Google’s goal with YouTube was never profit. Had it been YT would end up on Google graveyard long time ago. They are looking for market dominance with video streaming which in turn provides a lot of useful data for mining. Ads are there to curb price of whole ordeal a bit.
So much this. Because optimization part is not guaranteed to come. There are many number of other developers who have done exactly this. Promise specific things, you purchase the game only for them to go… yeah about that optimization thing, it’s far easier if we just change minimum requirements and let the hardware grow into it. After we’ve already paid of our investment.
If you had an option to pay the full price in installments then such excuse would be acceptable to a degree. As it stands now you bought what’s made and then some plans on top of that. Plans that might not come. Sure developer might be trustworthy but they have no legal obligations to fulfill those promises.
Yeah, never thought I’d live the day to see it but here we are. Blizzard use to be the darling of all gamers, only one who did things right and released games when they were actually done. Then money hungry shitheads took over.
Not misremembering, it’s Ubisoft after all and Yves loves his sexually assaulting friends. And he said he was sorry for liking them, mkay… that makes it not so bad… in his head at least.
That’s what I always said, why use Epic store? As a user you get worse treatment. Sure price is the same or they give you some discount but number of services offered is far from being on par with Steam. No family sharing, no refund policy, no cloud saves, no networking system, no streaming, no card collecting, no steam play. I might not use or desire all of those but some people do.
The fact Epic had to resort to extremes like timed exclusives just meant I dropped those developers off of my list of wanted games as it only went to show they are willing to sacrifice your inconvenience and happiness for some extra money. For them it was probably making sure project succeeds but in the end I don’t care about them if they don’t care about me.
It’s not a hard thing to get. Over the years Valve has had relatively low amount of blunders and for the most part they were of the misjudging customer base kind but ultimately they have been very consumer oriented and have provided great value for the money. From universal refund policy to family sharing and similar. Their service consists of many benefits for the consumer but all of that is charged from the developer. Very hard not to like such approach.
Epic on the other hand did the opposite. They catered to developers and inconvenienced consumers. You get to pay the same price as everywhere but you are forced to get exclusives from them and you don’t get any of the benefits Steam has. Am in fact surprised it gained as much popularity as it did. Goes to show people will sell their own pride for occasional free game you don’t even get to chose.
I think you got the whole thing mixed up. Sure Valve takes a huge cut, but if game does poorly Valve earns less as well. So there’s an incentive from both parties to make sure game succeeds. But in the end Valve makes sure you as a consumer get your money’s worth, hence why they even added no questions asked refund policy. Policy which has resulted in more purchases than before, because risk of not liking the game is non-existent now.
Epic on the other hand is forcing users to buy into their ecosystem by way of exclusives. Developers use this to make sure project succeeds even if it’s not good. That is to say they get the money regardless. But this model is not sustainable as Epic has to earn money at some point so number of exclusives will be lower and lower. At the same time they are encouraging developers to not try as hard to polish the game since they get the money regardless.
Fundamentally approaches are completely different and Steam’s approach can’t fail because they cater to customer while Epic is just trying to force people away while offering subpar service. And whoever holds the money holds the power.
While 30% is high it seems developers consider it acceptable since number of games Steam releases is not reducing. Any one of those developers can decide not to publish on steam and go that way, but in the end I think Valve’s service offers so much exposure that it’s worth considering.
Getting 100% of 1000 sales is not the same amount of money as getting 70% of 30000 sales, especially when it’s a digital distribution where copying bytes costs nothing. Steam also offers bunch of other services as well, things like networking, cloud saves, streaming and similar all of which cost money to maintain.
Developers would for sure do that, if it were possible. Who wouldn’t take more exposure to their project as a beneficial thing. Problem is probably in legal part of releasing stuff.
Similar refund policy, but not the same. Epic refund policy marks all the games with in-game currency and purchases as non-refundable. Am not sure about the rest and whether developer can set a game to be non-refundable. It seems they have worked on adding a lot of features, however they are still lagging a lot behind Steam and there are many more things than just cloud saves and refund although those are big features. Steam Play for example which allows Linux users to play any Windows game and by extension makes SteamDeck a possibility. That one is huge. Family sharing is also a big thing. Chat and voice communication, etc. There are plenty of those not implemented yet.
That’s the whole point. If people prefer to buy it on Steam, then that’s it. Forcing people to move away to other store due to exclusive deals and similar means only making people with money more annoyed and more inconvenienced.
Can’t remember when was the last time I shelled out 60€ on a game. Indie titles are usually where the fun is at. Good story, acceptable graphics and awesome gameplay. I don’t need UHD mega giga textures to have fun.
It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Am not sure I have ever overpaid a game on Steam. It’s either same price everywhere or I get it at stupid discounts during sales. There’s no pretending. Valve even said it there are things in place should Steam ever disappear you get to keep your games.
You could have done far worse with both. Pilor and Pentel are great. You could have bought Visconti limited edition which fail to work out of the factory, horror of horrors. Pilot is reliable little worker and won’t fail you. Great bang for buck.
Indeed. I got my brother both of those, although I got Pilot MR Gold, not retro. But still. Great pens. Work reliably for awesome price. Fountain pen is a bit of a nail for my liking (Pelikan user here)… but you can’t argue quality and reliability. Only character.
Am not sure EC would let that one slide as they really like multiple companies competing for same slice of market. That way everyone benefits. Microsoft was already kicked in the teeth for Office and browsers back in the day for trying to dominate the market.
Epic Games Admits In Court That Its PC Store Still Isn't Profitable (kotaku.com)
Cities: Skylines II - Performance, Post-Release Plans & Goals (store.steampowered.com)
If you could play one game for the first time all over again, what would it be? (i.ytimg.com)
(Saw this question asked on another popular link aggregation website and it got me thinking)...
Microsoft expected to finally buy Activision Blizzard next week (www.eurogamer.net)
Ubisoft execs and employees arrested over sexual misconduct allegations (massivelyop.com)
Diablo® IV is coming to Steam (store.steampowered.com)
Dusk Developer David Szymanski: I'd rather pay Valve 30% and put up with their de facto monopoly than help Epic work towards their own (very obviously desired) monopoly (twitter.com)
If I’m honest, I don’t disagree....
My Moonlander became a big sister yesterday! (artemis.camp)
I love the Voyager so far. 💜
Microsoft addresses the huge Xbox leaks: here’s Phil Spencer’s full memo (www.theverge.com)
The leaks revealed plans for a revised Xbox Series X.