If I’m honest, I don’t disagree.

I would love for Steam to have **actual competition. Which is difficult, sure, but you could run a slightly less feature-rich store, take less of a cut, and pass the reduction fully on to consumers and you’d be an easy choice for many gamers.

But that’s not what Epic is after. They tried to go hard after the sellers, figuring that if they can corner enough fo the market with exclusives the buyers will have to come. But they underestimated that even their nigh-infinite coffers struggle to keep up with the raw amount of games releasing, and also the unpredictability of the indie market where you can’t really know what to buy as an exclusive.
Nevermind that buying one is a good way to make it forgotten.

So yeah, fully agreed. Compared to Epic, I vastly prefer Steam’s 30% cut. As the consumer I pay the same anyways, and Steam offers lots of stuff for it like forums, a client that boots before the heat death of the universe, in-house streaming, library sharing, cloud sync that sometimes works.

  • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    valve might be the closest thing i have ever seen to an actual benevolent dictator, even if said dictator is very lazy and only deigns to do anything significant once in a while.

    • hh93@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      That’s because you are not in a position to produce and sell a game.

      As a user it sure is the case but as a developer you are in a position that you either have to take their 30% cut or accept that you are selling way less

      The fact that pretty much immediately after epic launched their store steam lowered the cut for big publishers tells you that they are fully aware that 30% is too much to be reasonable but they completely could get away with that because Devs just didn’t have a choice.

      Because of epic that now changed since even if you don’t actually sell more games you at least can get a guaranteed profit as if you sold those games that you miss out on by not being on steam.

      Sure the way epic is doing it is not good but I really don’t see another way how a significant number of buyers would ever come to another store. That didn’t work for EA, that didn’t work for Ubisoft, that also didn’t work for GOG where you actually own the game without DRM and not just a license to play it as long as the server is allowing you.

      People are fundamentally lazy and hate changing their routines - that’s why forcing them into buying at your store is necessary if you want to get them to switch.

      • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I think you got the whole thing mixed up. Sure Valve takes a huge cut, but if game does poorly Valve earns less as well. So there’s an incentive from both parties to make sure game succeeds. But in the end Valve makes sure you as a consumer get your money’s worth, hence why they even added no questions asked refund policy. Policy which has resulted in more purchases than before, because risk of not liking the game is non-existent now.

        Epic on the other hand is forcing users to buy into their ecosystem by way of exclusives. Developers use this to make sure project succeeds even if it’s not good. That is to say they get the money regardless. But this model is not sustainable as Epic has to earn money at some point so number of exclusives will be lower and lower. At the same time they are encouraging developers to not try as hard to polish the game since they get the money regardless.

        Fundamentally approaches are completely different and Steam’s approach can’t fail because they cater to customer while Epic is just trying to force people away while offering subpar service. And whoever holds the money holds the power.

  • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Epic only has a lower cut because they’re leveraging their undoubtedly massive Chinese investments to gain market share. You can rest assured they would charge 30% if they could.

    I don’t like that Steam or Apple or Google charge 30%. I think it’s absurd. But also Valve is basically a saint compared to every modern corporation so I don’t think twice about it.

    • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      While 30% is high it seems developers consider it acceptable since number of games Steam releases is not reducing. Any one of those developers can decide not to publish on steam and go that way, but in the end I think Valve’s service offers so much exposure that it’s worth considering.

      Getting 100% of 1000 sales is not the same amount of money as getting 70% of 30000 sales, especially when it’s a digital distribution where copying bytes costs nothing. Steam also offers bunch of other services as well, things like networking, cloud saves, streaming and similar all of which cost money to maintain.

      • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        While 30% is high it seems developers consider it acceptable since number of games Steam releases is not reducing.

        Yeah that’s not how that works. Acceptable or not, if you want to sell your games, they have to be on Steam because that’s where people are buying them.

  • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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    1 year ago

    You know you made a really interesting point that they marketed to the sellers not the ultimate customers. I hadn’t really picked up on that before, but it does mitigate what should be a healthy dose of competition by altering the target audience a bit.

    • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s what I always said, why use Epic store? As a user you get worse treatment. Sure price is the same or they give you some discount but number of services offered is far from being on par with Steam. No family sharing, no refund policy, no cloud saves, no networking system, no streaming, no card collecting, no steam play. I might not use or desire all of those but some people do.

      The fact Epic had to resort to extremes like timed exclusives just meant I dropped those developers off of my list of wanted games as it only went to show they are willing to sacrifice your inconvenience and happiness for some extra money. For them it was probably making sure project succeeds but in the end I don’t care about them if they don’t care about me.

      • CaptainAniki@lemmy.flight-crew.org
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        1 year ago

        This exactly. As gaming gets worse, I just play less games and spend less money in the industry. I pretty much only play indy games on my Switch. I just cannot put up with how much crap is in modern gaming.

