Switch to Gog :)
Suck me off, epic
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Tim Sweeney can gargle my ballsack
Are brainwashed G*mers finally going to see Valve for the monopolistic anti-consumer sack of shits they are.
Looks at comments
I guess not.
Looking through my favorites list games on Steam, most games have at least one alternative place where they can be bought between GOG, Epic, Itch or the publisher/devs own store. How is that a monopoly? This is without even mentioning other consoles (which you could argue are monopolies on their own).
What anti-consumer is exactly about Steam? Comparatively to pretty much any other online game store, Steam is a super-pro-consumer-the-only-good-choice store.
They have the most generous refund policy of any store and don’t force any DRM on published games. The horror!!
I think it’s satire
It’s not about defending valve, it’s about not buying epic’s pro consumer rhetoric. They have a worse product, a history of anti consumer practices, and you shouldn’t let them use you to gain leverage to be able to abuse you more.
Steam is DRM, but so is Epic. And if the two, Steam/valve have contributed meaningfully to open source software and the gaming industry. In a world where capitalism rules, Steam/Valve is hardly the worst option.
I for one look forward to the Steam Deck; my HP Reverb G2 became a paperweight when it lost support overnight after a Windows update, and while it’s not completely open, I expect valve’s headset to be supported for as long as the hardware survives.
Fuck DRM, but if you want to pay for convenience and don’t care about owning your games, Steam is the best option.
Fuck DRM, but if you want to pay for convenience and don’t care about owning your games
That’s the problem. EA, Nintendo, Blizzard, etc all use to be “cool” pro-consumer companies until they suddenly werent. I hate ppl getting so use to convenience until its too late and then when we all own nothing we bought anymore and everyone is standing around going “How did this happen?”
I don’t buy games on steam so I can have them in the future. I buy them on steam so I can play them today, so I can easily reinstall them, so I can have my save files synced across devices and and reinstalls.
The day steam gets enshitified where it isn’t giving me that convenience is the day I stop using it. Most of my library was purchased for <$10 in summer sales, I’ve played their worth and then some. If Valve disappears tomorrow and my steam library with it, there’s only a handful of games I might repurchase, I wouldn’t be that devastated.
I don’t make a living off it, my life doesn’t depend on it, I don’t need it… it’s entertainment and convenience that I want today, and valve allows me to play more and more of library on Linux every day, which is great because I’ve completely uninstalled Windows.
But I want to keep using the convenience until it’s not. Nothing lasts forever.
They probably will when the steam store turns to shit, valve stops supporting Linux and making hardware they want, stops doing family sharing, and pretty much removes everything from the steam client except the store.
You have to admit, valve has a pretty good reason to be liked by consumers.
Lots of holiday deals, fair regional pricing, massive open-source contributions, hanging back from making era-defining, envelope-pushing games to just make the gaming industry on PC better.
they charge what they do because it works for everyone steam has more users and does more for them so it costs more to maintain everything which is fine for devs because people actually buy things on steam
the only time anyone ever talks about epic is to shit on them ,talk about the current free game there giving away and … well thats it at least in my experience
All right at the same fucking thing just came up that Apple is going to start charging creators 30% on fees. So does that mean that that argument is the same as valve charging 30%?
Steam is the last company that has held out against enshittification.
That’s why they are getting sued.
Lol
Greenlight Early access Gambling economy Microtransactions Segmenting games to be sold as parts.
Fuck off with that shit.
Nah they don’t like to hear that. I see many such cases of people complaining about mobile gaming but steam did this when most mobile hadn’t enough power to run big games.
Meanwhile places like EA are a bastion of virtue?
It feels like all the other corpos are mad and want to sue Valve to force them into enshittification.
I’m all for holding companies accountable - when legal pressure forced Valve into creating a return policy, I was happy for that. But this is a $900 Million nothing burger imo. Publishers are mad they can’t get the exposure and sales numbers on a cheaper platform. Cheaper platforms are mad that they still can’t get people to switch to them by significantly under-cutting Steam. That’s (publishers) customers mad they have to pay a ‘premium’ (basically the ‘market rate’ for the service before epic decided to start under-cutting btw) for a better service and the competition mad that a LOT of (publishers) customers are willing to pay that ‘premium’.
