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[Nabs]

Indie devs have to figure out the best way to run their business for the now and tomorrow. Some figure it's better to take the lump sum. I imagine a 2 person dev team like Ooblets can fetch a nice bag of cash that can stretch for a while. I imagine that money also went into making them truly independent as well. Some devs have enough funding and figure it's smarter to play the long game. Playing the Epic disruption game will force you to take a massive hit that can last years, that's something Epic is cool with, devs have to decide if they are. DARQ got the wishlists. Now it needs the reviews, the previews, and recommendations to push those into sales. I imagine it'll do great with enough positive word of mouth, Remember, he's playing the game now. Success takes time. If it's a good game, it'll find its audience.

And as people have mentioned, trying to measure success or failure of a brand new short puzzle game by concurrent numbers is pretty ridiculous. Shame on anyone for trying to shit on the dev for standing by his game and the future of his brand.

 

[lashman]

Indie devs have to figure out the best way to run their business for the now and tomorrow. Some figure it's better to take the lump sum. I imagine a 2 person dev team like Ooblets can fetch a nice bag of cash that can stretch for a while. I imagine that money also went into making them truly independent as well. Some devs have enough funding and figure it's smarter to play the long game. Playing the Epic disruption game will force you to take a massive hit that can last years, that's something Epic is cool with, devs have to decide if they are. DARQ got the wishlists. Now it needs the reviews, the previews, and recommendations to push those into sales. I imagine it'll do great with enough positive word of mouth, Remember, he's playing the game now. Success takes time. If it's a good game, it'll find its audience.

And as people have mentioned, trying to measure success or failure of a brand new short puzzle game by concurrent numbers is pretty ridiculous. Shame on anyone for trying to shit on the dev for standing by his game and the future of his brand.

couldn't agree more ...

hope it pans out for him ... and the game is pretty damn good too!

 

[Arsene]

They can talk all the shit they want. DARQ will probably have longer legs than the majority of the games on EGS because Steam will constantly be recommending it to thousands if not millions of users. While all the smaller/nicher games on EGS will be completely buried.

Not to mention DARQ has been making its way up the top sellers on Steam. It was on the 4th page of global top sellers this morning, but now its on the 2nd. So uh keep shitting on the dev for giving a shit about their audience I guess? It only makes people want to support them more.

 

[Kvik]

Looking after (potential) customers by giving them a choice is now synonymous with "being a martyr" ?



Sounds like these "journalists" prefers devs who took Papa Tim's dirty cash to shout from the mountaintops exclaiming how it's "good for the industry', while the ones who don't to keep as quiet as possible because it's equal to "martyrdom" (lmao)

They could argue that it's a smart business decision, sure. There's obviously a little bit of that. However, most of these "enthusiast press" tried to frame it into something which is "totally fine" by their own understanding, but at the same time disregarding its merits by questioning (or in more than one occasion, omitting) the benefits for the (potential) customers.

I used to think Scherier has good taste in games because he started playing Trails series in the past, but reducing a well-thought out post about the importance of integrity into a cynical one-liner makes me think he's just another slave of the industry.

 

[BO7AMMOOD]

Could these shills get any more transparent? Holy fucking shit.

 

[Doctor Ironic]

My opinion might not be popular but still i believe that Schreier is either misguided or he has spent to much time caring for the devs and this has clouded his judgement.
I do think that he is the best that we ve got (so far at least), not perfect or even adequate after all those recent misses of his but i really think his motives are truly pure.

I 'm crossing my fingers this will be true though since i can not vouch for anyone else than myself (and my family members) yet i think it is evident that all this time he has approached the issue from the less revealing angle, he is making mistakes just like the rest of us,

And i am willing to give this person the benefit of the doubt because he has proven his worth but we get to see so many willing idiots mindlesly yelling the "Just another launcher" narrative so we instictively bag anyone and throw them to the river of stupidity.

Yet i can't find excuses for him forever, he needs to go out there and do his work and not just stay at the comfort zone some EGS friendly devs provide for him.

It really depends who you’re looking at. You have to remember that liberalism and libertarianism, which are two ideologies that are not far apart, has wholly dominated the nerd sphere in general - not just in terms of video games, but even their favorite movie franchise is mainly about a heroic charismatic billionaire CEO who solves the world through self-interested philanthropy. Liberalism believes personal liberty overrides economic liberty, libertarianism believes vice-versa, and that’s really the only difference.

