In the ongoing saga of the Wolfire versus Valve lawsuit, which is continuing, we've been able to see a funny little look behind the curtain and Tim Sweeney was not happy with Valve.
Thanks to the work from Simon Carless of GameDiscoverCo which has a great round-up of what's going on (definitely worth a read for some backstory here), we've managed to see some emails between Epic's Tim Sweeney to Valve's Gabe Newell and Scott Lynch.
Back in 2017 an email from Newell to Sweeney asked "Anything we doing to annoy you? We’re guessing Sean Jenkins public dumbness might be part of it.", which is in reference to a leaked post where a Valve's Jenkins talked about restricting Steam keys. Sweeney replied to mention they've "never heard of Sean Jenkins" and then goes off talking about the 30% platform fee Valve charges and how it's "no longer justifiable" but there was a "good case for them in the early days" but due to scale costs "have been driven down".
Sweeney's point here is that Valve make a lot of money from that 30% cut and goes on to say "If you subtract out the top 25 games on Steam, I bet Valve made more profit from most of the next 1000 than the developer themselves made" and complains that when you add together Valve's cut, marketing and so on that the cut for developers is small.
After that we don't see anything until November 2018 in the documents where Sweeney emailed Newell again and also Valve's Erik Johnson, notifying Valve about the plans to announce the Epic Games Store with their lower cut of sales from developers. Sweeney also mentions here about their issues with Apple, and how Sweeney wants Apple to open up, and hopes that Valve would make a "timely move" to change their rates taken from developers. Sweeney also notes the opposite, hoping Valve don't have any "unannounced revenue-sharing changes that favored big publishers over indies" as it would basically tell the likes of Apple that they "can keep their closed platforms and just pay off big publishers to stay silent".
It was only a few days later (quite cheekily then), that Valve suddenly publicly announced their plan to reduce their take for the top-selling Steam games. Naturally, this annoyed Sweeney rather a lot, as the next email confirmed the Epic Games Store announcement was going live the next day and Sweeney says to Valve "Right now, you assholes are telling the world that the strong and powerful get special terms, while 30% is for the little people. We're all in for a prolonged battle if Apple tries to keep their monopoly and 30% by cutting backroom deals with big publishers to keep them quiet. Why not give ALL developers a better deal? What better way is there to convince Apple quickly that their model is now totally untenable?".
The only reply to this we can see was from Valve COO (Chief Operating Officer) Scott Lynch sent internally at Valve to Johnson and Newell that simply says "You mad bro?".
You can only imagine how truly mad Sweeney would be if they saw that with Valve just basically laughing it off completely. Well, Sweeney can see it now.
As we know from Valve when they released their 2023 yearly report, they're continuing to print money and repeatedly break user records and so the Epic Games Store hasn't seemingly made much of a dent at all. While Epic Games continue to try to pull developers over to their store with various exclusivity deals and constant weekly free games.
Update note: Clarified the "You mad bro?" email was internal at Valve, not to Sweeney directly.
Last edited by BTRE on 14 March 2024 at 3:51 pm UTC
There's a whole other suite of things Steam provides (forums, guides, mod support, screenshot storage, cross-device save syncing) on top of "Im able to play games on linux AT ALL because of Valve". 30% might be a bit much for a store. But it isn't necessarily too much for a store + community platform combo.
Plus there are the added benefits of increased visibility, ease of use, and additional sales. Games like Diablo 4 and Guild Wars 2 didn't go to Steam after their release to lose money. Those are games that already have their own launchers and don't need Valve. They wound up on steam because even with a 30% cut taken out, it was still worth it for the increase in sales.
EGS didn't even have a shopping cart for a year. It's not even a good storefront, much less a community platform/game manager.
edit: and meanwhile, Fortnite money is paying for exclusivity and making it harder for me to play games. Tim Sweeney has always been concerned about the DEVELOPER experience (eg, getting paid) and not at all for the CONSUMER experience. Steam improves consumer experience and charges the devs for it, EGS stifles consumer experience, but hey, the devs get a few more dollars.
Last edited by bisbyx on 14 March 2024 at 3:51 pm UTC
Epic did release EOS linux support but their fault for not adding linux support with old version of easy anti-cheat
When epic touches anything, they tend to turn into cash shop and micro transaction.
Also the store isn't incredible, steam has more stuff if you turn off NSFW games
There's a whole other suite of things Steam provides (forums, guides, mod support, screenshot storage, cross-device save syncing) on top of "Im able to play games on linux AT ALL because of Valve". 30% might be a bit much for a store. But it isn't necessarily too much for a store + community platform combo.And don't forget all of the hardware R&D and production, which is also funded by that cut.
EGS didn't even have a shopping cart for a year.It's worse than that. It took Epic three years to implement it.
