Epic will need some exclusives if they want anyone to use their shop, otherwise why wouldn’t people stick with Steam and ignore them ?
Free games also help with that (at least get people to install their client), but they definitely won’t bring in any money…
I think it is pretty risky for devs to be exclusive to them (unless Epic is giving them a great deal). I wonder how many people will wait out that year, and since they waited so long, wait for a 50% or 75% discount on Steam or forget about the game altogether.
In 5 years, these devs will be b!tching the same about the 88/12 split like they are about the 70/30 split now. How many servers does Valve run to support every single multiplayer game on the platform?
And why wouldn’t they, it is in their best interest to get as high a percentage as possible.
I have no idea how much Valve’s servers cost, but they rake in tons of money regardless
I don’t much care for SMB but no matter your opinion Subnautica is actually a pretty damned interesting game and a popular one at that (and very few would chalk it up to being just ‘mere’ crap). I already own it on Steam tho.
I don’t really see devs ever bitching about an 88/12 split, especially if Epic manages to cull a strong userbase. That’s a great storefront deal if they have the numbers to back it up and all it would take to end any bitching is to point back at the 70/30 split they could instead be enjoying, which is a huge difference. The only other alternative for new indies is to delude yourself into believing you’re Blizzard and you can swim on your own, but chances are you’ll be lost in the vastness of the ocean.
I think by the end of 2019 we’ll have a better idea about how this is going to play out. I am surprised tho that Double Damage is committing to a full year of exclusivity and some of the others are claiming to remain indefinitely. That’s a bold move indeed and a gamble this early on, seems they have some amount of faith in their partnership.
And why despise Epic? It was clearly Double Damage’s choice to find a new lover. Be mad at them instead. Steam has been virtually unchallenged all these years and has essentially been writing its own rules in the vacuum. The only way to level the seesaw is to put someone with an equal amount of weight opposite them. In the end the only way to break Steam’s stranglehold is for enough game devs (that have significant influence/fans) to be brave enough to take the first steps of defiance.
And don’t get me wrong… there is alot about Steam that I do like, particularly their interest and drive to open up Linux gaming in an attempt to put it on equal footing with Windows. Which is a huge uphill challenge even for the likes of Valve. Whether they do it for money or because Gabe likes to snub Microsoft or because somewhere in there they actually do care I find admirable.
Some people have speculated that these indies are risking this much because Epic Games is either paying them money to make up for likely lower sales since its a new platform or covered some of the costs of development to get them to either remain exclusive permanently or to be a timed exclusive in Epic’s store.
That’s not really speculating, though, it’s more a reasonable guess. Anyway, more competition is always in the interest of the customer, even if I personally am satisfied with Valve management. I just want to point out that Valve wasn’t unchallenged before, it’s just that the challengers were pretty crappy (looking at you, Uplay).
That’s why I wrote ‘virtually’ unchallenged Which is essentially what it all boiled down to… there has been noone that came close to threatening their position in a manner that would actually force them to change their way of doing things in an attempt to remain ‘competitive’. They’ve just ‘Steam’-rolled over anyone that got in the way. Only GoG has managed to find a spot it could hold on to out of the way of the giant but it doesn’t seem like they are going out of their way to force Steam’s hand either.
Which is why I am finding Epic’s move here so exciting. They just took a swing at Steam (and some say this is also a swipe at Apple/Google and the consoles) and I think I see some blood. Not sure yet but that may be the start of a cut.
I don’t know if I should root for them or not but I’m definitely rubbernecking.
my friendly advise to Epic games is to for them to create a friendly UI accomodating software/program that enables steam players to transfer all of their hard earned library of games to Epic. This transition software or launcher if you will, tracts all your hours from steam, achievements and transfers them to Epic games seemingly. This way players feel right at home:rolleyes:
Call it Epic Transition Program! From then and there you can continue your stean journey plus movers are greeted with free fortnite skins as bonus rewards
Well my first thought when I saw the news was that this is a good way to support small devs. If Crates next game is sold on Epics store I’ll gladly buy it there. Especially since Valve just went the other way in giving a bigger piece of the pie to the big players.
