PC “You a—holes”: Court docs reveal Tim Epic's anger at Steam’s 30% fees

[Jason]

“You a—holes”: Court docs reveal Epic CEO’s anger at Steam’s 30% fees

ARSTECHNICA.COM

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Unearthed emails show the fury that helped motivate motivate Epic's Games Store launch.

 

[Bacon]

I'll hate Tim Epic until he pays Sony enough money to get Bloodborne on PC with 60fps+

[Xbob42]

"How dare you demand the industry standard you cocksuckers??"

[Brian]

Yet it’s cool to jack up the price of a virtual currency

[Ghost_MH]

I mean, I'll say it. He's not wrong. Apple and Valve, both, giving some major publishers sweetheart deals and others not is bullshit. Especially when others includes ALL the indie devs.

 

Quote

Right now, you assholes are telling the world that the strong and powerful get special terms, while 30% is for the little people. We're all in for a prolonged battle if Apple tries to keep their monopoly and 30% by cutting backroom deals with big publishers to keep them quiet. Why not give ALL developers a better deal? What better way is there to convince Apple quickly that their model is now totally untenable?

 

[legend]

2 hours ago, Ghost_MH said:

I mean, I'll say it. He's not wrong. Apple and Valve, both, giving some major publishers sweetheart deals and others not is bullshit. Especially when others includes ALL the indie devs.

 

 

 

On it's face that doesn't seem wrong to me? I mean I'm not saying that 30% is appropriate, but I don't think the fact that bigger games get better deals is all that wrong. There is going to be a higher purchase rate for bigger games so it's easier to justify hosting them and any of the other stuff that goes with hosting the game on steam, just like buying in bulk is cheaper.

 

Maybe there is a better policy where you change the rate based on sales so it gets cheaper the more you sell or something, and that way it's not limited to special deals with the big players, but on it's face it's not crazy to me that this kind of economic dynamic exists.

[TwinIon]

Apple based their 30% cut on the horrific carrier controlled app distribution of the early 00s and Valve based theirs off of the cost of physical distribution. At the time, neither was really a bad deal. Now that digital distribution has become the norm it's basically unjustifiable for that high of a cut to become standard and the only reason that fees have remained that high is monopoly control.

 

If you're selling a product outside of one of those monopolies, fees go down very quickly. Etsy runs a store, and their fee is 6.5%+payment processing, so call it 10%. On Squarespace once you're paying them more than $23/month the transaction fees go to zero and you're only paying the 3% payment processing fee. If you're only paying for their cheapest plan, then their fee is 10% (which includes payment processing). Those are imperfect comparisons and I'm well aware that Steam offers a bit more value than just a website, but it's not 27% more value.

 

Sweeney and Epic aren't saints and I'm not necessarily defending them, but these fees are way higher than they should be and I think it's bad for consumers that they've persisted for so long.

[legend]

25 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

Apple based their 30% cut on the horrific carrier controlled app distribution of the early 00s and Valve based theirs off of the cost of physical distribution. At the time, neither was really a bad deal. Now that digital distribution has become the norm it's basically unjustifiable for that high of a cut to become standard and the only reason that fees have remained that high is monopoly control.

 

If you're selling a product outside of one of those monopolies, fees go down very quickly. Etsy runs a store, and their fee is 6.5%+payment processing, so call it 10%. On Squarespace once you're paying them more than $23/month the transaction fees go to zero and you're only paying the 3% payment processing fee. If you're only paying for their cheapest plan, then their fee is 10% (which includes payment processing). Those are imperfect comparisons and I'm well aware that Steam offers a bit more value than just a website, but it's not 27% more value.

 

Sweeney and Epic aren't saints and I'm not necessarily defending them, but these fees are way higher than they should be and I think it's bad for consumers that they've persisted for so long.

 

Yeah I'm not defending 30% being right, I'm more so defending the notion that it's cheaper for games that are expected to sell a lot. That or a policy that has the same effect seems appropriate.

[Ghost_MH]

39 minutes ago, legend said:

 

On it's face that doesn't seem wrong to me? I mean I'm not saying that 30% is appropriate, but I don't think the fact that bigger games get better deals is all that wrong. There is going to be a higher purchase rate for bigger games so it's easier to justify hosting them and any of the other stuff that goes with hosting the game on steam, just like buying in bulk is cheaper.