Last edited by williamjcm on 14 March 2024 at 4:15 pm UTC
Had to look up what the wolfire was. Weird one. The claim still seems to contradict itself.
Update note: Clarified the "You mad bro?" email was internal at Valve, not to Sweeney directly.Man how do I (and probably everyone else) wish that he would've actually sent it to that prick Tim Sweeney. I mean, he did call them assholes and all. So not really inappropriate at that point. XD
However
I discovered there was a sequel that is only available on the epic games store. So went to steam forum for 1st game to find out when its coming to steam only to discover its never coming to steam.
This is why I have NEVER ever used epic store and to this day REFUSE to use their store.
Valve gave us great games, hardware and linux support. Epic has offered nothing but paid exclusives and a closed ecosystem. Tim Sweeney is a hypocrite.
Last edited by finaldest on 14 March 2024 at 6:28 pm UTC
Epic Games [...] was valued at just $660 million when Tencent purchased a 48% stake in the company in 2012. - Forbes
Sweeney is just a talking head for Tencent aka CCP (China).
He gets into it with Apple.
He gets into it with Valve.
Over what? Money.
Money Money Money.
China is mad Western Stores charge so much.
The best part of Tim Sweeney's confession through Projection & Seething Jealousy and Envy is the contempt he has for customers when he does these dirty deals -- buying Rocket League and stealing the purchases of Valve Gamers.
Dirty Deals with Square Enix to make Kingdom Hearts III, Final Fantasy VII a Epic Games Exclusive.
They literally can't compete so what do they do? [1] Do Underhanded deals [2] Lawfare and Sneaking [3] Shit-talk and Slander their competitors to anyone who will listen.
Just like a politician, they make bold bullshit promises and never deliver diverting your attention and blame because [1] they have contempt for you and [2] they think you're stupid.
if Tim Sweeney wants more people to use the Epic Games Launcher they are going to need to spend money to improve the client a lot and the epic exclusive's just makes me not want to spend money on the Epic Games Launcher
imho i do not have a problem with Valve's 30% cut
As a customer, they bend over backwards to appease us, they have had a Linux Client for over a decade, they have an entire Steam Community for social, they have Forums, Fun Sales where you collect points and win stickers and prizes, you are allowed to repair your purchases, I've literally downloaded terabytes of bandwidth from their servers.
As I look around, Entry level servers cost what $5,000 - $20,000? Imagine the sheer cost of having to maintain a fleet of up to date servers, fiber optic back-end, and a fleet of administrators and programmers ready to server the customers.
Valve has earned my respect. Nintendo and other inferior gaming companies have NOT. May my dollars going to Valve and good companies make them super jealous and go out of business like a free market should function.
I'm tired of failure being subsidized and companies serving wallstreet and not customers.
Where Sweeney is wrong is his thinking that all gamers want or need is a platform to buy, download, and update games from. I really wanted to see some competition in the space, but EGS's execution just plain doesn't cut it. There's not a single compelling reason to use it over Steam, but on the contrary lacks many features that Steam has accumulated over the years. I don't even like Steam particularly!
But once you factor in the Linux experience, it's a no-brainer. Epic has been extremely hostile to Linux. Their purchase of Psyonix/Rocket League is still fresh in my mind, where they abruptly ended Linux native builds. There was no need. So much for looking out for the little guy.
Sweeney can whine about the Valve tax all day. But if a game I wanted came out on both Steam and EGS, and the price on Steam was 30% more, I know which one I'd buy.
Valve has earned my respect. Nintendo and other inferior gaming companies have NOT. May my dollars going to Valve and good companies make them super jealous and go out of business like a free market should function.
I feel the same way as you when it comes to supporting Valve and I hope they continue to do the good work of making games work great on Linux/Steam Deck.
Where Sweeney is wrong is his thinking that all gamers want or need is a platform to buy, download, and update games from. I really wanted to see some competition in the space, but EGS's execution just plain doesn't cut it. There's not a single compelling reason to use it over Steam, but on the contrary lacks many features that Steam has accumulated over the years. I don't even like Steam particularly!
If only GOG had the same amount of games that Steam has would there be good competition. Too bad they have a fraction of the Steam library of games but their DRM-free feature is pretty nice though
Last edited by ToddL on 14 March 2024 at 8:01 pm UTC
[...] Their purchase of Psyonix/Rocket League is still fresh in my mind, where they abruptly ended Linux native builds. There was no need. So much for looking out for the little guy.
Regarding Rocket League, as I recall -- Epic LITERALLY _P_R_O_M_I_S_E_D_ 'Nothing was going to change' when they bought it too.
Insult to injury.
The saying comes to mind "Talk softly and carry a big stick" (that's Gabe Newell) vs "Talk loud and carry a twig" (that's Tim Sweeney)
Last edited by ElectricPrism on 14 March 2024 at 7:59 pm UTC
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