Their store UI could be better, searching the database by conditions and clearly seeing why something isn’t available in your region\country\demographic would be good.
But at the same time it’s good enough for me to even be thinking about such conveniences.
Also I’ve remembered recently my dad saying some 6 years ago that nobody makes convenient UIs because it’s bad for commerce. A UI filled with suffering allows you to charge for directed solutions. And if a UI isn’t filled with suffering, there must be something else. Like Telegram and VK which are convenient to use (compared to WhatsApp and Facebook and …), but are Russian special services’ honeypots.
Convenience is a weapon. And a very expensive one, if Steam store’s UI were more convenient, the load on servers would probably be 10x what it is, for a similar structure of purchases, except probably harder to direct.
I’m not saying the 30% fee is fair, but every single company charges 30% except Epic and the Microsoft PC store which north charge 12%.
And both of those are terrible
I am pretty sure they only do in attempt to attract devs. Once Epic were to get a majority position in the market they would quickly raise it to 30% too. None of these companies are “good guys” or actually care about the end consumer.
I want to say that Valve actually does. I don’t know if they do or not, but… Something about saying Valve is the bad guy here feels incredibly fucking sus.
“They charge developers too much!”
“Ok, Tim, so how exactly do you make money for your company, then? Because giving away all the free stuff seems like awfully bad business.”
Never thought I’d be defending a company charging a lot of money but since Steam actually does provide an excellent, stable service with bonuses like Linux development and the Steam Deck I mean, I really ain’t that mad, especially they still offer really good sales.
I mean is obvious if they killed valve or even knocked it down a peg they would raise prices on devs so fast.
“They charge developers too much!”
So you should be able to undercut them, right? Right?
Exactly. Epic doesn’t even appear to really provide a particularly good service so you’d think a more bare-bones company could get away with charging less, and yet.
Apparently the epic games store isn’t feeling so good, Mr. Stark .
Not when the Steam Terms of Service prevents them from charging less on other stores.
People are still repeating this lie, huh?
“They charge developers too much!”
“Ok, Tim, so how exactly do you make money for your company, then? Because giving away all the free stuff seems like awfully bad business.
I think you’re missing the point that Epic’s store is only not profitable at their margins because of scale. If they had even half of Steam’s user base they would be profitable. Their problem is that gamers insist on backing Valve’s monopoly because it’s what other gamers tell them to do online.
And Epic provides Unreal Engine, the gaming engine that powers the majority of modern games, with free and extremely cheap tiers for indie devs, and they provide explicit Linux support for their engine and dev environment. They’ve also used a substantial amount of their Fortnite money to break up app store monopolies on Android and iOS.
They are not the villain that the gaming community thinks they are.
If they had even half of Steam’s user base they would be profitable. Their problem is that gamers insist on backing Valve’s monopoly because it’s what other gamers tell them to do online.
Well, see, here’s your first mistake; you think Valve has a monopoly. But they’re just one store out of many, including game console stores. The difference is they’re actually providing a good service.
Yes, it’s shocking; people tend to gravitate towards the service that’s actually good!
And Epic provides Unreal Engine, the gaming engine that powers the majority of modern games…
And what a total shite of an engine that is. It’s actively destroying the gaming industry by emphasising all the worst development practices gamers have complained about for the past 8 years.
… with free and extremely cheap tiers for indie devs…
Just like with their service fee, they’re doing this to completely undercut competitors, to ensure the Gabe engine everyone used is Unreal.
This isn’t a good thing.
… they provide explicit Linux support…
No they don’t. They barely support Linux with some elements. But Unreal Engine runs like absolute shit on Linux, if at all, and Tim Sweeny infamously hates Linux with a passion. He has some personal grudge against it.
