Some interesting industry news for you here. Epic Games have announced a change to the revenue model of the Epic Games Store, as they try to pull in more developers and more gamers to actually purchase things.
Steam is, in my opinion, way better for the user (even if it may be worse for the developer).
Epic lacks features that are important to me like reviews, the ability to view your library in a browser, warnings about DRM, Linux support, a hole bunch of features to discover games, a workshop, big picture mode.
Additionally, in my experience at least, their official launcher under Windows is a buggy mess compared to steam.
And the thing is… Because Steam is better for the user, it becomes better from the developer. 70% of your game’s Steam revenue will always be bigger than 100% of your Epic revenue. It’s probably bigger than 300% of your Epic revenue. That’s why Steam doesn’t need to buy exclusives or run loss leaders or try to lock you in with “free!” promos. Epic needs to pay developers up front to get them to not go to Steam, because in every case a dual Steam/whatever-else release is better than a whatever-else release. So Epic needs to pay the indie game studio that made a $10 game a million dollars for timed exclusivity, which allows the studio to not worry about losing their Steam revenue from selling 130,000 copies. Then they release it on Steam later anyway.
If it was as simple as “cutting out middlemen” or using cheaper middlemen, devs would just be selling you exe files. CDN costs wouldn’t come close to 30% of revenue, after all. People like buying games on Steam. People buy games on Steam that are cheaper and DRM-free on GOG or Itch. People buy games on Steam that are free downloads like Dwarf Fortress. People buy games on Steam that are free browser pages like Cookie Clicker. Epic wants people to be invested in their “free!” libraries enough to actually be like “oh I mean I’ve got the Epic account, may as well buy this game here because it’s cheaper or more of my money goes to the devs or because it’s a timed exclusive…” And people simply aren’t doing it.
The way Epics reviews work are awful, though. They are trying to be really attractive to developers but they aren’t attractive enough to USERS.
For example, you have to be INVITED to review games on Epic. The system is automated and will occasionally ask for a review after you close a game, assuming you’ve been playing long enough. They claim it’s to avoid things like “review bombing”, but that’s a cop-out to shield bad developers/publishers from the repercussions of their actions (like when Denuvo was non-consensually added to Ghostwire Tokyo a year after release).
Implying review bombing is always warranted is as misguided as it gets. Games regularly get review bombed for something as trivial as having a non-white person for a protagonist.
I don’t disagree that’s a problem, but that is not what I said or implied. That’s the reason Steam has other mechanisms for scoring and scaling reviews. There are plenty of valid reasons for “review bombing” that are organic and natural consequences of developer activity: like adding Denuvo a year after release, adding a launxher or login/account requirement after the fact, etc. Making reviews “invite only” is anti-consumer.
If we dig just a bit deeper, it seems your issue is with the whole concept of not owning games, which is the very nature of Steam and its main policy, aptly called the subscriber agreement. Taking that out on game developers, let alone a competitor with more lax DRM practices, is also missing the forest for the trees.
That is absolutely an issue I have, but it’s a whole separate can of worms. One I could talk about all day. Right now I’m just comparing Epics meaningless, useless review system against Steam.
Steam is, in my opinion, way better for the user (even if it may be worse for the developer).
Epic lacks features that are important to me like reviews, the ability to view your library in a browser, warnings about DRM, Linux support, a hole bunch of features to discover games, a workshop, big picture mode.
Additionally, in my experience at least, their official launcher under Windows is a buggy mess compared to steam.
And the thing is… Because Steam is better for the user, it becomes better from the developer. 70% of your game’s Steam revenue will always be bigger than 100% of your Epic revenue. It’s probably bigger than 300% of your Epic revenue. That’s why Steam doesn’t need to buy exclusives or run loss leaders or try to lock you in with “free!” promos. Epic needs to pay developers up front to get them to not go to Steam, because in every case a dual Steam/whatever-else release is better than a whatever-else release. So Epic needs to pay the indie game studio that made a $10 game a million dollars for timed exclusivity, which allows the studio to not worry about losing their Steam revenue from selling 130,000 copies. Then they release it on Steam later anyway.
If it was as simple as “cutting out middlemen” or using cheaper middlemen, devs would just be selling you exe files. CDN costs wouldn’t come close to 30% of revenue, after all. People like buying games on Steam. People buy games on Steam that are cheaper and DRM-free on GOG or Itch. People buy games on Steam that are free downloads like Dwarf Fortress. People buy games on Steam that are free browser pages like Cookie Clicker. Epic wants people to be invested in their “free!” libraries enough to actually be like “oh I mean I’ve got the Epic account, may as well buy this game here because it’s cheaper or more of my money goes to the devs or because it’s a timed exclusive…” And people simply aren’t doing it.
EGS has reviews as far as I can tell. I still think Steam is better, but this is a welcome move out of them. Competition is a good thing
Edit: downvoted for pointing out that EGS has reviews. Y’all are weird lol
I was talking about written reviews, not just a like/dislike (star) system
The way Epics reviews work are awful, though. They are trying to be really attractive to developers but they aren’t attractive enough to USERS.
For example, you have to be INVITED to review games on Epic. The system is automated and will occasionally ask for a review after you close a game, assuming you’ve been playing long enough. They claim it’s to avoid things like “review bombing”, but that’s a cop-out to shield bad developers/publishers from the repercussions of their actions (like when Denuvo was non-consensually added to Ghostwire Tokyo a year after release).
Implying review bombing is always warranted is as misguided as it gets. Games regularly get review bombed for something as trivial as having a non-white person for a protagonist.
I don’t disagree that’s a problem, but that is not what I said or implied. That’s the reason Steam has other mechanisms for scoring and scaling reviews. There are plenty of valid reasons for “review bombing” that are organic and natural consequences of developer activity: like adding Denuvo a year after release, adding a launxher or login/account requirement after the fact, etc. Making reviews “invite only” is anti-consumer.
If we dig just a bit deeper, it seems your issue is with the whole concept of not owning games, which is the very nature of Steam and its main policy, aptly called the subscriber agreement. Taking that out on game developers, let alone a competitor with more lax DRM practices, is also missing the forest for the trees.
That is absolutely an issue I have, but it’s a whole separate can of worms. One I could talk about all day. Right now I’m just comparing Epics meaningless, useless review system against Steam.