Rami Ismail is a pretty smart guy and an important voice for people of color and those of Arab descent in the game industry, but also, if you look at who does what in Vlambeer, he handles more of the business side and Jan handles more of the actual gamemaking. That isn’t to say one side is more important than the other, I’m sure there’s overlap. But Rami is mostly well-known for keeping the studio afloat after disasters like seeing clones of their mobile games become more popular than their own, having a laptop with their games’ source stolen at PAX, and other catastrophes.

Long story short, Ismail is a businessman, and if your entire career is predicated on how good you are at capitalism then you’re probably the kind of person who likes capitalism, or at least can stomach it for extended periods of time. So of course it’s the liberal capitalist who thinks that a billionaire doing “philanthropy” for indie devs to throw band-aids on the problems of selling games under capitalism is a better solution than not having a system where the self-perpetuating advertisement machine decides whether or not you make enough money to eat.

Schreier stumps for unions and blatantly calls out capitalism as the main source for many problems in the games industry, and good on him for that, but ultimately he’s the editor in chief at a massive publication, the biggest in gaming, and the “sources” in the indie gaming industry he’s talking to are the biggest of the big indie devs, and not the little guys. It’s telling that when Schreier came out in favor of the EGS, he specifically framed it as “I’ve spoken to several devs who said that the EGS kept their studio afloat.” Implicitly meaning he has not talked to the thousands of indie devs who have no chance of winning a billionaire’s golden ticket.

 

[Dandy]

It's disappointing that Jason is so wrong about this. He's already decided that anyone who criticizes EGS is toxic, and that it's just another launcher. I think it's mainly from ignorance. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure he's not a PC person. I used to listen to Splitscreen, and he never talks about PC games and is usually quite dismissive of the platform in general.

 

[beep boop]

It's interesting how times have changed. While looking for what happened to the daisy wheel keyboard, I happened on an article from Jason back from 2012 on Big Picture the other day and he sure didn't seem to think of it as just a launcher back then. So despite the platform becoming more robust over the years, it's become just a launcher. People are welcome to change their minds, but it sure is an enlightened take.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

It's interesting how times have changed. While looking for what happened to the daisy wheel keyboard, I happened on an article from Jason back from 2012 on Big Picture the other day and he sure didn't seem to think of it as just a launcher back then. So despite the platform becoming more robust over the years, it's become just a launcher. People are welcome to change their minds, but it sure is an enlightened take.

familiarity breeds contempt

 

[Tizoc]

Steam: 1
EGS:

 

[beep boop]

Damn, that looks wild.

 

[C-Dub]

Is it sad that I'm tempted to empty my Steam wishlist because it just gives data to Epic to skim titles for exclusivity?

The fact that the developer is asking us to add their game to it has me concerned they're just using Steam to peacock for Epic.

 

[Alextended]

Is it sad that I'm tempted to empty my Steam wishlist because it just gives data to Epic to skim titles for exclusivity?

The fact that the developer is asking us to add their game to it has me concerned they're just using Steam to peacock for Epic.

I've never seen so much "wishlist us" talk from devs before EGS was a thing but maybe I just didn't notice. Fishy anyway. But whatever.

 

[MJunioR]

Is it sad that I'm tempted to empty my Steam wishlist because it just gives data to Epic to skim titles for exclusivity?

The fact that the developer is asking us to add their game to it has me concerned they're just using Steam to peacock for Epic.

I've never seen so much "wishlist us" talk from devs before EGS was a thing but maybe I just didn't notice. Fishy anyway. But whatever.

Now that you folks mention, yeah

although I prefer to think that is related to visibility on the store and whatnot and not devs trying to get noticed by Sergey, I still have a bit of faith.

 

[lashman]

 

[Álvaro de Campos]

The fact that the developer is asking us to add their game to it has me concerned they're just using Steam to peacock for Epic.

That's the kind of thing even I would never attribute to malice. Never even crossed my mind, which is probably good because it doesn't sound pleasant.

 

[Samson]

It's disappointing that Jason is so wrong about this. He's already decided that anyone who criticizes EGS is toxic, and that it's just another launcher. I think it's mainly from ignorance. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure he's not a PC person. I used to listen to Splitscreen, and he never talks about PC games and is usually quite dismissive of the platform in general.

Famously there was a podcast where he thought Hollow Knight became big on the Switch and didn't realize it was huge on PC first.

So yes, he's very ignorant and should stop running his mouth about things he doesn't understand.

