Monday, April 8th 2019
"Steam Was Killing PC Gaming", Former Valve Dev Says
The EPIC confrontation with Valve has become a hot topic in recent months, as a veritable Exodus of titles have migrated to the greener, 12%-limited cut that the EPIC Games Store takes from publishers who put their games on the EPIC Games Store digital storefront. Mostly, user reception of EPIC's practice of securing mostly one-year timed exclusivity deals for games that would otherwise also be available through Steam has left a sour taste oin gamers' mouths, as it is seen as a forced way for EPIC to fracture the PC gaming space.
However, a former Valve developer has come forth to say that in his view, Valve's 30% cut was already way behind the times, and was actually "killing PC gaming". The train of thought is that Steam itself changed Valve from a software company to what mostly amounts to a service provider, with Steam serving as a veritable digital money printing machine, that stole focus from games to games publishing, due to higher margins and much lower development costs. It's interesting - and logical - to assume that the reason an Half Life 3 never saw the light of day was because Valve had its revenue stream well secured in Steam. Why invest for a game that could be a flop, when you can just take a 30% cut from other developers' efforts?
Of course, the argument does make some sense. At the same time, it's true that Valve's Steam platform did advance gaming for publishers more than is being let on - a 40% royalty on digitally published games beat the usually 50% take that brick-and-mortar stores usually took in order to reserve shelf space for a new game release. However, as times changed and digital publishing became more commonplace (and game development costs rise and rise), it's understandable that a 30% cut was hitting a new sustainability ceiling for developers. And that's where Richard Geldreich's argument makes more sense: a 12% cut will allow for developers to invest more heavily into their games due to the much reduced revenue cut they have to take into account on projected sales.
That, or they'll invest the same amount of money and take a deeper cut for investors. It could go both ways.
Source:
@Richard Geldreich's Twitter
However, a former Valve developer has come forth to say that in his view, Valve's 30% cut was already way behind the times, and was actually "killing PC gaming". The train of thought is that Steam itself changed Valve from a software company to what mostly amounts to a service provider, with Steam serving as a veritable digital money printing machine, that stole focus from games to games publishing, due to higher margins and much lower development costs. It's interesting - and logical - to assume that the reason an Half Life 3 never saw the light of day was because Valve had its revenue stream well secured in Steam. Why invest for a game that could be a flop, when you can just take a 30% cut from other developers' efforts?
98 Comments on "Steam Was Killing PC Gaming", Former Valve Dev Says
When Epic is competing from a price perspective, they don't really have much of an inducement to match Steam's user-facing features. They want to match Steam's developer and publisher facing features and then they will get to user's complaints.
The only thing that will make Epic either improve their launcher or stop buying exclusives is for those exclusives to do poorly at launch, leading devs and publishers to not sign exclusivity agreements. So I think that forgoing Epic exclusives is the only way users can truly push back against an inferior store mopping up their future anticipated games. Then Epic will have to improve their store, stop buying exclusives, or both.
It just takes that one 'special' developer that only puts in 75% effort to make something great--I'll buy that thing.
Editing again, sorry..... I'm pretty sure all of the flunkies working at EA or any other 'AAA' publisher are totally over worked and underpaid. It's not Steam's or Epic's fault that those poor bastards are overworked--it's those people's faults, and it's their parent's faults for giving them shitty genes and shitty advice on how to live their life.
FFS, I'm gonna quit while I'm still sober.
I have been playing a certain MMO (ryzom.com/) for 14 + years .. it was added to Steam. I mostly "play" to spend time hanging out with friends and chatting, helping newer users and building in game apps tho I have been away from game for about 6 months. It's free up to level 125; sub lets you go to 250 in 63 skills and lets you have additional animals and storage (apartments ., guild halls) . It has Windows, Mac and Linux versions and is instalable on 3 ways ..
a) Download from game site
b) Download from Steam
c) Portable Install (game exists self contained in its own folder) ... I find this the most stable option and you can copy game folder to a DVD or thumb drive and just copy / pasye the folder on any PC (w/ same OS) and it runs.
When the game was added to Steam, it brought in a decent number of users ... it wasn't WoW (player base average age is 35-40 and there are players from 8 to 80.) so many of those that came from Steam left ... but while they were there, the Steam version seems to be boinky for a good % of users and Id say at least 1/3 to 1/2 switched to native install.
Poll is clearly just designed to stir the pot and incite more anger by minorities on each side.
It's an epidemic problem in the industry and has been for decades.
Besides, my comment is aimed at all the “but muh Steam is the best, they have always been awesome,” which we all know not to be true.
EA, the Wal-Mart of video games, enough said. Yet people keep buying their games.
disgruntled employee's always have a lot to say that they cannot substantiate.
and this cannot be substantiated because PC Gaming is healthier than ever.and its their own fault for letting status quo rule the roost.
Join a union and strike till the conditions improve.
I think that EPIC's 12% and 1 year of exclusivity is a "loss leader" type of situation and it will be adjusted at a later date (maybe stepped based on income generated by the game?), but Valve will have to react to that in some way. Either way it's good for consumers and developers alike.
Personally I will not be using EPIC's store in the foreseeable future. I'm not a fan of giving my data to another company to sell to advertisers or lose in another breach. I wouldn't even use Steam if not for VR (I got a Vive + 1080ti combo for my birthday from my girlfriend who is the greatest girlfriend on Earth and also she wanted to play Elite Dangerous). Since these days games are mostly unplayable at launch, I'll be happy to wait for a year to get the likes of Metro: Exodus cheaper, well-patched and modded to hell and back.
EPIC did not introduce competition, they just want their own kind of monopoly.
It is the same thing EA and Ubisoft are doing. (Bethesda has failed).
Making Steam look bad doesn't mean EPIC is right.