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

As I said before. If Valve takes only a 5% cut when a game has a Linux version, keeping the current 30% cut if the game is Windows only, We gonna have a lot of AAA games for Linux.

The 30% is only for game bought on steam. Valve gives dev key generator so they can sell how much keys they want without the need to pay a cut to Valve.

Quoting: amataiThe 30% is only for game bought on steam. Valve gives dev key generator so they can sell how much keys they want without the need to pay a cut to Valve.

It's true also that to sell those keys you have to pay for a variety of infrastructure and services unless you want to drown in frauds. I came to realize that for small indies generating steam keys (outside the free ones for press and PR) can often result being a bad idea. Sometimes even when they sell those on sanctioned stores (see g2a controversy). But then they'll have to pay a cut anyway so...

Ofc none of this is Valve fault. Just nothing that choosing to renounce some of their services to save some bucks still mean that you have to pay to build those services or pay someone to provide them to you in their place.


Last edited by Mal on 3 June 2020 at 4:49 pm UTC

Quoting: Mal

Quoting: amataiThe 30% is only for game bought on steam. Valve gives dev key generator so they can sell how much keys they want without the need to pay a cut to Valve.

It's true also that to sell those keys you have to pay for a variety of infrastructure and services unless you want to drown in frauds. I came to realize that for small indies generating steam keys (outside the free ones for press and PR) can often result being a bad idea. Sometimes even when they sell those on sanctioned stores (see g2a controversy). But then they'll have to pay a cut anyway so...

Ofc none of this is Valve fault. Just nothing that choosing to renounce some of their services to save some bucks still mean that you have to pay to build those services or pay someone to provide them to you in their place.

Your answer is hyperbole in an effort to dismiss a valid claim. How does a studio generating its own keys suffer from fraud? Do you have any proof of that? What are the additional costs for self-hosting keygen?

A studio may suffer from stolen credit card fraud, but there is no inherent massive cost to hosting your own keygen. Many studios do offer keys through their own site and they don't have to pay the 30%. Authorized reseller sites also don't suffer from keygen fraud (again credit card, but not keygen).

I really need to see proof of your claims because they don't sound grounded in reality at all.

That's not what I’m reading from Mal’s post at all. They’re saying that even if you get the Steam keys for free, there is a cost to then distribute and control those keys outside of Steam. Meaning that you may be better off just selling them on Steam and letting Valve take their cut if you don’t have the infrastructure in place to handle this easily.

Why not sell these Steam keys on the Epic store then? :D
Don't answer to that, just being sarcastic.

Quoting: randyl

Quoting: Mal

Quoting: amataiThe 30% is only for game bought on steam. Valve gives dev key generator so they can sell how much keys they want without the need to pay a cut to Valve.

It's true also that to sell those keys you have to pay for a variety of infrastructure and services unless you want to drown in frauds. I came to realize that for small indies generating steam keys (outside the free ones for press and PR) can often result being a bad idea. Sometimes even when they sell those on sanctioned stores (see g2a controversy). But then they'll have to pay a cut anyway so...

Ofc none of this is Valve fault. Just nothing that choosing to renounce some of their services to save some bucks still mean that you have to pay to build those services or pay someone to provide them to you in their place.

Your answer is hyperbole in an effort to dismiss a valid claim. How does a studio generating its own keys suffer from fraud? Do you have any proof of that? What are the additional costs for self-hosting keygen?

A studio may suffer from stolen credit card fraud, but there is no inherent massive cost to hosting your own keygen. Many studios do offer keys through their own site and they don't have to pay the 30%. Authorized reseller sites also don't suffer from keygen fraud (again credit card, but not keygen).

I really need to see proof of your claims because they don't sound grounded in reality at all.

Quoting: SalvatosThat's not what I’m reading from Mal’s post at all. They’re saying that even if you get the Steam keys for free, there is a cost to then distribute and control those keys outside of Steam. Meaning that you may be better off just selling them on Steam and letting Valve take their cut if you don’t have the infrastructure in place to handle this easily.

Yeah, basically what Salvatos said. I wasn't trying to dismantle any argument. I'm very much pro Valve (or better, firmly anti EGS). But saying that if you sell steam stuff outside steam you get 100% profit is inexact because of what Salvatos said better then me: selling those keys safely has a cost.

Besides, I got this idea from Factorio dev diaries, where in these long years they enumerated a good amount of exploits and issues they faced with the steam keys they distributed outside steam (again, is not steam fault. It's credit card circuits fault, but regulate those is not in the agenda of any world institution so people can only cope with their shit). Eventually they found a solution they are satisfied with. But to arrive there they paid a cost both in terms of damages along the way and man hours invested to figure them out. Which not all indies may be ready or willing to face.

Quoting: MohandevirWhy not sell these Steam keys on the Epic store then? :D
Don't answer to that, just being sarcastic.

Your joke brings up a great point though. Why aren't game and media purchases recognized across store fronts, especially for service oriented games? The ecosystem is currently very user hostile and pro-publisher/distributor. If we buy a game from a publisher it should be considered 'valid and purchased' across many store fronts. If anything that will truly drive consumer prices down and provide incentive for distributors to make better deals with studios and publishers.

Quoting: randyl

Quoting: MohandevirWhy not sell these Steam keys on the Epic store then? :D
Don't answer to that, just being sarcastic.

Your joke brings up a great point though. Why aren't game and media purchases recognized across store fronts, especially for service oriented games? The ecosystem is currently very user hostile and pro-publisher/distributor. If we buy a game from a publisher it should be considered 'valid and purchased' across many store fronts. If anything that will truly drive consumer prices down and provide incentive for distributors to make better deals with studios and publishers.

EGS does not allow it, at least for exclusive games. Steam only supports steam keys for games that are also sold on steam itself (which is a very reasonable limitation.... Though I remember Tim Sweeney calling them out for that once :D). In theory though nothing forbids to get a key on EGS, register it on publishers site and then obtain a steam key. Ofc it requires support from publishers.

But honestly I hope it never happens, at least for games that have been timed EGS exclusives. It's pretty obvious that if you could have done that for games like Metro Exodus then everybody would have bought on EGS, played there with all the hassles for one year but then obtained a feature complete copy on Steam after a year (proof: see g2a prices for metro keys. EGS ones became worthless once steam one appeared). That would be a clear abuse of Steam good faith: EGS would get the profits and Steam the costs. Valve would necessarily have to put some restrictions on Steam keys and that would be no good for anybody.

Quoting: Phlebiac

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.

As I recall, Feral does release their games on the Apple Store, and presumably they could also list the Mac version in the Epic Store (whether they do or not will be interesting to see). So it's just the Linux version getting shut out, unless Feral decides to sell it elsewhere. Wouldn't that be something if you could buy it on the Feral site and get a Steam key, even though the Windows version wasn't there? ;)

https://twitter.com/feralgames/status/1292827642526408706