Distribution Platforms - Epic Games Store vs Steam

General discussion and socializing.

Re: Distribution Platforms - Epic Games Store vs Steam

Postby MagicManICT » Mon Dec 31, 2018 5:34 pm

shubla wrote:wont make anyone switch platforms.

Nobody is going to "switch" because of giveaways. People will never leave Steam because most people that have used it as their digital distribution platform are tied to it for life... if they want to keep access to their games. People are going to start treating digital platforms like they do department stores: go to whatever one has the better deal. Some might play politics and go to this one or that one--GoG is all DRM free, Steam has the best deals, Epic is better for the developers that release there... I'm sure other reasons will come up. In case you didn't get my message earlier, I'm already managing a half dozen+ services for game liscensing. (Because can you call it ownership when you don't own the rights to keep and maintain your digital goods?)

As much as I like Steam as a means of getting games via digital distribution, the community sucks* and the corporation that has grown up behind it has had a terrible track record. They've learned some hard lessons, but there's a part of it that is social experimentation that just doesn't work, and we're getting ready to move on to "Web 3.0"
Opinions expressed in this statement are the authors alone and in no way reflect on the game development values of the actual developers.
User avatar
MagicManICT
 
Posts: 18437
Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2010 1:47 am

Re: Distribution Platforms - Epic Games Store vs Steam

Postby shubla » Thu Jan 10, 2019 12:04 am

I think that steam/valve is a great company.
For example, these days they give you full refunds for your games if you don't like them after playing some time, and they don't really ask questions as long as you have less than few hours played on the game, which should be plenty of time to tell if your system can run the game, or if its not what you thought you were buying.

Valve also actually tries things, for example:
Steam had steamOS which kind of flopped, but they tried.
They have HTC vive and stuff.
They tried concept of selling mods but it did not work out because people thought mods should be free, so they did not do it. Many companies would just not care and would still do it.
Their newest thing is the proton thing, which allows you easily to play many windows-only games on linux. For example, I got witcher 3 running flawlessly with 60 fps max graphics by click of a button.

I dont really care about drm. I think it is a good thing. Makes it a bit harder to pirate games, as long as it does not do any harm. And I haven't had any problems with steam games drm's so far.
Image
I'm not sure that I have a strong argument against sketch colors - Jorb, November 2019
http://i.imgur.com/CRrirds.png?1
Join the moderated unofficial discord for the game! https://discord.gg/2TAbGj2
Purus Pasta, The Best Client
User avatar
shubla
 
Posts: 13043
Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2013 11:26 am
Location: Finland

Re: Distribution Platforms - Epic Games Store vs Steam

Postby MagicManICT » Thu Jan 10, 2019 6:13 am

Steam's DRM is pretty solid. For the most part it doesn't get intrusive. Most games are available through the "Family Share" program, so I don't have to buy two copies (or more) for people in my family or any truly close, trusted friends. The one downside is that Steam itself can make some games unplayable on systems that are getting dated or "not quite to full spec"--ie systems that don't sport a 4GB GPU (or more) and 8-16 GB system RAM. Of course, this is a problem Epic has, too... in fact, the only one that doesn't is GoG since they don't even require a client. (Also, check in with what has been discussed about DRM and GOG sales. Piracy is surprisingly low... almost as if developers/publishers are making a mountain out of a molehill.)
Opinions expressed in this statement are the authors alone and in no way reflect on the game development values of the actual developers.
User avatar
MagicManICT
 
Posts: 18437
Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2010 1:47 am

Re: Distribution Platforms - Epic Games Store vs Steam

Postby shubla » Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:25 pm

MagicManICT wrote:Steam's DRM is pretty solid. For the most part it doesn't get intrusive. Most games are available through the "Family Share" program, so I don't have to buy two copies (or more) for people in my family or any truly close, trusted friends. The one downside is that Steam itself can make some games unplayable on systems that are getting dated or "not quite to full spec"--ie systems that don't sport a 4GB GPU (or more) and 8-16 GB system RAM. Of course, this is a problem Epic has, too... in fact, the only one that doesn't is GoG since they don't even require a client. (Also, check in with what has been discussed about DRM and GOG sales. Piracy is surprisingly low... almost as if developers/publishers are making a mountain out of a molehill.)

