this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
632 points (95.3% liked)

Games

39217 readers
1792 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform

By type

By games

Language specific

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

From the opinion piece:

Last year, I pointed out how many big publishers came crawlin' back to Steam after trying their own things: EA, Activision, Microsoft. This year, for the first time ever, two Blizzard games released on Steam: Overwatch and Diablo 4.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (3 children)

If Epic had required developers to, say, sell games 15% cheaper (they only take a 12% cut instead of 30%, so the devs would still win out!) then they could have had a really cool argument on their hands. "Look how much Steam costs you as the consumer just from them enriching themselves!". Then the dearth of features would have been excusable, sure the shop is shit and does ˜nothing but hey, 10% cheaper in return!

Instead, as you say, they wanted to completely brute-force consumers onto the platform by putting their big fortnite money dick on the table, and it backfires and they spent a ton of money on a fat load of nothing.

Plus they've nicely trained their consumers that all the EGS client is for is launching it once on Thursdays to get your free game. Not the thing you want customers to associate with your supposedly money-making scheme.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If Epic had required developers to, say, sell games 15% cheaper

Epic cannot do that because

In response to one inquiry from a game publisher, in another example, Valve explained: “We basically see any selling of the game on PC, Steam key or not, as a part of the same shared PC market- so even if you weren’t using Steam keys, we’d just choose to stop selling a game if it was always running discounts of 75% off on one store but 50% off on ours. . . .”

(source)

However, Epic regularly offers coupons out of pocket. Right now you can get 33% off any game above $14.99 or the regional equivalent, as many times as you want, even if the game is already discounted by the publisher. You also get 10% as cashback.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

What's in your wallet?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Thursday games: they made that harder. I'd have to login in again and 2FA every week. I stopped doing that because it wasn't worth my time. Uninstalled EGL and didn't install it on my new computer. Not worth it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Steam doesn't allow games to be cheaper elsewhere if they want to also sell on Steam. So the only way Epic can do that is by ... (gasp) exclusives.

Pretty anti-consumer of the store that "keeps on winning" if you ask me.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Steam doesn't allow games to be cheaper elsewhere if they want to also sell on Steam.

How does that work when there is the humble bundle store, and IsThereAnyDeal with a shit ton of stores almost always cheaper than Steam?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Don't they sell Steam keys? Maybe the rules are different in this case.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

They do but some sell direct downloads along with Steam Keys.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

That seems to be incorrect, and quite possibly originating from Tim Sweeney.

The only thing I found is that steam keys, which (as a publisher/developer) you get from steam without paying, cannot be sold for cheaper off-steam. The reason for that is obvious, since steam doesn't get their cut on keys, but they still have to provide the support and infrastructure for those users.

If you have a source on that claim though, I'd love to see it - I tried finding anything else on it once and failed.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

So the only way Epic can do that is by … (gasp) exclusives.

Even if your initial premise was correct (the comment from KubeRoot suggests it's not), you claim that only Epic exsclusives were a way around that is obviously BS. The most obvious way around Steam would be to sell everywhere except Steam, so EGS, Microsoft Store, GOG, EA Origin, Uplay,... and whatever else is out there.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

Yeah but while they're not allowed to be on sale within X time of launch, I've seen games be part of variable discount bundles or run coupon systems before. Clearly Steam isn't investing infinite resources into tracking this, and probably doesn't actually care for anything but AAA games.

That is assuming the language in the contract even includes such coupon or bundle schemes.