Perhaps, but on the other side of that coin: Because valve doesn’t have legal obligations to make money snd increase shareholder value, they put a lot of money elsewhere. The products they create are awesome (literally the best launcher on PC, Tim Sweeney is probably upset because his is ass) and invest heavily in things better for gamers:
digital returns were huge when they first rolled out
(IMO) spearheading game streaming with steam in home streaming & the steam link
creating awesome games and not milking them for perpetual profit (other than maybe in game items but i don’t want to have this discussion)
investing heavily in alternative ways to play (steam machines, aforementioned steam link, VR/index, steam controller, steam deck)
legitimately spending money to make it possible to game on Windows, reducing gamers reliance on Microsoft/Windows
Valve also allowed most of their employees to work on whatever they wanted for a decade, an initiative that produced almost nothing, and during that time they still made close to a million dollars per year per employee.
I’m not saying I’m unhappy with Valve being private or with Valve making enough money to give itself a nice cushion, but the scale of the money they’re making is absurd when independent game devs often still struggle to make money.
The Epic launcher could actually be so much better if they bothered to put any effort into it. Obviously they’re going to have fewer games and stuff but they could still make a decent launcher that isn’t so annoying to use and actually has additional features.
Part of the problem they have is that it’s actually difficult for game developers to put their games on both platforms so i’ve got to pick one and obviously i’m going to pick Steam.
Exactly. I’ve been Linux-only since 2009 or so, and had never used Steam before switching. I remember buying Minecraft and Factorio directly from their websites, and I remember when Humble Bundle didn’t have such a connection w/ Steam.
I’d be down with it if they support my platform. If they don’t, I’ll stick with Steam.
EGS would be profitable if they had the sales numbers that Steam does. Theyre not peofitable because they basically just a fortnige and rocket league store.
You’re right. Giving 30% for really fucking good platform services is way worse than having to find a publisher that takes in 70 to 90% of revenue and pushes devs to release unfinished games.
Yeah seriously. As a dev, that 30% cut gets you a lot of stuff with absolutely no additional charges. Trying to roll your own distribution for your downloads could exceed that 30% by itself after you:
Host the files somewhere that can be downloaded anywhere close to as fast as steam’s servers
Handle payment processing fees
Develop and maintain a site with high reliability
And that’s only downloads. With steam you also get:
p2p networking tools
game server hosting
steam community integration
analytics
cloud saves
voip
And like 50 other things. It’s ridiculously good value unless you’re developing some super low rent single player indie title. Even then, just having it available on steam will get you way more sales to make up for it.
Sure, epic charges 10% but you basically only get distribution and some super half baked community features.
You know what, I appreciate the call-out. I don’t trust our economy, and shouldn’t reference it in defense of one (in my experience) honorably led company.
He’s entirely right. Valve is just stealing money from gamers and developers by not lowering their fees.
Perhaps, but on the other side of that coin: Because valve doesn’t have legal obligations to make money snd increase shareholder value, they put a lot of money elsewhere. The products they create are awesome (literally the best launcher on PC, Tim Sweeney is probably upset because his is ass) and invest heavily in things better for gamers:
Valve also allowed most of their employees to work on whatever they wanted for a decade, an initiative that produced almost nothing, and during that time they still made close to a million dollars per year per employee.
I’m not saying I’m unhappy with Valve being private or with Valve making enough money to give itself a nice cushion, but the scale of the money they’re making is absurd when independent game devs often still struggle to make money.
The Epic launcher could actually be so much better if they bothered to put any effort into it. Obviously they’re going to have fewer games and stuff but they could still make a decent launcher that isn’t so annoying to use and actually has additional features.
Part of the problem they have is that it’s actually difficult for game developers to put their games on both platforms so i’ve got to pick one and obviously i’m going to pick Steam.
If the developers want to just directly sell me their games old school I’d be cool with that.
Exactly. I’ve been Linux-only since 2009 or so, and had never used Steam before switching. I remember buying Minecraft and Factorio directly from their websites, and I remember when Humble Bundle didn’t have such a connection w/ Steam.
I’d be down with it if they support my platform. If they don’t, I’ll stick with Steam.
EGS is not profitable with the cut they take atm.
Sweeney it’s on drugs if he thinks valves cut is unfair
EGS would be profitable if they had the sales numbers that Steam does. Theyre not peofitable because they basically just a fortnige and rocket league store.
And also a free games tap
You’re right. Giving 30% for really fucking good platform services is way worse than having to find a publisher that takes in 70 to 90% of revenue and pushes devs to release unfinished games.
Yeah seriously. As a dev, that 30% cut gets you a lot of stuff with absolutely no additional charges. Trying to roll your own distribution for your downloads could exceed that 30% by itself after you:
And that’s only downloads. With steam you also get:
And like 50 other things. It’s ridiculously good value unless you’re developing some super low rent single player indie title. Even then, just having it available on steam will get you way more sales to make up for it.
Sure, epic charges 10% but you basically only get distribution and some super half baked community features.
Those fees are multi-industry standard though.
What about our economy makes you think that multiple industries can’t be corporate controlled monopolies / oligopolies?
You know what, I appreciate the call-out. I don’t trust our economy, and shouldn’t reference it in defense of one (in my experience) honorably led company.