 

[Doctor Ironic]

Now that you folks mention, yeah

although I prefer to think that is related to visibility on the store and whatnot and not devs trying to get noticed by Sergey, I still have a bit of faith.

Yeah, “wishlist us on Steam” has been a thing forever. It does apparently help with discoverability in The Grand Algorithm™️.

Team Meat had a pretty funny thing where the pinned tweet on their Twitter profile told people to wishlist the game on Steam for weeks after the EGS announcement.

 

[Swenhir]

Skipped in the middle. Paraphrasing : "[...] Of course think of the little guys, like Ooblet and Supergiant". Noped out.

Those are not "little guys" and the fact he portrays them as such tells me all I believe I need to know about how serious he is about the problem.

 

[Deleted member 113]

Is it sad that I'm tempted to empty my Steam wishlist because it just gives data to Epic to skim titles for exclusivity?

The fact that the developer is asking us to add their game to it has me concerned they're just using Steam to peacock for Epic.

Honestly, you worry too much.

I know I sound like a broken record, but I think things right now are a bit backwards, in terms of logic.
I mean, we have customers worried about not being allowed the "honour" of paying developers/publishers for an easily replaceable product, instead of those developers/publishers being worried if people will buy their products or not.
That's not how things should work, and I think some of you are exaggerating, and worrying too much about something so trivial.

Why in the hell should I change my habits, in this case of using my wishlist to essentially track discounts/sales of games/DLCs I may potentially buy, just because there's a chance that a company may sign an exclusivity agreement? It's their problem, or potentially their gain. Not mine. If they release their products in a store that I use, or desire to use, I'll by the product. If they take their product to a platform I don't wish to support, they lose me as a customer. Not my problem. Nothing to worry about.

 

[lashman]

Skipped in the middle. Paraphrasing : "[...] Of course think of the little guys, like Ooblet and Supergiant". Noped out.

Those are not "little guys" and the fact he portrays them as such tells me all I believe I need to know about how serious he is about the problem.

it's actually a REALLY good video .... not even joking

he's pretty much saying what we've been saying since December (except some people actually listen to him so that's probably good)

 

[beep boop]

I won't stop wishlisting games, but I wouldn't be surprised if wishlist numbers factor into Epic's projections for the exclusivity payout. That information is too good not to use. I'm sure they've done extensive research on conversion rates between wishlists and purchases.

 

[Swenhir]

it's actually a REALLY good video .... not even joking

he's pretty much saying what we've been saying since December (except some people actually listen to him so that's probably good)

I find that really hard to believe considering what I've just heard him say. But fair enough, I'll forget all the whitewashing he's given EGS up until now and give it a full listen.

 

[lashman]

I find that really hard to believe considering what I've just heard him say. But fair enough, I'll forget all the whitewashing he's given EGS up until now and give it a full listen.

he does say some not-entirely-accurate stuff about steam ... but all-in-all i think it's a VERY good video

 

[C-Dub]

Sterling is bang on, and he's correctly ascribing the blame to Epic here.

We should shift blame away from developers 90% of the time. There are of course instances where they act like complete knobends, such as Ys Net with Shenmue III, but in the end this is Epic just throwing its cash around to starve a competitor out of business. Indies acting in short term financial interest might seem silly to us, but they are being made a very generous offer and probably aren't looking at the bigger picture of the damage Epic is causing.

 

[lashman]

Sterling is bang on, and he's correctly ascribing the blame to Epic here.

We should shift blame away from developers 90% of the time. There are of course instances where they act like complete knobends, such as Ys Net with Shenmue III, but in the end this is Epic just throwing its cash around to starve a competitor out of business.

 

[InquisitorAles]

I'm pleasantly surprised by this video, it's really good. Jim basically said almost exactly the same things I wanted to say in my own video about Ooblets that I decided to not make, almost everything is on point, about how bad for Epic discussions is those disgusting harassment campaigns against the devs and how it's Epic fault for creating such unhealthy and toxic environment around their store. It's great to see that there is still some big media outlets who can think critically about the Epic Store and call out their bullshit.

 

[Tizoc]

Looking back I am more against pubs who act a fool in regards to their titles releasing Egscloosy on EGS. Devolver and the ooblets dev comes to mind. I don't sit with that behaviour yo.

