Total War Saga: TROY is now a 12 month Epic Games Store exclusive

Any dev taking the epic deal goes into my blacklist. And im not buying this game in one year on Steam; i simply dont like devs that go into epic.

Fuck epic
Fuck tim sweeney
Fuck Microsoft

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: TheSHEEEPNot a huge profit margin, mind you, it might be only covering their expenses. And I do expect them to raise it somewhat, as I wrote above.

And covering your expenses is good enough?

Of course it is, while you are growing. Just look at Spotify, etc. I'm not even sure they make a profit at this point, but they sure as hell didn't initially.

Quoting: kuhpunktbut when transfer fees can be up to 15%, it's not covering costs. Sweeney himself once said it's not sustainable in certain areas. And they lose money with their sales, too.

Which is irrelevant as Epic forwards those fees to the users, encouraging them not to use services with absurdly large transfer fees.
https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/epic-games-store-faq?lang=en-US

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: TheSHEEEPYou don't see anyone complain because complaining could make you enemies you don't want to have. Also, it would be entirely pointless. What are devs gonna do, not publish on PS4 because they don't like the cut?

And that makes it less hypocritical?

Makes what less hypocritical?
Saying that Steam's cut is way larger than it needs to be? Nothing hypocritical about it, that's just the truth.
Pointing at others doing the same (or worse) is whataboutism and adds no valid points to any discussion.

Quoting: kuhpunktI'm not sure who started with the 30%, but once upon a time it was a dream for developers/publishers to get 70%. And what's so bad about them making profit? I don't think it's exploitative.

Nothing bad about it, I'm just saying that it is better for developers if that cut was lower and that the cut can absolutely be lowered while storefronts would still make a profit.

Quoting: kuhpunktAlso you didn't address the monthly fees for XBOX Live etc. that you don't have on PC.

Because they have nothing to do with anything discussed here. It's just another way for Sony, etc. to make more money to allow them to heavily subsidize their consoles to sell them at a lower price than what would otherwise make sense.

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: TheSHEEEPI've seen that argument a few times, and frankly, it is a myth.
Ever since Valve opened the floodgates and accepted every piece of garbage game on their platform without any moderation whatsoever, the number of games coming out is so huge that a developer gains pretty much nothing from the fact that they are on Steam. This is especially true for indie developers.
Valve doesn't "present" a damn thing, users have to actively wade through the masses of unmoderated games.

Tell how awesome being on Steam alone is to all the developers who didn't do their due diligence, didn't do any marketing, and as a result barely sell anything on Steam.
And if you have to do the marketing routine anyway, what exactly is so great about being "presented" on Steam, again?

What does that have to do with anything? There is too much of everything. Moderation doesn't change that. You won't notice the trash anyway, but do you complain about spotify and bandcamp, too? Everybody can upload their stuff there. There's a billion musicians. Not all of them can break through.

What that has to do with anything is that you were trying to make the point that being on Steam alone would somehow be a good thing for a developer. It is a necessary thing, or at least it used to be, but developers don't gain anything from the mere fact.
Because of the reasons I outlined. Just like simply being on Spotify doesn't do anything for musicians.

And moderation makes a lot of difference, especially strong moderation. There used to be a time when you'd actually notice an interesting new release on Steam. Now there are so many of them that you'd basically have to go through the list every day. Who wants to do that?
On GOG and EGS, there are way fewer new releases per day (sometimes, there might not even be one in a day!), so those do get noticed simply by the fact that they got released.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 3 June 2020 at 10:12 am UTC

Quoting: GuestPersonally i think 30% is perfectly fine for AAA devs. I however think that Steam [and other Stores] could lower that Cut for Indie devs.

Funny enough, it is actually the other way around.

Edit:
There's this, which strongly favors AAA to begin with, I just remembered it as AAA devs getting a better cut to begin with (not that the end result is that much different):
https://www.pcgamer.com/valves-new-revenue-sharing-favours-big-budget-games-and-indie-devs-arent-happy/


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 3 June 2020 at 10:23 am UTC

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: GuestPersonally i think 30% is perfectly fine for AAA devs. I however think that Steam [and other Stores] could lower that Cut for Indie devs.

Funny enough, it is actually the other way around. AAA devs regularly negotiate a lower cut with Valve. Which in itself actually proves the cut Valve usually takes is higher than it needs to be.
Indies don't have that kind of power to negotiate with, unfortunately.

There's also this, which strongly favors AAA to begin with:
https://www.pcgamer.com/valves-new-revenue-sharing-favours-big-budget-games-and-indie-devs-arent-happy/

Hah interesting, didnt know that. Well that sucks of course. Should definitly be the other way around.

