Court Docs Reveal Epic CEO's Anger At Steam's 30% Fees (arstechnica.com) 109
New emails from before the launch of the Epic Games Store in 2018 show just how angry Epic CEO Tim Sweeney was with the "assholes" at companies like Valve and Apple for squeezing "the little guy" with what he saw as inflated fees. "The emails, which came out this week as part of Wolfire's price-fixing case against Valve (as noticed by the GameDiscoverCo newsletter), confront Valve managers directly for platform fees Sweeney says are 'no longer justifiable,'" writes Ars Technica's Kyle Orland. "They also offer a behind-the-scenes look at the fury Sweeney and Epic would unleash against Apple in court proceedings starting years later. From the report: The first mostly unredacted email chain from the court documents, from August 2017 (PDF), starts with Valve co-founder Gabe Newell asking Sweeney if there is "anything we [are] doing to annoy you?" That query was likely prompted by Sweeney's public tweets at the time questioning "why Steam is still taking 30% of gross [when] MasterCard and Visa charge 2-5% per transaction, and CDN bandwidth is around $0.002/GB." Later in the same thread, he laments that "the internet was supposed to obsolete the rent-seeking software distribution middlemen, but here's Facebook, Google, Apple, Valve, etc." Expanding on these public thoughts in a private response to Newell, Sweeney allows that there was "a good case" for Steam's 30 percent platform fee "in the early days." But he also argues that the fee is too high now that Steam's sheer scale has driven down operating costs and made it harder for individual games to get as much marketing or user acquisition value from simply being available on the storefront.
Sweeney goes on to spitball some numbers showing how Valve's fees are contributing to the squeeze all but the biggest PC game developers were feeling on their revenues: "If you subtract out the top 25 games on Steam, I bet Valve made more profit from most of the next 1,000 than the developer themselves made. These guys are our engine customers and we talk to them all the time. Valve takes 30% for distribution; they have to spend 30% on Facebook/Google/Twitter [user acquisition] or traditional marketing, 10% on server, 5% on engine. So, the system takes 75% and that leaves 25% for actually creating the game, worse than the retail distribution economics of the 1990's." Based on experience with Fortnite and Paragon, Sweeney estimates that the true cost of distribution for PC games that sell for $25 or more in Western markets "is under 7% of gross." That's only slightly lower than the 12 percent take Epic would establish for its own Epic Games Store the next year.
The second email chain (PDF) revealed in the lawsuit started in November 2018, with Sweeney offering Valve a heads-up on the impending launch of the Epic Games Store that would come just weeks later. While that move was focused on PC and Mac games, Sweeney quickly pivots to a discussion of Apple's total control over iOS, the subject at the time of a lawsuit whose technicalities were being considered by the Supreme Court. Years before Epic would bring its own case against Apple, Sweeney was somewhat prescient, noting that "Apple also has the resources to litigate and delay any change [to its total App Store control] for years... What we need right now is enough developer, press, and platform momentum to steer Apple towards fully opening up iOS sooner rather than later." To that end, Sweeney attempted to convince Valve that lowering its own platform fees would hurt Apple's position and thereby contribute to the greater good: "A timely move by Valve to improve Steam economics for all developers would make a great difference in all of this, clearly demonstrating that store competition leads to better rates for all developers. Epic would gladly speak in support of such a move anytime!"
In a follow-up email on December 3, just days before the Epic Games Store launch, Sweeney took Valve to task more directly for its policy of offering lower platform fees for the largest developers on Steam. He offered some harsh words for Valve while once again begging the company to serve as a positive example in the developing case against Apple: "Right now, you assholes are telling the world that the strong and powerful get special terms, while 30% is for the little people. We're all in for a prolonged battle if Apple tries to keep their monopoly and 30% by cutting backroom deals with big publishers to keep them quiet. Why not give ALL developers a better deal? What better way is there to convince Apple quickly that their model is now totally untenable?" After being forwarded the message by Valve's Erik Johnson, Valve COO Scott Lynch simply offered up a sardonic "You mad bro?"
