News Epic Games Store

lashman

Dead & Forgotten
Sep 5, 2018
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I ask again because I don't want to misunderstand this :

Is it me or he doesn't know how to do maths ? How can a store can make more profit than a dev, when the biggest cut is 30% ?
yeah, i have no idea what he's suggesting there ... he already said something similar a while ago ... and no one could figure out what he meant by that
 

Eferis

MetaMember
Nov 12, 2018
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I ask again because I don't want to misunderstand this :

Is it me or he doesn't know how to do maths ? How can a store can make more profit than a dev, when the biggest cut is 30% ?

I suppose he means that since making games require an investment, devs have to cover the costs, so that 70% is not actual profit (making more money than what you invested). While a storefront, doing nothing at all (he says) can make a bigger profit from that 30%.

And he supported this take with cold hard facts... not really.
 

Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
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I ask again because I don't want to misunderstand this :

Is it me or he doesn't know how to do maths ? How can a store can make more profit than a dev, when the biggest cut is 30% ?
I think the "logic" here is that the developer has the cost of producing the game, so in the end it can have less profit than Steams 30% cut because the narrative he is trying to push for a year is that Valve does nothing, has almost no costs, and so on.

And of course Sweeney is pissed at this article. He's spent a lot of keystrokes trying to make the term "Steam's tax" to stick, obviously wanting to associate Valve with evil taxes. That gets a lot harder if someone points out that the "tax" is just the industry standard :p

EDIT:
when you're definitely 100% absolutely NOT salty:
Okay, now this is getting really funny :) :) . He is really not used to the gaming press getting off-message.
 

Ruvon

Chaotic writer
May 15, 2019
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cabinetdechaologie.wordpress.com
Thanks for your answers, I'm not getting crazy yet ;)

Samson yeah you maybe right, but this scenario is quite unusual... and he's not explaining anything like this in his tweet.
when you're definitely 100% absolutely NOT salty:

This is getting better and better. Too bad it's late here and I'll have to go to bed, I'll see the rest in the morning :)
 

NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
Apr 6, 2019
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The guy must be getting desperate. He is running on a clock after all, he bet on EGS taking over Steam before the Fortnite cash cow starts to dry up, and Ninja not being on twitch and fortnite no longer taking the lead in viewership must be making a number on them.
 

TioChuck

More Yellow 🤷‍♂️
Dec 31, 2018
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DEFINITELY struck a nerve ...
Nah, Sweeney loves him some controversy.

I'm curious to know how he is gonna spin this, throwing Valve under the bus for the so called "TAX" is easy for him, but how about everybody else in the article? How he is gonna do it? Hes gonna need some master move to not burn some bridges.
 

Recrees

Junior Member
Dec 31, 2018
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I'm curious to know how he is gonna spin this, throwing Valve under the bus for the so called "TAX" is easy for him, but how about everybody else in the article? How he is gonna do it? Hes gonna need some master move to not burn some bridges.
He's gonna do the same thing as he always does when he's faced with legitimate argument - he's gonna ignore it all. He's too busy talking about the life changing 88/12 after all.
 

Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
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yeah, i have no idea what he's suggesting there ... he already said something similar a while ago ... and no one could figure out what he meant by that
I think his line of thinking goes like this - the dev is giving away 30% of his profit, so not having 30% and having 30% is 60% total, Ergo, the majority of the profit goes to the store.
You know, this logic:
  • A ileż to wam trzeba, ciekawość?
  • Niewiele. Milion bizantów.
  • Niewiele? - Esterad Thyssen przesadnym gestem chwycił się oburącz za chapeau. - To ma być niewiele? Aj, aj!
  • Dla waszej królewskiej mości - bąknął szpieg - taka suma to wszakże drobiazg...
  • Drobiazg? - król puścił chapeau i wzniósł dłonie ku plafonowi. - Aj, aj! Milion bizantów to drobiazg, słyszysz, Zuleyka, co on mówi? A czy ty wiesz, Dijkstra, że mieć milion i nie mieć miliona, to razem dwa miliony? Ja rozumiem, ja pojmuję, że ty i Filippa Eilhart gwałtownie i gorączkowo poszukujecie koncepcjina obronę przed Nilfgaardem, ale co wy chcecie: cały Nilfgaard kupić, czy jak?
 
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Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
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IGN (or any gaming journalist site) will never do it, but since we are approaching the 1-year anniversary of this whole mess, how about asking him: So, after 1 year, how about putting out there some real numbers to show how is that 12% viable to keep running store... you know, without all that extra Fortnite money? And not some murky "active users", X times more users than 7 years ago, and so on... just "how long until you can recoup everything you spent on these exclusivity deals?".

my codebase is bigger than your codebase

so now we're down to a dick-measuring contest ... Tim keeps digging deeper and deeper
Finally, my sloppy and unnecessary long coding pays off!! Take that university teachers! :p
 

m_dorian

Ούτις
May 22, 2019
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DEFINITELY struck a nerve ...

I was watching a recent SNL Weekend update where they joked about Trump wanting to put snakes and crocodiles to the border with the question:
Are we sure it's ok to make fun of this guy?

I think that very same question applies to Sweeney too, he doesn't seem to be a mentally stable person if judged by his twitter life.
 