They’ve also used a substantial amount of their Fortnite money to break up app store monopolies…
Because they want Fortnite to be the one game young people play. The One Live Service To Rule Them All. The only way they can do that, to reach the maximum amount of the youngest generations to squeeze them and their parents for all their money, is to be as widely available as possible.
Valve got skin gambling. Epic got Fortnite. The latter involves children and is massively more profitable.
Have you considered maybe Valves monopoly is natural? That is convenient to have all the games in one place and their customers like what they’re selling?
Have you considered maybe Valves monopoly is natural?
Yes that changes literally nothing.
All monopolies, be they natural or otherwise, need to be heavily regulated or else they can:
a) easily do stuff to prevent competition. Stuff like preventing developers from selling their game for cheaper on other stores.
b) charge exorbitant markups, markups like 30% of all revenue for a listing in a store.
I do not understand why gamers have such a hard time grasping that Valve taking a massive cut off the top of every single game sold, just enriches the already rich for doing nothing, at the expense of consumers and creators.
Sorry to bust your balls, but here’s a thing from a fucking 6 years ago that debunks your B point to the ground.
30% has used to be standard in a PHYSICAL releases too, except these wont give you any convenience like cloud saves, remote play, family share, friend/community integration, support for older releases, huge ass discounts, linux support, and may other pro-consumer things. Valve takes this chunk and actually invests in the quality of their service.
Do you really think that MS or Epic would keep low markups if they have gained majority of the market?
Lmfao bro, you think that digital storefronts cost more to run then physical ones?
You think it takes more resource to change a database entry, then it does to run a physical store, staffed by real people, that have to import and store a physical item that they then have to sell you, and potentially take back and return?
Lmfao, Valve has tossed you trinkets over the course of 20 years and you praise them like they’re altrusitic gods, instead of the wealth hoarding millionaires and billionaires that they actually are.
Do you really think that MS or Epic would keep low markups if they have gained majority of the market?
Jesus Christ, thats literally the whole fucking point. Valve has been overcharging you because they have a monopoly.
Competition is what keeps prices low, and that’s not possible when Valve has clauses that prevent developers from selling their games for less on other stores.
Steam provides much more than just a store. Having to print, burn, deliver and sell physical CDs is not cheap. Nor is the service Steam provides that physical discs wont. Also, did you pass over the fact that PS, Xbox, Nintendo, Apple and Google also have charged 30% for their online stores?
Anyone can go get free games at Epic and be happy they save 100% cash on their games. and that is why Epic’s user base grew 173% withing last 6 years but with 1.6% revenue growth. If this doesn’t make you realize that we pay for a good service, then nothing will.
PlayStation and Xbox subsidize the cost of the console.
Apple and Google have been having their 30% fees (and the monopolies that allow them) struck down by courts and competition regulators around the world.
I think the problem you’re running into is that Valve isn’t doing nothing with that pay.
Like valve is actively making my gaming experience better by developing cheap hardware and a good system for gaming on Linux.
All the games I’ve ever bought, regardless of if they still sell them are in my library.
My save files are cloud synced for free.
I as the end user am having a good time.
I also have a sunk cost thing going on. I’ve been trying to buy and play more GOG games but I just have so much that works already on Linux without any work that it’s hard to justify the tinker time to get it working otherwise.
They provide such a good service I think we’ve all forgotten about the children casinos for CSGO2 skins, but even that they’re fixing (kinda).
Maybe its just nice to not be mad about something. Like its just video games, I don’t really care if Valve has a monopoly on that since 1) Experience is good 2) they’re not trying to have like a monopoly on water or something important. Bad take maybe, but there’s enough going on that I just don’t know if I could make myself care that valve is like 90% of videogame sales. Or whatever it is.
Heroic games launcher basically makes gog stuff click and play but even that isn’t enough for me to really use it over steam.
What I need is a good launcher that makes the process of using different stores seamless, that works well on all my devices (heroic’s controller support is infuriating to use and doesn’t support steam)
Maybe when playnite finally gets ported to Linux
That’s has absolutely no chance in hell to happen while these right wing fucks are in charge. Any “regulation” would be a secret dick in the ass while they make everything worse and somehow we all end up paying more.
