Has epic games developed anything like Proton? Valve isn’t just a store.
That Whataboutism is Not really relevant to the lawsuit.
Just because they made someone useful to expand their control over the games industry, that you happen to like, doesn’t mean them abusing their monopoly position isn’t still bad.
>Open source, publicly available tool to aid in Linux adoption
>“some[thing] to expand their control over the games industry”
Found the Sweeney fanboy. Just because Timmy-boy can’t install kernel-level malware on Linux doesn’t mean Gabe Newell is going to use it to conquer the Earth, bud.
Again with the complete and utter lack of ability to understand that nuance exists, and both can be bad people doing self interested things, and one bad person saying something correct does not mean you agree with everything they stand for just because you agree with the one smart thing.
Like more than one of you are stuck in this moronic binary mindset. It’s pathetic.
Steam also places DRM and states in their EULA that you pay to license the title and not own it. Looks like you’re a Steam fanboy. We shouldn’t be fanboys of anything but simply notice the good and bad thaf companies do because either way they aren’t our friends
Developers place DRM, that’s not s requirement of Steam publishing. Also, 99% of digital stores state you’re only buying a license. That’s a problem with modern society, not Steam.
So Steam is part of the problem. They can simply not have that in their EULA. With that attitude no change will ever happen for the better
I don’t think blaming Steam for society’s ills is a valid response.
That’s not what we’re doing. Not giving steam a pass for doing the same bad shit that you hate other companies for doing isn’t putting society’s ills into steam. It’s just not being hypocritical.
They demonized all actions of Valve, for the sake of defending Epic, even to the point of painting something that aids Linux adoption across the board as if it were a secretive, locked-down part of Steam’s environment. I pointed out the failure in that. Yeah, totally the same. 🙄
That’s not remotely what I did, and I weep for the future if this is the level of reading miscomprehension we have to deal with.
Bronzebeard is being objective and certainly not taking the position you’re generalizing here
Lol, no. That was not objective. And on top of that, I was not taking the position you’re generalizing here.
In short, what happened was, Bronzebeard made a cynical and destructive statement about the existence and development of Proton. I called them out by referencing what they said. Then, you came along, picked out some reasons to be angry with Valve, attributed them to me as though I said them, and acted as though pointing them out made you superior. We are not the same.
It is at this point, will be disengaging, as my conversation with you started with you putting words in my mouth, and I have less than no interest in speaking to you further.
Why are you acting like there aren’t steam games with additional drm?
Steam doesn’t require DRM to publish on their platform.
Neither does epic.
🤡
Wine?
I was almost forgetting Tim’s whole deal seems to be antagonizing more successful companies than his.
But Epic is super successful. Its Unreal Engine has almost the entire gaming landscape in a stranglehold and is making big gains in film productions.
Fortnite is one of the most successful games on Earth and EGS exclusive Rocket League recently achieved one million concurrent players.
I mean Epic the storefront, not the umbrella company, as the “company” in my original quote. If we are to be pedantic, there is also Epic the game publisher.
Also Rocket League was bought by EGS and turned exclusive after it already had a following, so the numbers for it seem kinda artificial. Though that and Fortnite would also fall in the publisher branch from what I understand.
The storefront itself is seldom news-worth, except for the freebies and that time they added a shopping cart with a few years of delay. And their freebies strategy seems to not be working out as EGS has yet to see a profit from some recent news.
Then comes Tim, that if I had to guess, is trying to dig any resentments people have with Steam to try to bring its userbase to EGS.
Also Rocket League was bought by EGS and turned exclusive after it already had a following
Doesn’t change that the cited growth happened recently which is years after the takeover.
Ok, but as I tried to say right next, still that sounds like a tangent.
He wants access to massive user bases for fortnite without having to pay anything to the platforms. That’s why he’s so intent on attacking Steam, Apple and Google. Steam would be a massive increase in revenue even with a 30% cut going to steam for epic, but mutual benefit isn’t in vogue at the moment.
Isn’t Tim the guy that advocates for pedophelia through AI generation?
