Steam AAA Bleed Continues: Anno 1800 to be UPlay and Epic Games Store Exclusive

[95Viper]

Enough back and forth bickering.
Get back on topic.

Thank You.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

My problem with Anno 1800 is...I don't really want to go back to the middle ages. I have 2270 and 2070. I played 1440. I just can't get hyped about 1800. I'm sure it's a fine game but...

 

[vega22]

Epic used unreal tournament to test the platform. Test sales, modding and the social side.

Fortnight then made them a fuckton of cash which they are plowing back into their business.

Publishers are seeing it as a good move and indy Devs are following suit. Gamers just don't see how they benefit yet....

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Years down the road, I think it should translate to bigger (more DLC) or higher quality (more polish) games. They have 13-18% more resources to put into making games higher value.

 

[moproblems99]

Publishers are seeing it as a good move and indy Devs are following suit. Gamers just don't see how they benefit yet....

What everyone needs to learn is that not everything benefits them. Sometimes things happen and benefit other people while you stand there and watch.

 

[vega22]

I hope they start to jack prices up on steam. Let the end user eat that cost.

See how many still feel like gaben is the saviour when they need to pay 18/25% more for the same game.

 

[64K]

A former Valve developer Richard Geldreich had some interesting things to say about Steam's 30% cut (although their cut could go as low as 20% if the game generated revenue over a certain point). I don't know what terms he left Valve on and he may just have an axe to grind but here is what he had to say:

"Steam was killing PC gaming. It was a 30% tax on an entire industry. It was unsustainable. You have no idea how profitable Steam was for Valve. It was a virtual printing press. It distorted the entire company. Epic is fixing this for all gamers."

"I think gamers are going to remain mad for a long time, as these exclusives won’t stop anytime soon. Could last 1 year or more. Steam will be for indy/2nd tier/shovelware/porn, Epic and other launchers for AAA. This seems to be where the market is heading at the moment."

When asked about the lack of features on EGS he said:

"I think they hear gamers loud and clear on that. They really should have added more features to EGS before launching. I think what’s likely is that Sweeney will push his team to add features to EGS until it’s somewhat at parity vs. Steam’s key features. The exclusive backlash will only cost them a few percent of sales (maybe 5-10%?)"

https://www.dsogaming.com/news/fome...s-fixing-it-30-cut-made-valve-a-lot-of-money/

 

[bug]

@64K Well, did you really need someone to tell you that? Everybody running app stores is rolling in it. Apple, Google... It's why Microsoft still tries to push their store, too.
However, besides the store Valve gave us SteamWorks which, as much as I hate it, actually lowers the costs of developing a title. For indies, that's a huge plus. Valve tried to build a gaming console. They actively support gaming on Linux, despite the platform's minuscule market share. So yes, they charge a lot. But they don't simply sit on top of a pile of money. As usual, there's more than one way to look at this...

 

[FordGT90Concept]

But they don't simply sit on top of a pile of money.

Yes, they are. The ventures you describe maybe cost a hundred million at most. Meanwhile Steam is estimated to be raking in over $1 billion/quarter. Most of that money is going to lining GabeN's wallet.

 

[64K]

Newell is indeed wealthy. The last estimate of his wealth is just under 4 billion dollars. He can afford to lower Steam's cut and that is what he should do or lose the money anyway by Epic getting AAA exclusives.

 

[bug]

Yes, they are. The ventures you describe maybe cost a hundred million at most. Meanwhile Steam is estimated to be raking in over $1 billion/quarter. Most of that money is going to lining GabeN's wallet.

Spoken like a true socialist.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Newell is indeed wealthy. The last estimate of his wealth is just under 4 billion dollars. He can afford to lower Steam's cut and that is what he should do or lose the money anyway by Epic getting AAA exclusives.

The fact he only half-assed the last change (detailed on the last page of this thread), I'd say Steam isn't feeling much pain from EGS yet or Steam isn't technically ready to handle a major change (e.g. no infrastructure to reduce rates for new titles).

Spoken like a true socialist.

I think you're the first person to ever accuse me of being a "socialist."

Valve makes ridiculous profits for only having ~360 employees. Their costs are low, their revenue is high. They're also not investing it in anything public at least and, because it is privately owned and GabeN presumably owns 100% stake, the money is going to him.

 

[bug]

I think you're the first person to ever accuse me of being a "socialist."

Valve makes ridiculous profits for only having ~360 employees. Their costs are low, their revenue is high. They're also not investing it in anything public at least and, because it is privately owned and GabeN presumably owns 100% stake, the money is going to him.

That's what socialism does: it tells other people what they should do with their money (and property, in general)
And that wasn't an accusation, but rather a remark.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I don't care what GabeN does with his money; I just don't care to give him mine. I want good games and GabeN does little to further that goal (he did a decade ago, not today). In fact, as Richard Geldreich pointed out, Steam is becoming a place good games avoid because it's drowning in garbage.

