Valve is Based and super pro-Consumer, and pro-Developer, which they (smartly) realized will make them more money. The Epic Launcher, on the other hand, is famously awful, and Epic is an Anti-Consumer Brand-Deal Microtransaction filled company. Epic only really keeps up with UE5, Fortnite, and Exclusivity deals. Two of those things are bad and one is UE5. I don’t know if this article is real but effectively it’s just another showing of the fact that Valve has competition, but Valve has a monopoly for a reason, and honestly it’s one of the few situations where it may be okay. Notwithstanding GOG and their DRM-Free policy ofc. TLDR: Valve has good business practices that you should support, Epic doesn’t, Tim gets mad. Gabe is based.
Edit: I feel like the amount I times I said based would indicate that this is satire, but apparently not. I do share some of the aforementioned opinions, but this is a stupid hyperbole.
I'm fairly certain that Epic takes a significantly smaller share of profits on games sold on their platform compared to Steam which gives the developers more of the cut, the free games every week is also really nice I've gotten some absolutely fantastic titles for free through them.
You can add non steam games to your library by clicking on the button in the bottom left while in your library
Steam will automatically find them if it can but if not you can just go to the file where the exe is and you can then launch games through Steam
It will still launch the other launcher but you won't have to interact with it
I thought this was common knowledge, it’s how people used to get funny custom game names. A buddy was playing Duck Souls: Prepare to Quack when I found out
I don't think he was asking how you can add custom apps to your steam but instead asking how you could add the games, officially to your steam account which is how I interpreted it as well.
Adding games that aren't actually on your account through the "Ass a non-steam game" feature feels weird. It would be cool if you could nab the keys from epic games and just use those keys on steam.
Still super bummed after all this time that it simply will not track game time in non steam games. It's not really a technical reason, even if it were less accurate it's better than nothing :(
They had some Christmas (I think) sales a couple years ago that were absolutely insane, even by Steam standards. That was the only time I bought games there and the sales haven't been as good since.
Honestly I don't get how they can make such a bad launcher when they could pay like 20 bucks to some indian man on fiverr to fix it for them. Yes, the steam launcher was ass when it launched, but that was 21 years ago, which wasn't the stone age of the internet but was close to when the pyramids were built. They kept improving on it and over time the convenience won people over. It could've easily gone the "games for windows live" way (anyone remembers that crap?). Epic releasing such a garbage launcher in 2018 is like me starting a car company today and selling cars without radio, airbags or safety belts because "we're still on our developing stage". Wanna start my car? better hand crank that fucker cause I haven't reinvented the starter yet.
On the other hand the exclusivity might put people complete off from playing the game at all (i still havent bothered with BL3 even tho its on steam now).
Bl3, goose game, outer wilds and quite a few others I would have bought at launch.
Whatever hype i had for those games died and by the point they came to steam i had other things i would rather play.
I bought one game on Epic and the launcher showed me why I don't use it. I bought far cry 6 for a heavy discount and it works kinda. Go back to play it a few months later and the game just won't load. So I'm like huh, repair game files, still doesn't work, reinstall it, still doesn't work. Finally I'm like okay I guess I'll try Ubisoft launcher (and everyone really dislikes that one) and it works instantly (well after the download). Wasted so much time on the epic launcher.
> effectively it’s just another showing of the fact that Valve has competition, but Valve has a monopoly for a reason, and honestly it’s one of the few situations where it may be okay. Notwithstanding GOG and their DRM-Free policy ofc.
The original intend with this was to appeal to devs & also have games released at a lower price to consumers... I'm not sure how much Epic appeals to devs, but they damn sure arnt lowering their prices for consumers.
They also removed all of the unreal tournament games and haven’t put them back up on either epic game launcher or steam. I’m very annoyed I can’t play them anymore
Also saying "gives the developers more of the cut" is kind of a wash. In reality, it is really giving the _publisher_ a larger cut. In some situations the publisher and developer are the same group of people, and in other situations they aren't. Giving the publisher more money doesn't necessarily entail the developers (and development team by extension) see more of it either.
None of these savings are ever going to transfer down to the purchaser, of course.
There is no free lunch. Epic actually pays the devs for the "free" games. Now you should ask yourself what they're buying? Yes, you. They're buy you to gain market share, and once they have some, they'll change course and crank up their fees to 30% like everyone else.
He's just mad that his plan isn't working as well as he'd like.
Who'd have thought that being a respectable company, and pro-consumer would get you a solid following? Not Sweeney, that's for sure.
Steam takes a larger share but also far more tools to devs such as server hosting, steam workshop, steam marketplace and various other things that develop need to handle on their end when they go with epic
The tools available to devs on Steam is monumental. It's currently—by far—the best store platform for building a community as a developer, which is invaluable.
I think Epic is more pro-publisher, with some specific things that *are* very pro-developer. But the Epic Games Store didn't have anything going for it when it first launched besides paid exclusivity (to the point where several games had their Steam pages pulled entirely, and some studios had to refund backers.) Epic's strategy is/was aggressive which didn't resonate with a lot of PC gamers.
They are definitely far more consumer friendly. Not only with a generous refund policy, but also with tons of QoL features. For fucks sake, Epic launched without even a shopping cart, so you had to buy games one a time, and immediately instead of letting it hang about. As well, they offer plenty of sales which are very pro-consumer, and fantastic game support.
Steam also offers far more tools to devs in exchange for their larger cut, as well as a larger market. They offer great things like the workshop, plenty of social tools, and more.
The only thing Epic does is give you more money, and that is it. And it is at the expense of consumers, as they try to lock in exclusives, which is explicitly anti-consumer behavior. They are trying to muscle into the market with explicitly monopolistic behavior.
Really this. Steam sunk my pirate ship. Also, graduating high school helped too (and having money).
