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Meanwhile Steam takes 30% of indie devs' hard earned revenue and is a monopoly, but Valve seems immune from any criticism or even mention of it, with the pc gam

Meanwhile Steam takes 30% of indie devs' hard earned revenue and is a monopoly, but Valve seems immune from any criticism or even mention of it, with the pc gamer community reacting with downvotes(like with this comment) and angry replies if it's ever brought up. Think about it, when did you ever see anything critical of Steam on HN or Reddit? Its competitor Epic store which charged only 12% IIRC was demonized and got much more that it's share of criticism and every shortcoming was highlighted relentlessly. I guess Unity does not have much fan armor.

mannerheim 3y ago
>Steam ... is a monopoly >Its competitor Epic
- gruez 3y ago
  To be fair "monopoly" is so abused now it basically means "entity that controls the market". eg. "amazon is a monopoly" despite the fact that there are obviously other e-commerce sites, "uber is a monopoly" despite the fact that there's other ride-hailing apps, "google is a monopoly" despite the fact that there are other search engines.
  - whaleofatw2022 3y ago
    Idk if steam is a true monopoly though. Almost every big US publisher has their own platform (i.e. Origin, EGL, whatever the hell Ubi is doing nowadays) for distribution. There is also GoG, but I feel like that is not a good option for Indies. Still, they get a huge shout out because of their retro collection and friendliness to that subgenre. For indie developers, there's always Itch.io with the option to try Steam or somewhere else later. As it stands I still have more options from where to buy a given game than 10, even 20 years ago. Not to say this current course is sustainable, of course...
    - belltaco 3y ago
      And many of those publishers are now also publishing on Steam because it's close to a monopoly. Like Blizzard recently with Overwatch and soon their other games. And Microsoft published games.
      - sickofparadox 3y ago
        Once WoW is on Steam, then this argument might hold water. Overwatch being put on steam was a desperate attempt at boosting the player count of a game suffering severe player drop-off. Steam was simply an untapped well of users to draw from for Blizzard.
        belltaco 3y ago
        They did put CoD back on Steam, and Destiny went back too.
- belltaco 3y ago
  Epic is losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year on it and will eventually shut it down. The only reason it ran for so long was because it's not a publicly held company and Tim Sweeney never liked stores taking a lot of developers' revenue.
  - mannerheim 3y ago
    >A monopoly (from Greek μόνος, mónos, 'single, alone' and πωλεῖν, pōleîn, 'to sell'), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing.
traverseda 3y ago
Yeah, but valve is investing a lot of that into linux and FOSS while unity is investing a lot into ad-tech and user tracking. Steam is taking a big cut, but they've never tried to fuck me over as a consumer.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >Steam is taking a big cut, but they've never tried to fuck me over as a consumer. most consumers. If you were ever a part of the certain niche games that were bizarrely removed/rejected for no reason, you can be frustrated at valve's vauge lines of what's allowed.
m_0x 3y ago
Your comment makes it sound like Epic Store was demonized because they charge 12%. I bet that's the only thing they did not get demonized about. Their shady practices such as forcing exclusivity to Epic Store and suing Apple is what brought them shit all over them. Developers are free to submit their game to Steam and release their game in any other platform. Epic handcuffs the devs to the Epic Store for a while. > when did you ever see something critical of Steam on HN or Reddit? Jesus are we forgetting EVERYBODY hated Steam when it got released? You know what Valve did? They fucking fixed their platform. They listened to consumer's feedback. Now it's the best PC game store out there. That might change at some point, but today it's the best one.
- whaleofatw2022 3y ago
  Steam and Gog Galaxy are the only PC launchers I've used that don't make me cringe.
- delecti 3y ago
  Epic pays for temporary exclusivity. Lots of devs turn down that deal and release on both Epic and Steam. The reason so many devs take the offer is because it massively helps reduce risk. Gamers got angry at Epic because they didn't want to have to install a new launcher for a game they wanted. That's really it. And to be clear, I feel the same way. I have a ton of free games on EGS that I've never installed because I don't want to install another launcher.
  - anonymousab 3y ago
    > Epic pays for temporary exclusivity In several cases, they sought out games that were already coming out on Steam and even had preorders (or kickstarter backers) there, and then paid those developers to rip it out. There is a seemingly minor but important distinction with what Epic does: they do not pay for exclusivity nor do most of their actions involve paying for a game to be made that otherwise would not have been. Either of those things are fine, even if begrudgingly. What Epic actually does is pay to harm Steam specifically; the stipulation is always "don't put it on Steam", not "only put it on our platform". It is purposely targeted and antagonistic towards steam and steam users; "we have deprived you of a thing, now you have to come here if you want to get it" is how that comes across, when they should have aimed for "we are getting this new thing made for our platform, come over here to check it out!" While they were doing this, their store was in a miserable state compared to its competitors, in terms of features and reliability (especially for the desktop app). So they were seen as prioritizing depriving another platform instead of prioritizing having a good platform and customer experience. When all of the above is put together, it comes across as petty and malicious, rather than them trying to throw their fortnite dollars at bootstrapping their platform, and at making and having a quality platform for consumers. If they had simply paid for a bunch of new exclusive games and IP to be made for their platform rather than seeking out existing, already advertised and in-development suitor games, it would have come across way differently. Or if so much more of the effort and money would have gone to making the store better and beyond feature parity with its main competitors (not that it necessarily reached even that), it would have been received quite differently.
AnotherGoodName 3y ago
Steam scares me. The 30% cut isn't the thing that scares me though. What scares me is that the lack of a monthly subscription fee on top of that is not because of any legal framework that says steam can't charge an exorbitant monthly access fee. The lack of the fee is due to Gabe Newell being more or less a benevolent dictator. One day steam will be bought out by private capital that seeks to massively increase returns. The 'just buy it on steam so it's in your steam list' will inevitably one day be a curse not a blessing.
pjmlp 3y ago
The difference is changing the rules in the middle of the game.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>Think about it, when did you ever see anything critical of Steam on HN or Reddit? I probably helped in that regard. I hate it but it's a harder battle to face since those rates have been standard for decades. I especially hate that Valve made deals for AAA's to get lower cuts after selling a bazillion copies. Shows where their loyaly lies. If Unreal Engine is taking 5% after a large revenue floor in order to help make the game, a platform holder really can't ask for more than 2-3x that cost to host it.