If you take it and you keep quiet and don't overblow the issue, aight I shall be respectful, for such is the way of a Manderville man (and woman)

 

[kio]

I just watched the video and it seems he finally understood what's been happening and why people are angry at epic for this whole mess. However I don't subscribe to 2 topics:

• Developers and publishers aren't blameless and should suffer the consequences of their actions (and those consequences should be their games(s) failing not any sort of vendetta against the people within those companies);
• I keep hearing over and over "Steam needs competition" and "Steam is a de facto monopoly" and to this day I can't understand why these lies are repeated ad nauseam. (unless this is the endgame effect of someone with an agenda perpetually repeating a lie so that everyone else starts believing it's the truth).

 

[Chudah]

• Developers and publishers aren't blameless and should suffer the consequences of their actions (and those consequences should be their games(s) failing not any sort of vendetta against the people within those companies);

To be honest, I do not blame devs for taking the cash. Look at the economy. Look at the world we're living in. We're on the verge of a global recession, and most people are living paycheck to paycheck. To have a safety net (even if it only gets you a year or two without worry) is tempting. I just wish more developers were honest about why they're taking the money and stop tossing their customers under the bus as soon as they do. Yes, there are going to be people who will be toxic asshats, but it's easy to ignore those people. It really is. Just don't respond.

 

[m_dorian]

Sterling did a good job here, I can agree with almost everything he said.
It really took him so much time to come to the same conclusions most of us have formed months before but it finally happened.
Thank god.

 

[Kyougar]

Now that you folks mention, yeah

although I prefer to think that is related to visibility on the store and whatnot and not devs trying to get noticed by Sergey, I still have a bit of faith.

I also think more positively about it, until I am proven wrong.
Valve added the wishlist ranking. being on the ranking is another set of eyes on your game. So it makes sense that Devs want to be on that list.

 

[Ruvon]

Thanks for sharing this, somehow I don't receive notifications anymore for new Jim's videos so I would have missed this one. And I agree with you, this is a really good video, even if we all agree (and he warned us at the beginning ) that we don't agree with everything he said. I agree with kio comment.

 

[Alexandros]

Sterling is bang on, and he's correctly ascribing the blame to Epic here.

We should shift blame away from developers 90% of the time. There are of course instances where they act like complete knobends, such as Ys Net with Shenmue III, but in the end this is Epic just throwing its cash around to starve a competitor out of business. Indies acting in short term financial interest might seem silly to us, but they are being made a very generous offer and probably aren't looking at the bigger picture of the damage Epic is causing.

Fully agreed on Epic being the entity that should get the brunt of the blame and criticism but I can't say I agree with letting developers off the hook. Understandable as their decision may be depending on the circumstances, it is still a decision that goes against customer interests and it will have consequences. Developers still need to receive the message that moneyhats on PC are not ok. They are not acceptable and they never will be.

So while I can understand that it's not easy to say no to a big bag of cash, developers are saying yes in the full knowledge that their customers strongly oppose this. They still choose to ignore their customers' wishes and they'll have to live with the criticism and/or boycotts that come with this decision. To be blunt, I can't feel much sympathy for someone who just received a huge pile of cash to screw customers over and wants to do so with a clear conscience.

 

[Chudah]

Fully agreed on Epic being the entity that should get the brunt of the blame and criticism but I can't say I agree with letting developers off the hook. Understandable as their decision may be depending on the circumstances, it is still a decision that goes against customer interests and it will have consequences. Developers still need to receive the message that moneyhats on PC are not ok. They are not acceptable and they never will be.

So while I can understand that it's not easy to say no to a big bag of cash, developers are saying yes in the full knowledge that their customers strongly oppose this. They still choose to ignore their customers' wishes and they'll have to live with the criticism and/or boycotts that come with this decision. To be blunt, I can't feel much sympathy for someone who just received a huge pile of cash to screw customers over and wants to do so with a clear conscience.

Oh, I 100% agree. These devs are trading long term financial viability for short term security. But I don't think this is something that toxicity is going to solve, only time and patience.

 

[madjoki]

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[Ge0force]

it's actually a REALLY good video .... not even joking

he's pretty much saying what we've been saying since December (except some people actually listen to him so that's probably good)

Can you tldr it for me? Can't watch vids the next few days...

 

[Wok]

Skipped in the middle. Paraphrasing : "[...] Of course think of the little guys, like Ooblet and Supergiant". Noped out.

Those are not "little guys" and the fact he portrays them as such tells me all I believe I need to know about how serious he is about the problem.

I think they are small devs.

Supergiant's team has 16 members: Supergiant Games This photo pictures about half of the team:

Ooblets has 2 people, I think. Edit: Yeah.