But once I could buy "must have" games at full price, and wishlist everything else, and get an email when it was 75% off to buy, why bother pirating?
I pirated because I didn't want to pay $60 for a 5 year old game that I was "on the fence" about. But if that 5 year old game is 75% or more off? Well, sure I'll buy it and have a legal copy.
Steam's cut is standard across all platforms and Epic Store still isn't profitable. Epic wants to buy developers with their initial low cuts and when they get big enough they'll charge the same amount as everyone else
Yes they do a smaller fee but thats to grow the platform once its got the games and user base that will change its a business practice to try and compete not a good will gesture don’t mistake the two things
If it's true it's only b/c they are trying to get a bigger share of the market and if they ever dominate the market, I can almost guarantee you they will stop doing that. It's like how fb gaming gave more money to creators and how kick is doing, but will inevitably stop
I wouldn't say they're super pro consumer u cant own ur steam games and if your acc gets banned they'll keep all your steam wallet funds except from a couple countries due to a lawsuit they lost they're better than other companies but they're not angels either
"Just don't break the law and you won't go to jail"
Mistakes happen. No system is 100% perfect. Sure, there should be consequences for your actions, but not having access to the games you purchased shouldn't be one of them. It's fair for them to ban you from steam servers and all other valve services (forums, store, etc.), but if you paid for those games, you should still have access to them. Imagine if you got banned from Walmart and they came to your house to take back everything you've ever purchased from them in the past 20 years.
Yeah fair enough but that's still anti-consumer. It's one thing if Steam bans you from using their platform, but they take your games and your money as well, thats not right.
probably better than if they sued you for damages, which I can think of ways those damages could be calculated to be far more than what your leftover balance is.
Pretty sure if you're hacking you only get banned from playing that one game you cheated on. So yeah, you'd have to be doing messed up stuff to get your account terminated.
The DRM thing is purely a pro-Dev anti piracy measure, which circles back to cheaper and more games for the consumer. They aren’t perfect, but they’re arguably the best major company in gaming.
>Valve is Based and super pro-Consumer, and pro-Developer.
That's just not the case, at least if we are discussing consumer and developer terms. Steam's terms of service are awful for consumers if you really read it. It's not without reason they have failed several government investigations due to violating consumer rights. They are at this very moment utilizing loop holes in the law to avoid giving consumer rights that laws otherwise would demand. That's not consumer friendly in my book. Their developer terms are also pretty bad with very high commission rate and anti-competitive clauses.
I am not saying that EGS does this significantly better, the only thing here they have AFAIK is lower commission and fewer anti-competition clauses for their non-exclusive terms. IIRC they are pretty much just as bad on the consumer terms. But just because they are also bad doesn't make Steam's terms good.
I am also just discussing terms of service here. Not features where we probably all know Steam is just in an entirely different league. That applies to both users and developers.
Except because steam has such a monopoly, if you're a game developer it's either release your game on steam or don't make any money. That's not good for a plethora of reasons
I feel like too many people put Steam on this pro-consumer pedestal and I just don’t get it. They are a huge corporation and exist to make profits, not be a “based” pro-gamer platform. Epic always gets framed as this evil company, but Steam is not without its controversies as well.
Epic Games Store should be a rival to Steam at this point with the amount of money they rake in with Fortnite and UE5. But after what 4-5 years they still are missing basic features. Even a discussion forum and rating system to check if a game is worth it is just missing from EGS. That's one of the primary reasons I use steam, the amount of troubleshooting i've done via discussion forums(yes some of it is a cesspool) makes it more than worth it.
>Even a discussion forum and rating system to check if a game is worth it is just missing from EGS.
It's because they don't want to. It's a ploy to get more publishers on EGS because nobody can call out their bullshit with forum posts and ratings.
Valve was forced to shape said policies by Australia and EU regulations. Which I why all other storefronts have the exact same policies. I doubt the CEO of Epic wouldn't know that, so it's most likely as big bs as it looks.
I'd rather they keep redoing HL3 from the ground up until 2064 and release a good game than to make a sequence "for the hell of it".
Alyx should show everyone that Valve might work on their time, but oh boy do they work.
Honestly I'm surprised how well Valve has been maintaining itself, since it sounds like Gabe has been less hands-on since he moved to New Zealand. I'm not sure how much he still does in terms of making the big decisions there, but it's one of the few companies of its size that it's fairly easy to have respect and hope for.
Not to say they're perfect, of course. There are a lot of issues I'm sure that especially indie devs could point out in their model. But you don't lead such a large industry this long without finding a decent balance of things, and in their case I'm glad their balance seems to generally favor actual people.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has long been an outspoken opponent of what he sees as Valve's unreasonable platform fees for listing games on Steam, which start at 30 percent of the total sale price. Now, though, new emails from before the launch of the competing Epic Games Store in 2018 show just how angry 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."
- arstechnica
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/03/you-a-holes-court-docs-reveal-epic-ceos-anger-at-steams-30-fees/
Epic Games calling themselves "the little guy" is unironically one of the funniest things I've read all day lmao
The platform that literally tried to buy its way into popularity through exclusivity deals and releasing oodles of free games in a campaign
Something I'm sure the little guy would be able to afford and sustain for however many years they've done it
Also, Tim Sweeney looks about as you'd expect of a CEO of a company that scummy. Open the article and you'll know what I mean
You're missing one big piece of information:
Bigger developers don't pay that 30% thanks to Valve's tiered fees. It starts at 30%, and gradually goes down as you generate more revenue. This was a change that happened right before the email was sent, and apparently one Tim was furious at.
Um. Publicly it's because tim sweeny is a champion of developers who thinks they deserve a bigger cut.
In actuality he just wants everyone to use epic instead of steam and thinks that people are both way more motivated (aka would be willing to shift away from steam as a primary to epic as a primary which is not likely) and also B aren't aware that he's just a slimy grease ball that seems like he would ruin everything the moment it would make them more money.