mannerheim 3y ago

>Steam ... is a monopoly >Its competitor Epic

gruez 3y ago
To be fair "monopoly" is so abused now it basically means "entity that controls the market". eg. "amazon is a monopoly" despite the fact that there are obviously other e-commerce sites, "uber is a monopoly" despite the fact that there's other ride-hailing apps, "google is a monopoly" despite the fact that there are other search engines.
- whaleofatw2022 3y ago
  Idk if steam is a true monopoly though. Almost every big US publisher has their own platform (i.e. Origin, EGL, whatever the hell Ubi is doing nowadays) for distribution. There is also GoG, but I feel like that is not a good option for Indies. Still, they get a huge shout out because of their retro collection and friendliness to that subgenre. For indie developers, there's always Itch.io with the option to try Steam or somewhere else later. As it stands I still have more options from where to buy a given game than 10, even 20 years ago. Not to say this current course is sustainable, of course...
  - belltaco 3y ago
    And many of those publishers are now also publishing on Steam because it's close to a monopoly. Like Blizzard recently with Overwatch and soon their other games. And Microsoft published games.
    - sickofparadox 3y ago
      Once WoW is on Steam, then this argument might hold water. Overwatch being put on steam was a desperate attempt at boosting the player count of a game suffering severe player drop-off. Steam was simply an untapped well of users to draw from for Blizzard.
      - belltaco 3y ago
        They did put CoD back on Steam, and Destiny went back too.
belltaco 3y ago
Epic is losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year on it and will eventually shut it down. The only reason it ran for so long was because it's not a publicly held company and Tim Sweeney never liked stores taking a lot of developers' revenue.
- mannerheim 3y ago
  >A monopoly (from Greek μόνος, mónos, 'single, alone' and πωλεῖν, pōleîn, 'to sell'), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing.

