When Ubisoft Connect is a more compelling launcher than yours, you have issues.
Epic Games to update Unreal Engine pricing for devs outside game industry; Epic Games began running into "financial problems" about 10 weeks ago
- Thread starter Shard Shinjuku
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When you're at the scale of Google and Apple, 30% is too much - and I don't mean the size of the companies, but the size of their monopolized markets.
It doesn't matter what scale you're at, because the cut is used for the things mentioned. You don't magically start not losing money on gift cards @ 12% cut just because you're at Google or Apple's scale, all of them would stop offering gift cards if they had to go to that low of a cut because the economics simply doesn't work.
And at the end of the day, anyone in their right mind should want these storefronts to not just coast by but have a very comfortable amount of backup money, because the instant these storefronts die so does everyone's purchased products on them. This is my main takeaway from this article even, if Epic is in a bad spot that makes their storefront somewhat untrustworthy to buy products on, tbh.
So how well has Fortnite been doing in recent years, does anyone have a nice graph that could illustrate how Epic are now starting to struggle?
Not saying it's entirely down to one product, but it's one of the biggest products in gaming so could have an impact I guess.
Not saying it's entirely down to one product, but it's one of the biggest products in gaming so could have an impact I guess.
It does well enough that you would have to be unfathomably stupid in order to own it and still have financial issues
... 🤔
Are you saying that the luxury company Apple, valued at 2.7T dollars, would let the app store die if they couldn't make as much money as today?
Who cares if the devs wanted to fund these products? Its the end users like us who benefit from these additional services, and it's our money that pays their salaries. This isn't a charity.
No, they did not say that, that is a sentence that you entirely made up, every single word in your sentence, from start to finish, is completely made up.
What they said is that if their cut was that low they would not have physical gift cards because every card sold would make them literally lose money. That's what they said. Nothing else.
What is it that you people do that require UE5, because it's def not calculating anion gaps
What I'm about to say isn't necessarily directed at you, I'm just using your quote, and there is no guarantee (I would agree that the chance is not very high) that devs/publishers receiving additional funds would use it to support their businesses rather than putting it into the coffers at the top, but it's always been weird to me to see this sentiment alongside ppl commiserating about devs losing their jobs. Like at one turn of the head it's a consumer-focused me first type of thing and at another turn it's a damn you towards layoffs.
I could see devs attempting to join specific companies that use profits from larger shares of their games getting sold to bolster their employees but that would likely be like a decade-long process to sus out which companies take care of their own and which don't give a shit
It's generally pretty simple; graphical rendering engines are very versatile.
Iiirc, they get like 5% of every game revenue if the game profits exceeded 1 million dollars. Now they gonna ask for a bigger percentage?
Did any Era user defending Epic ever demonstrate the exact percentage that stores should have? And what it should be based on?
Like, should Steam be a 14%? GOG 7%?
Because I'm going to assume that most of those users aren't just going by Tim's word, because that would be idiotic.
Like, should Steam be a 14%? GOG 7%?
Because I'm going to assume that most of those users aren't just going by Tim's word, because that would be idiotic.
well no, fanatical takes a cut if you buy it there
but if you buy it directly from the dev then yes
ive done the math and its exactly 6 times pi
do not ask to see my work
30% is a holdover from brick and mortar days when 30% was the industry standard for retailers, and not just video game retailers. Steam basically looked at what everyone else was charging and did the same because they were creating a digital version of that.
as a costumor, between steamworks, proton ect, that 30 percent seems justified, egs that 12% not so much.
If you run Fortnite, the only financial problem you should be having is "where do we keep all this money? Will it all fit in a bank account?"
Colossally mismanaged company, and it's the laid off staff that are paying the price.
Colossally mismanaged company, and it's the laid off staff that are paying the price.
Only if they are selling Steam keys. Steam terms don't prevent selling other keys at a different price, or just an installer etc.
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I am so very tired of people on this forum going "Are you saying [statement that the other person didn't remotely come close to saying]" and just makes shit up. Like, stop? Engage with what I actually said? Don't put words in my mouth?
If luxury company Apple, valued at 2.7T dollars, had to lower their cut to 12%, they would get rid of both physical & digital gift cards due to gift card regulations in pretty much every first world country and stop covering high merchant surcharges that exist in some countries and pass the fees onto the consumer, moves that actively harm consumers solely.
Luxury company Apple, valued at 2.7T dollars, didn't get to that point by doing things that actively make them lose money with no potential for gain what-so-ever. If you only take a 12% cut there's literally no one out there except the dumbest businessmen on the planet that would do anything that costs you more than the 12% cut.
Even Tim Epic doesn't do it. The bar is low.
At the end of the day, the 30% cut exists for more than just raw profit, it exists both as a safety bubble for the business itself and to eat losses for things that benefit consumers, like gift cards and merchant surcharges. Even Tim Epic admis their cut is too low to do some things, which is very much admitting that there are good reasons to have a higher cut.
they should charge a reverse sliding scale so indies can start at 20% just like their $50million+ titles. maybe even a pyramid scale. it would go a long way for sustainability especially for indies
I'm just curious if it's a medical thing, like maybe radonc or IR? I haven't been exposed to UE5 in my setting
Hey Era!
Y'know who isn't having money problems running a store that people like, releasing hardware to critical acclaim, running several F2P live service games, all the while maintaining an engine and doing a bunch of behind the scenes work on software thingies like proton?
