Developer confidence in steam falls to just 11% in "they earned their share".
37 replies, posted
https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam-developer-survey
All aboard the epic train, where you can censor any criticism towards your games at your request.
People say "monopoly is bad, competition is good for consumers". Except that competition practices product exclusivity. That's when it becomes inconvenient.
I would hope the market would learn to let devs publish their games on both platforms for maximum benefits, but video games have a long-standing relationship with exclusivity. So I'm hating this.
If anyone wants to read the full report: Operation Tell Valve All The Things, 3.0
The algorithm's enigma is stirring concerns among developers. It doesn't matter if the stories are true or not, the possibility of being able to be fucked over by chance is making most antsy.
"Fairer revenue share" is drummed up by, you guessed it, the Epic Store. So yeah, expect many games to go for Epic Store, cause who doesn't want to 20% extra profits??
Steam isn't pushing all the features demanded by developers. (Only 3 out of 10 in the past year)
I think the unrest is just, but at the same time, I've met and am friends with few local indie developers (most are relatively unknown) and, boy, let me tell you, some of them really DO NOT know how Steam works. As in, "what is the difference between Greenlight and Direct" and "there is regional pricing??" level of illiteracy.
Starting in the silent film era, the FTC started an investigation in the film studios since they had a stake in every step in the filmmaking process (from making it, going all the way down to distribution and owning their own theaters). In 1938 the US Justice Department filed a lawsuit against all of the big studios (Paramount, MGM, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, RKO, Universal, Columbia and United Artists), but the entire process through lawsuits and the studios dragging their feet that it went before the Supreme Court in 1948, filed as US vs Paramount. It ultimately decided that the studios could not own movie theaters and how exclusivity rights work in the industry. While my argument is on much firmer ground against the (mostly) same studios holding their films and TV shows hostage with having their own streaming services, to put it bluntly, I think it's a bit shit that video games studios are attempting to lock down their games on their own platforms when it should be up to the consumer which game launcher they choose, rather than have to install all of them and install less games. From the comments made by the guy who did Steam Spy and ultimately put in charge of the Epic launcher, I get the feeling the studios are looking more for narrative control, and less for profit share.
I mean 20% extra profits means nothing if nobody is using the Epic store.
As someone on here said: Gain 20 or 30% extra profit by moving to Epic, lose 30% in sales.
I'll be honest I rarely use steam anymore. A lot of the AAA companies are moving away and for better or for worse giving steam a run for it's money. I find myself not using steam 90% of the time now.
uhhh it should be up to me -- the developer -- which storefront I sell on because it's my product. if I don't want to give steam 30% of my money I shouldn't be forced to do that.
also you're missing a big part of that case: it was nearly impossible for small movie producers to get into a theater without major studio involvement, which meant it severely restricted creative freedom.
Those things aren't exclusive in the least, first you control the narrative, then you control the money. UbiShaft and EA have been doing this for years and the movie comparison is apt, because just like hollywood you scratch the veneer a little bit and and the smell of naked greed, collusion and corruption will melt your face off. EA and UBI aren't your friend, and neither is valve. Greed corrupts virtually anything and everything it touches.
We've never had a chance to vote with our wallets against Valve because of Steam. If EPIC's store gives them a hard time it's good for all of us.
RIp the steam dream
this really is life on the earth
This is exactly it. The same thing happened with HL2 for Steam - Epic has Fortnite. Neither of these at the time were something to shake a stick at, and with Fortnite targeting a younger demographic right now, those same players will grow up to be strongly aligned with Epic. I definitely see the Epic store taking off, albeit with a moderately slow burn.
90% of 0 is still Zero
Now you get to use your wallet to vote on whether you'd rather be giving your money to Valve, or Tencent!
Oh yeah, this launcher with no public forums and no users reviews sure is the candidate I want to back to combat steam.
Who needs the ability to make informed purchases anyway?
It's not like they're never going to add them
Considering they don't have them because developers told them they don't want them, I doubt they'll be adding them soon.
Fuck the Epic Store. Origin is the actual AAA publisher competition to steam, it has a better refund policy and actual live support. Even then it's flawed as fuck, but it's still better than Epic's shit.
Not going to lie, i fully support a Steam monopoly as long as GOG still exists. Uplay, Epic/Bethesda Launchers, Battle.net, Origin all going offline at some point and having to move their products to Steam? The idea of heaven
Do I want heartless corporation 1, or heartless corporation 2?
I agree on reviews, but Metacritic exists and Steam forums are long gone. Reddit makes a bigger impact as far as getting Valve to do something.
I'm talking the community tab which has a forum for every game on steam. It's not amazing but it's at least some way for people to talk about the game on the store itself.
The real competitor to steam should be itch but that's a laughingstock for no reason so we're boned
I've only ever seen itch linked by tiny devs showing off prototypes and very small games. I don't think it's trying to be a competitor to steam, I think it's just trying to be a place for small indies to put out their stuff.
Well when they do maybe you can defend it then.
Right now, it's shit, and it's okay to criticize things that are shit.
Except you forget that epic has one of the biggest games in the world on their platform. They are bound to get people buying games on it just based on that alone.
Disagree.
Valve stuck an unskippable video advertisement for Artifact into the Dota 2 client.
Artifact's doing shit right now.
Yeah, but that's like expecting a Super Bowl advertisement for a bag full of dog shit to get people to buy the bag of dog shit.
At the same time it also requires constant moderation to prevent it from devolving into a complete shitflinging contest. I can see why certain devs don't want to have to deal with that.
Why is Tencent bad, again?
Also dont forget that Tencent owns a minority in Epic Games...
They're a huge Chinese mega corporation and therefore undoubtedly an arm of the Chinese political machine.
I still fail to see the issue. Im not being snarky, I constantly hear this but still cannot grasp as to why this is bad?
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