Discord, one of the most popular voice chat and community platforms for PC gaming, only started selling games in August. The company announced Friday that it will double down on its role as a marketplace in 2019 by allowing developers of all sizes to self-publish games — while offering an aggressive 90/10 revenue split, which will give more money to developers than most other game distribution platforms currently do.
According to the company’s announcement of this new initiative, it all started with a question, “Why does it cost 30% to distribute games?” After a bit of research, Discord decided that there was no reason the process should cost that much. “Turns out, it does not cost 30% to distribute games in 2018. […] We discovered that we can build amazing developer tools, run them and give developers the majority of the revenue share.”
Will be interesting to see if Steam succumbs even more to the sudden pressure to give game developers a fairer shake or will they maintain confidence in their currently overwhelming position and hold steady?
Steam certainly has the advantage due to the sheer size of its userbase and back catalog (plus the years of Steam features the others currently lack), which can’t be ignored completely by developers, then again it now has two competitors that can’t be ignored either now daring it to cross the line in the sand and I have to admit that Discord was just a fringe entity in my mind before this announcement and it was certainly smart of them to do what they just did.
Now I am starting to wonder which way GoG is going to flip in this equation. I have no idea what kind of cuts they provide game developers on their store front but I always just assumed that it must be around the same as Steams. Now would actually be the perfect time for GoG to follow suit with Epic and Discord and produce a triple whammy that will secure an unprecedented industry change across the board. That would seal the deal for sure.
This is seriously fucking crazy when you get right down to it but I can bet that game devs all over are watching intently.
yes, but to be fair, given a bigger piece to the big players is generally how business works, you get a better price for buying a larger quantity, same logic here
What worries me about the Discord one is that it’s self publish, and if I’m understanding that correctly, then anyone can publish anything with no quality contol and it will decend into a swap of shite with decent games getting lost amongst the asset flips and other cash grabs. Still will have to wait and see what actually happens.
Just seen a reply on Reddit from, I guess, one of the store devs, regards self publishing and floods of junk.
Good question! Not all self published games will make it to the front of the store page. We’re still working on improving curation, what games to feature, game discovery, etc. However, now if I’m part of an small developers Discord server, I can follow their announcements and they can link users directly to their store page.
I should state everything we do we iterate on, so just like we improve Discord over time we plan on iterating on store, library, and server features. Hopefully that helps address your question
There’s no inbuilt download speed cap in the Epic Games Launcher, which brings me to the question of “who the fuck thought that was a good idea?”.
There’s next to no way to contact Epic Games outside of the contact form on the website. Which makes giving direct feedback rather “interesting”, heck even their facebook page is locked down so you can’t make a post, only comment. Yes, we get that internet users are often f*ckwits, but not providing feedback routes for a store front that’s udner active development is just stupid.
No “verify game files” functionality, aka that thing that saves you having to redownload the whole fudging game or run check disk, because file corruption totes never happens evers and internet is never metered by the gig…
Haven’t built in the right click on task-bar icon thing steam has, that makes launching games a simple task of right clicking on the icon and selecting pinned or recently played games.
Well, I hardly expect that they’re going to have anywhere close to the amount of Steam features we’ve all gotten used to over the years. This is one thing definitely that’s going to count against them unless they start chipping away at it over the next year.
Guess we’ll see if they make improvements because I agree they have a bit of work to approach Steam’s functionality, they won’t be able to ride along with just their developer cuts as incentives forever. Usability for the end consumer is important too.
Which is essentially what it all boiled down to… there has been noone that came close to threatening their position in a manner that would actually force them to change their way of doing things in an attempt to remain ‘competitive’. They’ve just ‘Steam’-rolled over anyone that got in the way. Only GoG has managed to find a spot it could hold on to out of the way of the giant but it doesn’t seem like they are going out of their way to force Steam’s hand either.