in the end, we have to be greedy if we want to be (financially) successful in a capitalist system. That's something we should all be able to agree on, no matter our political leanings.

But calling _everybody_ greedy... that's kinda insulting. Even the less offensive "pursuit of personal gain" is hard to swollow. Is everything you do just for your personal gain? Don't you share things? Don't you gift other people presents? Don't you think others should be treated and compensated fairly?

If you think that's how all people are... that would be just sad.

Well, let me give a contrast. Imagine there was a system where everyone got a certain amount of credit every year that they could dedicate to paying creative people via sort of patreon/kickstarteresque portals (and that's all--it's not money, it's just a sort of vote to award someone money). Musicians, writers, game developers and so on. They'd all get paid from that. The amount any given creator could get per year would have a sort of soft cap, with rapidly diminishing returns past a certain point--but that point would involve a pretty solid living. But then the stuff they created would be free to all, available on public websites, steam-like portals or what have you built with open source code.
Of course this would all involve a fair amount of tax money. And might be inefficient, and so on, so it might not turn out to be a desirable setup, that's not my point.
But it would not push anyone to be greedy. The game designers could make a decent living without coming up with all kinds of tricks to boost revenue; they could just get on with making cool stuff. The "Steam" things would be public, not for profit. The public would get all the games, music, books or whatever they wanted, for free. Incentives would be very different. Our current system, for better or for worse, is based on greed, on harnessing the power of greed to (in theory) motivate productive effort. It is possible to imagine other systems based on other things, on harnessing different aspects of human motivation, but those would be different systems. Could be worse; the feudal system was largely based on pride and bloodthirstiness.

Even if that is/would be true... what makes you say that everybody is greedy? I'm not. Many others aren't.

And then again, Itch does not have regional prices, and to people in the third world like me, their prices are simply excessive, I have never spent 1 "real" (brazilian currency) there. Sometimes Steam is like 4 times cheaper than in there. So in my viewpoint, they are the greedy ones.

I'd guess that's just oversight. A bad one, but still.

Graylisting would make sense. Works with e-mail, I see no reason why it shouldn't work with other kinds of SPAM. My guess is if a publisher (or a developer but aren't publishers bit "more guilty" of this shady practice?) modifies the release date for any of their products more than X times in Y period of time the privilege of doing so will be temporarily revoked.

However I wonder when will the big elephant be addressed - namely the house's cut on each sale. That thing should definetely be more open (read: reduced), as it actually does affect the consumers. Devs aren't happy with it, at all (and for good reason) and decide to sell elsewhere, which is not ideal at all for the users.

How does affect consumers? Because Greedy devs wants a bigger cut

Well, of course they're greedy. It's capitalism, everyone in the game is greedy. That's the point. Developers are greedy, portal owners are greedy whether Valve or EGS or even GoG, and we consumers all want cheaper games, we're greedy too. Everyone is, in effect, forced to be greedy.

That seems like an overly negative attitude

It's also quite an accurate summary of capitalism. You can call it the pursuit of personal gain instead of greed if you prefer. But in the end, we have to be greedy if we want to be (financially) successful in a capitalist system. That's something we should all be able to agree on, no matter our political leanings.

"Should" all be able to agree on?? how's about we can all at least agree on definitions for words like 'greed'? that is if we're going to use them and bother trying to communicate at all. personal gain != greed. if i work for food, i want personal gain. that is not the same as greed.

" You can call it" .. tell ya what, i'll call it what's most accurate and not accusatory. sounds like a serious case of characterization. is it really honest to start making assumptions about people's motives?