So you’re a Republican then? You believe in small ineffective government and have no faith that government can do anything, ensuring that it won’t?
Congratulations, they converted you to their side without you even realizing.
They may want to work on their marketting, then. I won’t lie when I say that I’m surprised to learn that Epic Games not only developes Unreal engine but that Tim Sweeney seems to have actually created it and not just be a CEO who buys stuff and puts his name on it.
There do, however, seem to be a few points really not working in their favour. Sketchy policies around reviews and a lot of forcing exclusivity(Steam’s monopoly? Ok buddy) are big ones I found.
Look, I’m sure there’s plenty of learning to be done as far as the Epic Games store is concerned but seriously, why is Steam so bad and why is Epic Games especially good? Sorry that I’m happy to use Steam and not switch to a new store with fewer features? Like, what’s the point being made here?
There do, however, seem to be a few points really not working in their favour. Sketchy policies around reviews and a lot of forcing exclusivity(Steam’s monopoly? Ok buddy) are big ones I found.
Forcing exclusivity? They force exclusivity for the games that they make (just like Valve does for theirs) and otherwise Epic offers developers cash deals for exclusivity, the developers are under no obligation to take them.
And the overall point is not that the Epic Launcher is amazing, but that Tim Sweeney is right about Valve’s exorbitant 30% fees, but whenever that comes up gamers just go haha Valve=Good, Epic=Bad.
Yeah, but you do not seem to grasp that good service and agreeable progresses e.g with proton and the nice hardware is worth the money.
I don’t really get your point. Epic already offers free games and more money to devs, but isn’t working out. Steam isn’t forcing exclusivity on third parties here. And they’re not using tricks like the crazy good (for the devs that’ll find it hard to say no to easy money) exclusivity deals or paying for the free games in desperate attempt to get anyone even look their way.
If my reliable old grocery store that says hi to me every morning and always delivers when I ask them for anything, add nice features to make the shopping just feel smooth and welcoming, then also, on the side, made huge contributions to open source in a consistent basis, being one of the sole corporate interest driving the current Linux gaming paradigm forward…
If they suddenly had a shop pop up next door with cheaper prices and free food stuffs every week, I would be very fucking suspicious. Nobody greets you there either. No nice features. It’s cold and lacks accessibility features. Goes out to buy all the bread from the old reliable shop and then sells them with big signs on the sidewalk saying “this is the only place to get bread!”, I would 100% not go there. Ever. Just from principle alone. They can give out all the free shit they want, do whatever sleazy tricks they want, but I’ll go shop in the place that is friendly, listens to me and others, helps the community and does not go buying other shops out of bread as a cheap ass trick to force customers there. It may cost more, they may pay a little less to the producers, but it’s very rarely just about money. If the volume alone covers the producers’ wants and needs so they are happy to remain, and customers are more than happy not getting free shit or occasionally having to wait a year or so before they can get bread again because the fucking rats next door keep buying some out of existence anywhere else.
Sometimes it’s just a service question. Money isn’t everything. This is true almost everywhere. I almost exclusively shop in co-op groceries where we the customers are owners. It’s more expensive, but I have a say in everything, it’s inclusive, does not do sleazy marketing or exclusivity tricks or other ratty stuff, so I’m more than happy to pay the premium for it.
And I’m not the only one. Not by a mile.
Same’s true for steam, at least for now.
The second they sell out or stop contributing good around them or start ratty shit, I’ll be looking to shop elsewhere. But that’s still not going to be the rats next door…
I’m really tired of seeing this idiot quoted.
Out of all the digital stores Steam arguably offers by far the most actual functionality and features for its cut. It’s still too high, but it’s possibly the least egregious example vs Apple, Google etc
It’s only too high if they demand exclusivity.
And they don’t.
They are providing PLENTY of value to anyone who is listing their games there.
Would I like to see them do more now for small and independent outfits? I would! but 30% isn’t that much comparatively to the old days of buying physically distributed things in a brick and mortar store.