Sweeney goes on to spitball some numbers showing how Valve's fees are contributing to the squeeze all but the biggest PC game developers were feeling on their revenues: "If you subtract out the top 25 games on Steam, I bet Valve made more profit from most of the next 1,000 than the developer themselves made. These guys are our engine customers and we talk to them all the time. Valve takes 30% for distribution; they have to spend 30% on Facebook/Google/Twitter [user acquisition] or traditional marketing, 10% on server, 5% on engine. So, the system takes 75% and that leaves 25% for actually creating the game, worse than the retail distribution economics of the 1990's." Based on experience with Fortnite and Paragon, Sweeney estimates that the true cost of distribution for PC games that sell for $25 or more in Western markets "is under 7% of gross." That's only slightly lower than the 12 percent take Epic would establish for its own Epic Games Store the next year.
The second email chain (PDF) revealed in the lawsuit started in November 2018, with Sweeney offering Valve a heads-up on the impending launch of the Epic Games Store that would come just weeks later. While that move was focused on PC and Mac games, Sweeney quickly pivots to a discussion of Apple's total control over iOS, the subject at the time of a lawsuit whose technicalities were being considered by the Supreme Court. Years before Epic would bring its own case against Apple, Sweeney was somewhat prescient, noting that "Apple also has the resources to litigate and delay any change [to its total App Store control] for years... What we need right now is enough developer, press, and platform momentum to steer Apple towards fully opening up iOS sooner rather than later." To that end, Sweeney attempted to convince Valve that lowering its own platform fees would hurt Apple's position and thereby contribute to the greater good: "A timely move by Valve to improve Steam economics for all developers would make a great difference in all of this, clearly demonstrating that store competition leads to better rates for all developers. Epic would gladly speak in support of such a move anytime!"
In a follow-up email on December 3, just days before the Epic Games Store launch, Sweeney took Valve to task more directly for its policy of offering lower platform fees for the largest developers on Steam. He offered some harsh words for Valve while once again begging the company to serve as a positive example in the developing case against Apple: "Right now, you assholes are telling the world that the strong and powerful get special terms, while 30% is for the little people. We're all in for a prolonged battle if Apple tries to keep their monopoly and 30% by cutting backroom deals with big publishers to keep them quiet. Why not give ALL developers a better deal? What better way is there to convince Apple quickly that their model is now totally untenable?" After being forwarded the message by Valve's Erik Johnson, Valve COO Scott Lynch simply offered up a sardonic "You mad bro?"
You mad bro? (Score:4, Interesting)
Valve COO Scott Lynch simply offered up a sardonic "You mad bro?"
Not sure if Lynch is somewhere on the spectrum (as in neurologically unable to judge his correspondent's attitude) or just as much of a scumbag as Sweeny (as the great statesman once said "Pity they can't both lose"), but apparently yes, yes he was mad, very mad. Mad enough to go to war with one of the largest companies on earth, lose epically (*snort*) in Federal Court, and keep on digging [cf: EU regulations of late]. At this point Sweeny is going to bankrupt Epic out of sheer spite against all the parties that seem hostile to him, and I'm not sure he's really wrong, just going about it in the most phyrric way possible.
So that begs the question, was Valve aware of how bad Sweeny is at persuasion and winning the long-game and they chose to purposely enrage him, or were they just as clueless about why all this rent-seeking makes the rest of the world hate them?
Re:You mad bro? (Score:5, Insightful)
30% IS highway robbery. Electronic storefronts don't cost anywhere near enough to justify such a high price. The argument in its defense is probably something along the lines of "well the pricing is based on value add, not cost. It's simply worth that price."
No, it's not. You charge it because you can, and have formed a cartel to enforce it. It's reasonable for you to extract a profit from it, but that is just outright too much, and it drives costs up unnecessarily across the board.
I am also no fan of Sweeny. But he is right about this.
Re:You mad bro? (Score:4, Informative)
You charge it because you can
If you believe in free markets, that's the definition of "worth that price". If people are paying it, it's worth the price.
and have formed a cartel to enforce it.
No, Valve will happily let you sell on any storefront you wish to use.
It's Sweeny that's requiring exclusive contracts for his PC software storefront. For some reason those contracts aren't evil when he's doing them.
Re:You mad bro? (Score:4, Informative)
Cartels are not free markets. Since they don't compete against one another on price, they drive it up.
The developers are left with no choice but to pay the price if they want any sales at all. Then too much of the money they deserve winds up going to the storefronts instead.
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Cartels are not free markets. Since they don't compete against one another on price, they drive it up.
Because you declare something as a "cartel" does not make it so. You have yet to establish that it is a cartel other than your opinion.
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The way that Google and Apple changed their application-store pricing structure in rapid succession and very similar ways is classic cartel behavior.
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Re: You mad bro? (Score:2)
If one or more companies has the ability to lower the price of a good or service, that's good for consumers.
