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"This is great news for indies who Steam seems to be ignoring[1]" Your citation suggests that in this context, ignoring means "potentially offering them fewer

"This is great news for indies who Steam seems to be ignoring[1]" Your citation suggests that in this context, ignoring means "potentially offering them fewer page referrals from advertising slots, relying on them to generate organic traffic". I mention this, because the interview with Tim Sweeney posted in response to your comment says: "Generally, we want to enable a more direct relationship between developers and gamers, and more efficient economics and discovery. Developers will control their product pages, free of advertising for competing games." The reduced margin will definitely benefit all developers, but the Grey Alien guy recently tweeted that margin wasn't the problem because 30% of nothing is nothing, and his issue is no one discovering his games. I would say who the Epic approach benefits is sort of "Big Indie" -- developers large enough to self-generate momentum but small enough not to benefit from the improved revenue split. Thinking of teams like Double Fine and games like Stardew Valley here.

Reedx 8y ago
> ... margin wasn't the problem because 30% of nothing is nothing, and his issue is no one discovering his games. Doesn't that make the 30% all the more problematic? If you have to bring eyes to your Steam page anyway, you might as well just sell direct. From Grey Alien, "In the past I have felt positive about Steam, but these discovery changes and the recent revenue share changes that are only relevant to hugely successful games don’t make me feel particularly positive about the future of selling games on Steam."
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- DuskStar 8y ago
  I can say with confidence that I am much more willing to drop $5 on a game via Steam than <random 3rd party site>. Aside from the obvious "is this a scam" aspects, Steam means that I will have the game even when the dev goes under in 5 years, that my save states will be backed up, and that at least some of the reviews might not be faked. That 30% might be painful, but at the same time Steam provides a LOT of utility to the buyer.
  - belltaco 8y ago
    How is the Epic launcher 'a random third party site' ? Especially someone that already has Fortnite or has heard of it enough to know its maker is not going to be a credit card skimmer.
    - Brockenstein 8y ago
      Way more people use Steam than Epic Launcher. The oldest Steam accounts are 15 years old now, people have been using it for a long time when it was largely the only game in town. People may use another company's platform because they have to to play a certain game. But a lot of times it's just that other platform trying to be Steam, but not in the same league.
      - tapoxi 8y ago
        Are we sure that's true? Fortnite is the most popular game in the world right now.
        kbenson 8y ago
        Steam[1] still has more peak concurrent users than Fortnite at 14 million if you add the games up, while Fortnite is over 8 million[2]. Fortnite does have a huge install base, but I imagine most of them that need a store (i.e. not consoles, so basically PCs) already have Steam, and at least one game in it. For new users that don't have steam, there might be an inventive to use the Epic games launcher, especially if there's a discount, but having games split across two systems is really annoying (but it's not too bad for one game), so I imagine without an incentive most existing Steam users will opt out, thus preserving Steam's dominance. 1: https://store.steampowered.com/stats/ https://store.steampowered.com/stats/ 2: https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2018/11/08/fortnites-concurrent-players-now-number-over-8-3-million/ https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2018/11/08/fortnites-concurren...
        ArchTypical 8y ago
        > I imagine most of them that need a store (i.e. not consoles, so basically PCs) already have Steam, and at least one game in it 125 million fortnite installs - https://www.businessinsider.com/fortnite-size-statistics-players-worldwide-2018-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/fortnite-size-statistics-pla... 70+ million steam installs - https://galyonk.in/steam-in-2017-129c0e6be260 https://galyonk.in/steam-in-2017-129c0e6be260 Not saying what's right and what's wrong but I heard these kind of numbers reported after the announcement. I see a lot of different numbers being thrown around and I'm not sure what to believe anymore. Steamcharts consistently surprises me at how few people play the popular games I like, so I'm beginning to think Steam isn't as big.

Reedx 8y ago

> ... margin wasn't the problem because 30% of nothing is nothing, and his issue is no one discovering his games. Doesn't that make the 30% all the more problematic? If you have to bring eyes to your Steam page anyway, you might as well just sell direct. From Grey Alien, "In the past I have felt positive about Steam, but these discovery changes and the recent revenue share changes that are only relevant to hugely successful games don’t make me feel particularly positive about the future of selling games on Steam."

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
DuskStar 8y ago
I can say with confidence that I am much more willing to drop $5 on a game via Steam than <random 3rd party site>. Aside from the obvious "is this a scam" aspects, Steam means that I will have the game even when the dev goes under in 5 years, that my save states will be backed up, and that at least some of the reviews might not be faked. That 30% might be painful, but at the same time Steam provides a LOT of utility to the buyer.
- belltaco 8y ago
  How is the Epic launcher 'a random third party site' ? Especially someone that already has Fortnite or has heard of it enough to know its maker is not going to be a credit card skimmer.
  - Brockenstein 8y ago
    Way more people use Steam than Epic Launcher. The oldest Steam accounts are 15 years old now, people have been using it for a long time when it was largely the only game in town. People may use another company's platform because they have to to play a certain game. But a lot of times it's just that other platform trying to be Steam, but not in the same league.
    - tapoxi 8y ago
      Are we sure that's true? Fortnite is the most popular game in the world right now.
      - kbenson 8y ago
        Steam[1] still has more peak concurrent users than Fortnite at 14 million if you add the games up, while Fortnite is over 8 million[2]. Fortnite does have a huge install base, but I imagine most of them that need a store (i.e. not consoles, so basically PCs) already have Steam, and at least one game in it. For new users that don't have steam, there might be an inventive to use the Epic games launcher, especially if there's a discount, but having games split across two systems is really annoying (but it's not too bad for one game), so I imagine without an incentive most existing Steam users will opt out, thus preserving Steam's dominance. 1: https://store.steampowered.com/stats/ https://store.steampowered.com/stats/ 2: https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2018/11/08/fortnites-concurrent-players-now-number-over-8-3-million/ https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2018/11/08/fortnites-concurren...
        ArchTypical 8y ago
        > I imagine most of them that need a store (i.e. not consoles, so basically PCs) already have Steam, and at least one game in it 125 million fortnite installs - https://www.businessinsider.com/fortnite-size-statistics-players-worldwide-2018-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/fortnite-size-statistics-pla... 70+ million steam installs - https://galyonk.in/steam-in-2017-129c0e6be260 https://galyonk.in/steam-in-2017-129c0e6be260 Not saying what's right and what's wrong but I heard these kind of numbers reported after the announcement. I see a lot of different numbers being thrown around and I'm not sure what to believe anymore. Steamcharts consistently surprises me at how few people play the popular games I like, so I'm beginning to think Steam isn't as big.