I remember buying final fantasy 2 (4) on snes and it cost 95$ US this was 1988 or 1989
Which was about 129 CAD (the exchange rate is between usd then and now is about the same conveniently for this tidbit)
Today after years of inflation it would cost about 250-260 USD or 340-355 CAD
I don’t fucking miss those days at all. And while there are multiple factors here in play, this is entirely fair to charge silksong 6 dollars ish per sale on a 20 dollar sale whilst the failing AAA games 30 dollars on a 90 dollar sale. There is a cost involved and it is because of steam, specifically steam, that made digital distribution what it is today. And by that I mean they have set the standard for what is a healthy location to sell your digital goods.
And to give an example of what garbage (yes you Tim Sweeney you giant whiny fecal faced fuck) digital distribution for games would look like if steam didnt actually do a great job, look at books.
Buying books on through amazon you pay more for them then you used to for a physical copy of the book itself.
Has Tim Sweeney shown up in the Epstein files yet or are we still waiting?
Tim Epic might not have gotten rich enough early enough to be noticed by Epstein
Well… duh. The guy runs a competing storefront who’s only claims to fame are:
- Spending a bunch of money for timed exclusivity and free giveaways, rather than building out core features.
- They give devs a better cut than Steam to claim moral high ground.
… that’s it, that’s all the reasons to use Epic, unless you want to play Fortnite or participate in an Early Access period where they chose Epic to reduce the overwhelming amount of feedback like Hades.
Tim… suing everyone else wont make epic store a great place to buy games
Look to GOG for inspiration…
true
He’s just salty because the only games people “purchase” are the weekly free ones.
I don’t even bother with those anymore. I never play the free ones I have, because I’d have to use Epic’s software.
And here I thought I was special, seeing as other people actually bother enough to redeem those free games every week. I stopped doing it a long time ago and I’d rather pay for those games on steam/gog offers.
I can’t be bothered with epic even for the free ones.
I thought I would use the free games on epic as a demo for games I would like to buy at steam, turns out I just buy them at steam, I never play them on epic, I think I tried out two games in the beginning of the whole give away but that is it
- Playnite, if you’re on Windows (though Linux might be over the horizon).
- Heroic Games Launcher if you’re on any platform.
Playnite is the better choice if you’re on Windows, but either way, don’t let Tim’s dumb store stop you from ruining his day by generating a bunch of metrics that show you’re only playing freebies!
Keep collecting them. Each one you get costs Epic money and helps counter some of that Fortnite cash that lets Epic keep paying for exclusive contracts. Keep bleeding them and eventually they won’t be able to keep buying exclusive releases.
Epic pays a flat rate to offer games for free, they don’t pay per download.
Downloading them just helps Epic inflate their “active users” number when talking to investors.
Not even. I’ve bought games on Steam that I forgot I had in Epic because Epic is just that trash. Fuck Epic for trying to start their store by bribing developers for exclusivity on their platform. Bitch ass tactics to begin with and then crying and whining when their mob mentality strong arming didn’t work. Best believe if their shit had worked and they became popular those greedy assholes would be asking a higher percentage once everyone was locked in.
I love hating epic just as much as anybody else, but those exclusivity deals are not necessary just bribing the devs.
The first Hades game would have been much smaller in scope and features, without epic funding them and helping them implementing something like EOS, the game would be definedly worse than it is.
Remedy has also stated they could not make Alan Wake 2 without Epics funding. People often say the Epic exclusivity ruined its salea, but realistically without it there would not be a game.
But even so, i think them suing Steam is a asshole move.
Ok, and what about games like Rocket League? It was already wildly popular. And didn’t we get interviews from a few exclusivity deal people saying that in the long run it wasn’t better than just launching on steam?
But yes, I’m glad 2 games got made despite Epics shittiness. Maybe if they built features into their launcher they’d have more. How long did it take them to make a friends list? And last I heard, wasn’t viewing your own library still largely dependent on you knowing what games you already owned?
Yeah, never gonna defend that shitstain of a company. They tried to bully their way in and failed and they deserve it 100000%
I even stopped with those.
