A 30% cut for steam games sold on steam and a 0% cut for steam keys sold by the publisher wherever they want with the caveat that they must give steam users the same sales at around the same time. They get their games hosted on Steam’s industry best CDN, a page with support for images and videos, an API with features users like, workshop API for mod hosting and delivery, and other SteamWorks API stuff for stuff like multiplayer, patch management without charging a fee for it, forum hosting to hit the highlights. Pretty much all of that drives engagement and is mostly turn-key though you do have to programmatically interact with their API when it makes sense.
Steam provides a lot of benefit for a 30% cut of what is sold on their store front and a lot more benefit for getting all of the above for a 0% cut if they sell steam keys outside of steam.
I’m not saying Steam is the worst thing out there right now. I’m saying monopoly is inherently bad, and 30% is a crazy high cut even including the features you mentioned.
And even then the same sales around the same time seems very lax with games often going on sale for pre-orders for a steam key that Steam games never get at launch. Most my Steam games are purchased from other storefronts than steam with more frequent sales and faster price drops.
Monopoly on a platform that they don’t own? That being Microsoft? Then seeing how epic isn’t even profitable on the launcher side and is a loss leader while their launcher is barebones it raises the question of what cut is actually realistic that allows a company to have a feature rich launcher and branch out into stuff like Linux, VR, and Steam Deck.
Current state feels more like Walmart expanding into new territory and trying to lure people with low prices, but isn’t sustainable with the main goal just being expansion.
You don’t need to own the OS to have a monopoly. What a weird thing to say. You don’t need to own the United States to have a monopoly in it. That’s an equivalent statement.
Your point about Epic not being able to compete means they have a monopoly. Steam is great, but part of that is because they essentially have infinite money to spend improving things to make sure no one else catches up.
Epic hasn’t given me a reason to buy from them. Fanatical, humble bundle, gmg, etc I find better if the only selling point is price with them having more consistent sales, bundles, and choice of platform.
Epic has done more to make me not consider them an option with their foray into the market being removing Metro Exodus near launch and taking monopolistic approaches to taking the approach of denying games from being sold on other platforms. Not just steam but GOG too with exceptions only being given to owners of the platform.
Agreed.
Them withholding a game makes me not consider them in the future. I’d rather pirate it if they were to keep withholding it.
But I “allow” them to withhold 1st party games (or studios they aquire like Psyonix) from 3rd party stores. Same goes for Valve, EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard and Microsoft.
They did the work and sure are entitled to keep it. It may not be in the interested of the consumer to have the need to install yet another launcher but it’s fine.
Them buying up 3rd party releases are what I have issues with
Epic isn’t able to compete because their launcher is missing major simple features like reviews.
I don’t want multiple extra steps when I’m interested in a game. Steam has a big market share because they are giving people what they want in a launcher. That’s it.
Epic can put in the effort if they want but it’s already been like 2 years and as far as i can tell hasn’t really been updated with anything new, I use it for the free games sometimes but otherwise not really. That would only change if they make the launcher more attractive.
Epic could compete. But I believe they did their approach too forcefully.
I personally refuse to use EGS because I don’t like how they approached the market by starting this exclusive war on PC. I wished they kept that to consoles only. If they did a co-release on both Steam and EGS but offer a consistent 10€ discount compared to Steam I’d be more open to it instead.
This in addition to Tencent (and by that extent the chinese gov) have a ~40% of shares of the company. That’s a considerable amount of foothold. And I vote with my wallet by not giving them more of my data.
I have to mention though, that I have an EpicGames account and have played Fortnight as well as use and play UE-games and tried out the UE-engine. But I have the option in life to not give them more.
I know they’re missing features. Steam didn’t always have all the features they have now either. We take that for granted now, but that wasn’t always the case. Steam has their market position because they were one of the first to market, and they invested their profits into making their product better. A newcomer is now met by consumers with the expectation that they’ll be equally as good, and when they inevitably aren’t they don’t use it. That’s how a monopoly works.