 

Maybe there is a better policy where you change the rate based on sales so it gets cheaper the more you sell or something, and that way it's not limited to special deals with the big players, but on it's face it's not crazy to me that this kind of economic dynamic exists.

 

It's not crazy. However, I will say that for Valve it's a combination of things. They offer those sweetheart deals to keep the bigger publishers specifically to keep them from going their own thing while also being perfectly happy taking the full percentage from mega indie hits like Stardew Valley. Does anyone expect Valve to float a sweetheart deal over at Concerned Ape ahead of Haunted Chocolatier or Team Cherry ahead of Silksong?

 

Sweeney isn't wrong for calling Valve and Apple out for buying publishers this way. The only reason it doesn't bother PC gamers is because so many of them desperately want all their games in one location.

[TwinIon]

1 hour ago, legend said:

 

Yeah I'm not defending 30% being right, I'm more so defending the notion that it's cheaper for games that are expected to sell a lot. That or a policy that has the same effect seems appropriate.

Yeah, I agree with that. If you're bringing in more revenue, you have the leverage to make a better deal.

[legend]

1 hour ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

It's not crazy. However, I will say that for Valve it's a combination of things. They offer those sweetheart deals to keep the bigger publishers specifically to keep them from going their own thing while also being perfectly happy taking the full percentage from mega indie hits like Stardew Valley. Does anyone expect Valve to float a sweetheart deal over at Concerned Ape ahead of Haunted Chocolatier or Team Cherry ahead of Silksong?

 

Sweeney isn't wrong for calling Valve and Apple out for buying publishers this way. The only reason it doesn't bother PC gamers is because so many of them desperately want all their games in one location.

 

I do think it would be nice if they made it a more objective sales metric that could then extend to the smaller groups.

[Ghost_MH]

24 minutes ago, legend said:

I do think it would be nice if they made it a more objective sales metric that could then extend to the smaller groups.

 

100%. Valve just has no incentive to unless the publisher is large enough to realistically not need Valve. That's why it would be nice to have more competition, but gamers really are set in their ways. It's like all those folks wanting AMD to succeed but only to force Nvidia to drop their prices.

 

All I want in a store front is cloud saves, easy choices on where games are installed, and some reassurance the store front isn't going to disappear on me a year from now *cough*stadia*cough*.

[Xbob42]

3 hours ago, TwinIon said:

Apple based their 30% cut on the horrific carrier controlled app distribution of the early 00s and Valve based theirs off of the cost of physical distribution. At the time, neither was really a bad deal. Now that digital distribution has become the norm it's basically unjustifiable for that high of a cut to become standard and the only reason that fees have remained that high is monopoly control.

 

If you're selling a product outside of one of those monopolies, fees go down very quickly. Etsy runs a store, and their fee is 6.5%+payment processing, so call it 10%. On Squarespace once you're paying them more than $23/month the transaction fees go to zero and you're only paying the 3% payment processing fee. If you're only paying for their cheapest plan, then their fee is 10% (which includes payment processing). Those are imperfect comparisons and I'm well aware that Steam offers a bit more value than just a website, but it's not 27% more value.

 

Sweeney and Epic aren't saints and I'm not necessarily defending them, but these fees are way higher than they should be and I think it's bad for consumers that they've persisted for so long.

How much do Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony charge?

 

Last I checked, it was 30%.

Thus, industry standard.

 

Also last I checked, Fortnite is available on all of those platforms, didn't hear Sweeney pitch a bitch about that.

 

Not wanting to pay 30% makes a lot of sense, picking and choosing when it's "okay" to pay 30%? Ehhh.

Wanting Valve to just give up a huge portion of their main revenue "just because" is really funny though.

[Ghost_MH]

31 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

How much do Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony charge?

 

Last I checked, it was 30%.

Thus, industry standard.

 

Also last I checked, Fortnite is available on all of those platforms, didn't hear Sweeney pitch a bitch about that.

 

Not wanting to pay 30% makes a lot of sense, picking and choosing when it's "okay" to pay 30%? Ehhh.