 

[64K]

Valve makes ridiculous profits for only having ~360 employees. Their costs are low, their revenue is high. They're also not investing it in anything public at least and, because it is privately owned and GabeN presumably owns 100% stake, the money is going to him.

From what I've read Newell owns over 50% of Valve (controlling interest) but I don't recall reading who owns the rest.

 

[bug]

I don't care what GabeN does with his money; I just don't care to give him mine. I want good games and GabeN does little to further that goal (he did a decade ago, not today). In fact, as Richard Geldreich pointed out, Steam is becoming a place good games avoid because it's drowning in garbage.

And yet your response when I pointed out Valve does more for gaming than just Steam, was that they're not doing nearly enough

 

[rtwjunkie]

Spoken like a true socialist.

That's what socialism does: it tells other people what they should do with their money (and property, in general)
And that wasn't an accusation, but rather a remark.

And yet your response when I pointed out Valve does more for gaming than just Steam, was that they're not doing nearly enough

You are clearly clueless. These are not socialist remarks. Ford is as big a capitalist as I am. The point here is that as CONSUMERS we feel that Steam is not doing enough to keep us loyal to his brand that doesn’t seem to be competing very well any more.

I truly worry that your sight is so poor you cannot see that Steam is resting on its laurels for 8 years or so. They have forgotten how to be competitive, which is part of capitalism. They have to EARN our money.

 

[bug]

You are clearly clueless. These are not socialist remarks. Ford is as big a capitalist as I am. The point here is that as CONSUMERS we feel that Steam is not doing enough to keep us loyal to his brand that doesn’t seem to be competing very well any more.

I truly worry that your sight is so poor you cannot see that Steam is resting on its laurels for 8 years or so. They have forgotten how to be competitive, which is part of capitalism. They have to EARN our money.

Well, I see all that. I was just saying, there's more to Steam than the usual reasons we like to bring up to hate the service. Not sure how that makes me clueless, but ok.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Well, I see all that. I was just saying, there's more to Steam than the usual reasons we like to bring up to hate the service. Not sure how that makes me clueless, but ok.

By saying Ford’s remarks were socialist. No big deal.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

And yet your response when I pointed out Valve does more for gaming than just Steam, was that they're not doing nearly enough

Well then let's rewind and go point by point...

However, besides the store Valve gave us SteamWorks which, as much as I hate it, actually lowers the costs of developing a title. For indies, that's a huge plus. Valve tried to build a gaming console. They actively support gaming on Linux, despite the platform's minuscule market share. So yes, they charge a lot. But they don't simply sit on top of a pile of money. As usual, there's more than one way to look at this...

First let's define what SteamWorks actually is:
https://partner.steamgames.com/

Steamworks is a free suite of tools available to any developer to use in their game or software on Steam. Here is a small sampling of the available features:
-Matchmaking
-Steam Inventory Service
-Anti-cheat technology
-In-game economy with microtransactions
-Management of user-generated content
-Per-User cloud storage

Let's take an indie game, Consortium as an example. They don't use matchmaking because it's single player, they don't use inventory service because there's no cosmetic or pay to win crap in it, they don't use anti-cheat technology because no multiplayer, there's no in-game economy nor microtransactions because Interdimensional Games loathes the idea as much as gamers do, there's no "management of user-generated content" because the game wasn't intended to be modded, and although it uses the "per-user cloud storage" it fills in in less than hour because it auto-saves like a boss. So of everything SteamWorks offers, they only use one thing, and it added cost to production, not lowered it.

For indies producing shovelware, yeah, sure, SteamWorks is fantastic. For indies not producing shovelware, it's an afterthought at best. Think of all of the games that patched in mod support years after game launch, for example.

Remember: indies that aren't in it just for cash place a lot of importance on market exposure. This means putting the game on GOG, PS4, XB1, and Switch where SteamWorks isn't helpful. That's fundamentally why SteamWorks is a lot less valuable to indies than you think it is: they are thinking beyond Steam.


Oyua "tried to build a gaming console" too. It flopped. Like Valve's, but lets be honest, Oyua tried harder than Valve did. Valve basically just created a design document that if an OEM made a machine that complied with it, Valve would slap their branding on it. It was never really anything remarkable nor costly.


Valve (along with GOG and everyone else) rode the coattails of AMD's GPUOpen initiative as far as Linux is concerned.

 

[bug]

I give up.

 

[TheOne]

Sweeney could take some of his Fortnite capital and encourage developers to use Vulkan and support Linux.

 

[bug]

Sweeney could take some of his Fortnite capital and encourage developers to use Vulkan and support Linux.

You mean like this? https://steamcommunity.com/games/221410/announcements/detail/1696055855739350561

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Unreal Engine 4 supports deployment to Linux. The launcher and UE4 dev kit doesn't support Linux yet.

 

[TheOne]

You mean like this? https://steamcommunity.com/games/221410/announcements/detail/1696055855739350561

More of along the lines of native support, like what Steam was promoting when they started working on their Steam Machines and SteamOS.