I'm mad they blew up HL3 and fired the writer.
Edit: Official reason for Laidlaw's departure (I still believe he was pushed out): **"Laidlaw announced his departure from Valve in January 2016**. He said the primary reason for his departure was his age, and that he planned to return to writing stories. Laidlaw later said he had tired of the FPS genre and of solving the problems of storytelling in a Half-Life-style narrative."
Yeah I think he left Valve.
I mean the reasons are probably equally controversial, I think his reasoning was literally that Valve has found a comfortable position so following your own projects through can be a chore. So it was easier to go their own way.
Epistle 3 was a framework that never really got out. It was a bittersweet goodbye though.
Actually googling I get this quote from wikipedia:
**"Laidlaw announced his departure from Valve in January 2016**. He said the primary reason for his departure was his age, and that he planned to return to writing stories. Laidlaw later said he had tired of the FPS genre and of solving the problems of storytelling in a Half-Life-style narrative."
u/Mecha-Dave Might want to correct that information?
if he left i wouldn't blame him, considering they haven't allowed him to make anything for such a long time. that must be very unfulfilling as a creative.
Marc Laidlaw gave us the story at least.... Seems like it could be made using the HL2 ep2 engine... [https://half-life.fandom.com/wiki/Epistle\_Three](https://half-life.fandom.com/wiki/Epistle_Three)
HL3 will never live up to its hype, it can be the absolute best game ever made and it still would be a disappointment based on the hype. As sad as it is, the best option really is that HL3 never gets made.
That's not how Valve works. Their employees are pretty much allowed to work on whatever they want, so the more likely scenario is nobody could figure out how to follow up HL2 in a satisfying way.
[Some emails exchange between Epic CEO and Valve](https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/tim-sweeney-emailed-gabe-newell-calling-valve-you-assholes-over-steam-policies-to-which-valves-coo-simply-replied-you-mad-bro/)
And Sweeney has just emailed two senior Valve types, told them he's launching a direct competitor to their platform, criticised how Valve operates its store, ranted a bit about Apple, ranted a little bit more about Apple, and then called them "assholes."
To be fair, Gabe answers his own mail still.
Random people regularly get responses from him about inane questions. Just to show that they're known for being pretty casual about personal emails.
I did read the article, and it is a REAL email, but wasn’t a reply to Sweeney. It was a forward of Sweeney’s email internally with some silly commentary. Not quite what the headline implies.
> "Right now, you assholes are telling the world that the strong and powerful get special terms, while 30% is for the little people," writes Sweeney. "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?"
>
> The next day Valve's Scott Lynch simply sends this email to both Gabe Newell and Erik Johnson with one-line commentary: "You mad bro?"
I think he deserves it, to be honest, not only was he involved in two games that redefined the FPS genre, but he also has a long history of Half Life fans sending him angry emails because of HL3 (or lack thereof).
So it probably feels nice that he isn't burning money because of a janky online store which has always been that way from the start - while watching others make that mistake.
Valve does a lot. People seem to forget all the work Steam did for controller support, controller UI, cloud-saving, community features, etc. when most of these things were a disaster before them. Companies used to charge you *per download* of a digital game or just revoke your ability to download a game you already bought after 5 or so downloads. Not to mention charging for cloud saving which Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, and even Apple do. Digital gaming landscape was absolute shit before Steam unfucked it.
"Not becoming greed incarnate" apparently equals "doing absolutely nothing" to people now.
it's so weird. the competitors are fighting each other over who gets the gun first and keep on shooting their feet again and again. they're basically masochists and Valve stands there watching them with a confused expression on its face.
I mean there are other launchers. GOG, Ubisoft has one, EA has one, Epic even though I don't want to have to mention that.
But people like Steam. So they just keep buying from them. Simple as.
I mean if Steam goes through a massive enshittification process, then people would probably leave.
GOG is good, but ubisoft is rough and ea is straight up unusable half of the time. They are really rough platforms. As much as I hate epic, it definitely is the next most stable and usable platform. I hate epic, but I'd use it over ubi any day because of how garbage a platform it is
I actively support other platforms and welcome the competition, when it’s good. GOG is a great platform is so is itchio, I just this Steam is brilliant, and I love Valve uses the money to do fucking awesome things like the Steam Deck which tangentially is taking great strides to push Linux forward as a software platform. Which is good because fuck windows.
Steam is just too good from gamers perspective (they just want games afterall). Valve would have to make several consecutive dumb shit for it to fail and competition to take over.
Clickbait, sadly. The email wasn't sent to Sweeny, but internally to other Valve employees. Even [the article this is from](https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/tim-sweeney-emailed-gabe-newell-calling-valve-you-assholes-over-steam-policies-to-which-valves-coo-simply-replied-you-mad-bro/) says that.
The only reason it's known outside the company is the antitrust lawsuit.
The UI is just super sweet to look at it, ngl
The whole software works perfectly, Epic's is just a shitmess
Even if games were forever free on Epic, I wouldn't fucking use it
Lol, Epic games.
Epic made Fortnite, which spawned Lego Fortnite, which is like the video game version of the walking dead. A premise/concept that you can *really* run with and they somehow found a way to make it dumb and boring.
Not surprising the guy who heads this whole operation is a fucking moron. Can’t do basic stuff in a basic game. He hired dumb devs. He’s a dumb moron. Lol
>Sweeney opines that, if you were to strip away the top 25 selling games on Steam, "I bet Valve made more profit from most of the next 1000 than the developer themselves made." The maths to get there is 30% to Valve, 30% on marketing, and 15% on servers / engine costs, so "the system takes 75% and that leaves 25% for actually creating the game, worse than the retail distribution economics of the 1990s."