Wanting Valve to just give up a huge portion of their main revenue "just because" is really funny though.

 

Valve isn't a console manufacturer nor does Valve offer the same level of assistance to game developers Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo do. There's a reason Valve makes more money per employee than just about any other tech company out there.

 

In 2018 a group of Valve staff tried to figure out just how efficient they were being—and found they were making more money per head than Apple, Facebook, and nearly every tech giant out there | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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A well-oiled Steam machine.

 

Either Valve is magic compared to Sony and Microsoft or they run wildly high margins thanks to their 30% cut. The only games company I know of that makes more money per employee than Valve is Nintendo and it is very much because they own the platform while also selling the largest volume of games for said platform. It's the biggest reason why people arguing Nintendo should put their games on PC store fronts like Valve's are crazy. No serious person is going to try to argue that Nintendo makes its off the party game sales, especially when this has been the case for Nintendo since way back on the Wii.

 

Nintendo makes more profit per employee than Goldman

WWW.FT.COM

 

[Xbob42]

I don't get how you type that up and think "and so Valve should willingly make a lot less money for no reason" lol

 

I'm sure Sony gives a lot more support than Nintendo, but you sure as shit don't see Nintendo lowering their rates. Epic offers more on their (vastly inferior and vastly less popular) platform, but the only reason they have that platform is because they filled their diapers over not being able to keep more of their Fortnite money, so clearly making a lot of money is important to them, so I don't buy their EGS "altruism" for one second. If EGS had actually accomplished its goal of ousting Steam, I could see those rates "unfortunately needing to rise" each year, bit by bit. We'd stop hearing about how hard it is for developers to make money and start hearing all these details about server costs and account maintenance and how much it costs to keep an army of support and IT around, etc.

 

Again, from a dev perspective, I totally get why you want more money. Yet from a platform holder perspective, I also get why you want more money. It, as always, is a matter of power. And Valve holds it, while Epic wishes they did. As a consumer, I really don't care that much either way, these are business deals for the suits to fight, our opinions are completely irrelevant, but I do think it's funny that the argument is always basically Valve should just make less money for some reason.

 

If you figured out how to improve your company's profits by 5%, you might be promoted to CEO. If you decided to lower your company's profit by 12% or more, they might feed you to piranhas. 

[Ghost_MH]

1 hour ago, Xbob42 said:

I don't get how you type that up and think "and so Valve should willingly make a lot less money for no reason" lol

 

I'm sure Sony gives a lot more support than Nintendo, but you sure as shit don't see Nintendo lowering their rates. Epic offers more on their (vastly inferior and vastly less popular) platform, but the only reason they have that platform is because they filled their diapers over not being able to keep more of their Fortnite money, so clearly making a lot of money is important to them, so I don't buy their EGS "altruism" for one second. If EGS had actually accomplished its goal of ousting Steam, I could see those rates "unfortunately needing to rise" each year, bit by bit. We'd stop hearing about how hard it is for developers to make money and start hearing all these details about server costs and account maintenance and how much it costs to keep an army of support and IT around, etc.

 

Again, from a dev perspective, I totally get why you want more money. Yet from a platform holder perspective, I also get why you want more money. It, as always, is a matter of power. And Valve holds it, while Epic wishes they did. As a consumer, I really don't care that much either way, these are business deals for the suits to fight, our opinions are completely irrelevant, but I do think it's funny that the argument is always basically Valve should just make less money for some reason.

 

If you figured out how to improve your company's profits by 5%, you might be promoted to CEO. If you decided to lower your company's profit by 12% or more, they might feed you to piranhas. 

 

If Valve could get away with it, they'd charge 60%. Of course I understand why they charge 30%. They're raking in money hand over fist. I'd love to double my salary for no additional effort.

 

It's still bullshit for devs. I don't really care what Epic's interest is here. They only care about making money. I only care about the folks making the games I love and I'll do what I can to support them. If that means I buy their game on EGS or even itch.io or directly off their own webpage, that's where I'll go. I don't feel any allegiance to a store front when the important part is the games.

