exclusivity is by definition of monopoly, not of fair competition, just reminding
Opinion Publishers are turning pc gaming into a mess
- Thread starter Hektor
- Start date
you'd think ... and yet, reading some of the posts in all those steam/volvo threads recently .........
So how long before they start using "it didn't sell on pc so no future ports" argument when a game doesn't sell on some obscure store front? Maybe little overly cynical.
You point that out and you get
"It's the same thing Sony / MS/ Nintendo does! VALVE HAS DONE THE SAME THING." responses. You can't win with stupid.
Coffee Stain released a Q&A video regarding their decision on being a 12-month timed-exclusive on the EGS
Well, at least he's honest about the moneyhat. I don't like it and I don't approve of it but I appreciate that he's not trying to insult the audience's intelligence.
Probably a little over a year; gotta release it on Steam after the exclusivity period and watch it bomb there too. Who was it that said you only get one launch for a game?
As it was already mentioned, exclusive third party content will lead to more piracy, just look what is happening with the video streaming services.
One of the biggest problems with this discussion is how many people forget that the world isn't their country. "It's just another client!", ok you're technically right, but don't ignore the fact that this new client doesn't support many countries and the game that is only $25 may not be that cheap for people living in poor countries.
I know sometime in the future Epic will support regional prices, but based on a Tweet by the steamspy guy it will be up to the devs to set the prices and if more devs thinks like the one on the infamous Polygon article ("regional price is a discount!") I can already see the stupid prices for us. At least on Steam Valve has suggestions for regional prices and if you want you can set the price in US$ and the other prices will be adjusted automatically for the other countries.
One of the biggest problems with this discussion is how many people forget that the world isn't their country. "It's just another client!", ok you're technically right, but don't ignore the fact that this new client doesn't support many countries and the game that is only $25 may not be that cheap for people living in poor countries.
I know sometime in the future Epic will support regional prices, but based on a Tweet by the steamspy guy it will be up to the devs to set the prices and if more devs thinks like the one on the infamous Polygon article ("regional price is a discount!") I can already see the stupid prices for us. At least on Steam Valve has suggestions for regional prices and if you want you can set the price in US$ and the other prices will be adjusted automatically for the other countries.
yeah ... if there won't be any suggestions i doubt most devs will put in the work to find out what the situation is in every single supported country
This thread should really be business people are turning gaming into a mess. because that is what it really is.
well publishers are the business people
devs wouldn't need them if they weren't ... no? 
Maybe it's because I've mostly moved away from gaming on my PC primarily but I dont get the whole No Steam no Buy thing. I mean gamers get chastised for questioning why 3rd party exclusivity exists under the guise of "port begging" but nobody bats an eye at the iron grip that Steam seems to have on the mindset of gamers who game primarily on PC.
There are so many silly posts on other forums/Twitter/Reddit/etc claiming the race to the bottom in revenue split is great for consumers.
"Well, I don’t understand the issue here. Developers getting more money does not mean prices will go up."
Wrong. Key sellers like GMG/Humble rely on the current levels to be able to reduce their own cut to thereby pass savings off to the consumer. If a 10% split becomes standard, places like GMG will go away and we'll have less day one savings.
(Oh boy, it's almost like these giant, megacorp-backed companies are really making an effort to kill actual competition by destroying the smaller key resellers. Gee! Shocking!)
And even without thinking about the key sellers, do we really think that devs are going to pass savings off to the consumer? Do we really know how much of their extra profits they'll even reinvest into future development?
"Ah well, I don't care! I have no problem paying more for all of my games if it means more for the developers!"
Okay, even if you assume that all the superfans that post on message boards are willing to pay higher prices, what indication do we have that people will generally pay higher prices for more "moral" revenue cuts? Maybe this is my own cynicism boiling over, but it seems like usually, people will buy whatever is cheaper, barring the company being exceptionally immoral. Even if it's a cheap knockoff, made with functionally immoral wage standards, made in places with fairly immoral working conditions or sold at exploitatively low prices to kill local/small businesses, people will probably still buy the item.
That's not meant as a judgement, or to say that I'm not one of those people buying entertainment products made under questionable circumstances (see: RDR2 and my excessive spending in LoL). It's just to say that I don't think higher prices to "support teh devs" is really going to grab most people as a reason for the prices they see going up.
Most people won't care, because their entertainment budget is their entertainment budget. Period. If they used to buy 10 games a year at an average of $30 each, and those same games rise to say, $45 each, they'll just buy less games. Most people, outside of unusual superfans with deep pockets (whales), are not going to increase their budget to match the increased prices on stores, they'll just disengage with the hobby instead.