Supergiant has a nice portfolio, so that might be the reason why you would not consider them "small".
As for Ooblets, the team has no other game. Even if they are published by Double Fine, they are very small.

 

[lashman]

Can you tldr it for me? Can't watch vids the next few days...

eh, i'd have to watch it again ... i'm kinda busy right now

but he said pretty much everything we've been saying since December ... don't think he missed anything

 

[Samson]

I think they are small devs.

Supergiant's team has 16 members: Supergiant Games This photo pictures about half of the team:

Ooblets is small, but calling Supergiant "small" is kind of a misnomer. They're not in as desperate need of financial injections as someone like ConcernedApe was back in 2014-15. Yeah, they're "small" in team-size but they're also one of the principle success stories in the indie scene.

 

[Copons]

How refreshing is when news sites publish objective articles simply stating the facts?

Why one PC developer turned down the security of Epic’s exclusivity offer

And what the move says about the state of the Epic Games Store.

arstechnica.com

This is not even the first time Ars reported on the whole EGS vs Steam thing, and it's always been quite competent and impartial.

 

[Wok]

Ooblets is small, but calling Supergiant "small" is kind of a misnomer. They're not in as desperate need of financial injections as someone like ConcernedApe was back in 2014-15. Yeah, they're "small" in team-size but they're also one of the principle success stories in the indie scene.

They have managed to stay afloat for 10 years, which is unusual for an indie dev studio, but they have not managed to grow. So, I don't know how good their finances are. Bastion was released 8 years ago, and Transistor 5 years ago. I believe Pyre was not a commercial success, which would mean that they might not be in such a good situation today 5 years after their last hit, and after developing Pyre. Back to square one, maybe?

Edit: SteamSpy:

 

[Ge0force]

eh, i'd have to watch it again ... i'm kinda busy right now

Oh never mind lashman, please focus on what you have to do. I'll watch it when I'm back home. And I hope you being busy means you have a job.

 

[C-Dub]

They have managed to stay afloat for 10 years, which is unusual for an indie dev studio, but they have not managed to grow. So, I don't know how good their finances are. Bastion was released 8 years ago, and Transistor 5 years ago. I believe Pyre was not a commercial success, which would mean that they might not be in such a good situation today 5 years after their last hit, and after developing Pyre. Back to square one, maybe?

Edit: SteamSpy:

It is a sign of how tougher things have become, and why some of these established yet struggling indies may prefer a curated store to decrease the amount of games they’re competing with, but I can’t deny that Pyre is not only their weakest game but also their least-appealing title. That might explain somewhat the rather pitiful sales for that game.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Gamescom news, looks like Kine is exclusive now


and shock horror, a pub goes back on their word, the steam page for Disintegration is already down.

 

[Arsene]

Gamescom news, looks like Kine is exclusive now


and shock horror, a pub goes back on their word, the steam page for Disintegration is already down.

They announced Kine as an exclusive back in march my guy.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Oh right, totally missed that one!

 

[Wok]

and shock horror, a pub goes back on their word, the steam page for Disintegration is already down.

The page is back.

 

[Arsene]

The page is back.

Gone again now lol

 

[LEANIJA]

Jim's video is bang-on about most things, as lashman has pointed out.

The only things he keeps getting wrong are:

-he says Valve takes a 33% cut, when its really 20-30% depending on revenue. And he doesnt mention Valve's cut is reduced further by all the fees that they eat instead of the dev/pub + free keys for devs to sell outside of steam (EGS takes 12% for keys too, iirc). Steam Cash Cards cost Valve quite a bit of money but make up a large portion of transactions, especially in Asia (Tom Giordano did a presentation @GDC about this)

-he also says Steam is overloaded by asset flips etc, and he keeps saying that. I really like what Jim does, and have watched his stuff for years now, but the Steam store page just adjusts itself to what you buy, prefer, play, etc... and he focused so much on these shit games in the past, and kinda still does, that of course he will see these more often. I never see games like that, because I never buy or play them. On my store page, there arent any asset flips.
Whats true is, is that Steam is FULL of games. But as has been said a ton of times: what does he suggest? arbitrary curation a la GOG/EGS? I prefer Steam's free for all to that.

-and of course he calls some Steam communities toxic, and the overuse of the word "toxic" everywhere aside, online communities just are like that when they get to a certain size, its a sad reality these days. That doesnt mean we should just accept it, of course, but a platform of Steams size can only do so much to battle that.