 

The big publishers are a big shrug to me, but there are so many indie devs out there feeling the crunch just as badly as all these gaming companies firing people left and right. Why should anybody go to bat for Epic or Valve or Nintendo or Sony or Microsoft or Apple? They're all vultures, but at least the console guys provide more value to devs for their 30% than Valve does. Hell, even Apple provides more value to devs than Valve does; even if that value is artificially inflated due to Apple's overly draconian developer tools and agreements.

[Xbob42]

I guarantee you that getting your game in front of hundreds of millions of people is a lot more value add than EGS or whatever only taking 12% for most indies. I don't know how much "support" or what form that "support" takes from Nintendo, MS or Sony, but apparently most industry devs think the Steam cut is worth it, including ones that went running from Steam at one point, many of whom opened up their own shops. And some who've had their own shops for longer than Valve, like Blizzard. Including Sony and Microsoft. Including every Kickstarter indie game ever, and pretty much every notable indie game ever. Seems to me there's clearly value there.

 

But again, that's not my fight to fight. You sell your game, and I'll buy it. I'm not going to go out of my way to buy it in a way that maximizes your profit because come on dude, don't sign up with anything you don't agree with if it's going to hurt your bottom line. This is way overcomplicating the simple "you sell, I buy" nature of these business transactions. Do as you please of course, but please don't expect me to give a shit about the revenue cut someone is making. I expect these people to be smart and competent adults who are making decisions that they hope to be in their best interests.

To me, if things are so dire that paying industry standard rates to be on an extremely popular platform is enough to put the "squeeze" on your indie studio (but not all the other platforms??) then Jesus, fuckin' figure it out, man. 

[Keyser_Soze]

All of this 30% thing and concern about devs but it's the publishers that take home that profit not the devs. You should probably get on the publisher's case and make them give the devs more money then rely on Valve to do it.

[crispy4000]

The issue I take with Valve’s margins is that by and large, it’s because they were first to the scene.  Yes, there is a value add with their efforts with the Deck/Linux, and the way they’ve expanded the storefront.  But I’d honestly trade all that in a heartbeat if I could for a Valve that was serious about making games again.  This is what happens when competition dies, a reduced focus on bringing homegrown creativity to the table, and centering your business about leveraging others’ work.  So of course they’d keep the standard rate that existed before digital distribution.  
 

Because they’re first and stayed first, they’re deserving of their cheese.  Lol, sure.

[Xbob42]

3 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

The issue I take with Valve’s margins is that by and large, it’s because they were first to the scene.  Yes, there is a value add with their efforts with the Deck/Linux, and the way they’ve expanded the storefront.  But I’d honestly trade all that in a heartbeat if I could for a Valve that was serious about making games again.  This is what happens when competition dies, a reduced focus on bringing homegrown creativity to the table, and centering your business about leveraging others’ work.  So of course they’d keep the standard rate that existed before digital distribution.  
 

Because they’re first and stayed first, they’re deserving of their cheese.  Lol, sure.

All this talk of what they "deserve" is so idealistic and disconnected from reality. Netflix has raised their prices every year for ages and the quality of their offerings has only gone down. Top Ramen went from dirt cheap food for poor people to hilariously expensive for being waxed cardboard. EA has charged full price as they rerelease a slightly more broken version of [name any game they make here] for decades.

 

No one is "deserving" of anything in this regard, that's a borderline children's fantasy as a concept in the world of business. They have all the leverage and that's literally all that matters. It's not about deserving or what you offer or anything like that. You can bet your ass nothing EGS does is worth their 12% cut, not even close. Nothing MS or Sony does is "worth" the 30% cut and you can bet your ass every publisher under the sun would scoff at their "support" if it meant keeping that 30%.

Conflating idealistic wishes with actual business is so bizarre and it's really funny how everyone keeps making excuses for the console manufacturers when it's the exact same shit, lol.

 

Also I would not trade any of that for a Valve that focused solely on games again. I like Valve games, but getting one real good game every 4-6 years is not something I care too deeply about when I'm already inundated with leagues of amazing games every other month nowadays.

[TwinIon]

26 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

All this talk of what they "deserve" is so idealistic and disconnected from reality. Netflix has raised their prices every year for ages and the quality of their offerings has only gone down. Top Ramen went from dirt cheap food for poor people to hilariously expensive for being waxed cardboard. EA has charged full price as they rerelease a slightly more broken version of [name any game they make here] for decades.