"Oh well, considering the horror stories you hear about devs constantly going broke and/or living on the edge, maybe less sales in favor of a better cut is still better!"
This is like...completely conflating half a dozen issues with modern game development into one idea that makes no sense to me.
Even if we agree for the sake of discussion that the 30% cut is "too much for what storefronts offer devs," I seriously find it hard to believe (if not impossible) that any dev is going broke from that 30% cut. I also find it very hard to believe that an extra 10-20% is suddenly going to make all of these indie ventures solvent and trouble free in development.
The "problems" with indie development seem to be:
"Oh just stop whining and making excuses! What's this 'what's in it for me attitude' you have? After all, the devs are the reason we enjoy this hobby!"
And I think this argument is the real kicker.
These devs are just human. Some of them are nice. Some of them are great to their customers. Some of them might even be personal friends of yours. But in general, I wouldn't assume they're your friends or that they're looking out for you.
This is clearly, not your friend. This is someone who is an ignoramus, who is so willfully ignorant that they think a one-to-one dollar conversion is fair for markets with well known, lower purchasing power than the USA (or other Western markets).
The "think of the little guy" narrative is bunk when you some of these whiner devs who won't do the same "thinking" for their own customers. Obviously not every dev is like this, and most probably aren't thankfully, but if your storefront and some of your devs don't "think of the little guy," don't expect the little guy to think much of you.
"Well, I don’t understand the issue here. Developers getting more money does not mean prices will go up."
Wrong. Key sellers like GMG/Humble rely on the current levels to be able to reduce their own cut to thereby pass savings off to the consumer. If a 10% split becomes standard, places like GMG will go away and we'll have less day one savings.
(Oh boy, it's almost like these giant, megacorp-backed companies are really making an effort to kill actual competition by destroying the smaller key resellers. Gee! Shocking!)
And even without thinking about the key sellers, do we really think that devs are going to pass savings off to the consumer? Do we really know how much of their extra profits they'll even reinvest into future development?
"Ah well, I don't care! I have no problem paying more for all of my games if it means more for the developers!"
Okay, even if you assume that all the superfans that post on message boards are willing to pay higher prices, what indication do we have that people will generally pay higher prices for more "moral" revenue cuts? Maybe this is my own cynicism boiling over, but it seems like usually, people will buy whatever is cheaper, barring the company being exceptionally immoral. Even if it's a cheap knockoff, made with functionally immoral wage standards, made in places with fairly immoral working conditions or sold at exploitatively low prices to kill local/small businesses, people will probably still buy the item.
That's not meant as a judgement, or to say that I'm not one of those people buying entertainment products made under questionable circumstances (see: RDR2 and my excessive spending in LoL). It's just to say that I don't think higher prices to "support teh devs" is really going to grab most people as a reason for the prices they see going up.
Most people won't care, because their entertainment budget is their entertainment budget. Period. If they used to buy 10 games a year at an average of $30 each, and those same games rise to say, $45 each, they'll just buy less games. Most people, outside of unusual superfans with deep pockets (whales), are not going to increase their budget to match the increased prices on stores, they'll just disengage with the hobby instead.
"Oh well, considering the horror stories you hear about devs constantly going broke and/or living on the edge, maybe less sales in favor of a better cut is still better!"
This is like...completely conflating half a dozen issues with modern game development into one idea that makes no sense to me.
Even if we agree for the sake of discussion that the 30% cut is "too much for what storefronts offer devs," I seriously find it hard to believe (if not impossible) that any dev is going broke from that 30% cut. I also find it very hard to believe that an extra 10-20% is suddenly going to make all of these indie ventures solvent and trouble free in development.
The "problems" with indie development seem to be:
- Teams starting development without any real business expertise and understanding of costs (both monetary and chronal). They therefore begin to run out of money, whether it be crowdfunded or their own personal funds, because basically they've underestimated how much it costs to do what they're trying to do, and how long it'll take to do it. This isn't even something limited to indie games, you see it all the time in small businesses, whether it be opening a restaurant, printing a physical edition of your webcomic, creating your own album, etc. As someone who helps run a small family business, it drives me crazy sometimes seeing the gung-ho careless way people go into starting their business ventures.
- Similarly, teams misunderstand the market and overestimate their game's interest. Many of them seem to fail to realize just how niche their game really is and are then blindsided when it does terrible Week 1 sales. There is a pattern to why so many small businesses fail in their first few years, and much of it is self-inflicted.
- And ultimately, there are just too many good games on storefronts, which means incredible competition for money and mindshare.
