But we've heard from numerous developers about their dislike of the 70/30 cut from Valve.
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GI: [Anno 1800 leaving Steam] might not bode well for the...strength of Steam's marketplace, it most likely is good for everyone else (See Staff Post)
- Thread starter benzopil
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But we've heard from numerous developers about their dislike of the 70/30 cut from Valve.
What blanket statement ?
Releasing on 10 stores automatically means you have a bigger reach than 1 store. It's basic economics here my friend :D
No one forces them to be exclusive. Well, except if Epic pays them. Or you know, they can also sell their Steam keys for 100% of revenue. 100% is better than 88%.
Yeah that's what he said. And that's a very shitty thing to say imo. Makes it sound like he considers us as cattle. I hate that guy...
Everyone wants to have more money. It doesn't mean they're right and it works like this.
90% is also better than 88% but you dont see all the praise around discord store like you do for epic's. Wonder why...
I'm really appreciative of the restraint of Valve here. They could retaliate but know what's up and don't. I have my issues with them (*cough* paid mod moneygrab), but I can recognize and appreciate it when people do what's right.
Imagine actually believing this. Just because you don't like how its organization is handled doesn't nullify the rest of the great features Steam offers.
and lets not forget Valve is completely overhauling Steam with the Library getting a ton of new sorting options making it easier to find games you're looking for.
You can apply this same mantra to Steam's own monetization methods.
And those developers don't seem to be flocking over to the Epic store either. In fact, i would hazard a guess that Epic store doesn't even have the infrastucture right now to actually take applications and put up games from publishers they haven't explicitly reached out to. It's hard to argue about how much EGS' policies help developers when as it stands, there's no publishers on the store that don't have an additional undisclosed financial arrangement with Epic.
Well, the EGS is still new, and I'm betting devs are wait and watching. Ultimately time will tell.
I love when people have internalized capitalism so much that they feel like the idea of competition is automatically good and a no brainer! Everyone says it!
Capitalism is it itself is pretty shitty. :shrug: Competition is one of the few net positives for consumers.
So, this year I see Steam losing Metro, Ubisoft (sort of), and a bunch of high profile indies and console ports while simultaneously gaining back Bethesda as well as the entire Halo franchise. Seems like a wash overall, but when you consider that Valve's only big change was the increased split for high earning games, it would seem to be a vindication of their current strategy.
It is... as long as stores are competing with prices rather than product. Otherwise you're just at the whim of two stores rather than one.
Sweeney is the guy that abandoned the PC market because of piracy back when Valve identified it was a service problem. I don't know why anyone is acting like Epic is coming back to PC in order to save us.
Buying exclusives is bad for consumers and anti-competitive. Moreover Epic is doing it to winover publishers/devs because they dont believe the consumer is what matters.
If a product is only available one place, there is no competition.
I think there are a lot of developers flocking to submit their games to the Epic Game Store in hopes of visibility to the Fortnite audience, fighting the fight for a better cut, etc.
Epic is curating their store though and probably lots don't get in as we've seen on the weekend with Assault Android Cactus. I believe there was another game (I believe it is called something with Grind) that offered Epic to launch their game exclusive on their store for PC. Epic rejected the game citing they already have enough games for the year lined up. Can't find it currently so don't take my word for it.
I don't disagree but I still feel the need to point out that it's not a wash in the sense that Valve didn't pay anyone to not release on EGS. It's more Valve scoring points of their own - which I know is what you meant :p - while also doing what's right.
Please, do tell me the textbook definition of a monopoly then.
You can just hit up good old wikipedia for this. If that doesnt satisfy you, you can also get David Begg's Economics. Any edtion will do, I promise you. You will be amazed how strick economists can be with colloquially used words.
Exclusive control over certain goods in a market: check for EGS, Steam enforces nothing.
Intention and ability to control prices for said goods: check for EGS, Steam allows free pricing outside the store.
