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.
Yep, as much as I benefit from valve’s push on Linux, I know it’s not out of the kindness of their hearts, it’s out of self preservation.
I would gladly use epic’s store if it gave devs more of the profits, but it’s just incredibly immature. Basic options are missing, and it doesn’t support Linux. I can try to work around their shortcomings as much as possible using bottles and proton, but eventually I can’t play their games due to their invasive anti-cheat. On top of that, they seem to be building a walled garden of micro transactions that’s just a worse version of NFTs. They really don’t want me as a customer, and I’m not going to argue.
Wrong with what? 30% cut? It seems a lot, but from the greater distance I don’t think it’s that much.
Developers do get great benefits from this. The game is downloadable at any time with great speeds everywhere in the world. They get steam workshop for mods, free forums, reviews, steamplay, proton, friendlists with super easy game invites, … and all this is basically free advertisment for developer.
I think many folks are too young to remember before the Internet when everything was published through retail stores. Publishers took big risks paying for advance copies of games to be produced and shipped, and developers typically got less than 70% all told.
When steam came out 30% and you didn’t need to print advance copies, or deal with retail channels, it was a huge win.
Now, the world has changed, but so has steam. Steam has continued to introduce features, sales based % tiers, grown the community, push Linux development, push VR, etc. they also go out of their way to support their devices and make them user repairable.
In any other sector people would be bitching about not having a pro customer option, and yet in this market we get a bunch of non-developers bitching about the revenue split from the best game store other than GoG.
A bigger cut for developers would be nice if mostly any gaming studio actually did profit sharing. I’m not going to be riled up and motivated for some capitalists to get a fat fucking bonus while using a shittier platform. But billionaire Sweeny is all for claiming it’s all for the little guy while not giving a shit if his own employees stack up 60hr work weeks.
I don’t have any frame of reference for how much content delivery on Valve’s level costs, and whether a lower cut would be sustainable. I assume that a lower cut for the first $X of revenue a game makes on Steam would be doable without cutting into profits too much, and would probably help smaller indie devs. In the end, since Valve is private, we can kinda only speculate about what would be fair, or even just feasible.
Of course, Valve isn’t obligated to do any of this, but if they would in response to pressure from Epic, I’d consider that a good thing. Considering the article above, that seems unlikely, needless to say.
I also do agree that Epic’s store isn’t all that great.
But it’s not just content delivery, they have a lot of software engineers building and maintaining lots of things, such as:
Steam Input
Steam Link app
Proton - for Steam Deck and Linux
And a bunch more. That cut isn’t just going into the coffers, it’s being invested in the platform.
What does EGS do?
pay for exclusivity
give away games
twiddle their thumbs?
EGS basically wants to draw you in with the free games and exclusivity, but that’s it. They have no actual draw to their platform. Valve invests in their platform, EGS just buys eyeballs.
There’s a lot of stuff from Sweeny I disagree with, but I don’t think he’s wrong on this.
Yep, as much as I benefit from valve’s push on Linux, I know it’s not out of the kindness of their hearts, it’s out of self preservation.
I would gladly use epic’s store if it gave devs more of the profits, but it’s just incredibly immature. Basic options are missing, and it doesn’t support Linux. I can try to work around their shortcomings as much as possible using bottles and proton, but eventually I can’t play their games due to their invasive anti-cheat. On top of that, they seem to be building a walled garden of micro transactions that’s just a worse version of NFTs. They really don’t want me as a customer, and I’m not going to argue.
Wrong with what? 30% cut? It seems a lot, but from the greater distance I don’t think it’s that much.
Developers do get great benefits from this. The game is downloadable at any time with great speeds everywhere in the world. They get steam workshop for mods, free forums, reviews, steamplay, proton, friendlists with super easy game invites, … and all this is basically free advertisment for developer.
Now what does Epic offer in this regard? Nothing.
I think many folks are too young to remember before the Internet when everything was published through retail stores. Publishers took big risks paying for advance copies of games to be produced and shipped, and developers typically got less than 70% all told.
When steam came out 30% and you didn’t need to print advance copies, or deal with retail channels, it was a huge win.
Now, the world has changed, but so has steam. Steam has continued to introduce features, sales based % tiers, grown the community, push Linux development, push VR, etc. they also go out of their way to support their devices and make them user repairable.
In any other sector people would be bitching about not having a pro customer option, and yet in this market we get a bunch of non-developers bitching about the revenue split from the best game store other than GoG.
It boggles the mind.
A bigger cut for developers would be nice if mostly any gaming studio actually did profit sharing. I’m not going to be riled up and motivated for some capitalists to get a fat fucking bonus while using a shittier platform. But billionaire Sweeny is all for claiming it’s all for the little guy while not giving a shit if his own employees stack up 60hr work weeks.
I don’t have any frame of reference for how much content delivery on Valve’s level costs, and whether a lower cut would be sustainable. I assume that a lower cut for the first $X of revenue a game makes on Steam would be doable without cutting into profits too much, and would probably help smaller indie devs. In the end, since Valve is private, we can kinda only speculate about what would be fair, or even just feasible.
Of course, Valve isn’t obligated to do any of this, but if they would in response to pressure from Epic, I’d consider that a good thing. Considering the article above, that seems unlikely, needless to say.
I also do agree that Epic’s store isn’t all that great.
But it’s not just content delivery, they have a lot of software engineers building and maintaining lots of things, such as:
And a bunch more. That cut isn’t just going into the coffers, it’s being invested in the platform.
What does EGS do?
EGS basically wants to draw you in with the free games and exclusivity, but that’s it. They have no actual draw to their platform. Valve invests in their platform, EGS just buys eyeballs.