"Oh just stop whining and making excuses! What's this 'what's in it for me attitude' you have? After all, the devs are the reason we enjoy this hobby!"
And I think this argument is the real kicker.
These devs are just human. Some of them are nice. Some of them are great to their customers. Some of them might even be personal friends of yours. But in general, I wouldn't assume they're your friends or that they're looking out for you.
This is clearly, not your friend. This is someone who is an ignoramus, who is so willfully ignorant that they think a one-to-one dollar conversion is fair for markets with well known, lower purchasing power than the USA (or other Western markets).
The "think of the little guy" narrative is bunk when you some of these whiner devs who won't do the same "thinking" for their own customers. Obviously not every dev is like this, and most probably aren't thankfully, but if your storefront and some of your devs don't "think of the little guy," don't expect the little guy to think much of you.
Last edited:
I just had a literal shower-thought, and I'm not sure if I'm thinking about this wrong but...
In every Steam/Epic/Discord discussion, we see people repeat endlessly that "competition is good" (or sometimes more specifically "all competition is good").
If competition is inherently "good," then why are these same people arguing for curated stores? Wouldn't it follow that competition being good means there's no reason to ever curate your store? Because those games you're trying to curate are "competition" aren't they?
Oh someone is going to release a cheap clone of Peggle? Why do you care, it's competition!
Oh someone else is going to release a garbage asset flip? Who cares, it's competition!
Oh some weirdos are going to release some poorly translated erotic visual novels for a few bucks? Who cares, it's competition!
Oh Kongregate going to release ten cheap flash game ports tomorrow and clog up the new release pages? WHY DO YOU CARE IT'S COMPETITION!!!
The more I think about this, the stupider it seems to be. We have an incredibly "competitive" storefront right now, and the solution to give that storefront competition that people claim to want...is a storefront with less competition? Because that's somehow...better competition?
The people who want actual competition and a freer market/storefront are the people arguing for Steam's more hands-off curation, because most of us accept that open storefronts means sometimes sifting through some of that bad stuff to make sure the good stuff gets through.
Having less games on a storefront is not competition. It's arbitrarily picking winners and losers.
People (certain devs especially) are coming up with some real galaxy brain takes to cover the fact that they don't actually want competition. They want "competition" insofar as it serves them making more money, and nuts to other devs and consumers.
Which is fine and understandable in many ways, but for God's sakes stop couching the argument in this dumb capitalist rhetoric that you don't actually mean.
In every Steam/Epic/Discord discussion, we see people repeat endlessly that "competition is good" (or sometimes more specifically "all competition is good").
If competition is inherently "good," then why are these same people arguing for curated stores? Wouldn't it follow that competition being good means there's no reason to ever curate your store? Because those games you're trying to curate are "competition" aren't they?
Oh someone is going to release a cheap clone of Peggle? Why do you care, it's competition!
Oh someone else is going to release a garbage asset flip? Who cares, it's competition!
Oh some weirdos are going to release some poorly translated erotic visual novels for a few bucks? Who cares, it's competition!
Oh Kongregate going to release ten cheap flash game ports tomorrow and clog up the new release pages? WHY DO YOU CARE IT'S COMPETITION!!!
The more I think about this, the stupider it seems to be. We have an incredibly "competitive" storefront right now, and the solution to give that storefront competition that people claim to want...is a storefront with less competition? Because that's somehow...better competition?
The people who want actual competition and a freer market/storefront are the people arguing for Steam's more hands-off curation, because most of us accept that open storefronts means sometimes sifting through some of that bad stuff to make sure the good stuff gets through.
Having less games on a storefront is not competition. It's arbitrarily picking winners and losers.
People (certain devs especially) are coming up with some real galaxy brain takes to cover the fact that they don't actually want competition. They want "competition" insofar as it serves them making more money, and nuts to other devs and consumers.
Which is fine and understandable in many ways, but for God's sakes stop couching the argument in this dumb capitalist rhetoric that you don't actually mean.
you know ... i think for many of those people saying competition is good - they're just repeating that because that's what they've been taught ... that's what we've ALL been taught really .... capitalism, ho
it's just that some people don't really bother to give it any deeper thought .... hence competition must be good because it leads to better product or something ... free market etc. etc.
From what I've seen when people say "competition!", they're not referring to competition between devs, they're only talking about Steam.
They only care that Steam is probably going to be shaken by these competitors.