        • Smokeydope@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I loved my switch at the beginning in 2017 but it being nintendcucked ruined it for me. Terrible sales/overpriced games, also I refuse to pay just to have multiplayer and their half assed emulators. Steam deck is a godsend, someday ill work up the courage to eat the 600$ on one or wait until steam deck 2/pro/ultra/the deckening

      • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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        1 year ago

        I’m pretty sure they have the same refund policy as steam. They also do have a networking system (which I think even has interop with steam – the Bigfoot game tried to use it but it was very unpopular since it required steam gamers to link an epic account but it exists).

        Also pretty sure there are cloud saves but less confident on that one.

        And yeah, steam streaming and card collecting aren’t really all that important to me in particular, but I get that some people really like them.

    • hh93@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I mean that’s the same side that steam is using their monopoly for, too

      For the users it’s definitely the most relaxed option - but as a developer if you choose to not put up with steams 30% rule you are fucked.

      The fact that pretty much immediately after epic gained traction steam announced cheaper rates for bigger publishers tells you that they definitely are aware of how 30% is too much

      Personally that’s why I buy all my games on gog if possible even though I have a Steamdeck and that makes stuff more complicated.

      People denying steam has a monopoly are probably also denying other fundamental truths that would imply that they had to change their lifestyle (climate change anyone?)

      • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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        1 year ago

        I don’t really think it is. Steam hasn’t really tried that hard to get developers to use their platform because their users already demand their platform. They’ve made concessions on their preferred way in a handful of cases with very large gaming companies like Activision.

      • systemglitch@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I regret gog purchases now that I own a steam deck. I don’t see gog directly getting my money if I can get it on steam anymore.

  • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I get like 99% of my news about upcoming or newly released games from steam. There have been so many games I’m not even aware exist, like last week I found out Saints Row got a new game a while back but it was epic exclusive so I never knew.

    Also being a Linux gamer steam has amazing support for Linux while epic has none.

    • Lesrid@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Friends are shocked to hear Kingdom Hearts is on PC. But it’s Epic exclusive.

  • Smokeydope@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Epic is on a decline, never forget what they did to unreal. Also I really like when devs give the option to buy on itch.io and get a steam key with the drm free version. They get more money per sale and I get a drm free version and a steam version in one. Zortch and Dwarf Fortress are the only two games I know of to do this but would like to see more.

      • Smokeydope@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        delisted all the unreal and unreal tournament games from all storefronts to reduce competition to fortnite. You can’t buy any unreal game legit anymore, either have to pirate or scrounge internet archive. For anyone who doesn’t know unreal was epicmegagames first flagship series, the one that printed the money for the foundation they sit on. Very dedicated fanbase and everything, and epic kills it. even the singleplayer campaigns.

  • Silverstrings@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    My biggest issue with Epic is them very clearly doing the classic tactic of selling goods at unsustainably low prices in order to drive out competition before jacking them back up again. Their whole free game shtick can’t possibly last forever and they know it.

    • Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz
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      1 year ago

      This and the paid exclusives mean I haven’t, and won’t use EGS out of pure spite.

  • Lesrid@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    It’s infuriating to me that only Steam and EA’s stores have gifting built in. Most of my games budget goes to buying small-squad multiplayer games like Deep Rock Galactic and Sea of Thieves for people.

    Sure you can buy a key anywhere but I love seeing at a glance that an acquaintance has a particular DLC or game to surprise them rather than asking them first. And then there’s a small chance they thank you for the key and pass it on to someone else instead of just telling you they don’t like game, while Steam has a handy decline button.

    • urshanabi [he/they]@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      I have maybe 2 dozen and I haven’t played a single one. I downloaded titles a few times, forgot about it, then went on and bought the game on steam.

  • Buttons@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I was reading about the Unity debacle and thought thank God Gabe that Steam has never pulled shit like this.

    I think part of the problem is too many companies are controlled by venture capitalists, or private equity, or whatever you call it. The point is that a single entity owns multiple companies from the shadows.

    Companies are supposed to compete and the best company win, that’s good in theory. But when a single shadow entity owns multiple companies they’ll do something like squeeze customers of one company, which drives customers to their competitor, which, surprise, is owned by the same shadow entity.

  • Scrof@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    In Gaben we trust. Epic sold out to Tencent which is evil.

  • naut@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    it should be easier to change publisher than engine, you can choose publisher, but Unity will hold your balls forever

  • ram@bookwormstory.social
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    1 year ago

    That’s a stupid take. “I’d rather contribute to a potential monopoly than an existing one” is just saying you’d rather support a monopoly than any other corporation. Every corporation seeks monopoly. None are our friends, but we should at least try to make them as small and friendly in any particular industry as we reasonably can.

    • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I think the pseudo-quote you wanted to do the other way around.

      The thing is, sure, I prefer buying things from say, GOG. But Epic is horrible, and that’s even just from my consumer perspective with it’s bad client, terrible discoverability and lack of forums or anything. So as a consumer I have no incentive to support Epic, no matter whether I want to give my money to Steam or another place.