I mean. You asked. It's a dictionary definition and not so much a textbook, but I didn't study economics and don't quite have any textbooks at hand.
I'm sure it's possible, but that's why I also said "put up games" since as of right now there appears to be exactly 0 games on sale right now that have gone through the "normal" curation process. All we have are anecdotes of people being rejected buy curation; who's being accepted?
If the answer is "no one" then really all the talk about 88/12 being a better split for developers since no one is actually making that in practical terms.
You didnt give any interpretation? You just laughed at the right one, hence your interpretation is probably wrong.
Exclusive control over certain goods in a market: check for EGS, Steam enforces nothing.
Intention and ability to control prices for said goods: check for EGS, Steam allows free pricing outside the store.
I mean. You asked.
Sorry. Does EGS own or control all of the games it sells?
This has nothing to do with being monopoly though...
My bad, I didnt notice them.
It owns the right to distribute copies of those games, the exclusive right. Insofar as digital goods can be traded, it is equivalent to a store owning the goods on its shelves.
Also no, it does not actually own those games, hence the entire problem. It enforces availability of games it does not own, it just buys exclusive rights. If Epic owned or at least published Metro: Exodus (and Phoenix Point, and this here Anno game, and all the others), there would not be nearly as much outrage over this.
You can't just make that distinction ad hoc. It's the developer/publisher that decides where they want their games to be sold. And yes, it enforces availability of games it doesn't own and it just buys exclusive rights. The same thing Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo already do. Just because the same thing is happen on the PC platform doesn't make it a monopoly.
With the exclusive games, EGS's main competitor is no longer Steam. It is pirated copies.
Now, let me start by saying this isn't an argument for piracy, but just simply talking about the realities of it in a marketplace like this.
With a single player game on the EGS store, a pirated copy offers basically the same amount of features at a much better price. On top of that, EGS doesn't offer the same payment methods that Steam does in dozens of markets, often making the pirated copy the only one available for many potential customers. If piracy truly is a services issue, than EGS does very little to offer a better service than piracy.
I expect to see EGS exclusives to be some of the most pirated games, especially in markets that are under served by most store fronts like EGS. I hope the bag of cash upfront is worth it for having to wait a year to be purchasable in many parts of the world.
Now, let me start by saying this isn't an argument for piracy, but just simply talking about the realities of it in a marketplace like this.
With a single player game on the EGS store, a pirated copy offers basically the same amount of features at a much better price. On top of that, EGS doesn't offer the same payment methods that Steam does in dozens of markets, often making the pirated copy the only one available for many potential customers. If piracy truly is a services issue, than EGS does very little to offer a better service than piracy.
I expect to see EGS exclusives to be some of the most pirated games, especially in markets that are under served by most store fronts like EGS. I hope the bag of cash upfront is worth it for having to wait a year to be purchasable in many parts of the world.
You just argued against your own point. Whether a pub decides to sell a game on one storefront has no bearing on EGS being the monopoly supplier of Metro on PC.
EGS games will have a huge piracy problem in China, due to not selling any games there.
EGS telling ubisoft and third party stores to stop sell any and all third party keys is monopolistic behavior.
Uh.
No.
That doesn't really happen often even in console space. Console exclusives, when they happen, are usually funded from the get-go by the platform holder, and usually with partial ownership over the game. That's why you see games like Scalebound - or don't see, as the case may be. Platform holder owns the name, so even if the developer wanted to they can't just release the game elsewhere.
And also yes, technically any platform's first-party developer - nowadays - holds a monopoly to the distribution of its own games. The exclusive right to distribution, control of prices, etc, because they own those products. They own the intellectual properties, they own the products made under them.
Like, if Epic Games was to buy the Metro franchise, and make it exclusive to their store - it would be just as bad for us gamers, but there would still be nowhere near the same stink raised up. Because like it or not, they would own the game, and they would have the right - legal and moral - to put the game on their own store exclusively, like all other publishers are trying to do.