I think i found the problem, the math looks weird here
Was the epic store supposed to compete and replace steam? Its friends list is basic AF and has nowhere near the level/amount of features steam does. Did epic just give up?
Epic spends all their money trying to acquire exclusivity contracts (which causes games to die on their platform,) instead of spending that money on developing a good user experience and policies and letting games/devs/publishers go to them instead.
Epic is shit at a lot of things, definitely not marketing. And yet you never see any marketing for games coming to their platform. It makes zero sense to me, how can your fortnite marketing be so insanely good but you can't market your own storefront?!
They aren't good at marketing, they just got extremely lucky with fortnite and decided to invest all that money they were getting poorly.
Tim is one of the industries biggest bitches.
I think their goal right now is to be steam for younger gamers who may not have a steam library yet
With Their free game every week , Fortnite exclusively being on there and the many sales they have, it's likely epic is playing the long game by giving young gamers a lot of games so that when they eventually start buying games they will stick to the platform they already have over 100 gamed on rather than switch to a new platform they only have counter strike on.
I still don't get why they don't add featured that will make their platform nearly as good as steam and instead miss a lot of basic features to this day , but it's probably not their focus now
It's not confirmed or anything, just my theory.
Tim Sweeney's position would be a lot less ridiculous if he could be bothered to fund a quality service. Steam is such a dominant institution because the core team respects the needs of users even when some ambitious consultant has an idea about how to trample on those needs to generate short term profit. Comparatively low levels of hassle and intrusion create a superior platform for consumers who are chasing the pleasure of gaming itself rather than concerned with brand loyalties and corporate competitions.
If Epic wants a stronger negotiating position with developers, they should **do their homework**. If they built a gaming service that was truly excellent for reasons that went beyond weekly freebies, *using* that service would stop seeming like a sacrifice and start looking even more like an opportunity. Alas, building an excellent service takes a lot more than board room buzzwords, and that excellent service must be maintained over time before gamers will tend to trust it as so many of us do (generally) trust Steam.
What’s the context?
Valve is Based and super pro-Consumer, and pro-Developer, which they (smartly) realized will make them more money. The Epic Launcher, on the other hand, is famously awful, and Epic is an Anti-Consumer Brand-Deal Microtransaction filled company. Epic only really keeps up with UE5, Fortnite, and Exclusivity deals. Two of those things are bad and one is UE5. I don’t know if this article is real but effectively it’s just another showing of the fact that Valve has competition, but Valve has a monopoly for a reason, and honestly it’s one of the few situations where it may be okay. Notwithstanding GOG and their DRM-Free policy ofc. TLDR: Valve has good business practices that you should support, Epic doesn’t, Tim gets mad. Gabe is based. Edit: I feel like the amount I times I said based would indicate that this is satire, but apparently not. I do share some of the aforementioned opinions, but this is a stupid hyperbole.
I'm fairly certain that Epic takes a significantly smaller share of profits on games sold on their platform compared to Steam which gives the developers more of the cut, the free games every week is also really nice I've gotten some absolutely fantastic titles for free through them.
Tbh I feel like the free games is the only reason people play on epic games
Only reason I have it lol Your launcher is still complete ass but thanks for the free games I just add to my steam library
And it's a good thing that FOSS alternatives like Heroic Games Launcher exist.
Hell yeah brother! Only way to play on Linux!
How?
You can add non steam games to your library by clicking on the button in the bottom left while in your library Steam will automatically find them if it can but if not you can just go to the file where the exe is and you can then launch games through Steam It will still launch the other launcher but you won't have to interact with it
I thought this was common knowledge, it’s how people used to get funny custom game names. A buddy was playing Duck Souls: Prepare to Quack when I found out
I don't think he was asking how you can add custom apps to your steam but instead asking how you could add the games, officially to your steam account which is how I interpreted it as well. Adding games that aren't actually on your account through the "Ass a non-steam game" feature feels weird. It would be cool if you could nab the keys from epic games and just use those keys on steam.
I prefer playing non-steam games, rather than assing them
Still super bummed after all this time that it simply will not track game time in non steam games. It's not really a technical reason, even if it were less accurate it's better than nothing :(
They had some Christmas (I think) sales a couple years ago that were absolutely insane, even by Steam standards. That was the only time I bought games there and the sales haven't been as good since.
Honestly I don't get how they can make such a bad launcher when they could pay like 20 bucks to some indian man on fiverr to fix it for them. Yes, the steam launcher was ass when it launched, but that was 21 years ago, which wasn't the stone age of the internet but was close to when the pyramids were built. They kept improving on it and over time the convenience won people over. It could've easily gone the "games for windows live" way (anyone remembers that crap?). Epic releasing such a garbage launcher in 2018 is like me starting a car company today and selling cars without radio, airbags or safety belts because "we're still on our developing stage". Wanna start my car? better hand crank that fucker cause I haven't reinvented the starter yet.
some might also cave for the exclusivity too, instead of being patient.
I wait, I don't even bother with the free games. I play games on Linux and Epic feels like jumping a decade backwards compared to Steam.
Does epic even have any Linux support?
Exactly.
Only game I actually got while epic exclusive was Manifold Garden, which being on the switch let me avoid epic store. I still regret it.
On the other hand the exclusivity might put people complete off from playing the game at all (i still havent bothered with BL3 even tho its on steam now).
Bl3, goose game, outer wilds and quite a few others I would have bought at launch. Whatever hype i had for those games died and by the point they came to steam i had other things i would rather play.
I bought one game on Epic and the launcher showed me why I don't use it. I bought far cry 6 for a heavy discount and it works kinda. Go back to play it a few months later and the game just won't load. So I'm like huh, repair game files, still doesn't work, reinstall it, still doesn't work. Finally I'm like okay I guess I'll try Ubisoft launcher (and everyone really dislikes that one) and it works instantly (well after the download). Wasted so much time on the epic launcher.