If one or more companies has the ability to raise the price of a good or service, that's bad for consumers.
The complaint here is that Valve, Apple, and Google have used their position to increase the cost to consumers while reducing the profitability of game makers.
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The complaint here is that Valve, Apple, and Google have used their position to increase the cost to consumers while reducing the profitability of game makers.
1) In the case of Valve, they are in PC games. That is not a walled garden. How have they used their position to increase the cost when Microsoft PC Store, GOG, Origin, etc charge all the same? Heck for PC games, developer can start their own store if they want. 2) How has Valve increased the cost to the consumers? The developers set the prices not the store. The store merely takes their cut.
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If you believe in free markets,
then you believe there's no ban on apps promoting their own payment system, or publishing elsewhere.
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then you believe there's no ban on apps promoting their own payment system, or publishing elsewhere.
Valve does neither. There are other app stores that do, such as the one Epic made.
Valve doesn't force you to only use Steam. And you can use any payment system you'd like as long as the user is not literally clicking the "Buy" in the Steam client. They even have a Steam Key system so that users can redeem products on Steam that they bought elsewhere.
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This is precisely what the EU's DMA is designed to prevent. Monopolies that develop because a platform becomes dominant, like Steam has.
It's nothing new. We had all this with record labels. Want to get your music published? Go ahead, but don't expect to make many sales without a record label or Spotify account.
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This is precisely what the EU's DMA is designed to prevent. Monopolies that develop because a platform becomes dominant, like Steam has.
And how is Steam a monopoly rather than the market leader. One major criteria of monopoly is that no suitable alternatives exist. Any developer can distribute with Microsoft, Epic, GOG, Origin, etc. Or all of them at the same time. Valve unlike Epic does not enact exclusivity clauses. A developer may get more sales on Steam as it has the largest market but that does not make it a monopoly.
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That's the beauty of the DMA. It recognizes that just because there are alternatives, doesn't mean that the market leader isn't distorting said market.
Remember when we all accused Microsoft of keeping Apple alive just to ensure that they never became a monopoly? The EU isn't falling for it.
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That's the beauty of the DMA. It recognizes that just because there are alternatives, doesn't mean that the market leader isn't distorting said market.
How is the market leader distorting the market? You are making assertions without any backing.
Remember when we all accused Microsoft of keeping Apple alive just to ensure that they never became a monopoly? The EU isn't falling for it.
And what behavior that Steam is just like that? From what I know of Valve they neither hinder nor assist their competitors.
What is 30% again? Oh yeah. (Score:2)
30% IS highway robbery. Electronic storefronts don't cost anywhere near enough to justify such a high price. The argument in its defense is probably something along the lines of "well the pricing is based on value add, not cost. It's simply worth that price."
No, it's not. You charge it because you can, and have formed a cartel to enforce it. It's reasonable for you to extract a profit from it, but that is just outright too much, and it drives costs up unnecessarily across the board.
I am also no fan of Sweeny. But he is right about this.
If anyone feels 30% is “highway robbery”, please feel free to outline the basic business costs related to marketing your product efficiently and effectively to a billion+ humans as a viable alternative.
I’m not arguing with you. I’m just asking you to prove it.
Steam is a publisher (Score:2)
I have no problem with Steam. Steam is both a publisher and a retailer. When you're talking books, the publisher and retailer between them keep north of 80% of the sale price with the authors getting less than 20%. And that's fine. It's competitive, and if you hate all the publishers you can even self-publish.
The difference between Apple and Steam is that Apple is a monopoly. If you don't want to use the apple store, there's no other legitimate process to sell your app to iPhone users. They can set any rate
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I have no problem with Steam. Steam is both a publisher and a retailer.
So is Apple.
The difference between Apple and Steam is that Apple is a monopoly.
Right, that's a reason why Apple is worse than Steam. But since you started off with nonsense it's unclear why you actually have no problem with Steam. There's no question that Steam is the least odious of these storefronts, but it's still got issues.
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But since you started off with nonsense it's unclear why you actually have no problem with Steam.
You mean other than the fact that there is no exclusivity when it comes to Steam. If a developer wants to sell on another storefront, Valve does not stop them including the choice of not to sell on Steam. Today you can find PC games on multiple stores.
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[...] please feel free to outline the basic business costs related to marketing your product efficiently and effectively to a billion+ humans as a viable alternative.
