Valves cut was announced well before Epic store was tho. More likely it was a response to Publishers doing their own launchers like Bethesda and Rockstar.
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Epic Games Store changes its refund policy to match Steam's, adds local pricing (on some countries)
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Valves cut was announced well before Epic store was tho. More likely it was a response to Publishers doing their own launchers like Bethesda and Rockstar.
Valve lowered that far before the announcement of the Epic store. I think around 2 weeks prior to that.
It's nice of you to expose your own complete ignorance, accusing the likes of Steam of greed while simultaneously defending the business model of charging for peer 2 peer multiplayer and the anticompetitive practice of releasing proprietary hardware and accessories (also at profit).
Sure, it isn't entirely unreasonable to think that valve did this because they knew epic was releasing their store, but at the same time you can also say that epic launched their store this early to capitalize on the news, considering how the epic store launch felt so rushed with games being pulled from the steam store overnight and a total and complete lack of features despite them saying they have been working on this for years.
And which perspective should be the most important for us as customers? The customer perspective or the developers?
It was, so in reality it could go either way, I am personally of the believe that given how rushed the epic store launch felt, that it was epic rushing the store launch instead of valve rushing an announcement, since I genuinely see no reason why Epic would have released the store in the state that they did, especially when they have introduced regional pricing and so on just 1 month later, but then again I will admit I am a bit biased here since I think Tim Sweeney and Sergey Galyonkin are full of shit and haven't been working on the store for many years as they claim (believe they have been studying the idea for some time, not actually making the store).
Posting this - in a thread talking about Epic Store implementing regional pricing (including multiple ERA confirmations of prices being dropped in Brazil) - is incredibly weird. Did you not bother to read the OP?
This is factually wrong. The Switch store is an example of a store with zero discoverability because it offers you almost zero tools to find interesting games, aside from a unfiltered "New Releases" list and a top seller list.
You know what else is a store with zero discoverability tools, not even a wishlist or a search feature? You're correct, Epic store.
Steam offers you discoverability tools and multiple ways and filters to personalize your storefront. And even if you completely ignore these tools I guarantee you will never see the hundreds of trash games hitting the store every month unless you specifically seek them out.
All these asset-swap games everybody complains about because Jim Sterling made a video about them literally don't matter at all for your store experience.
Do we actually know which developers are currently unsatisfied with Steam? I would assume smaller ones that don't get noticed in todays oversaturated indie games market.
Epic store won't improve the situation at all for these devs as Epic is - at the time - only interested in giving high profile indie darlings and AAA games a spotlight.
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They launched it to coincide with the game awards that was essentially a big ad for the store that got a lot of attention
Yes, the 30% is still ridiculous when they do it. The comparatively minimal costs they expend on these stores doesn't justify such a massive cut. They only get away with it because they have monopolies on their platforms. Thankfully PC doesn't suffer from that problem.
Looks like Epic is the first actual contender. They have a hell of a long way to go but this is a great step in the right direction.
Yeah because server farms that house terabytes worth of video games data and the infrastructure needed to operate, staff and maintain them as well as provide support for over 100 million customers and process transactions daily requires minimal costs.....
Also a possibility, even if I do feel like if they did it for that reason, that it was a bad call, they are the creators of Fornite and the one of the leading Middleware providers for the entire industry, they would always always get a ton of free press with an announcement of this size, especially when you are moneyhatting devs.
You don't think Valve knew about the Epic store before the announcement?
I doubt it, there was no leak of any kind not even rumors, not from the many studios that contracted with Epic so doubt it was a reaction to Epic rather a reaction to publishers and studios like Rockstar and Bethesda preferring their own launchers over Steam.
"All the customer needs to do is spend a few minutes installing a new launcher"
Please, you're not a user. You're not affected. So don't come telling us how it is.
This will have to be posted ad nauseum, especially since Epic's published development timeline for the most trivial features already extends to the end of 2019. This is the first customer facing improvement, something that blatantly wasn't thought about because that seemingly hasn't been the priority. I eagerly await the day Epic actually compete for me based on their own service as opposed a monopolistic approach of paying for exclusivity, on a service that simply isn't good enough right now.