 

No one is "deserving" of anything in this regard, that's a borderline children's fantasy as a concept in the world of business. They have all the leverage and that's literally all that matters. It's not about deserving or what you offer or anything like that. You can bet your ass nothing EGS does is worth their 12% cut, not even close. Nothing MS or Sony does is "worth" the 30% cut and you can bet your ass every publisher under the sun would scoff at their "support" if it meant keeping that 30%.

Conflating idealistic wishes with actual business is so bizarre and it's really funny how everyone keeps making excuses for the console manufacturers when it's the exact same shit, lol.

 

Also I would not trade any of that for a Valve that focused solely on games again. I like Valve games, but getting one real good game every 4-6 years is not something I care too deeply about when I'm already inundated with leagues of amazing games every other month nowadays.

The business model for consoles is significantly different than it is for general computing platforms. There are very different market forces at work that do more to justify 30% take for a Switch game than a PC game. I feel like between the Epic v Apple case and all the discussion around the DMA in the EU that this has been litigated to death, but if you can't differentiate those models, that's on you.

 

I also never said that Valve should give up on their revenue, and I don't think that anyone has been suggesting that. However, it seems rather obvious that they are able to maintain that cut because they run an effective monopoly. Monopolies are not necessarily built from unfair conditions, so this not an indictment, just an observation that Valve now controls what is broadly considered to be a monopoly share of the PC gaming distribution market (70%+). It would take either a huge market shift or regulation to change that in the short run, but monopolies are considered bad for consumers for a reason, and to dismiss those effects here is silly.

[crispy4000]

47 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

All this talk of what they "deserve" is so idealistic and disconnected from reality. Netflix has raised their prices every year for ages and the quality of their offerings has only gone down. Top Ramen went from dirt cheap food for poor people to hilariously expensive for being waxed cardboard. EA has charged full price as they rerelease a slightly more broken version of [name any game they make here] for decades.

 

The reality is that Valve's monopoly hasn't been challenged by any company to the degree those have.  They're closer to Google's search monopoly at this point.  Which is, fine, but can be potentially problematic since they literally have all the leverage they could ever ask for.

 

47 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

No one is "deserving" of anything in this regard, that's a borderline children's fantasy as a concept in the world of business. They have all the leverage and that's literally all that matters. It's not about deserving or what you offer or anything like that. You can bet your ass nothing EGS does is worth their 12% cut, not even close. Nothing MS or Sony does is "worth" the 30% cut and you can bet your ass every publisher under the sun would scoff at their "support" if it meant keeping that 30%.

 

They sell hardware at a loss or low margins to get more consumers in the door.  Valve has just started doing this with the Deck, so good on that.  But for the majority of Steam users, a historical-to-physical 30% cut isn't needed to subsidize the cost of Valve's upkeep in the slightest.

 

Leverage can be a problem in this industry regardless.  The console manufactures use it to sell online play passes, and get to be the arbiters of who gets paid how much with their subscriptions (hint: it's getting worse).  We shouldn't just assume it's all good and fine if they're doing bad things in tandem with their leverage.  The smaller publishers and developers often get the short end of the stick.  That goes for Valve too, in offering sweetheart deals to large publishers.

 

47 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Conflating idealistic wishes with actual business is so bizarre and it's really funny how everyone keeps making excuses for the console manufacturers when it's the exact same shit, lol.

 

Criticism of business as usual shouldn't be dismissed as idealism.

[Xbob42]

The idealism isn't the criticism, it's the part where all this is presented as though any of this is a meritocracy. The term "deserves" shouldn't even be in the conversation as it's been used because it's so far removed from the reality of the situation. My point was that nothing any of these companies are doing results in them "deserving" their cut. If we were to go down that route, then you "deserve" the cut you're able to carve in the market and demand of your clients. You "deserve" to get paid for what you bring to the table, and seeing as how everyone is willing to pay except Tim Epic, it seems to me that they "deserve" it.