I agree it sucks, and that Steam is a nice piece of software, and the Valve has done good work supporting Linux. That doesn’t change whether or not they hold a monopolistic position in the market though. The barrier for new entries into the market is too high because Steam is good. It’s nothing against Steam, but it is a monopoly and that isn’t good for consumers —which includes game developers, not just end users.
That steam didn’t have features is like comparing steam from decades ago. I don’t feel like that is even a valid defense anymore when new smartphone companies are expected to come with a feature filled OS as opposed to pre smartphone expectations. Same for any other products be it televisions, monitors, etc.
Barriers can be brought up, but if someone is introducing the equivalent of a dumb phone to the market to compete against a smartphone and expecting to make money for just existing and only bothering to try to corner the market with removing products then no wonder things are playing out the way they are.
And Epic is a billion dollar company making stuff like unreal engine yet can’t scrap together a launcher that doesn’t feel like it is from decades ago. Or chooses not too. Can’t even put in Linux support despite community efforts like heroic launcher.
You can’t put out a shit product and then cry about why people aren’t buying it. It doesn’t work for any market. Can try to coerce people with monopolistic practices of trying to deny product availability, but that’ll only get you so far.
If anything if your argument is that it is hard then that just seems to bring to question of maybe a low cut actually isn’t realistic if a company wants to make a feature rich launcher and platform if even a billion dollar company is finding it hard to accomplish. But, it seems to me epic is only choosing or only knows the approach of trying to buy their way in and not want to “waste” resources improving anything else and banking on consumers not being able to resist not buying a product epic paid to only be available on their launcher.
You keep making good points. Unreal Engine has been around since 1998. They’ve had a long time developing the engine and it makes it hard for other engines to compete. There are a few, but not many. They’ve invested a lot of money into making their engine the premium option and making sure consumers avoid alternatives that aren’t as feature rich.
You can’t put out a shit product and then cry about why people aren’t buying it. It doesn’t work for any market. Can try to coerce people with monopolistic practices of trying to deny product availability, but that’ll only get you so far.
You clearly can coerce people with monopolistic practices. You’re defending Valve over Epic, which Epic has a much smaller market share. You can call it anti-consumer if you want, but monopolistic? Yeah right. When one store is the default, devs have to sacrafice to not be a part of it. Again, I agree it sucks, but it’s a monopoly by Valve, not Epic.
If anything if your argument is that it is hard then that just seems to bring to question of maybe a low cut actually isn’t realistic if a company wants to make a feature rich launcher and platform if even a billion dollar company is finding it hard to accomplish.
There are two consumers here. There’s consumers who purchase games, and consumers who utilize the product to sell their games. Epic gives a smaller cut to entice devs, because otherwise they have no reason to participate because all the game purchases happen through Steam.
It all sucks for the consumer, which is why monopolies are bad. We shouldn’t be defending some company who’s making tons of profit just because we are simping for their product. Steam is undoubtedly superior, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t monopolistic.
Not like any other app store does take 30% except for some high volume games/publishers.
Apple does the same. Hell they seem to have custom rules for each of the app devs (according to Linus and Luke from LTT: I believe this clip contains most of it.
They recently talked about it again. Essentially they developed the app payment like Netflix. Apple said “No, that’s against our rules” and refused the submission of the update. Meanwhile Netflix supposedly still had the same communication for a long time.)
Same goes with Google and probably a number of other external stores.
Amazon seems to take up to 20% depending on the item (Source: sell.amazon.com/pricing.
At least Steam does provide a forum, community features and the update framework and infrastructure.
Personally I would be happy to take the offering over maybe needing to host and maintain the tech stack myself.
Now mind you, maybe some other dev would rather do it themself and maybe wish to opt-out of the ecosystem. That is totally valid.
(Warning/Disclaimer: I only heard about that. I do not have first hand experience!) Apple for example takes a percentage for processing a payment and offers an invoicing system. Some may like that. Others could maybe negotiate a better deal with another provider and maybe even offer tools that integrate better with their existing accounting and ERP software.