Maybe I'm missing something. I wasn't aware that Steam or Apple were marketing anyone's product. They were providing a virtual space for you to do it.
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I wasn't aware that Steam or Apple were marketing anyone's product.
Open them. Filled with marketing. Both of them. Steam has a big marketing event going on now!
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[...] please feel free to outline the basic business costs related to marketing your product efficiently and effectively to a billion+ humans as a viable alternative.
Maybe I'm missing something. I wasn't aware that Steam or Apple were marketing anyone's product. They were providing a virtual space for you to do it.
If a planet needs to install anything on an iDevice, where do consumers go? The only place they've known. The App Store.
It might be your product, but it sure as hell is their store. How much would it cost you to stand up and maintain that “virtual space”, already sitting in front of a billion+ consumer eyeballs? More or less than 30%?
Re: What is 30% again? Oh yeah. (Score:2)
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You charge it because you can
Which is exactly what companies are doing [theguardian.com] and resulting in the inflation we see today.
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The only reason why they can charge that much and get away with it is due the the bloated money supply.
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Yep, McDs is raising prices and dropping sales numbers because they think that it's a good business model to fake inflation. Wait, no, that's completely fucking stupid and you're a moron for even trying to pretend that's what's going on.
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Before the Apple App Store, the cellphone companies and others used to charge up to 70%-90% of the sale. Apple came in with 30% and everyone said what a good price it was.
And it stayed 30% from then until now.
Can you explain how is a price of a thing staying at 30% the cause of inflation, because typically, the price needs to go *up* for inflation.
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Re:You mad bro? (Score:5, Informative)
30% IS highway robbery. Electronic storefronts don't cost anywhere near enough to justify such a high price.
Absolutely agree which is why Epic games shouldn't be charging 30%.
Valve on the other hand doesn't have an electronic storefront. They have an entire platform an ecosystem covering all manner of custom extras for developers including but not limited to: match making, social / chat features, review systems, mod and asset management, fine grained DLC control, in game overlays, a whole frigging Virtual Reality API integrated to OpenXR, custom Linux emulation for Windows games, cloud services, and network bandwidth management services. Oh and that's before we get to developer friend / gamer unfriendly features like DRM and anti-cheat integration.
Better still they don't charge 30% until your game is quite successful and even then they offer you the ability to charge 0% yes ZERO percent if you wish to distribute your own Steam keys using your own distribution system all the while gifting you bandwidth.
Calling it a "store front" really does a diservice to what they have actually built.
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30% IS highway robbery. Electronic storefronts don't cost anywhere near enough to justify such a high price.
Absolutely agree which is why Epic games shouldn't be charging 30%.
Funny you should bring that up, since Epic only charges a 12% fee for games listed in the Epic Game Store. That said, they're also losing money on the Epic Game Store, so a fee that low doesn't seem sustainable as a business model. 30% may be too high, but at least it's large enough to account for the cost of doing business.
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Funny you should bring that up, since Epic only charges a 12% fee for games
I know, that was my point. Epic's product isn't anywhere near as fleshed out as Valve's and is just a storefront with few additional services for developers. So it shouldn't be compared to fully featured platform which charges 30%.
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30% IS highway robbery. Electronic storefronts don't cost anywhere near enough to justify such a high price. The argument in its defense is probably something along the lines of "well the pricing is based on value add, not cost. It's simply worth that price."
And how would you know unless you work inside one of these stores?
I am also no fan of Sweeny. But he is right about this.
After 5 years, the Epic Game Store has yet to turn a profit. So how is he "right"? Unlike Apple, Valve is in PC games for which there is no real monopoly. There are a number of other stores like GOG, Microsoft, Origin, etc. And Valve, unlike Epic, does not limit who else sells the games. The real barrier is whether the developer agrees to terms with the store. As a consumer if you don't like Steam, buy from somewhere else. Heck you can still
Re:You mad bro? (Score:4, Informative)
Here is how I know:
link [33rdsquare.com]
Billions. Steam rakes in billions from all these games that they did not produce.
Of course steam should make money off the sales. But these enormous numbers show that they are taking quite a large slice of the cake all for themselves. In my opinion, it's simply too large.
For a games developer, avoiding steam's greed isn't as simple as "go somewhere else." Most other places charge just as much (they are, after all, a cartel). And for indie games developers selling on physical media simply isn't an option. Getting one's foot in the door, for the most part, requires sacrificing 30% where even 15% would still be yielding profit in the billions for steam. 10% would put steam at about 1 billion for good years and in the hundreds of millions for most years. Quite a nice profit if you ask me, with that 20% going to the developers who actually did the work.