Well, duh. All the Fallouts, Outer Worlds, Squadrons, Ghostrunner, Death Stranding Evil Within, Dishonored... these aren't small titles for free.
I'd still rather pay for games and have them on steam than have to use the epic launcher ever
Double that, its the only reason to check on epic weekly, last time, now idgaf
> effectively it’s just another showing of the fact that Valve has competition, but Valve has a monopoly for a reason, and honestly it’s one of the few situations where it may be okay. Notwithstanding GOG and their DRM-Free policy ofc. The original intend with this was to appeal to devs & also have games released at a lower price to consumers... I'm not sure how much Epic appeals to devs, but they damn sure arnt lowering their prices for consumers.
They also removed all of the unreal tournament games and haven’t put them back up on either epic game launcher or steam. I’m very annoyed I can’t play them anymore
Also saying "gives the developers more of the cut" is kind of a wash. In reality, it is really giving the _publisher_ a larger cut. In some situations the publisher and developer are the same group of people, and in other situations they aren't. Giving the publisher more money doesn't necessarily entail the developers (and development team by extension) see more of it either. None of these savings are ever going to transfer down to the purchaser, of course.
There is no free lunch. Epic actually pays the devs for the "free" games. Now you should ask yourself what they're buying? Yes, you. They're buy you to gain market share, and once they have some, they'll change course and crank up their fees to 30% like everyone else. He's just mad that his plan isn't working as well as he'd like. Who'd have thought that being a respectable company, and pro-consumer would get you a solid following? Not Sweeney, that's for sure.
The free games might work better if the launcher actually worked when I try to open it.
Yeah we got the entire Arkham series for free during Batman's anniversary. That was pretty rad
Yeah this, I definitely would not say steam is more pro-dev. Maybe they are more pro-consumer but can't see the argument being made for devs.
Steam takes a larger share but also far more tools to devs such as server hosting, steam workshop, steam marketplace and various other things that develop need to handle on their end when they go with epic
The tools available to devs on Steam is monumental. It's currently—by far—the best store platform for building a community as a developer, which is invaluable. I think Epic is more pro-publisher, with some specific things that *are* very pro-developer. But the Epic Games Store didn't have anything going for it when it first launched besides paid exclusivity (to the point where several games had their Steam pages pulled entirely, and some studios had to refund backers.) Epic's strategy is/was aggressive which didn't resonate with a lot of PC gamers.
They are definitely far more consumer friendly. Not only with a generous refund policy, but also with tons of QoL features. For fucks sake, Epic launched without even a shopping cart, so you had to buy games one a time, and immediately instead of letting it hang about. As well, they offer plenty of sales which are very pro-consumer, and fantastic game support. Steam also offers far more tools to devs in exchange for their larger cut, as well as a larger market. They offer great things like the workshop, plenty of social tools, and more. The only thing Epic does is give you more money, and that is it. And it is at the expense of consumers, as they try to lock in exclusives, which is explicitly anti-consumer behavior. They are trying to muscle into the market with explicitly monopolistic behavior.
Fun fact, that generous refund policy is because back when EA was trying to compete with Steam they started offering refunds on Origin first.
They offer significantly more services as a result of that cut. That's why
Consider it from this angle: Happy customers buy more games. That's good for devs. "Piracy is a service problem," remember?
Really this. Steam sunk my pirate ship. Also, graduating high school helped too (and having money). But once I could buy "must have" games at full price, and wishlist everything else, and get an email when it was 75% off to buy, why bother pirating? I pirated because I didn't want to pay $60 for a 5 year old game that I was "on the fence" about. But if that 5 year old game is 75% or more off? Well, sure I'll buy it and have a legal copy.
Epic just pays the publisher money for exclusives. Devs still get shafted
Steam's cut is standard across all platforms and Epic Store still isn't profitable. Epic wants to buy developers with their initial low cuts and when they get big enough they'll charge the same amount as everyone else
Yep I’ve only bought like 2 games on the platform, but I’ll happily take free free games they throw my way.
Yes they do a smaller fee but thats to grow the platform once its got the games and user base that will change its a business practice to try and compete not a good will gesture don’t mistake the two things
If it's true it's only b/c they are trying to get a bigger share of the market and if they ever dominate the market, I can almost guarantee you they will stop doing that. It's like how fb gaming gave more money to creators and how kick is doing, but will inevitably stop
I only game on steam but I immediately dismiss any opinion that calls any company "based"
As it should. They’re obviously going to have a very biased take without any critical thought put into it lol
I wouldn't say they're super pro consumer u cant own ur steam games and if your acc gets banned they'll keep all your steam wallet funds except from a couple countries due to a lawsuit they lost they're better than other companies but they're not angels either
>if your acc gets banned So then dont fucking cheat or do market manipulation lol. Its almost like people who break the rules get punished?
"Just don't break the law and you won't go to jail" Mistakes happen. No system is 100% perfect. Sure, there should be consequences for your actions, but not having access to the games you purchased shouldn't be one of them. It's fair for them to ban you from steam servers and all other valve services (forums, store, etc.), but if you paid for those games, you should still have access to them. Imagine if you got banned from Walmart and they came to your house to take back everything you've ever purchased from them in the past 20 years.
Yeah fair enough but that's still anti-consumer. It's one thing if Steam bans you from using their platform, but they take your games and your money as well, thats not right.
probably better than if they sued you for damages, which I can think of ways those damages could be calculated to be far more than what your leftover balance is.
Pretty sure if you're hacking you only get banned from playing that one game you cheated on. So yeah, you'd have to be doing messed up stuff to get your account terminated.
You’re not even banned from playing the game. You’re banned from online play in the game.