Agreed, shitty read. The 30% cut is crazy high though, and IMO the best point the article has. Steam DOES have a monopoly and that’s inherently bad
A 30% cut for steam games sold on steam and a 0% cut for steam keys sold by the publisher wherever they want with the caveat that they must give steam users the same sales at around the same time. They get their games hosted on Steam’s industry best CDN, a page with support for images and videos, an API with features users like, workshop API for mod hosting and delivery, and other SteamWorks API stuff for stuff like multiplayer, patch management without charging a fee for it, forum hosting to hit the highlights. Pretty much all of that drives engagement and is mostly turn-key though you do have to programmatically interact with their API when it makes sense.
Steam provides a lot of benefit for a 30% cut of what is sold on their store front and a lot more benefit for getting all of the above for a 0% cut if they sell steam keys outside of steam.
Don’t forget steam hosting ranking ladders as well!
I’m not saying Steam is the worst thing out there right now. I’m saying monopoly is inherently bad, and 30% is a crazy high cut even including the features you mentioned.
And even then the same sales around the same time seems very lax with games often going on sale for pre-orders for a steam key that Steam games never get at launch. Most my Steam games are purchased from other storefronts than steam with more frequent sales and faster price drops.
Monopoly on a platform that they don’t own? That being Microsoft? Then seeing how epic isn’t even profitable on the launcher side and is a loss leader while their launcher is barebones it raises the question of what cut is actually realistic that allows a company to have a feature rich launcher and branch out into stuff like Linux, VR, and Steam Deck.
Current state feels more like Walmart expanding into new territory and trying to lure people with low prices, but isn’t sustainable with the main goal just being expansion.
You don’t need to own the OS to have a monopoly. What a weird thing to say. You don’t need to own the United States to have a monopoly in it. That’s an equivalent statement.
Your point about Epic not being able to compete means they have a monopoly. Steam is great, but part of that is because they essentially have infinite money to spend improving things to make sure no one else catches up.
Epic hasn’t given me a reason to buy from them. Fanatical, humble bundle, gmg, etc I find better if the only selling point is price with them having more consistent sales, bundles, and choice of platform.
Epic has done more to make me not consider them an option with their foray into the market being removing Metro Exodus near launch and taking monopolistic approaches to taking the approach of denying games from being sold on other platforms. Not just steam but GOG too with exceptions only being given to owners of the platform.
Agreed.
Them withholding a game makes me not consider them in the future. I’d rather pirate it if they were to keep withholding it.
But I “allow” them to withhold 1st party games (or studios they aquire like Psyonix) from 3rd party stores. Same goes for Valve, EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard and Microsoft.
They did the work and sure are entitled to keep it. It may not be in the interested of the consumer to have the need to install yet another launcher but it’s fine.
Them buying up 3rd party releases are what I have issues with
Epic isn’t able to compete because their launcher is missing major simple features like reviews.
I don’t want multiple extra steps when I’m interested in a game. Steam has a big market share because they are giving people what they want in a launcher. That’s it.
Epic can put in the effort if they want but it’s already been like 2 years and as far as i can tell hasn’t really been updated with anything new, I use it for the free games sometimes but otherwise not really. That would only change if they make the launcher more attractive.
Epic could compete. But I believe they did their approach too forcefully.
I personally refuse to use EGS because I don’t like how they approached the market by starting this exclusive war on PC. I wished they kept that to consoles only. If they did a co-release on both Steam and EGS but offer a consistent 10€ discount compared to Steam I’d be more open to it instead.
This in addition to Tencent (and by that extent the chinese gov) have a ~40% of shares of the company. That’s a considerable amount of foothold. And I vote with my wallet by not giving them more of my data.
I have to mention though, that I have an EpicGames account and have played Fortnight as well as use and play UE-games and tried out the UE-engine. But I have the option in life to not give them more.