But no, they gotta take almost a third for themselves, just because they can.
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link [33rdsquare.com]
From your link. "According to estimates by industry analysts . . .". It does not name the analysts. It does not even give anything but round numbers. I could say that Valve makes [rolls dice] 12%.
Billions. Steam rakes in billions from all these games that they did not produce.
Your exact claim was "Electronic storefronts don't cost anywhere near enough to justify such a high price." You have yet to establish any Valve costs.
Of course steam should make money off the sales. But these enormous numbers show that they are taking quite a large slice of the cake all for themselves. In my opinion, it's simply too large.
You've taken the word of a website that their numbers are true. They do not source their numbers even in the slightest. They could be lying and you would not know.
For a games developer, avoiding steam's greed isn't as simple as "go somewhere else." Most other places charge just as much
Let
Re:You mad bro? (Score:4, Insightful)
As you may recall from stories reported in the Epic vs Apple lawsuits, Apple argued that the 30% was an industry standard, and subpoenaed steam, Microsoft, others, to justify that. In cases like these, "industry standard" is just double speak for "unspoken anti-compete agreement."
The link I provided was the first one that popped up in a google search. Similar numbers have popped up over time in other articles. But no, I am not going to play journalist and track them all down at your behest. This is a chat forum, not wikipedia, and certainly not a full time job. I am stating my opinion based on what I have read online in the past. Feel free to hold a different opinion, based on whatever you have read online.
If you would like to put considerable effort into scouring the web for tangible disproof of what I have put forth, please consider yourself invited to do so. Your post will probably be read, but your effort will probably not be matched.
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As you may recall from stories reported in the Epic vs Apple lawsuits, Apple argued that the 30% was an industry standard, and subpoenaed steam, Microsoft, others, to justify that. In cases like these, "industry standard" is just double speak for "unspoken anti-compete agreement."
Your assertion still is: "Electronic storefronts don't cost anywhere near enough to justify such a high price." You have yet to cite one fact that it is not other than your repeated claim that it is not.
The link I provided was the first one that popped up in a google search. Similar numbers have popped up over time in other articles.
Please provide any evidence you have. So far all you have presented is conjecture.
But no, I am not going to play journalist and track them all down at your behest.
You said they were before you made the link. When pressed for evidence you are unwilling to provide any. That is your position then.
This is a chat forum, not wikipedia, and certainly not a full time job. I am stating my opinion based on what I have read online in the past. Feel free to hold a different opinion, based on whatever you have read online.
So everything you said is your opinion then. You admit you have no facts, no evidence to back
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As you may recall from stories reported in the Epic vs Apple lawsuits, Apple argued that the 30% was an industry standard, and subpoenaed steam, Microsoft, others, to justify that. In cases like these, "industry standard" is just double speak for "unspoken anti-compete agreement."
The industry settling on a price does not show an anti-compete agreement. It shows that there is a stable equilibrium. If you want first hand evidence of this look no further than the Epic games store. They don't charge 30%, they charge less. And what is the result of that? They loose money year after year, major studios do not flock to them for their lower price, customers do not flock to them for cheaper games (because they aren't).
This shows that the market has an accepted equilibrium where competing on
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They don't charge 30%, they charge less.
And unless the developer gets an exclusivity deal with Epic, they get nothing for the cut that Epic does take. Valve at least provides quite a bit of resources for developers to take advantage of, if they choose.
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But these enormous numbers show that they are taking quite a large slice of the cake all for themselves.
No it doesn't. It shows that they are processing enormous volumes. Hint: That supermarket that makes billions of dollars a year has lower margins than your corner shop struggling to get by.
I could take 30% of no sales and come up with zero, does that mean that Valve's 30% is infinitely larger than my 30% making me a good guy? Looking at absolute numbers to justify a percentage of a volume is just mindbogglingly dumb. Like "how the fuck did you pass math in highschool" level of dumb.
Yeah but the consumer pays in the end (Score:2)
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Except as evidenced by games sold by Epic on the EGS not available on Steam, that doesn't happen.
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This is the same company that just raised prices on just about any commercial entity by raising prices on their engine to $2k/seat from ‘free’ + 5-35% on revenue.
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This is the same company that just raised prices on just about any commercial entity by raising prices on their engine to $2k/seat from ‘free’ + 5-35% on revenue.