If I had a game I would DRM the fuck out of it so I understand well by people want drm to their products.
Image
I'm not sure that I have a strong argument against sketch colors - Jorb, November 2019
http://i.imgur.com/CRrirds.png?1
Join the moderated unofficial discord for the game! https://discord.gg/2TAbGj2
Purus Pasta, The Best Client
User avatar
shubla
 
Posts: 13043
Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2013 11:26 am
Location: Finland

Re: Post pictures of other games

Postby Jalpha » Fri Oct 08, 2021 10:24 pm

Steam is a monster but my aversion to it has waned as my access to higher data limits has increased. There are other platforms out there. My new laptop was spamming me to try a free month of some Microsoft platform. I wasn't interested though because it was subscription based as many are. Unless there's a specific title to lure me I am a victim of steams grip on gamer access.

I seem to remember a catsplosion in on of my earlier fortresses. Did not remember it till now. Maybe multithreading is important lol.

Moderator note: split off a discussion from hereas it was getting more about Steam rather than about Dwarf Fortress and the subject of that thread. Seemed a more appropriate place for it as it had come up previously.
Laying flat.
User avatar
Jalpha
Under curfew
 
Posts: 1843
Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2013 12:16 pm

Re: Post pictures of other games

Postby Procne » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:25 am

I think you guys greatly overestimate DF's popularity. I doubt it would sell 100k copies within first year.

As for the Steam's cut... Keep in mind that before before that there was either physical distribution, where:
- the distributor took even bigger cut
- you had shorter reach (local distributors)
- had to deal with market research and making deals with many distributors for many countries

Or you had to make your own digital distribution platform with DRM, marketing and payment processing.

Steam gives you all of this out of the box with many additional goodies.
Procne
 
Posts: 968
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 3:04 pm

Re: Post pictures of other games

Postby shubla » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:42 pm

Procne wrote:I think you guys greatly overestimate DF's popularity. I doubt it would sell 100k copies within first year.

As for the Steam's cut... Keep in mind that before before that there was either physical distribution, where:
- the distributor took even bigger cut
- you had shorter reach (local distributors)
- had to deal with market research and making deals with many distributors for many countries

Or you had to make your own digital distribution platform with DRM, marketing and payment processing.

Steam gives you all of this out of the box with many additional goodies.

This is not worth 30%.
The taxes are like 30% of the purchase, and what government gives to you? Healthcare, defense, education, roads, funding research, funding many other cool things.
What steam gives you? Basically nothing of value. There are forums in there, but no one really uses them. There is news feed, but nothing would prevent you from just having a blog on your own site.

Creating a download site and a simple payment processing system is very small effort and cheap if compared to 30% cut, if your game sells even few 1000's of copies.

Only reason why one should put the game on steam is the fact that I mentioned earlier, that some people will simply not buy your game if its not in steam. And valve knows this, so they can take whatever cut they want, eventually there will be competition and they have to decrease their cuts, I'm sure, but that may take many years still.

Credit card companies take like 1-2% cut. I think platforms like steam, google play, app store, should all take at max 2-5% of the cut.
Image
I'm not sure that I have a strong argument against sketch colors - Jorb, November 2019
http://i.imgur.com/CRrirds.png?1
Join the moderated unofficial discord for the game! https://discord.gg/2TAbGj2
Purus Pasta, The Best Client
User avatar
shubla
 
Posts: 13043
Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2013 11:26 am
Location: Finland

Re: Post pictures of other games

Postby Procne » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:23 pm

shubla wrote:The taxes are like 30% of the purchase, and what government gives to you? Healthcare, defense, education, roads, funding research, funding many other cool things.
What steam gives you? Basically nothing of value.