Because that isn't a comparison of localised pricing - it is a literal comparison of what is by definition at monopoly, and what by definition is competition ( in reverse to be sarcastic at how stupid the arguments have become from drive-by posters.)
There is no competition and a single distribution for customer trying to buy from Epic
Meanwhile, Monster Hunter has real competition through different stores competing with each other
Well if a game is good I would love that it get a sequal or the developer get enough cash that they can make another game. So no, I don't just see what is good for us consumers.
Compared to the obscene profits generated by a 30% cut off all digital sales? Let's be real, the marginal costs here are tiny, the infrastructure costs aren't that large, and the salaries needed for the supporting employees isn't nearly enough to make up the difference. There's no way in hell the break even point is any higher than 5% if you're doing a decent volume, which should be pretty clear when you consider that discord and epic are willing to drop their share to 10% without batting an eye.
Exactly this
Because the one thing we know about corporations is that they always do the right thing on their own...... /s
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Yeah, I'm going to need to see some books and receipts on that analysis of yours if you can so confidently say that 5% is more than enough to cover costs.
Good steps. That makes me happier. As long as I can still get solid day 1 deals like I do on steam via various authorized sellers. I don't have any problems with it.
Can you go into a bit more detail how you come to that 5% number? (Preferably with real life examples)
I mean more than costs "are tiny" or "aren't that much".
Works for Nintendo.
Joking, don't use my Switch much but I like the little bugger.
They have a long long long way to go before they are even close and I am not convinced they will get there because of how they have treated pc gaming in the past.
Cool one feature down like 20 to go before they match steam. In two years time they might almost be there. So stoked about them paying off shitload of games to be exclusive to their store, makes me feel all warm and bubbly about them. So good. Such competition, wow.
You really believe it was that announce and adjustment was a coincidence? That's very naive.
It's a guesstimate on my part based on my understanding of the costs involved. Let me turn the question around: why do you believe the break even point is higher? I think we can agree the absolute ceiling is 10% based on how low epic and discord are willing to go. Most likely several percentage points lower, since I don't think they'd be investing in challenging steam's monopoly if their end goal was merely breaking even.
Hope it works out for Epic.
I love the idea of a curated store, not a dumping ground for heaps and HEAPS and HEAPS of pure and utter trash.
I love the idea of a curated store, not a dumping ground for heaps and HEAPS and HEAPS of pure and utter trash.
So naive you have no evidence in particular.
Valve has been slowly haemorrhaging major publishers for years and even people like Paradox interactive are flirting with their own launchers. It's a logical move to try and stem that a bit. The move does literally nothing about all the Indie developers that Epic seemed to be focussing their narrative around and buying exclusives for.
One step closer, definitely good to see stuff like refunds improved on and actual viable pricing in parts of the world, still a looooong way to go.
Wonder how many years before I can sell my game on their store, at this rate I suspect at least a few.
Wonder how many years before I can sell my game on their store, at this rate I suspect at least a few.
Right. So what do you expect for evidence? Valve to say we are aware that Epic is going to launch a new store front and are preemptively changing our cut because of that?
The evidence can be found by using deductive reasoning. It's not very hard. We use logic all the time to figure things out without direct quotes.
Discord and Epic can get away with charging less because they offer significantly less services to developers than Steam, do not invest in countless FOSS projects like DXVK and SDL2, and do not invest in their own hardware R&D like Valve.
It's also not uncommon for businesses to charge unrealistically low rates to help them establish a position in the market.
5%, 10%? Whatever. We don't know. A guesstimate is just pulling a number out of thin air.
It's also not uncommon for businesses to charge unrealistically low rates to help them establish a position in the market.
5%, 10%? Whatever. We don't know. A guesstimate is just pulling a number out of thin air.
Jesus Christ. YOU made the claim, YOU prove it.
What Valve are offering in terms of infrastructure to both developers and customers is vastly greater in scope than any competing storefront. Any title that offers workshop support is hosting user generated content on a scale the dwarfs anyone else in the industry. At DOTA's peak any game updates were driving 2-3% of global internet traffic.