But that's justified. You see, they aren't making money from their store fronts (which has even more onerous terms and conditions than Apple/Google/Microsoft/Playstation store fronts), and if Sweeney wants a bigger bonus, he needs to screw over someone for that extra $$. And the lawsuits are taking too long to pan out... What's a psychopathic CEO to do???
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
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I feel relaxed knowing that other people are seeing the real issues here. Thank you. (I am not on either side)
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QED it is, because people pay it. It's not a cartel when it's a single business, afaik Steam has never made a move to shutter/block/monopoly-out GoG, Epic online launcher, Apple store, etc.
PERSONALLY, I don't LIKE Steam at all, I think it's goofy bullshit to need a launcher to run a game. I don't like their intermediate licensing, and I really don't like their meddling with things I bought.
B
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At this point Sweeny is going to bankrupt Epic out of sheer spite against all the parties that seem hostile to him
Don't worry, Tencent will be there to back them up and buy them out if need be. Tencent's investment is why I won't touch anything Epic makes directly. Their store sucks and their games suck. Their Unreal Engine is the only worthwhile product they've ever made. Even then, 9 times out of 10, I'd pick Unity over UE - despite Unity's own problems recently.
Re: You mad bro? (Score:2)
That 30% went towards the development of the steam deck and proton...you know, the gaming version of Linux?
What has Epic/Sweeny done other than bring shitty business practices(exclusive releases on PC? GTFO) and chicom spyware to the pc gaming market?
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"Pity they can't both lose"
When I read that i hear Mr T.
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or just as much of a scumbag as Sweeny
Or maybe he's just a normal person who rightfully treats people with the same respect they give others.
or were they just as clueless about why all this rent-seeking makes the rest of the world hate them?
Don't beg the question. The world doesn't hate Valve, you can see that reflected in their market share despite the plethora of alternatives available (e.g. Epic games) Only Tim Sweeney in particular hates valve, and even then he doesn't hate Valve especially, he hates that they make money.
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Or maybe he's just a normal person who rightfully treats people with the same respect they give others.
Or the way I read all his emails in this case, Google, and Apple, Tim Sweeney reacts like a toddler time and time again when he does not get his way.
Seems like a law of nature (Score:2)
Rust never sleeps, disorder increases, enshittification dominates
Middlemen are like cockroaches, almost impossible to kill
Barriers to entry vs total cost (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what Sweeny is missing is that the 30% (or whatever) commission makes for very low barriers to entry. Instead of having to come up with some large initial risk, you can release an app on any of these "high priced" storefronts with basically zero (a couple hundred bucks maybe?) for 30% of gross.
This is really reasonable for a small enterprise compared to traditional markets, which require a significant at-risk investment for initial sales.
I think what Sweeny's complaining about is that the 30% (or 15%) is actually painful for the big players, not the small ones.
I don't know why he thinks the commission for access to a market should drop to the marginal cost of bandwidth and transaction fees; this neglects the fact that there is added value in the network effect provided by the stores, so of course the fees would not drop to merely the "cost".
Also even using his example - 25% gross margin, which he says is infeasible, is still pretty damn good in most industries. If you can't run a business on 25% gross margin, you've got serious problems.
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Instead of having to come up with some large initial risk, you can release an app on any of these "high priced" storefronts with basically zero (a couple hundred bucks maybe?) for 30% of gross.
$100.00 USD to put a game on Steam in particular.
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No you don't you need a web site with a link to download your game, and some payment processing. I am sure someone could write a free opensource website for that in no time.
What you gain is there monopoly power and advertising that is where people go to get games. And they are taking advantage of that position of power.
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What you gain is there monopoly power and advertising that is where people go to get games. And they are taking advantage of that position of power.
What monopoly? What does it take for developer to use Microsoft instead of Steam? Sign a deal with Microsoft. What about GOG? Sign a deal with GOG. No one has to be on Steam. In fact a developer can be on all three at the same time. Steam has the largest number of users so it would be wise to sign with the largest market if a developer wants to maximize their sales.
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And they are taking advantage of that position of power.
Citation required. Valve offers far more for it's 30% cut than any other store taking a 30%, up to and including, not taking any cut at (yes 0%) all while still offering you all the services from Steam if you distribute your own Steam keys.
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Pretty interesting he says 15-30% isn’t feasible when an end-to-end Epic platformed game costs upwards of 35%.
