[haunter]

"Microsoft wants to monopolise games development on PC. We must fight it" by Tim Sweeney in 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/04/microsoft...

3 years later ends up buying out indie games and puts them behind exclusivity on the Epic Store

On Linux gaming "The real enemy of Linux are these trolls who try to overrun social media channels to make claims in bad faith and attempt to harass developers into compliance. They’re scaring lots of good game developers away." https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/115052159963387494...

About dev cuts:

In January "This is the only practicable way to operate a 12% fee store in developing countries." https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/109102593910919987...

5 months later: “If Valve commits to a permanent 88% revenue share, we’ll stop making new exclusive deals” https://www.dsogaming.com/news/tim-sweeney-if-valve-commits-...

etc.

Tim Sweeney is an interesting person, like a weathervane

[Reedx]

This is really disingenuous. You're removing context, cherry picking and inserting your own context to create a false narrative. Why?

[deminature]

It's popular to hate Sweeney and Epic within the gaming community at the moment.

[cameronbrown]

Because they've done a very shitty thing.

[belltaco]

Nah, it's 99% handwaving and bandwagoning, like you're doing.

[bloody-crow]

Could you elaborate? I've seen a lot of arguments along those lines, but none were willing to actually explain what it is exactly they're doing that is wrong.

[belltaco]

For some reason Valve seems to have a lot of very rabid fans on Reddit, from many many years. Valve gets a free pass for showing annoying ads on every Steam update while being a paid service and also for their forced 30% cut and essentially being a monopoly. All the while barely improving the product for years while making billions from the cash cow.

When I saw Epic was jumping into the fray I figured there'd be vicious backlash and handwringing from the community for minor things and wasn't surprised at all.

[SparkleBunny]

You can disable the ads in the steam client by going into Setting > Interface > Uncheck "Notify me about additions or changes to my games, new releases, and upcoming releases."

https://i.imgur.com/Gh9V45t.png

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

Valve advertises games on a platform that sells games and only does it when you start Steam. 30% is standard. They're a de-facto monopoly because they basically invented the market and no one has managed to do better, they have not engaged in anti-competitive practices and in fact allow people to sell Steam keys for their game on other storefronts without paying Valve at all.

[jdance]

On top of this, as I recall everyone hated steam when it came, that you had to have it running to launch Counter-Strike through steam. I know I found it very annoying. Now Steam is home to most people and they are angry over the next change.

Like the guy in the sibling comment defending 30% cut for a digital service like Steam, it is Stockholm syndrome, or just human nature :)

[dragonsngoblins]

Well I dislike them for entering into exclusivity agreements in the first place - something Valve doesn't do.

Even more I dislike them for entering into exclusivity agreements involving kickstarted projects that promised delivery on other platforms. Sure the developers are worse than Epic in this case, because they are the ones breaking the promises but still. It is kind of like sleeping with a married person - sure the person cheating is doing something worse than you, but you are still knowingly enabling it and contributing to something hurtful.

I don't like Valve having a de facto monopoly and buy on GoG where possible or the Humble store, but I prefer a de facto monopoly on selling a product than a de jure one.

[philliphaydon]

Valve needs serious competition. But I hate epic for trying to buy its way into competition by taking exclusives which were sold on steam initially. Instead of trying to actually be better than valve.

[wishinghand]

> while being a paid service

Steam is not a paid service.

I do think they should lower their 30% cut, though that is the industry standard.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

The short version is pretty simple. Epic has been paying developers a whole shit-ton of money for an exclusive release on their storefront and launcher, and a lot of PC gamers do not like exclusive releases or having additional launchers.

That's not such a big deal though, the real problem is that they did this with games that were in development for years with Kickstarter-style backing that had up until that point explicitly targeted other storefronts. To many this seems like a betrayal by the developer and Epic's behavior is making the market worse.

[d1zzy]

It's a bit more nuanced than that. It seems to me that most PC gamers have no problems with exclusive PC releases as long as they are exclusive to Steam. It's when they are exclusive to other DRM-ed platforms that they start to make a fuss, a self-centered hypocritical view.

Now as a pure GOG game buyer, used to having to wait decades to get games that were released on Steam on release day, I can't say I'm not finding some satisfaction out of all the Epic exclusivity outrage but, feelings aside, I'd prefer that there was no exclusivity whatsoever.

[bloody-crow]

I personally couldn't give two shits about which installer I'd have to use in order to play the game I supported on kickstarter and I don't get why other people care.

If the developer gets more money from Epic, that means that they now have more resources to make a decent game, which actually benefits me as a consumer.

Also, if the game is good, I'd prefer more money to make its way to the developer rather than storefront and Epic has a better deal.

From all above it seems to me that Epic Store is overall doing a good thing and I'd prefer it to Steam if I had a choice.

[nailer]

Have exclusives on their store, or something else?

[orf]

You could say that he's a troll, attempting to overrun social media channels while making claims in bad faith.

[slavik81]

Those last two quotes sound consistent to me. If Valve could operate on a 12% cut without exclusives, that would prove him was wrong that it's impossible, thus he would change his position if they did so.

[pvg]

The Epic store thing would be analogous if Epic made Windows, which they don't - there isn't a contradiction in Sweeney's position here whatever one might think of the merits of the Epic store.