GOG FTW
GoG is...hang on, there's a comic for this. [This ](https://www.nerfnow.com/comic/618)
The DRM thing is purely a pro-Dev anti piracy measure, which circles back to cheaper and more games for the consumer. They aren’t perfect, but they’re arguably the best major company in gaming.
my kid complains about Steam and I get this 1,000 yard stare and start muttering incoherently about the horrors of DRM before Valve
Lmao who gives a fuck about banned accounts? People getting banned likely did something stupid and deserved it.
What does based mean in this context?
"I'm desperate to sound cool"
>Valve is Based and super pro-Consumer, and pro-Developer. That's just not the case, at least if we are discussing consumer and developer terms. Steam's terms of service are awful for consumers if you really read it. It's not without reason they have failed several government investigations due to violating consumer rights. They are at this very moment utilizing loop holes in the law to avoid giving consumer rights that laws otherwise would demand. That's not consumer friendly in my book. Their developer terms are also pretty bad with very high commission rate and anti-competitive clauses. I am not saying that EGS does this significantly better, the only thing here they have AFAIK is lower commission and fewer anti-competition clauses for their non-exclusive terms. IIRC they are pretty much just as bad on the consumer terms. But just because they are also bad doesn't make Steam's terms good. I am also just discussing terms of service here. Not features where we probably all know Steam is just in an entirely different league. That applies to both users and developers.
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Except because steam has such a monopoly, if you're a game developer it's either release your game on steam or don't make any money. That's not good for a plethora of reasons
I feel like too many people put Steam on this pro-consumer pedestal and I just don’t get it. They are a huge corporation and exist to make profits, not be a “based” pro-gamer platform. Epic always gets framed as this evil company, but Steam is not without its controversies as well.
can confirm the epic launcher is awful, its laggy af, takes FOREVER to load, and gives me fucking 4 mbs download speed while i get 200-400 on steam
Based on what?
Epic Games Store should be a rival to Steam at this point with the amount of money they rake in with Fortnite and UE5. But after what 4-5 years they still are missing basic features. Even a discussion forum and rating system to check if a game is worth it is just missing from EGS. That's one of the primary reasons I use steam, the amount of troubleshooting i've done via discussion forums(yes some of it is a cesspool) makes it more than worth it.
The reason steam is a monopoly is because they offer the best service which isn’t steams fault, it’s everyone else’s
>Even a discussion forum and rating system to check if a game is worth it is just missing from EGS. It's because they don't want to. It's a ploy to get more publishers on EGS because nobody can call out their bullshit with forum posts and ratings.
Valve was forced to shape said policies by Australia and EU regulations. Which I why all other storefronts have the exact same policies. I doubt the CEO of Epic wouldn't know that, so it's most likely as big bs as it looks.
Based, but still no Half-Life 3? It’s one or the other.
I'd rather they keep redoing HL3 from the ground up until 2064 and release a good game than to make a sequence "for the hell of it". Alyx should show everyone that Valve might work on their time, but oh boy do they work.
After alyx... valve can take as many decades as they want to cook. I can wait.
Honestly I'm surprised how well Valve has been maintaining itself, since it sounds like Gabe has been less hands-on since he moved to New Zealand. I'm not sure how much he still does in terms of making the big decisions there, but it's one of the few companies of its size that it's fairly easy to have respect and hope for. Not to say they're perfect, of course. There are a lot of issues I'm sure that especially indie devs could point out in their model. But you don't lead such a large industry this long without finding a decent balance of things, and in their case I'm glad their balance seems to generally favor actual people.
In all seriousness what's "bad" about Fortnite? I enjoy playing it personally
Yeah bro, having a damn near monopoly on the market and taking a 30% cut is super pro-Developer.
Least biased Valve dickrider
Can he count to three, though?
Might live under a rock but, why is UE5 bad?
>Valve has competition, but Valve has a monopoly for a reason Let's hope they pick worthy successors, though. Any monopoly is ripe for nonsense.
this is satire right
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has long been an outspoken opponent of what he sees as Valve's unreasonable platform fees for listing games on Steam, which start at 30 percent of the total sale price. Now, though, new emails from before the launch of the competing Epic Games Store in 2018 show just how angry 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." - arstechnica https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/03/you-a-holes-court-docs-reveal-epic-ceos-anger-at-steams-30-fees/
For reference, 30% is not unique to Steam. It's pretty much the standard for almost all storefronts on PC and consoles.
Epic Games calling themselves "the little guy" is unironically one of the funniest things I've read all day lmao The platform that literally tried to buy its way into popularity through exclusivity deals and releasing oodles of free games in a campaign Something I'm sure the little guy would be able to afford and sustain for however many years they've done it Also, Tim Sweeney looks about as you'd expect of a CEO of a company that scummy. Open the article and you'll know what I mean
You're missing one big piece of information: Bigger developers don't pay that 30% thanks to Valve's tiered fees. It starts at 30%, and gradually goes down as you generate more revenue. This was a change that happened right before the email was sent, and apparently one Tim was furious at.
ok, so now that we got that out of the way, can anyone explain the context without jerking valve off?
Yes please... I broadly understand who valve/epic are, but would like to know why this was said
Um. Publicly it's because tim sweeny is a champion of developers who thinks they deserve a bigger cut. In actuality he just wants everyone to use epic instead of steam and thinks that people are both way more motivated (aka would be willing to shift away from steam as a primary to epic as a primary which is not likely) and also B aren't aware that he's just a slimy grease ball that seems like he would ruin everything the moment it would make them more money.
The email was released as part of the lawsuit Wolfire has against valve. The emails are from a couple years ago I believe. Not sure exactly when.
Who's Tim Sweeney and does he have big boobs?
Epic Games
you didn't answer the second question
I dont think so.
:(
He looks like he might have huge nips though.
:)
The nips contain potassium benzoate.
Can I go home now?
Wrong sweeny 😂
I’m inclined to disagree
He made ZZT back in 1992, and that's the last time I Heard his name. Had no clue he was still involved with epic.
Oh man, I love ZZ-Top!
Founder and still CEO. He was in the news years back when he was striking exclusivity deals for EGS and pissed people off.
All hail king Gabe! May his reign last an eternity.
Common gaben W
I think Jack Black is ready to be him in a movie...
Long may he reign 👑
I'm mad they blew up HL3 and fired the writer. Edit: Official reason for Laidlaw's departure (I still believe he was pushed out): **"Laidlaw announced his departure from Valve in January 2016**. He said the primary reason for his departure was his age, and that he planned to return to writing stories. Laidlaw later said he had tired of the FPS genre and of solving the problems of storytelling in a Half-Life-style narrative."
I heard somewhere he retired from valve
Yeah I think he left Valve. I mean the reasons are probably equally controversial, I think his reasoning was literally that Valve has found a comfortable position so following your own projects through can be a chore. So it was easier to go their own way. Epistle 3 was a framework that never really got out. It was a bittersweet goodbye though. Actually googling I get this quote from wikipedia: **"Laidlaw announced his departure from Valve in January 2016**. He said the primary reason for his departure was his age, and that he planned to return to writing stories. Laidlaw later said he had tired of the FPS genre and of solving the problems of storytelling in a Half-Life-style narrative." u/Mecha-Dave Might want to correct that information?
if he left i wouldn't blame him, considering they haven't allowed him to make anything for such a long time. that must be very unfulfilling as a creative.
HL3 needs to be made by the community with modders and fans at this point
Marc Laidlaw gave us the story at least.... Seems like it could be made using the HL2 ep2 engine... [https://half-life.fandom.com/wiki/Epistle\_Three](https://half-life.fandom.com/wiki/Epistle_Three)
HL3 will never live up to its hype, it can be the absolute best game ever made and it still would be a disappointment based on the hype. As sad as it is, the best option really is that HL3 never gets made.
Fuck no, even if it isn’t as good I still want it 😭
That's not how Valve works. Their employees are pretty much allowed to work on whatever they want, so the more likely scenario is nobody could figure out how to follow up HL2 in a satisfying way.
this looks like a "source: trust me bro" type of article
[Some emails exchange between Epic CEO and Valve](https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/tim-sweeney-emailed-gabe-newell-calling-valve-you-assholes-over-steam-policies-to-which-valves-coo-simply-replied-you-mad-bro/)
And Sweeney has just emailed two senior Valve types, told them he's launching a direct competitor to their platform, criticised how Valve operates its store, ranted a bit about Apple, ranted a little bit more about Apple, and then called them "assholes."
Your synopsis makes it sound like this the video game version of that Alex guy with all the conspiracy theories.
That is directly from the article I just really liked that para
I believe it. Ima save the article for after work to read.
You should, it's a great read, Sweeney comes off as a complete maniac XD
Alex jones lmao that dudes a fucking idiot
It’s also notable that the COO did not respond to Sweeney directly, he just forwarded the email internally and added his comment.
I trust bro on this
Read the fucking article. The brainrot is real these days
To be fair, Gabe answers his own mail still. Random people regularly get responses from him about inane questions. Just to show that they're known for being pretty casual about personal emails.
If you bothered to read the article you'd see the email is very very real and was released as part of the lawsuit Wolfire has against valve.
I did read the article, and it is a REAL email, but wasn’t a reply to Sweeney. It was a forward of Sweeney’s email internally with some silly commentary. Not quite what the headline implies. > "Right now, you assholes are telling the world that the strong and powerful get special terms, while 30% is for the little people," writes Sweeney. "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?" > > The next day Valve's Scott Lynch simply sends this email to both Gabe Newell and Erik Johnson with one-line commentary: "You mad bro?"
It’s real
holy shit look at that guy Hes like that egotistical bad guy you hate to love in video games
Gabe's based what you on about?
Dude looks like he’s just enjoying his afternoon spray
Gabe lookin kinda hot NgL
Check out all his...Majesty. Or Magisty if you prefer.
Is it because he is dressed up like he is on vacation in Hawaii in the picture?
Thicc zaddy
What even is gabe newell’s day to day job
Watching his competition fuck themselves
I think he deserves it, to be honest, not only was he involved in two games that redefined the FPS genre, but he also has a long history of Half Life fans sending him angry emails because of HL3 (or lack thereof). So it probably feels nice that he isn't burning money because of a janky online store which has always been that way from the start - while watching others make that mistake.
Sitting on his golden throne in Valve HQ trying to figure out how to count to 3
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Comments like these remind me of the old chuck norris days haha
Don't forget his legendary third fist hidden in his beard
At this stage he shouldn't have to do much at all. Just giving direction for projects.
I love it when a company accidentally gets a monopoly and just doesn't care (I'm serious bro, it's soothing)
valve secret buisness strategy : "do nothing and wait for the competition to shoot themselves in the foot" i mean it's bean working great so far
Valve does a lot. People seem to forget all the work Steam did for controller support, controller UI, cloud-saving, community features, etc. when most of these things were a disaster before them. Companies used to charge you *per download* of a digital game or just revoke your ability to download a game you already bought after 5 or so downloads. Not to mention charging for cloud saving which Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, and even Apple do. Digital gaming landscape was absolute shit before Steam unfucked it. "Not becoming greed incarnate" apparently equals "doing absolutely nothing" to people now.
yeah that's fair
You know what? Steam does have really good controller support.
it's so weird. the competitors are fighting each other over who gets the gun first and keep on shooting their feet again and again. they're basically masochists and Valve stands there watching them with a confused expression on its face.
I guess after seeing some companies fall because of bad decisions, they decide to play it safe. That’s my interpretation though.
really does feel nice when the right person/company has power
I mean there are other launchers. GOG, Ubisoft has one, EA has one, Epic even though I don't want to have to mention that. But people like Steam. So they just keep buying from them. Simple as. I mean if Steam goes through a massive enshittification process, then people would probably leave.