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The way to fix this is to compete (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, Tim, the way the Internet deals with those evil, terrible, no good fees from Steam is by providing you a place where you could create your own app store that charges less.
In fact, you did so. And it's such a massive pile of garbage that the only way you get people to use it is vendor-lock-in or giving stuff away for free.
If you want to unseat Steam and cut those fees, try making a storefront that isn't awful and missing a ton of critical features.
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giving stuff away for free.
Funny story, you just reminded me that Epic gives away free games so I jumped on their store to check and "bought" Deus Ex Mankind Divided. The store proceeded to give me not one but two separate pop-up warnings about their refund policy and that I wouldn't be able to refund the $0 I paid if I played the game for more than 2 hours.
You can't be this dumb by accident, they must send all the Epic Games staff to get a Masters degree in being idiots.
Just a tiny little fish. (Score:3)
..the "assholes" at companies like Valve and Apple for squeezing "the little guy"..
Makes me wonder more about an asshole running a $30B company making $5B+ in revenue every year claiming to be a “little guy”.
Little Guy (Score:3)
A tiny little game company backed by Tencent, the tenth most valuable company on the planet.
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Makes me wonder more about an asshole running a $30B company making $5B+ in revenue every year claiming to be a “little guy”.
Well to be fair he acts like a child so he's half right.
Post after post about gaming... (Score:2)
While today's almost perfect Starship test seems to have slipped through the cracks. Where are the techie Slashdotters of yesteryear?
Assume (Score:2)
I'm going to assume since Epic is only charging 12% theyre going to pass that 18% savings on to us little guy customers. /s
The "little guy"... sure. (Score:3, Informative)
"Little guy"
Nobody at Epic has any business so much as writing or uttering those words. Tim Sweeney is is full of shit. And he's not full of just a little old produced-by-a-human turd. He's spewing a full-up Jurassic Park triceratops pile of steaming shit. Sure... Epic can do better than 30% for App Store services. They're a massive worldwide corporation that makes a couple of the most popular game series out there, plus the graphics engine that drives even more games. OF COURSE he can cut sweetheart deals that come up to less than 30%.
But as one who, along with a buddy of mine, actually used to be one of those "little guys" back in the days before the App Store; I can say from first-hand experience that 30% is a bargain. People keep going on about credit card fees being "only" 2-5% or whatever. Well, you'll only get the low rates if you're one of the the big outfits... Microsoft, Apple, Epic, et cetera. If you're a little independent developer without big corporate backing, the majority of credit card processors won't even take your calls. And the few that will, won't give you the good rates. You'll pay 2-3x the cost that the likes of Apple or Epic do, just to get any money at all. Online storefronts would eat up another 5-10%, and just forget about getting into B&M stores. Copy protection and activation was extra that had to be paid for and integrated into our code. We had to roll your own update distribution method (Time is money.). And, circling back to the credit card issue, we couldn't offload PCI to Apple or Valve or whoever like you can now. We had to do it on our own... every year... at a significant cost in time, and no small amount of money either. Marketing? Discovery? Reviews, ratings, and feedback? More costs.
And all of those costs scale by volume, with lower rates as you sell more. So as a "little guy" moving "little guy" numbers... we were mostly doing it post-dotcom-crash for fun and beer money and to keep our skillsets current... we were damned lucky if, in a given month, we had to fork out less than 50% of our gross to get all of the services that App Store developers get for that 30%. Some low-volume months, we didn't even *NET* 30% on our sales.
30% is a bargain. Maybe not versus what a company like Epic can do on its own. But it's fantastic versus what we paid as the actual, real, legitimate, "little guys" that lying and scheming PoS Sweeney is claiming to stick up for. Suffice it to say, when the iPhone got the App Store, we were thrilled, and left the desktop for mobile pretty much immediately. That bumped our take up from local fun and beer to paying for some pretty nice vacations as well; until the tech economy finally got back to pre-2001 normality and we no longer had time for side hustles.
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"Little guy"
Nobody at Epic has any business so much as writing or uttering those words.
You are wrong. A mountain is a huge thing to you. It is incredibly large. It would take you hours/days to climb it. And yet if you dropped that mountain in the ocean, it would look like a pebble. All of that is represented by a pale blue dot next to an incredibly large nuclear furnace that makes your mountains and oceans look like molecules.
TL;DR, Epic actually *IS* the little guy here. Not that it makes me feel any compassion for them.
I fully understand Tim Sweeney's point of view (Score:2)
I mean he produced an absolute shit product devoid of all features of the competition, that is a pain in the arse to use, locks people out, and doesn't save them any money. He put minimum effort in and thinks he has something resembling product parity with Steam, a platform that had been developed continuously for 2 decades.
Developers don't make more money on Epic games because of the low market share
Consumers don't save money on Epic games so they are literally paying the same amount for a worse product.
Wh
law of the jungle baby (Score:2)
I wonder if it occurs to the Epic guy that there are many others that deal with him/Epic that also have to understand the idea that 'the little guy' must eat some shit because 'the big guy' is in a postion to set the terms
how many end-users and small businesses have been told to take it or leave it when pressing for a more symmetrical power balance with Epic? eg, Epic can release a sub-par, buggy game and still charge full AAA price... don't like it? want a refund? go pound sand; you're a small developer
So why do I want to use Epic Game Store? (Score:2)
The only reason I have Epic Game Store installed is because of the free games.
Because despite only taking 18% instead of 30%, games on EGS are the same price as on Steam.
So now that I have to pay the same price, EGS offers me nothing over Steam. In fact, it's a lot worse than Steam - lacking things like the community hub.
Now, I bought some games off GoG - but at least GoG offers added value buying through them - namely DRM free.
Of course, with no added value being provided, and no savings over Steam, Epic h
All I hear is (Score:2)
In other words “Im mad cause somebody else is causing my stock options to be only worth 800 million rather than a billion”
Waaa. WwwaaaaaaaAAAAaaaa.
Paid to be seen or not? (Score:2)
setup.exe? (Score:1)
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You sound young. You don't remember the days when each place had their own and you'd pay and download directly from the developer? Damn, WTF...
I'm not young and I feel many memories are tainted by nostalgia where everything in the past is colored by how wonderful and rosy things were and forgotten are all the headaches. Yes developers had full control of their store where everything was exactly the way the wanted it; and they were responsible for everything. Every little transaction dispute. Every support email. Every complaint. Every update of every subsystem was on them. But hey, they saved that developer's fee.
When someone asks me why I buy equ
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Is that your way of saying you were proven wrong and you are taking your toys home?
Yes this is always how MAGAtards like Klomdark act - here's one of Klomdark's compadres doing just that [youtube.com] recently!
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When did it become too hard for people to download directly from a developer and click on setup.exe? We're allowing people to get even stupider.
You're missing a lot by boiling it down to running Setup.exe. When Steam first started it was nothing more than the setup.exe for HalfLife. But that's not all it did. It also provided server lists for Halflife and managed version updates. Soon enough it started managing halflife mods. Friends lists. Eventually other games were published on it because they wanted to take advantage of these features. Versioning and auto-updating alone caused developers (it's not about you, it's about them) to start moving to
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fair (Score:2)
If I was the CEO at a company the size of Epic I would probably be just as angry if forced to pay a 30% fee, which I also find excessive. So don't understand what this story is about... the guy was rightfully angry.
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No one owes anyone a successful business model.
Epic is a multi billion dollar company. They are not forced to put their games on steam. They built their own failed storefront platform.
Gosh, maybe Steam is providing value for that 30%? Seems like it's a lot harder than this Epic Crybaby thinks.
Steam are not the bad guys here.
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1) Or the guy never had an online store before thought he was smarter than everyone else.
It's more fundamental than that. He treats Steam as an online store. It's so much more than that. You can see that in the first 2 years of development (TWO FUCKING YEARS) it took them to produce a simple cloud save synchronisation system. Oh and most users who enabled it lost their save files in the first several months after it due to bugs. That's just one feature Steam had that Epic didn't.
Mind you their online store didn't even support a fucking shopping cart and forced credit card transactions meaning f
Would happily only buy direct (Score:2)
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You should join the lawsuit as a friend of the court on behalf of your entitled children who can't play different games at the same time on each of their $2k PCs.
I shed a sorrowful tear each night and say a small prayer on behalf of your starving first world problems children.
You know (Score:2)
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Yeah, I don't know any other FTP servers which provide Linux emulation for Windows only games. So they do have that.
retail mark up (Score:2)
Rather than comparing Steam to a credit card processor, what if we think of them like a store. They sell a product, work on product placement, and make an active effort to engage customers and get them to buy stuff. Valve has sales and discounts about as frequently as a grocery store.
Now that retail mark up is not 2% like a shopping cart processor, it's more like 20% to 100%, depending on industry.