Except the government takes the cut (actually, it's much more than 30%, at least for me) from your whole salary, and Steam takes it only from your game purchase. What's the point of even comparing the two?
There are forums in there, but no one really uses them. There is news feed, but nothing would prevent you from just having a blog on your own site.
Well, I do use Steam forums quite often. It's my first place to go when I want to ask questions about the game. Newsfeed is also useful to track updates to all the games I have. Much more comfortable than having to regularly check website of each of them. If you want to list more "useless" features then add elaborate search functions and reviews, both of which I use often
Creating a download site and a simple payment processing system is very small effort and cheap if compared to 30% cut, if your game sells even few 1000's of copies.

It's not only a simple download site with simple payment processing system. There's DRM, cloud saves, providing downloads and updates to your game no matter how much they earned from it for years after the purchase and providing easy group forming in multiplayer games. There's also...
Only reason why one should put the game on steam is the fact that I mentioned earlier, that some people will simply not buy your game if its not in steam.

... you meant visibility
And valve knows this, so they can take whatever cut they want, eventually there will be competition and they have to decrease their cuts, I'm sure, but that may take many years still.
They already decreased their cut for the games which have big sales.

Credit card companies take like 1-2% cut. I think platforms like steam, google play, app store, should all take at max 2-5% of the cut.

Another out-of-the-ass comparison. Actually, it's quite funny discussing what a software company should do and how much it should charge, with a guy who puts tracking software in his client and thinks that's fine.
Procne
 
Posts: 968
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 3:04 pm

Re: Post pictures of other games

Postby shubla » Tue Nov 09, 2021 1:05 am

You have to be outright retarded to think that steam provides 30% of value.
They provide drm? Well it doesnt seem to work too well, I can find plenty of steam games easily to download for free with google.
Visibility is not provided because there are so many games. Valve makes huge profits and spends lot of money on useless crap like steam box.
Having the cut drop.by few % after 20 million usd is quite amusing.
Think of the indie developer working his ass out for years, then making a successful game only to have valve take tens, hundreds of thousands of euros from you!
Image
I'm not sure that I have a strong argument against sketch colors - Jorb, November 2019
http://i.imgur.com/CRrirds.png?1
Join the moderated unofficial discord for the game! https://discord.gg/2TAbGj2
Purus Pasta, The Best Client
User avatar
shubla
 
Posts: 13043
Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2013 11:26 am
Location: Finland

Re: Post pictures of other games

Postby Procne » Wed Nov 10, 2021 10:08 am

They provide drm? Well it doesnt seem to work too well, I can find plenty of steam games easily to download for free with google.

Because it's optional. Because it's not that strong and intrusive. That doesn't mean it doesn't work.
BTW, for your information - silently making your game gather some data about the player, and send it to some server without player's consent or knowledge is considered intrusive
shubla wrote:Think of the indie developer working his ass out for years, then making a successful game only to have valve take tens, hundreds of thousands of euros from you!

Noone forces indie devs to sell via Steam, they can set all the infrastructure up all by themselves and get close to 100% profits. But still they come to Steam because they get more sales. Why? Because of visibility. Contrary to what some are trying to say - there are almost no people not willing to buy a game if it's not on Steam.
Visibility is not provided because there are so many games.

Well, maybe if you learned to use their search functions and curators instead of bitching they are useless you would... you know, FIND some games.
Valve makes huge profits and spends lot of money on useless crap like steam box.

I prefer they spend it on that rather than on whole psychologist department brewing up new ways to introduce lootboxes into every game or PR spin doctors trying to convince us that's what palyers want, as most game companies seem to do these days. Besides, what does it matter what they spend it on? Are you trying to suggest they earn a lot and that's why the 30% cut should be lower?

edit:
lol viewtopic.php?f=40&t=62575&start=10#p794380
LOL viewtopic.php?f=40&t=62575&start=20#p795795
shubla, did you buy haven account from someone?
Procne
 
Posts: 968
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 3:04 pm

PreviousNext

Return to The Inn of Brodgar

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests