Valve COO on Epic's Tim Sweeney "you mad bro?" when launching the Epic Store

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

That's what I mean! Selling games that are free from DRM is a compelling feature! And in fact, I have spent money in GoG's store. I haven't bought a single game in EGS.

That's what I mean! Selling games that are free from DRM is a compelling feature! And in fact, I have spent money in GoG's store. I haven't bought a single game in EGS.

Agree. I have purchased games on Steam, gifted copies to friends and family on Steam of the same game and bought the same game on GOG simply because it's DRM-free.

I'm not even sure if I really see GOG as a competitor since they are selling a different thing.

I hope to see GOG grow, but as good as Minigalaxy (3rd party app) is, I would really like to see a official storefront someday. I can forgive those flaws for now since they are in a class of 1.

Sweeney is correct. Valve's cut was (and is, to a slightly lesser extent) quite greedy

Quite the opposite actually. Madbro literally proved to the world that 30% is the right cut. He has shown with his own very feats that it is not possible to offer a better service than Steam with a lower cut. At this point any smart developer should rally behind Valve. In a PC market dominated by EGS the only way to prevent people from returning to the high seas is to hand out games for free. And even then it's arguable that in between the two options EGS is where the better customer experience is.

Quite the opposite actually. Madbro literally proved to the world that 30% is the right cut. He has shown with his own very feats that it is not possible to offer a better service than Steam with a lower cut. At this point any smart developer should rally behind Valve.

I disagree. Steam has shown that it IS possible to offer a better service while taking a smaller cut, since that's absolutely what they did themselves!

Wasn't there other emails where Sweeney asked Apple for special treatment in regards to their store and with "hope" it would trickle down to other developers too? And Apple told him to get lost hence the lawsuit?

Proton-GE has fixes in it to apply to EGS. EGS is only usable on linux because of Valve (and Mr Eggroll, but either way, not Epic themselves).

Well, actually Epic Game Store is "officially" supported in Lutris

Even Epic made an important donation to Lutris in 2019

Madbro literally proved to the world that 30% is the right cut. He has shown with his own very feats that it is not possible to offer a better service than Steam with a lower cut. At this point any smart developer should rally behind Valve. In a PC market dominated by EGS the only way to prevent people from returning to the high seas is to hand out games for free.

Two Great Points, to distill them into other words:

A. The Market has decided that 30% is acceptable for the value exchanged.

B. Piracy is a Service Problem, and EGS can only compete with "The High Seas" by trying to give away games for free.

--

I legit think that there are entities that are just mad that Valve is not a public traded company and can't be easily corrupted or remotely influenced/controlled.

We learned this week from Sweet Baby Inc being kicked off Steam for extortion and subsequent GlowFeds going after Valve for it that there are powers who are angry and want to dictate what games you get to play. I wouldn't mid a article or two sourcing these events in a factual fashion.

I apologize in advance for the snark.....and the rant....

"30% is too much!"

So don't put your games on Steam.

"But our games don't sell off Steam!"

Gee, I wonder why?

This has to be one of the most brain-dead arguments I've ever heard. No, Valve doesn't have to take 30%. They could take 10% if they wanted. Or 90%. Or anything in between. It is the most basic economics. They take what the market will bear. If 30% was too much, they would be forced to lower it just to compete. If it was too little they would have either been ran over by a more expensive, and more feature rich, competitor, or gone bankrupt. Likewise, if they took 30% but didn't reinvest it into their product, they wouldn't be where they are now. It isn't black magic, corporate fascism, nostalgia, market dominance, or any other bunk explanation for why Steam is the absolute king of PC gaming. Make what people want. Value what you create and strive to make it better. Pride, gluttony, and greed aren't what destroy you, it is the lack of the corresponding virtues, humility, temperance, and generosity. Yes, Valve is greedy. They have also done more for gaming than any other company in the last 10-20 years.

Sweeney is correct. Valve's cut was (and is, to a slightly lesser extent) quite greedy

Quite the opposite actually. Madbro literally proved to the world that 30% is the right cut. He has shown with his own very feats that it is not possible to offer a better service than Steam with a lower cut.

Ehhh, Sweeney just proved that he can't or won't do it. That doesn't make it impossible, since my impression is that he is neither competent nor motivated. In theory, somebody with competence and motivation (and a stack of money) could offer a good service with a lower cut. It just ain't gonna be Sweeney.

...

My God man, people can only handle so much truth. You're scaring the children.

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.

So his first argument is that Valve is making more money from the games that sell really well than the publisher themselves.

Valve almost immediately reduces their cut of games that sell really well:

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.

And then Tim Sweeney complains about Valve not doing it for everyone and only the big publishers benefit (that isn't necessarily true; small developers occasionally ship hits).

If Valve reduced their cut for everyone, what would his next argument be?

I'm trying to take Tim Sweeney's side here because it's true that Valve has a near-monopoly on PC games (I wish they had a monopoly on Japanese VNs too) and monopoly power should not exist, but these arguments don't seem to be coming from a place where I can assume good faith.

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.

So his first argument is that Valve is making more money from the games that sell really well than the publisher themselves.

Valve almost immediately reduces their cut of games that sell really well:

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.

And then Tim Sweeney complains about Valve not doing it for everyone and only the big publishers benefit (that isn't necessarily true; small developers occasionally ship hits).

If Valve reduced their cut for everyone, what would his next argument be?

I'm trying to take Tim Sweeney's side here because it's true that Valve has a near-monopoly on PC games (I wish they had a monopoly on Japanese VNs too) and monopoly power should not exist, but these arguments don't seem to be coming from a place where I can assume good faith.

What I find even more absurd is that it to me sounds like he actually is quite ok with Valve taking 30% but is having more of a problem with Apple doing it and wants Valve to lower their commission to thus somehow force Apple to lower theirs as well.

Also not sure how Valve who gets 30% could make more money than the devs that gets the remaining 70% as he claims (and even if we include the typical publisher who:s average cut is 10%-20%, the devs should still get > 30%).

from reddit: actually, if you look closely, it appears it was an internal joke - Scott didn't send it to Tim - in fact, Tim only sent the "you assholes" email to Gabe and Erik. Erik then forwarded it to Scott. and then Scott replied internally "you mad bro?"

Maybe if Epic put more effort into their store to be feature parity with Valve's, they get less flak. Such as all the features like proton and other platform support, some modding features or workshop...

There is a lot they can do, but for some reason Epic thinks doing the bare minimal will convince people to switch from Steam... odd

It also demonstrates that throwing lots of cash at it is not enough.

So You Want To Compete With Steam?

Also not sure how Valve who gets 30% could make more money than the devs that gets the remaining 70% as he claims (and even if we include the typical publisher who:s average cut is 10%-20%, the devs should still get > 30%).

His claim isn't about revenue, but about profit: specifically, that for "most" of the 26 - 1,025 top selling games, (30% - taxes - cost of doing Steam things) is greater than (70% - publisher cut - taxes - cost of doing game-making things). Which is still a pretty incoherent claim (it makes zero difference to anything whether the claim is true or whether the claim is false), and Valve don't take 30% off the biggest games any more anyway.

Sweeney is correct. Valve's cut was (and is, to a slightly lesser extent) quite greedy and their immature trolling does make them assholes.

Do you have the numbers? And what immature trolling?

Valve COO on Epic's Tim Sweeney "you mad bro?"

This is the quality jouralism I come here for 😂

Quite the opposite actually. Madbro literally proved to the world that 30% is the right cut. He has shown with his own very feats that it is not possible to offer a better service than Steam with a lower cut. At this point any smart developer should rally behind Valve.

I disagree. Steam has shown that it IS possible to offer a better service while taking a smaller cut, since that's absolutely what they did themselves!

Lower margins? Sure. But a world where 2 platforms compete over users with features and quality of service... and remain profitable enough? Madbro didn't even try it. And not just becuase doing so with less than 30% would have been close to impossible (Steam is not a just a mere client, the client is just what unaware gamers see and every open source community can put together one comparable or better) but because even then in a world with Steam and a -non retarded- EGS, with a lot of investments in features and improvements to remain on top of your rival, the actual margins left for Valve and Epic would have made the entire operation pointless for Epic.

He's maybe a cunt, for sure toward PC gamers, but he is not a fool. He tried to change the paradigm and aimed to build a new walled garden monopoly on PC from which to extract levies, with an alliance of convenience with large and greedy publishers. The Apple model. Which he failed to thanks for (and to) us.
But he never tried to do better than, or comparable to, Steam and to compete. He didn't even try to offer a subpar service while slashing game prices to offer an alternative package to gamers. He didn't because he clearly made the math and knows it's not feaseable while keeping good margins. And if even he can't do it (again, he's not a fool, but a competent developer and businessman), nobody else today can. Maybe in 10 years from now with new tech. But not today.

Chapeau to him for having put the money where his mouth is though. And PC gamers for having shown that they are not gullible idiots like consumers in other markets tipically are.


Last edited by Mal on 15 March 2024 at 3:38 pm UTC

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.

So his first argument is that Valve is making more money from the games that sell really well than the publisher themselves.

Valve almost immediately reduces their cut of games that sell really well:

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.

And then Tim Sweeney complains about Valve not doing it for everyone and only the big publishers benefit (that isn't necessarily true; small developers occasionally ship hits).

If Valve reduced their cut for everyone, what would his next argument be?

I'm trying to take Tim Sweeney's side here because it's true that Valve has a near-monopoly on PC games (I wish they had a monopoly on Japanese VNs too) and monopoly power should not exist, but these arguments don't seem to be coming from a place where I can assume good faith.

What I find even more absurd is that it to me sounds like he actually is quite ok with Valve taking 30% but is having more of a problem with Apple doing it and wants Valve to lower their commission to thus somehow force Apple to lower theirs as well.

I could probably make an argument that Valve does deserve 30% but Apple do not. After all, one thing that's been pointed out repeatedly in this thread is that Valve does a lot more than be a store--they got all these features, community, support for modding, yadda yadda, and the claim many of us have made is that it's this extra stuff that makes Valve worth the 30%. I don't think Apple does any of that stuff, so it would follow they're not worth the 30%.