Yea. Like one or two good ones and sandwiched with a bunch of trash games no one wants.
Thanks for the reminder.
It’s Definitely Not Fried Chicken.
He’s still right in this instance.
Exactly. The number of people on Lemmy who simp for Valve’s monopoly just because Epic (along with every game developer, big or small) stands to benefit is kind of shocking.
It doesn’t have anything to do with Epic, it’s because Steam provides a great service with a ton of features nobody else offers, and Valve has demonstrated time and time again that they make policies that benefit consumers.
It would be great if Steam had some competition, but Epic ain’t it. What people want is another service of equal quality to Steam. Instead the best we have is GOG and that still falls well short of feature parity nevermind the anti-consumer cesspool of Epic.
Suing Valve isn’t going to do anything to improve the situation. Realistically what could Valve do to be “less of a monopoly”? Lower the percentage they take of sales? Consumers wouldn’t see any benefit from that only developers. Ironically it would also increase Valves monopoly because if they took a smaller cut there would be even less reason for companies to sell on Epic as Epics lower cut is literally the only reason developers (outside of Epic literally paying some of them mounds of cash by way of exclusivity contracts) pick Epic over Steam.
If Epic really wants to do something about Valves monopoly it’s simple, they just need to offer all the same features that Steam does. Things like family sharing, streaming support, a cross platform store and launcher, and an excellent review system so people can better understand the games they’re thinking about buying. Until that happens yes people will stick with Steam because it’s the objectively superior experience.
You know what annoys me about the people defending Epic’s lawsuit? The fact that there are actually legitimate issues with Valve and somehow they’re hyper-fixated on the non-issues. If they were instead talking about CS2 gambling, lootboxes, etc, I would be in support of it. But no, it’s about how they’re a “monopoly” because they’re one of only two stores that seem to care about their customers…
It’s not a reason to charge 30% The $500 million Gabe Newell’s superyacht is here to remind you that prices are too high.
It isn’t a monopoly because they don’t require you to use their store. Epic has a monopoly of epic exclusive games.
How do you call a corporate driving 75% of the digital distribution market for PC games ?
Its an effective monopoly, that’s not really disputable. This lawsuit isn’t even about them having a monopoly, its about them allegedly abusing it.
And ecommerce sellers don’t “have to” sell on Amazon, so they don’t have any market power they can abuse to extract 40-50% fees from sellers, right?
They don’t. My small business sells direct from our site instead of in Amazon, and we do okay.
Anecdotes are not data!
While that’s true, counterexamples are great ways to disprove overreaching implications like “companies must sell on Amazon to be successful”.
It is not a requirement. It might be the most profitable way to run an e-commerce business (in which case you’re obviously benefiting from the system Amazon created).
Amazon requires price matching for most sellers, which is shit and makes this an apples to oranges comparison.
Could Steam back down on their 30% cut? Sure, but not a monopoly.
It’s not apples to oranges, because the network effects (and coercive pressures they create) are in fact incredibly similar: sellers have to go where most customers are, and most PC gamers begin and end their search for games on Steam, just like most online shoppers begin and end their searches on Amazon.
I get I am not the average gamer, but even if I find a game on Steam, I tend to check their website too.
Specially for games I like, I try getting the GoG version despite Steam providing regional pricing, which tends to be 0.2xNow if any of Steam’s contracts is preventing GoG or others from providing regional pricing, that’s a point worth considering.
But Steam is providing a much better game finding experience than Epic and others (although GoG seems to be doing well too, recently), so despite me not being affected by the network effect, I do see some value in Steam.From what I see, Steam does give value to gamers. Whether it’s worth 30% of the game’s price or lesser, depends upon information that I don’t know. But if someone provides greater value than the competitors, should they not get more money in return?
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although I like a lot of what Valve does (I have a lot of Steam games, valve games, have a steam deck oled, use steamvr, etc) they are a fairly flawed company. sweeney is so great at shooting himself in the foot though that any opinion he has people will by default believe the opposite of (and probably should)