 

Now, being a de facto monopoly may not be ideal, but no one's even making an effort to actually compete, even the most motivated competitor with loads of money and a deep personal interest, Epic Games, does not give half a shit to build up their storefront to compete and instead relies on lazily passing out free games of varying quality and hoping that'll hook ya.

 

It's not that I thing any of these things are good or fine, it's that I see no realistic solutions presented and if the "competition" can't even be assed to even pretend to compete, where does that leave us? If the hotblooded, hyper-invested, hyper-rich Steam hatin' Tim Sweeney can't muster up enough shits to make a functional storefront to compete against the assholes, what's the takeaway? It's not that he can't compete, it's that he won't.

 

Valve just sitting there taking their cut that they have been for 20 years while everyone acts like there's big some sea change. But as far as I can see, if I go on Steam I get massive unified input support and customizability, free cloud saves with every game, free online play (including Valve's own servers and workshop that devs are free to take advantage of), massive promotions and sales, and plenty more. They continually add value for both the consumer and the dev/publisher. Is it perfect? No. Is it worth the 30%? Well that's not for me to say, but I've yet to see anyone even attempt to do better. Alternatives like GOG and Humble have been chuggin' along just fine, .io seems to be thriving, it seems to me the competition is there taking on specialized fields where Valve is not delivering, while copycat shops like EGS can't even get their pants on.

[crispy4000]

7 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

The idealism isn't the criticism, it's the part where all this is presented as though any of this is a meritocracy. The term "deserves" shouldn't even be in the conversation as it's been used because it's so far removed from the reality of the situation. My point was that nothing any of these companies are doing results in them "deserving" their cut. If we were to go down that route, then you "deserve" the cut you're able to carve in the market and demand of your clients. You "deserve" to get paid for what you bring to the table, and seeing as how everyone is willing to pay except Tim Epic, it seems to me that they "deserve" it.

Just like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo “deserve” to charge us for networking features that are free on phones and PC.  Because we’ll pay it on their closed systems…

 

Certianly there’s a middle ground here.  One that isn’t detached from buisness fundamentals, but also not far removed from the consumer experience and the health of smaller parts of the industry.

[crispy4000]

51 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

 

 

It's not that I thing any of these things are good or fine, it's that I see no realistic solutions presented and if the "competition" can't even be assed to even pretend to compete, where does that leave us? If the hotblooded, hyper-invested, hyper-rich Steam hatin' Tim Sweeney can't muster up enough shits to make a functional storefront to compete against the assholes, what's the takeaway? It's not that he can't compete, it's that he won't.

Probably not true.  I don’t think Epic’s capable of pulling many people off Steam regardless of the quality (or lack thereof) of their storefront. Just like Bing isn’t pulling many from Google.

 

On the other hand, you have much better aggregation of game imports on GoG than Steam, but CD Projekt Red also neutered their team there a few years back.

  

51 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Valve just sitting there taking their cut that they have been for 20 years while everyone acts like there's big some sea change. But as far as I can see, if I go on Steam I get massive unified input support and customizability, free cloud saves with every game, free online play (including Valve's own servers and workshop that devs are free to take advantage of), massive promotions and sales, and plenty more. They continually add value for both the consumer and the dev/publisher. Is it perfect? No. Is it worth the 30%? Well that's not for me to say, but I've yet to see anyone even attempt to do better. Alternatives like GOG and Humble have been chuggin' along just fine, .io seems to be thriving, it seems to me the competition is there taking on specialized fields where Valve is not delivering, while copycat shops like EGS can't even get their pants on.

Humble doesn't have an app technically.  They did have one with a choice subscription at one point, but shut it down.

[Brian]

As a consumer

 

[crispy4000]

21 minutes ago, Brian said:

As a consumer

 

 

Impacts what gets greenlit, the scale, what studios get shut down, what gets cancelled, etc.

 

Even if the impact feels marginal on our end, I don't have a problem with people generally being paid more for good work at the same price to us.

... or keeping their jobs...

[Bacon]

33 minutes ago, Brian said:

As a consumer

 

[Ghost_MH]

49 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

Probably not true.  I don’t think Epic’s capable of pulling many people off Steam regardless of the quality (or lack thereof) of their storefront. Just like Bing isn’t pulling many from Google.

 

It's very unlikely Epic could do anything to move people off Steam. Gamers just need to be honest and admit that even if Epic brought EGS to feature parity with Steam they'd still choose Steam because that's where all their games and friends are. Like I said earlier, this is the same as rooting for AMD to get Nvidia and Intel to lower their prices. Gamers "want competition" only to maybe lower prices and convince their current champions to make better products.

[Keyser_Soze]

7 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

Impacts what gets greenlit, the scale, what studios get shut down, what gets cancelled, etc.

 

Companies that are making record profit but still somehow not making enough to prevent laying people off. The idea that giving them more money would make everything peachy keen is silly.

[Ghost_MH]

3 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Companies that are making record profit but still somehow not making enough to prevent laying people off. The idea that giving them more money would make everything peachy keen is silly.

 

The companies making record profits and then laying off a bunch of workers to squeeze their execs a larger bonus are the same ones Apple and Valve give sweetheart deals to where they don't charge their typical 30%. Nobody is talking about them.

[Keyser_Soze]

5 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

The companies making record profits and then laying off a bunch of workers to squeeze their execs a larger bonus are the same ones Apple and Valve give sweetheart deals to where they don't charge their typical 30%. Nobody is talking about them.

 

Also, the ones most likely to take any Epic deals.

If you're a smaller dev, like maybe the guy who did Lethal Company, then even with a 30% cut you're making more than enough money. That guy is set for life now.

[crispy4000]

10 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Companies that are making record profit but still somehow not making enough to prevent laying people off. The idea that giving them more money would make everything peachy keen is silly.

Depends on the company, and the project.  Certainly the little guys could benefit.  Being “smart” can only get them so far when visibility is still such an issue and subscription payouts are less.  Few find themselves with a breakout hit.

 

On the medium to higher end, a lot if it has to do with margins and risk, and the lack of ‘cheap’ money today.  Would the Mandalorian Titanfall game still be alive if EA could offset more of the license fees?  Who knows.

 

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

Valve does not have a monopoly, I probably buy ~20% of my PC games through the Valve storefront.  Games are normally available cheaper elsewhere.

There are tons of places that people purchase their games -- EGS, Origin, Ubisoft, Roblox, Battle.net, GoG, key resellers (CDKeys, Fanatical, GMG), itch.io, Amazon, even the MS/Xbox storefront.

In the end, PC games used to be cheaper than console games because the cost of distribution was lower for the game makers -- and they would pass this along to the customer.  I don't believe that if Valve reduced their commission to 20%, that developers would lower the price on PC.  So, the current system largely works out for me, as I can normally get significant discounts on other store fronts.

[crispy4000]

7 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Valve does not have a monopoly, I probably buy ~20% of my PC games through the Valve storefront.  Games are normally available cheaper elsewhere.

There are tons of places that people purchase their games -- EGS, Origin, Ubisoft, Roblox, Battle.net, GoG, key resellers (CDKeys, Fanatical, GMG), itch.io, Amazon, even the MS/Xbox storefront.

Their storefront isn’t a monopoly, but their client is.  Enough to the point that if you don’t put your PC game on Steam, its probably sending it out to die on computers.  Ubisoft, EA and Microsoft have given in now: they can’t miss out on Steam’s user base.  
 

Valve made the forward thinking decision to let other storefronts sell Steam keys, and their client remained the point of contact the vast majority of PC gamers interact with regularly.  Naturally that promotes their storefront ahead of all others, as does their client’s economy.  It’s why even someone price saavy like you still gives them 20% and not 0%.
 

7 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

In the end, PC games used to be cheaper than console games because the cost of distribution was lower for the game makers -- and they would pass this along to the customer.  I don't believe that if Valve reduced their commission to 20%, that developers would lower the price on PC.  So, the current system largely works out for me, as I can normally get significant discounts on other store fronts.

 

PC games still are cheaper, generally.  But I don’t think anyone here is arguing game prices would go down if the royalty cut was less.  Epic’s store is evidence to that, with the largest discounts being the occasional coupons subsidized by Epic themselves.  So are the sweetheart deals Valve offers - games that succeed enough to reach those high benchmarks aren’t the ones discounted quickly and heavily.