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AAA games are starting to avoid Steam, opting to hosting it themselves for a number of reasons. Steam has taken a few actions lately that would favor big compan

AAA games are starting to avoid Steam, opting to hosting it themselves for a number of reasons. Steam has taken a few actions lately that would favor big companies, including lowering Valve's take from biggest sellers (1). I think they are trying to keep the name brands in Steam. 1. https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/3/18123649/valve-steam-revenue-sharing https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/3/18123649/valve-steam-reven...

LoSboccacc 8y ago
While that's true, that also resulted in people avoiding AAA games on the worst channels like origin. We're maybe not much, but with AAA average margins we're important
- gruez 8y ago
  >that also resulted in people avoiding AAA games on the worst channels like origin is this actually a thing? if the game is good, I'm not going to rule it out just because it's on a different client, especially when the hassle of using it is marginal at best. reminds me of this: https://i.redd.it/wwx5exndw6b11.png https://i.redd.it/wwx5exndw6b11.png
  - lmm 8y ago
    You don't know if the game is any good until you've tried it though. I put off trying Overwatch for about 6 months because it was a non-Steam channel. I would've bought Forza Horizon 4 a couple of weeks ago if it had been on Steam (literally searched for it ready to click buy), since it sounded good in the reviews, but it's yet another non-Steam channel so I can't be bothered.
    - bytematic 8y ago
      I guess you're just lazy? None of the other clients are even bad anymore, certainly not worse than steam. On all of them you can import steam friends too. What makes steam so great, gaben?
      - dang 8y ago
        No personal swipes on this site, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        bytematic 8y ago
        Didn't mean it to be, it seemed like laziness could be the actual reason.
  - mort96 8y ago
    One issue is that a lot of these publisher-specific channels have pretty shitty practices. For example, Bethesda decided to not allow refunds of Fallout 76; had it been on Steam, disappointed players could've used Steam's refund policy to easily refund the game as long as they didn't play more than two hours of it. The relationship between the publisher and the player is often antagonistic, as shown by Bethesda's refund policy, the rootkits Sony installed on their customers' computers some time back, DRM which requires the player to always be online, etc. A somewhat trustworthy distributor distributor will help make sure that the game _probably_ won't actively harm your computer, and that you can get your money back if the game otherwise doesn't work for you.
  - LoSboccacc 8y ago
    I've personally jumped out the battlefield franchise, and hadn't bought a cod since it left steam (funny coincidnece with that boycott pic tho, mw2 is one of my longest played games ever, then I discovered indies, then war thunder https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197986674427/games/?tab=all https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197986674427/games/...) it's not much, but every now and then an horror story like this gets out and I'm just glad of being, dunno, suspicious of company with misaligned goals? https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/96e9j5/ea_deleted_my_origin_account_and_ea_help_is/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/96e9j5/ea_deleted_m... and he's one of the lucky one: he hit reddit all so the backlash prompted action.
EamonnMR 8y ago
Please, no. As someone who actually wants to play games on PC the proliferation of launchers has become a huge pain. You have to log in to them separately, they all want to update about as frequently as I want to play the games in question, and they all have their own unique ways to annoy (let's all use different key bindings for overlays! Let's all embed web browsers! Let's all have our own friend management!) If it weren't for Loot Boxes, I would say that launchers are the worst thing to happen to PC gaming in the 10s.
- bytematic 8y ago
  That's what happens when you want 30% of sales
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
debacle 8y ago
AAA games are pretty much making that decision exclusively based on the financials. Steam takes a big cut (relatively), if everyone already knows about your game and where to find it.

LoSboccacc 8y ago

While that's true, that also resulted in people avoiding AAA games on the worst channels like origin. We're maybe not much, but with AAA average margins we're important

gruez 8y ago
>that also resulted in people avoiding AAA games on the worst channels like origin is this actually a thing? if the game is good, I'm not going to rule it out just because it's on a different client, especially when the hassle of using it is marginal at best. reminds me of this: https://i.redd.it/wwx5exndw6b11.png https://i.redd.it/wwx5exndw6b11.png
- lmm 8y ago
  You don't know if the game is any good until you've tried it though. I put off trying Overwatch for about 6 months because it was a non-Steam channel. I would've bought Forza Horizon 4 a couple of weeks ago if it had been on Steam (literally searched for it ready to click buy), since it sounded good in the reviews, but it's yet another non-Steam channel so I can't be bothered.
  - bytematic 8y ago
    I guess you're just lazy? None of the other clients are even bad anymore, certainly not worse than steam. On all of them you can import steam friends too. What makes steam so great, gaben?
    - dang 8y ago
      No personal swipes on this site, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - bytematic 8y ago
        Didn't mean it to be, it seemed like laziness could be the actual reason.
- mort96 8y ago
  One issue is that a lot of these publisher-specific channels have pretty shitty practices. For example, Bethesda decided to not allow refunds of Fallout 76; had it been on Steam, disappointed players could've used Steam's refund policy to easily refund the game as long as they didn't play more than two hours of it. The relationship between the publisher and the player is often antagonistic, as shown by Bethesda's refund policy, the rootkits Sony installed on their customers' computers some time back, DRM which requires the player to always be online, etc. A somewhat trustworthy distributor distributor will help make sure that the game _probably_ won't actively harm your computer, and that you can get your money back if the game otherwise doesn't work for you.
- LoSboccacc 8y ago
  I've personally jumped out the battlefield franchise, and hadn't bought a cod since it left steam (funny coincidnece with that boycott pic tho, mw2 is one of my longest played games ever, then I discovered indies, then war thunder https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197986674427/games/?tab=all https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197986674427/games/...) it's not much, but every now and then an horror story like this gets out and I'm just glad of being, dunno, suspicious of company with misaligned goals? https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/96e9j5/ea_deleted_my_origin_account_and_ea_help_is/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/96e9j5/ea_deleted_m... and he's one of the lucky one: he hit reddit all so the backlash prompted action.

EamonnMR 8y ago

Please, no. As someone who actually wants to play games on PC the proliferation of launchers has become a huge pain. You have to log in to them separately, they all want to update about as frequently as I want to play the games in question, and they all have their own unique ways to annoy (let's all use different key bindings for overlays! Let's all embed web browsers! Let's all have our own friend management!) If it weren't for Loot Boxes, I would say that launchers are the worst thing to happen to PC gaming in the 10s.

bytematic 8y ago
That's what happens when you want 30% of sales
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

debacle 8y ago

AAA games are pretty much making that decision exclusively based on the financials. Steam takes a big cut (relatively), if everyone already knows about your game and where to find it.