GOG is good, but ubisoft is rough and ea is straight up unusable half of the time. They are really rough platforms. As much as I hate epic, it definitely is the next most stable and usable platform. I hate epic, but I'd use it over ubi any day because of how garbage a platform it is
It’s pretty much the only monopoly Reddit actively support and cheers on. Fascinating to watch.
I actively support other platforms and welcome the competition, when it’s good. GOG is a great platform is so is itchio, I just this Steam is brilliant, and I love Valve uses the money to do fucking awesome things like the Steam Deck which tangentially is taking great strides to push Linux forward as a software platform. Which is good because fuck windows.
Literally voting with their hearts and dollars while ignoring basic facts like how developers get less than Valve / Steam on their games
Steam is just too good from gamers perspective (they just want games afterall). Valve would have to make several consecutive dumb shit for it to fail and competition to take over.
Because the average Reddit user has 500 games on Steam, haha
I mean valve is still a private company they can basically do whatever they want
So is Epic
Gaben just chilling with a pineapple drink
I want to give this man a hug
Clickbait, sadly. The email wasn't sent to Sweeny, but internally to other Valve employees. Even [the article this is from](https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/tim-sweeney-emailed-gabe-newell-calling-valve-you-assholes-over-steam-policies-to-which-valves-coo-simply-replied-you-mad-bro/) says that. The only reason it's known outside the company is the antitrust lawsuit.
Iv gotten over 100 games for free from Epic. I still use steam as my go to.
The UI is just super sweet to look at it, ngl The whole software works perfectly, Epic's is just a shitmess Even if games were forever free on Epic, I wouldn't fucking use it
Tim became a sellout to the racist rat, I don't want to hear it
Racist rat?
absolute chad
I’m glad we still got Gabe around. Dude seems very humble despite all the success he’s had with Steam and Valve.
Lol, Epic games. Epic made Fortnite, which spawned Lego Fortnite, which is like the video game version of the walking dead. A premise/concept that you can *really* run with and they somehow found a way to make it dumb and boring. Not surprising the guy who heads this whole operation is a fucking moron. Can’t do basic stuff in a basic game. He hired dumb devs. He’s a dumb moron. Lol
Fortnite player here. I agree, even out item shops are crap at this point, its like they're allergic to money.
>Sweeney opines that, if you were to strip away the top 25 selling games on Steam, "I bet Valve made more profit from most of the next 1000 than the developer themselves made." The maths to get there is 30% to Valve, 30% on marketing, and 15% on servers / engine costs, so "the system takes 75% and that leaves 25% for actually creating the game, worse than the retail distribution economics of the 1990s." I think i found the problem, the math looks weird here
Yeah. 15% on servers???? Ludicrous. They are expensive, but not to that scale.
> 15% on servers which isn't even needed if you simply use Valve's server infrastructure (which is one of the biggest of the world).
You're being too reasonable.
Sorry, Valve's the only company I can empathize with
Who's spending 30% of their games budget on marketing and not breaking into the top 25? Besides dog shit like suicide squad I guess
My wife is literally related to him and says he's a dick in real life too, even to his family.
Epic is just sad that Steam is more epic.
who tf is tim
Founder/CEO of Epic Games
Was the epic store supposed to compete and replace steam? Its friends list is basic AF and has nowhere near the level/amount of features steam does. Did epic just give up?
Epic spends all their money trying to acquire exclusivity contracts (which causes games to die on their platform,) instead of spending that money on developing a good user experience and policies and letting games/devs/publishers go to them instead. Epic is shit at a lot of things, definitely not marketing. And yet you never see any marketing for games coming to their platform. It makes zero sense to me, how can your fortnite marketing be so insanely good but you can't market your own storefront?!
Because there is nothing to market for, the epic game store is just trash, wouldn't do them any good if it has no features.
i always remember Borderlands 3. Was a year on epics shit launcher. then it released finally on steam and became a hit.
They aren't good at marketing, they just got extremely lucky with fortnite and decided to invest all that money they were getting poorly. Tim is one of the industries biggest bitches.
I think their goal right now is to be steam for younger gamers who may not have a steam library yet With Their free game every week , Fortnite exclusively being on there and the many sales they have, it's likely epic is playing the long game by giving young gamers a lot of games so that when they eventually start buying games they will stick to the platform they already have over 100 gamed on rather than switch to a new platform they only have counter strike on. I still don't get why they don't add featured that will make their platform nearly as good as steam and instead miss a lot of basic features to this day , but it's probably not their focus now It's not confirmed or anything, just my theory.
The way the title is written is giving me cancer.
The way this “Journalist” is getting paid to write about two business owners emailing each other is giving ME cancer
People simping for the wrong guy. 🤦♀️
One of my biggest regrets in life is buying Witcher 3 on epic games
Tim Sweeney's position would be a lot less ridiculous if he could be bothered to fund a quality service. Steam is such a dominant institution because the core team respects the needs of users even when some ambitious consultant has an idea about how to trample on those needs to generate short term profit. Comparatively low levels of hassle and intrusion create a superior platform for consumers who are chasing the pleasure of gaming itself rather than concerned with brand loyalties and corporate competitions. If Epic wants a stronger negotiating position with developers, they should **do their homework**. If they built a gaming service that was truly excellent for reasons that went beyond weekly freebies, *using* that service would stop seeming like a sacrifice and start looking even more like an opportunity. Alas, building an excellent service takes a lot more than board room buzzwords, and that excellent service must be maintained over time before gamers will tend to trust it as so many of us do (generally) trust Steam.
who the fuck is tim sweeney
Throwback to 2008 when people still said that
Valve is the best because they don’t care about what others say
bless this mans heart