Monopoly suppliers? I've only heard that term used for natural monopolies (electric companies, Internet, water, gas, etc.). Otherwise, pretty much any business does deals with exclusivity of any sort would fall under this umbrella.
Sure, but even that doesnt matter at the moment. He was screaming about people not reading econ while at the same time showing that he himself has clearly not done it. Which is why he tried to say that somehow Epic would need to produce the games to be monopoly.
I think by the straight text book definition, that would be the case. Trademarks and IPs are also categorized as monopolies, but they are not considered harmful, since if anyone could just copy what you do, there would be incentive to create anything.
This is why lawmakers are usually interested in one question: will it raise consumer prices. If the answer is yes, its considered harmful and if not, then its not. Which is what happened with EGS (Metro) btw...
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I mean, that makes console game distribution even monopoly-like in that regard. And yeah, I totally get why you think that's bad for gamers, but that's not my point of contention here. People are constantly altering the definition of what that term actually means to demean and vilify EGS, which is tiresome.
User banned (1 day): trolling, misrepresenting others' arguments, ignoring staff post
I haven't read any replies yet, but I'm gonna guess what's going on
gonna go score myself. brb
- journos are corrupt and in epic's evil pocket
- "anti consumer"
- it's not "real" competition because it doesn't directly benefit my preferences therefore it's not competition it's something else there is no term for
- arguing over what monopoly means
- impotent rage
gonna go score myself. brb
Just browsing through the Law section of the Monopoly article on Wikipedia (and no, not the one for the game) - I... don't see how we're warping anything here.
It might not be an actual monopoly, not just yet - it can't dominate the market at this stage. But it's trying to be one, and abusing its power given by its financial reserves - literally buying power - to restrict access to specific goods outside of its own marketplace.
Please do tell us how taking away games from dozens of millions of users (EGS is not available in certain countries) and forcing processing fee into consumers are not anti consumers.
They're not taking away games. People who create games have autonomy to make business deals and sell on whatever platform they choose. They're adults. You're not entitled to dictate to someone how and where they should sell their own product.
"Anti consumer" doesn't mean anything at this point so I don't know how to respond to your question. If you ride this train of logic to its conclusion, almost anything is anti consumer. Having a Steam sale only sometimes and not always is anti-consumer. Why should I have to pay more sometimes and not other times?
This is all just business. Epic is not doing anything nefarious or particularly novel. If you don't like them don't use them. It's a free country.
People can buy the games on Steam, they took it to Epic and now people can't buy the game. That's the very definition of taking away games.
So it's just business. Ok.
Have you tried "world"?
There's a country of over a billion people that has no access to games on this store - legitimate access, mind.
As a fun bit of trivia, Epic Games took their moneyhatted games away from a higher percentage of people of planet Earth, than the percentage of revenue they take from game sales. From one and a half times as higher a percentage of people, even.
Isn't it timed exclusive anyway? Just wait a year or two and get it on Steam or on any other storefront.
Ah yes, just like how Rise of the Tomb Raider exclusivity happened. Remember how people just happily wait for a year? Good times. Not anti consumers at all.
That takes a bit to wrap your mind around. Exceedingly healthy and competitive, clearly.
User Banned (1 Day): Misrepresenting the concerns and arguments of other users; antagonistic behavior
You're joking right? It's hardly a controversial statement that the steam launcher is mediocre at best and has poor organisational features.
Imagine being so blindly loyal to a storefront that you can't accept the simple truth. Well, I suppose you don't have to imagine it. In general people treating a store like anything other than a business is just sad.
"I don't like how this aspect of Steam works so the entire launcher is objectively mediocre and if you disagree you're a storefront fanboy"
My most played games aren't even on Steam but sure guess I'm just a fanboy. Didn't know enjoying features that no other launcher but Steam offers makes me a loyalist