I know they’re missing features. Steam didn’t always have all the features they have now either. We take that for granted now, but that wasn’t always the case. Steam has their market position because they were one of the first to market, and they invested their profits into making their product better. A newcomer is now met by consumers with the expectation that they’ll be equally as good, and when they inevitably aren’t they don’t use it. That’s how a monopoly works.
I agree it sucks, and that Steam is a nice piece of software, and the Valve has done good work supporting Linux. That doesn’t change whether or not they hold a monopolistic position in the market though. The barrier for new entries into the market is too high because Steam is good. It’s nothing against Steam, but it is a monopoly and that isn’t good for consumers —which includes game developers, not just end users.
That steam didn’t have features is like comparing steam from decades ago. I don’t feel like that is even a valid defense anymore when new smartphone companies are expected to come with a feature filled OS as opposed to pre smartphone expectations. Same for any other products be it televisions, monitors, etc.
Barriers can be brought up, but if someone is introducing the equivalent of a dumb phone to the market to compete against a smartphone and expecting to make money for just existing and only bothering to try to corner the market with removing products then no wonder things are playing out the way they are.
That’s why all new smartphone companies use Android. It comes packaged feature rich. It is a good comparison.
And Epic is a billion dollar company making stuff like unreal engine yet can’t scrap together a launcher that doesn’t feel like it is from decades ago. Or chooses not too. Can’t even put in Linux support despite community efforts like heroic launcher.
You can’t put out a shit product and then cry about why people aren’t buying it. It doesn’t work for any market. Can try to coerce people with monopolistic practices of trying to deny product availability, but that’ll only get you so far.
If anything if your argument is that it is hard then that just seems to bring to question of maybe a low cut actually isn’t realistic if a company wants to make a feature rich launcher and platform if even a billion dollar company is finding it hard to accomplish. But, it seems to me epic is only choosing or only knows the approach of trying to buy their way in and not want to “waste” resources improving anything else and banking on consumers not being able to resist not buying a product epic paid to only be available on their launcher.
You keep making good points. Unreal Engine has been around since 1998. They’ve had a long time developing the engine and it makes it hard for other engines to compete. There are a few, but not many. They’ve invested a lot of money into making their engine the premium option and making sure consumers avoid alternatives that aren’t as feature rich.
You clearly can coerce people with monopolistic practices. You’re defending Valve over Epic, which Epic has a much smaller market share. You can call it anti-consumer if you want, but monopolistic? Yeah right. When one store is the default, devs have to sacrafice to not be a part of it. Again, I agree it sucks, but it’s a monopoly by Valve, not Epic.
There are two consumers here. There’s consumers who purchase games, and consumers who utilize the product to sell their games. Epic gives a smaller cut to entice devs, because otherwise they have no reason to participate because all the game purchases happen through Steam.
It all sucks for the consumer, which is why monopolies are bad. We shouldn’t be defending some company who’s making tons of profit just because we are simping for their product. Steam is undoubtedly superior, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t monopolistic.
Not like any other app store does take 30% except for some high volume games/publishers.
Apple does the same. Hell they seem to have custom rules for each of the app devs (according to Linus and Luke from LTT: I believe this clip contains most of it.
They recently talked about it again. Essentially they developed the app payment like Netflix. Apple said “No, that’s against our rules” and refused the submission of the update. Meanwhile Netflix supposedly still had the same communication for a long time.)
Same goes with Google and probably a number of other external stores.
Amazon seems to take up to 20% depending on the item (Source: sell.amazon.com/pricing.
At least Steam does provide a forum, community features and the update framework and infrastructure.
Personally I would be happy to take the offering over maybe needing to host and maintain the tech stack myself. Now mind you, maybe some other dev would rather do it themself and maybe wish to opt-out of the ecosystem. That is totally valid.
(Warning/Disclaimer: I only heard about that. I do not have first hand experience!) Apple for example takes a percentage for processing a payment and offers an invoicing system. Some may like that. Others could maybe negotiate a better deal with another provider and maybe even offer tools that integrate better with their existing accounting and ERP software.