“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.
“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.
Not when the Steam Terms of Service prevents them from charging less on other stores.
People are still repeating this lie, huh?
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!”
“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.
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…
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 Game 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.
Lmfao, you’re so brain dead that you think Unreal Engine is a bad thing.
Jesus fucking Christ learn how to think critically and not just suck Gabe’s billionaire dick.
Unreal Engine is a bad thing. Or maybe you haven’t noticed how every game that’s made with Unreal Engine, all the way back since UE4, requires far more resources than is necessary to run what it’s running.
If you support UE5 and Epic you support actively destroying gaming as an industry, and game creation as a multi-faceted art.
Or maybe you haven’t noticed how every game that’s made with Unreal Engine, all the way back since UE4, requires far more resources than is necessary to run what it’s running.
We’ll all wait for you to cite your source on that one, because, no Unreal does not perform particularly worse then any other game engine.
Unreal is broadly available and not just hidden behind AAA walls so a lot of A and AA devs won’t have time to optimize their games with it, but they wouldn’t have had time to optimize regardless of whether they published with Unity or Godot or any other engine. Unreal is certainly a vastly more efficient engine then Unity, which is its main competition.
Also, how are you squaring away the idea that Unreal is ruining games as art? There are two options:
-
be a creative game designer and spend all your resources on engineers to build you a custom game engine, then spend more resources training everyone at your company on how your specific niche engine works
-
be a creative game designer and use an off the shelf engine like Unreal to run and render your game so you can spend your resources on artists, writers, and designers, and everyone comes in knowing how to use it
Do you really think that number 1 leads to more artistic games? The literal entire reason we’re in an indie game mecca right now is because of the widespread proliferation of third party game engines, that let small dev teams focus on the game and not the engine.
We’ll all wait for you to cite your source on that one, because, no Unreal does not perform particularly worse then any other game engine.
You’ve been living under a rock.
Nothing else you say matters after this, because good gods, you don’t know anything.
Cite your source dumbass.
-
Steam is the last company that has held out against enshittification.
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’.
That’s why they are getting sued.
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.
Lol
Greenlight Early access Gambling economy Microtransactions Segmenting games to be sold as parts.
Fuck off with that shit.
deleted by creator
No instead epic charges 12%, and if you use unreal engine but don’t sell on egs they get a 5% royalty fee on all your sales. Sure those number are lower but egs isn’t out here “empowering” devs
Epic would charge Steam’s fees if they had Steam’s marketshare.
Everyone thinking they care about creators or customers is a fucking moron.
Are they close to feature parity with Steam yet? Like after a quick search of it looks like they added cloud saves but that took years.
Not even close. Plus, it’s not just about feature parity. It’s also about ease of use. EGS is still shit as of 2 months ago.
While EGS increases its minimum Windows # requirements, Steam client is already available on Linux.
Although I would prefer being able to build it myself rather than keeping it in Firejail
Epic would charge Steam’s fees if they had Steam’s marketshare.
while at the same time providing worse service.
Ever noticed the difference between Epic checkout vs Steam checkout? And that is the part one would want to make the best, because that’s what gets the money in.
if you use unreal engine but don’t sell on egs they get a 5% royalty fee on all your sales.
Sounds like abusing market power.
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 Sweeney can gargle my ballsack
Well Gabe is too busy having every gamer gargle his billionaire monopoly loving chode.
“Please Mr Valve, spit in my mouth and keep overcharging me. I want you to own more yachts.”
The only reason I had an epic account was for their free giveaway. And now that I’ve switched to bazzite, and considering their poor Linux support, I’m inclined to just cut bait on them.
They thank you for your support
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%?
Is that the Epic that agreed to six-year $800 million partnership with Google recently?
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%.
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.
And both of those are terrible
Yep, time to wipe my Epic account.
More like Tim Weenie.
The only interesting argument I heard about this demand was that when you buy game you are tie to respective store, and you cannot buy content like dlc outside that store. I wpukd be amazing for the customers if thus wasn’t the case