They only care that Steam is probably going to be shaken by these competitors.
nah its just those people doesnt even know what the "competition" as a word really mean and use it as some kind of catchphrase without single thought behind it.
if thats a true there has been problems with the education in some parts of the world as this is definitely not what I was taught ... and i was taught at the times the country was styl in the "post-commie honeymoon period" and we still did all these economical theory terms pretty deeply
They don't care about stores, competition or the health of PC gaming. The only thing they care about is taking a shot at Steam. That's why it's important to stay calm and answer with facts. Most of these 'arguments' don't hold up even to the tiniest bit of scrutiny.
i'm opening a store and giving 110% to the devs ... it's only fair
kinda .... but they're going to eventually open up their store to other devs ... and those won't be getting any additional incentives
I think that's what's probably annoying me most.
Even in the most capitalist oriented intro Econ class you could take in a college setting, you're still going to get a better understanding of this stuff than what people are parroting around the internet.
Not sure how its elsewere in the world but i am pretty sure we had these basics even in 9th elementary grade annd again in 3th grade of high school So way before getting to college setting
I didn’t have any required Econ classes in high school, but they were optional classes you could take. Not sure how that differs by state or region, but that’s how it was here.Not sure how its elsewere in the world but i am pretty sure we had these basics even in 9th elementary grade annd again in 3th grade of high school So way before getting to college setting
Either way, in high school, college, or just via reading adult books, it seems like people should have acquired a better grasp of this stuff at some point, or we wouldn’t have people throwing around words like “monopoly” with no basis.
I didn’t have any required Econ classes in high school, but they were optional classes you could take. Not sure how that differs by state or region, but that’s how it was here.
Either way, in high school, college, or just via reading adult books, it seems like people should have acquired a better grasp of this stuff at some point, or we wouldn’t have people throwing around words like “monopoly” with no basis.
And then we look at all the people who believe the earth is flat, or people in high positions of Government are lizard people, ect ect ect. Some people are just stupid, no matter how much they 'learn'.
Yea I cant help but feel that such is not the same as offering a better split. Forgive me if the thread has moved past that part of it.
Their "better deal" is A) A better split and B) monetary payments to reserve exclusivity for certain lengths of time a la consoles.
Regional Pricing
Steam has it and others don't.
Also, to hell with the publishers that don't follow the Steam's regional pricing standards and inflate their prices 2 or even more than 3 times that.
It's like they think gamers only live in US (and sometimes in Europe)
Steam has it and others don't.
Also, to hell with the publishers that don't follow the Steam's regional pricing standards and inflate their prices 2 or even more than 3 times that.
It's like they think gamers only live in US (and sometimes in Europe)
It sucks for many europeans too. I live in Greece and prices are usually the same as those in Germany or Sweden, despite the average wage being way lower.
Last edited:
I've read about this across various Steam forums. I really hope Valve considers it in its regional pricing standard.
Although for big publishers they will ignore that anyways. I know that South Asia has its own cut at regional pricing, with most games priced half or lower of USD. For Activision or Bethesda, they don't make that change.
Steam used to have multiple EU regions, but AFAIK that is not allowed according to EU law:
While the intent of that law is good, it also has unfortunate side-effects such as this.
to be fair, though - there were maybe like 6 games that actually used EU2 (and even then - half of them used it incorrectly, where EU2 had higher pricing than EU1)
This then breaks down into - are stores and clients the same thing? do you care more about the games or the subset of client features that go with it/friends list?
I do agree that the publishers are going to use the 'it failed on our launcher' excuse to justify all kinds of anti-pc gaming shit in the future, but don't see more stores as bad thing, so long as exclusives are only timed. I'm still sitting at my pc to play, so for me, anything that isn't actually anti-consumer (refund policies, drm,etc) or bad for data privacy is not going to stop me from firing up another launcher to play a game I want.
In my particular case, the biggest issue is regional pricing. After years of paying dollar prices for games in a country where I earn US$500 per month as a teacher (which, while not the best paying job by any stretch, isn't the worst paid either), Steam finally introduced support for the Argentine Peso last year, and with the Peso we also got regional pricing for most games that actually takes into account our economy. None of these "competing" stores offer that. Some don't even let me buy keys on other sites, so I can't hunt for a better deal either.
See this, I can completely empathize with and see as a very legitimate reason to avoid any store that doesn't have it.
I play using Steam's Big Picture Mode and a Steam Controller. As far as I know, no other clients have a TV interface and most of them don't support navigation with a controller. Is that a good reason?
Guess it would depend on 1)Do you argue that client and store are one and the same, because steampowered.com in a browser or on my phone doesn't feature either of those things but it's still 'the steam store', The steam client has tons of features no other client does
and 2)Unless you have no other means to play the games, then I don't personally see it as valid, or moreso; 'as valid', At that point you're choosing the steam ecosystem features over the game itself.