It should be, but this is all about money. Steam don't really want to encourage more indies - they want to stop AAA's going elsewhere. Indies definitely get a rough deal with Steam and I don't blame any indie that takes an Epic deal. But I'll happily blacklist any AAA dev/pub that does so.

Quoting: scaineIt should be, but this is all about money.

It is, but not really for the reasons you're thinking of. A tiny indie developer benefits more than a massive AAA developer does from all the infrastructure that Steam provides. A big multiplat release is going to have their own matchmaking, their own support chain, their own marketing, their own forums, and so on, outside of Steam, so there's less of a value proposition for Valve's cut than is the case for the indie, and supporting a million players in one container is cheaper for Valve than a thousand containers with a thousand players in, so there's scope to lower the rates.

Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoBut if Feral has the publishing rights for MAC and Linux, they can publish it anyway. Only the Windows version will be Epic Store exclusive.

That crossed my mind too, but I doubt if it's the case. As I understand it, Feral's essentially in the same position as the original developer; the publisher is still Sega.

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: scaineIt should be, but this is all about money.

It is, but not really for the reasons you're thinking of. A tiny indie developer benefits more than a massive AAA developer does from all the infrastructure that Steam provides. A big multiplat release is going to have their own matchmaking, their own support chain, their own marketing, their own forums, and so on, outside of Steam, so there's less of a value proposition for Valve's cut than is the case for the indie, and supporting a million players in one container is cheaper for Valve than a thousand containers with a thousand players in, so there's scope to lower the rates.

I don't doubt any of that, but I don't believe that any of it's relevant to Valve's decision to reduce their cut to AAA. They did so, I believe, to prevent those big players jumping ship to Epic. Which was my point (poorly stated) - it's all about money. Specifically, in this case, Valve keeping as much of it as possible.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPOf course it is, while you are growing. Just look at Spotify, etc. I'm not even sure they make a profit at this point, but they sure as hell didn't initially.

If there's no profit, it's hard to innovate.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPWhich is irrelevant as Epic forwards those fees to the users, encouraging them not to use services with absurdly large transfer fees.
https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/epic-games-store-faq?lang=en-US

It's not irrelevant.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPMakes what less hypocritical?
Saying that Steam's cut is way larger than it needs to be? Nothing hypocritical about it, that's just the truth.
Pointing at others doing the same (or worse) is whataboutism and adds no valid points to any discussion.

It's not whataboutism when it's the same exact issue. The head of Ubisoft complained that Valve's cut isn't "modern enough" or whatever he said, while he still pays the same cut to other companies. That's hypocritical.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPNothing bad about it, I'm just saying that it is better for developers if that cut was lower and that the cut can absolutely be lowered while storefronts would still make a profit.

Yeah and I asked you if you have the numbers - you don't. You suggested 10-20, without knowing whether it would cover costs.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPBecause they have nothing to do with anything discussed here. It's just another way for Sony, etc. to make more money to allow them to heavily subsidize their consoles to sell them at a lower price than what would otherwise make sense.

Oh, it's now just another way to make money... got it.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPAnd moderation makes a lot of difference, especially strong moderation. There used to be a time when you'd actually notice an interesting new release on Steam. Now there are so many of them that you'd basically have to go through the list every day. Who wants to do that?
On GOG and EGS, there are way fewer new releases per day (sometimes, there might not even be one in a day!), so those do get noticed simply by the fact that they got released.

You think devs will say the same thing about Epic in 10 years?

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: GuestPersonally i think 30% is perfectly fine for AAA devs. I however think that Steam [and other Stores] could lower that Cut for Indie devs.

Funny enough, it is actually the other way around.

Edit:
There's this, which strongly favors AAA to begin with, I just remembered it as AAA devs getting a better cut to begin with (not that the end result is that much different):
https://www.pcgamer.com/valves-new-revenue-sharing-favours-big-budget-games-and-indie-devs-arent-happy/

Now you're just outright lying.

Being AAA has nothing to do with it. It just needs to sell well.

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: GuestPersonally i think 30% is perfectly fine for AAA devs. I however think that Steam [and other Stores] could lower that Cut for Indie devs.

Funny enough, it is actually the other way around.

Edit:
There's this, which strongly favors AAA to begin with, I just remembered it as AAA devs getting a better cut to begin with (not that the end result is that much different):
https://www.pcgamer.com/valves-new-revenue-sharing-favours-big-budget-games-and-indie-devs-arent-happy/

And also it is worth mention that publishers are allowed to generate keys to sell as retail and that Valve will not see a coin from that (and depending the game you can also consider some revenue that they game from Steam market). But when you do that you also have to take in account all the associated fraud issues.

Anyway, when we have to talk about Epic advantages we always end up talking about publisher revenue advantages but never about enduser store features. So, at some point I'm not sure if I'm talking with people that like to play games or game companies shareholders...