Y'know who isn't having money problems running a store that people like, releasing hardware to critical acclaim, running several F2P live service games, all the while maintaining an engine and doing a bunch of behind the scenes work on software thingies like proton?
but fr, they've both had layoffs before tho :(
The 12% store margin is so unsustainable for creating and growing an engaged audience that nearly all developers and publishers won't even sell their stuff on EGS unless they're paid to. Even successful PC games from Capcom, Namco, FromSoft, Sega, Actiblizz, EA, Amazon, Games Workshop, etc don't get ported over to EGS because, even with the higher margin they get, it's literally not even worth the inconvenience of hosting and maintaining to sell on that platform. The fact that Elden Ring, Dark Souls, Persona, Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Devil May Cry, Sekiro, Armored Core, Persona, Vermintide, New World, Lost Ark, Namco's anime titles, Diablo, Overwatch, Apex, Call of Duty, and SO many more, don't end up with EGS releases speaks volumes.
But why start at 20%? And what should be cut in order to facilitate that 10% loss?
as a consumer, I see the kind of stuff valve is funding with their 30%:
- making linux gaming a thing
- Linux client for Steam and all their games
- Proton
- Hiring the DXVK guy and telling him "just keep doing your thing"
- Collaborating in Vulkan's development
- Steam Deck
- SteamVR
- Steam Link
- universal controller support
- physical gift cards
- free key generation which enables other stores to compete by selling Steam codes
- user reviews
- forums
- workshop
- custom profiles
- gifting system
- remote play together
- guides...
- I could go on but I'm getting bored of typing this post
Let's compare it to Epic's innovations:
- publishers get more money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Fake "user reviews" that's just a super limited rating system because publishers get sad when people say mean things on their store page :(((((
- oof your payment processor is too expensive... well we can't afford that so that charge is on you whoops
- Fuck you, I'm pulling that game off Steam
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As someone who remembers what the digital distribution landscape on PC looked like before Steam came along, I am never going to buy this argument.
Well, they said reverse so it's the opposite of the benefit only major corps get with earnings after $50 million turn into 20% cut
The idea that Steam's 30% charge funds consumer-centric features, so it doesn't benefit developers is absurd.
The reason Steam has over 130 million monthly active users, collectively spending a huge amount of money on games, is because of Valve's consumer centric approach. Developer's benefit by having a massive and highly engaged audience for their games.
The reason Steam has over 130 million monthly active users, collectively spending a huge amount of money on games, is because of Valve's consumer centric approach. Developer's benefit by having a massive and highly engaged audience for their games.
Then Timmy will continue burning money to keep his shitty store afloat. And his stupid lawsuit against Apple. What an excellent businessman. Bravo.
100% , like we lament game dev sustainability here all the time, but we are also arent willing to have another pc launcher if it meant a better developer cut.
I get steam is the greatest and we all love steam in here, but if we framed it as steam; great forums, reviews, infrastucture, investment in valve r&d, etc, VS epic but developers get more money to be more creative and innovative and less studio closures, i wonder what people would actually choose
also people underestimate how unbelievably funny it is that 30% of my Halo MCC purchase went towards a company that's going all in on making Linux gaming viable. Like try to convince me that's a bad thing lmao
Yes, from a rational/capitalistic stance it makes sense to lower the fees just for high earning games. But on the other hand both Apple and Epic have cut or forfeited their fees specifically for low earners instead. A flat 20% cut on Steam would be good, especially since I suspect a lot of their revenue already comes from the 20% portion of sales anyway.
Not only that, developers also benefit by Steam developing features instead of them (steam input and remote play together being two very important ones).
Anyway, back on topic, I'm not that surprised. I've always suspected (admitedly without proof) that Fortnite hasn't been that profitable for a while. Most of the skins and stuff are collabs with big brands that couldn't have been cheap. Sure, their revenue is huge, but I wondered what cut they're giving Disney, Capcom and the others and for how long.
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ok but like
if you were to draw a timeline of Steam's customer-centric/customer-friendly decisions/actions/whatever I guarantee you that there would be no change at all when the EGS was introduced. they simply did not react at all.
valve has been consistently customer-first before AND after the EGS (they simply have not reacted to or acknowledged EGS's existence at all which is incredibly funny), and the EGS has consistently been publisher-first
the one argument I've seen people bring up is how valve lowered their cut for successful games but that's only because they got their dates mixed up and don't realise that that happened before the EGS was introduced, not after.
i really do not see how the EGS has done ANYTHING to "keep steam honest" maybe you can elaborate lol
If you're asking if people will choose to be pro-consumer or pro-business, most people will be pro-consumer.
As they should be.
yeah this is big
like if I'm an indie dev and I develop a little indie game with Xbox controller support and 2 player local (same PC) multiplayer, Valve has made it so that my game automatically supports every controller under the sun AND supports online multiplayer
the dev does nothing at all, no netcode, no server infrastructure, no nothing, and the game just magically has online play now. That's the kind of cool feature that makes people want to use Steam.
The closest minimum number that can be considered an objective percentage is their cost of capital, which I can't tell you without looking at their financials and Valve isn't publicly owned.
I just wanted to point out that the 30% isn't random and was the industry standard when Steam was created.
steamworks alone makes the 30% cut over egs 12% cut alone. it would cost most studios more money than valve is taking to build out/host those fetures.