traverseda 3y ago

Yeah, but valve is investing a lot of that into linux and FOSS while unity is investing a lot into ad-tech and user tracking. Steam is taking a big cut, but they've never tried to fuck me over as a consumer.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
>Steam is taking a big cut, but they've never tried to fuck me over as a consumer. most consumers. If you were ever a part of the certain niche games that were bizarrely removed/rejected for no reason, you can be frustrated at valve's vauge lines of what's allowed.

m_0x 3y ago

Your comment makes it sound like Epic Store was demonized because they charge 12%. I bet that's the only thing they did not get demonized about. Their shady practices such as forcing exclusivity to Epic Store and suing Apple is what brought them shit all over them. Developers are free to submit their game to Steam and release their game in any other platform. Epic handcuffs the devs to the Epic Store for a while. > when did you ever see something critical of Steam on HN or Reddit? Jesus are we forgetting EVERYBODY hated Steam when it got released? You know what Valve did? They fucking fixed their platform. They listened to consumer's feedback. Now it's the best PC game store out there. That might change at some point, but today it's the best one.

whaleofatw2022 3y ago
Steam and Gog Galaxy are the only PC launchers I've used that don't make me cringe.
delecti 3y ago
Epic pays for temporary exclusivity. Lots of devs turn down that deal and release on both Epic and Steam. The reason so many devs take the offer is because it massively helps reduce risk. Gamers got angry at Epic because they didn't want to have to install a new launcher for a game they wanted. That's really it. And to be clear, I feel the same way. I have a ton of free games on EGS that I've never installed because I don't want to install another launcher.
- anonymousab 3y ago
  > Epic pays for temporary exclusivity In several cases, they sought out games that were already coming out on Steam and even had preorders (or kickstarter backers) there, and then paid those developers to rip it out. There is a seemingly minor but important distinction with what Epic does: they do not pay for exclusivity nor do most of their actions involve paying for a game to be made that otherwise would not have been. Either of those things are fine, even if begrudgingly. What Epic actually does is pay to harm Steam specifically; the stipulation is always "don't put it on Steam", not "only put it on our platform". It is purposely targeted and antagonistic towards steam and steam users; "we have deprived you of a thing, now you have to come here if you want to get it" is how that comes across, when they should have aimed for "we are getting this new thing made for our platform, come over here to check it out!" While they were doing this, their store was in a miserable state compared to its competitors, in terms of features and reliability (especially for the desktop app). So they were seen as prioritizing depriving another platform instead of prioritizing having a good platform and customer experience. When all of the above is put together, it comes across as petty and malicious, rather than them trying to throw their fortnite dollars at bootstrapping their platform, and at making and having a quality platform for consumers. If they had simply paid for a bunch of new exclusive games and IP to be made for their platform rather than seeking out existing, already advertised and in-development suitor games, it would have come across way differently. Or if so much more of the effort and money would have gone to making the store better and beyond feature parity with its main competitors (not that it necessarily reached even that), it would have been received quite differently.

AnotherGoodName 3y ago

Steam scares me. The 30% cut isn't the thing that scares me though. What scares me is that the lack of a monthly subscription fee on top of that is not because of any legal framework that says steam can't charge an exorbitant monthly access fee. The lack of the fee is due to Gabe Newell being more or less a benevolent dictator. One day steam will be bought out by private capital that seeks to massively increase returns. The 'just buy it on steam so it's in your steam list' will inevitably one day be a curse not a blessing.

pjmlp 3y ago

The difference is changing the rules in the middle of the game.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>Think about it, when did you ever see anything critical of Steam on HN or Reddit? I probably helped in that regard. I hate it but it's a harder battle to face since those rates have been standard for decades. I especially hate that Valve made deals for AAA's to get lower cuts after selling a bazillion copies. Shows where their loyaly lies. If Unreal Engine is taking 5% after a large revenue floor in order to help make the game, a platform holder really can't ask for more than 2-3x that cost to host it.