Surprisingly, it looks like some people immediately think about Sony when reading the headline, like they've been wanting to let something out for years. Lol.
No one is on the side of gamers per se. They all want money and popularity. Devs, stores, etc. We agree on this.
Devs don't need to sell their games at a lower price. They want to do it on Epic because they can afford to due to epic's smaller cut. Selling their games at a lower price would boost sales, bringing in more money overall for the devs while earning the same amount of money per game sold on Steam. Epic might even give them an extra incentive, but I don't know.
They can't afford to make the same discounts on Steam because Steam's cut is more than double Epic's cut. If I recall correctly, 30% for steam and 12% for epic.
Valve doesn't demand the price of games on their store to be as low as on Epic, they demand it to be AS HIGH on epic as it is on steam, which is different. If they so much wanted games to be as cheap everywhere, then they would lower their cut but they don't want to. Simple as that.
@uninspiredcup: But of course! There are absolutely no questions when it comes to why stores and devs make discounts or give away games: money.
In the case of devs, lowering the price on Epic while earning the same money per game sold as on Steam means more sales, more popularity and more overall money even though you are selling your game for less, thanks to Epic's lower cut. Epic gives away games not bacause they feel charitable, but because they need to gain terrain (get more users on their store) until they are on par with Steam, which means investing LOTS of money and not getting much in return for the time being.
None of them cares that much about gamers. This is clear. But they can decide whether to be toxic or not.
@dzimm: If devs don't take Epic's deal, NOTHING happens. If devs don't accept Valve's DEMAND (since it's not a deal) they can't sell their games on Steam and lose a shit ton of sales, hurting the devs for something that Steam should have no authority over.
I hate analogies, but I think one is necessary here:
Let's say that you are good at making cakes and are interested in making friends. I'm a popular guy with lots of friends for you to meet.
I invite you to my birthday party, you bring a basic cake because it's what you can afford and you have a great time with the people there. You also have another (unpopular) friend who invited you to their birthday party and you decide to make a bigger, better cake for theirs since they gave you some money to buy more, better ingredients. I don't like that person bacause their parties are starting to hurt my popularity.
Next time you see me, I tell you that if the cake that you make for them is not AS SMALL as the one you make for my parties (not the other way around because I don't want to give you money to make a big cake) I won't invite you to my birthday parties ever again and you'll miss the chance of meeting lots of people.
SURE, you are free not to come to my parties and only go to the other person's, but isn't it extremely shitty that I told you that in the first place? If you accept my proposal, people won't get the bigger, better cake, even though it hurts no one (except maybe my ego).
@Bamda: 20 years? You're delusional. They are growing at a much faster pace than Steam did when it came out. If they offer cheaper games, they are already competitive.
@dzimm: This is exactly the opposite of how it actually works. Stores CAN'T force devs to make discounts, or sell their games at a discounted price without the dev's permission. Epic isn't forcing devs to give away their games for free, they offer them a deal and it's up to the devs to accept it or not, just like with PS+, Gold, Gamepass, etc.
Not allowing devs to sell their games on Steam if they don't comply to their demands is a MASSIVELY shitty move people. Devs are the bread and butter of gaming, not stores.
@uninspiredcup: The simping for steam continues. You can't pick a single case (Ubisoft, lol) and say that it's the same for every game or dev. This lawsuit exists because someone wants to sell their games for cheaper but valve won't allow them. If they had kept their mouth shut and not gone forward with the lawsuit, they would be getting more money for every game sold.
"it is not as if I would defend them for doing something that negatively affected consumers and/or developers."
It negatively affects developers because they can't sell their games at the price they want to on other stores unrelated to steam and it negatively affects gamers because valve are keeping the price of games higher than they could be all for their own sake.
You are a few clicks away from using the epic store without spending a single dime, but many people are "loyal" to steam and refuse to do so even though, like I said, valve doesn't care about you (and neither does epic for that matter). You should stand by the side of gamers, and be against anything or anyone that thinks they can do whatever they want.
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