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lashman

Dead & Forgotten
Sep 5, 2018
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I think that very same question applies to Sweeney too, he doesn't seem to be a mentally stable person if judged by his twitter life.
nah, i'm sure he's fine ... just really REALLY bored (and clearly not used to not getting his way 100% of the time)
 

Álvaro de Campos

O nada que é tudo.
Mar 12, 2019
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Is the GOG number correct? I remember they discontinued the Fair Price Package because "with an increasing share paid to developers, our cut gets smaller." So either their cut was higher than 30% before, or the IGN number is wrong/out of date, or GOG lied about it because they mismanaged the company to such an extent that they barely turned a profit and therefore had to find ways to cut costs.
 
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Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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That article could have done more to point out the vast difference in featureset and that obviously features come at a cost to the provider who needs to cover it.. They only seem to accidentally hint at it with mentioning the automatic Steam payouts vs gog's manual invoicing without making the connection very apparent.

They should have also mentioned Steam is open to everyone while others hand pick what they believe will make them money/give PR like a publisher. So it's not just that some indies can't reach Steam's lower tiers, it's also that for some of them Steam and/or self publishing is the only option as others don't care!

That said if what they say about Steam is true in regards to the lowered % fee being only for new purchases that occur past reaching that tier that's not great. I thought they could retroactively get more money than they were paid up to that point by reaching each tier (or from the start if they got there fast enough).

As for gog's fee I think they never announced an actual decrease, I might remember wrong but I thought they just mentioned it as a possibility thanks to the change. Not that it will happen, or it will happen instantly (it will trickle down to the devs, eventually, some day, is what they might say if asked about it now).
 
Last edited:

Jav

Question everything, learn nothing
Sep 17, 2019
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Is the GOG number correct? I remember they discontinued the Fair Price Package because "with an increasing share paid to developers, our cut gets smaller." So either their cut was higher than 30% before, or the IGN number is wrong/out of date, or GOG lied about it because they mismanaged the company to such an extent that they barely turned a profit and therefore had to find ways to cut costs.
I always thought the Fair Price was from the cut and since the profits were getting lower and lower they just dumped it to get the full cut.
 

Álvaro de Campos

O nada que é tudo.
Mar 12, 2019
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I always thought the Fair Price was from the cut and since the profits were getting lower and lower they just dumped it to get the full cut.
Oh I'm sure it was, but then why say there's "an increasing share paid to developers"? Also their profits getting lower seems to be due to opening offices in San Francisco and needlessly hiring overpaid management/marketing folks; the Fair Pricing was actually a net benefit to customers.

It's just a bit annoying because aside from being (mostly) DRM free, they seem to have abandoned every other principle they had. This is actually the second time they messed with Fair Pricing, when GOG first started I remember buying games in USD prices. Also as far as goodies go, I understand that developers nowadays want to sell that stuff as separate DLC or Upgraded Editions which GOG has no control over, but it's still disappointing.
 
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PC-Patriot

Press Any key, where the hell is it ?
Aug 5, 2019
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Ah always good to see lil Timmy have a tantrum and throw his toys out of the pram. I was always under the impression the main reason steam took 30% was because it was an "industrial standard". . Before steam, retail and other outlets routinely took 30% (and more) and I believe steam didn't want to cause any waves by deviating from the norm and undercutting stores. I mean you could just have imagined the ire the industry would have caused if an upstart like Valve came along and started undercutting everyone by only taking 12% when other distribution avenues were taking 30% ....... oh how times have changed.

But it really does fucking annoy me how Timmy has managed to turn this cut into a bad thing. The 30% cut gives customers, valve and developers so much bloody freedom. A 30% cut allows key resellers to do competition, a 30% cut allows steam to absorb extra costs with a transaction that would have to be covered by the developer or the customer a 30% cut allows steam to produce features that are a benefit to both the developer and the customer.

However TImmy's 12% is a fucking loss leader and the twat knows that. A 12% cut means a barebones store with fuck all features for customers and developers. A 12% cut means the customer or developer picks up the tab for extra transaction charges. A 12% cut is NOT sustainable and Timmy has said as much. This bullshit 12% cut will disappear the minute Epic feel they are in a position to up it to 40 - 50%. Anyone that still thinks Timmy is doing this out of the kindness of his heart and for the good of the developers is fooling themselves. After all you don't become a billionaire by being nice. You become a billionaire by pretending to be nice and working your employees to death ....... yeah that sounds more like TImmy.
 

texhnolyze

Child at heart
Oct 19, 2018
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So, what's next in the horizon for EGSclusive acquisition?

It's their only way to compete so they can't be sitting on their asses without anymore notable exclusive for 2020. It's been slowing down too in the past few months. They only managed to get early access deals and a month of RDR2.
 

beep boop

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Dec 6, 2018
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I'm sure that by the time the store will open for self-publishing later this year/early 2020, all these fancy features like "search" and "achievements" will be in. There's no way that will be delayed.
 
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fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
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I have come to the realization that Sweeney and Trump have 2 things in common: they troll on Twitter and they love the uneducated.

So much shit being spewed about Valve being lazy, Valve isn't doing anything, and people eat it up because they are not educated.

I bet the majority of "Valve doesn't deserve the 30% cut" and "Valve are lazy" doesn't even know they are creating expensive VR hardware.

They know a lot of people are not educated so both Sweeney and Trump feed into it.
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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If he gave a damn he'd moneyhat someone with a Store and use their code but that would take away from him taking things away from Steam which is ultimately what he wants. "It is not enough that EGS succeeds, Steam must fail.".
 
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