I do like that this very specific subgenre even exists.

The idea to combine minesweeper of all things with various genres from RPG to tactics is really not the first thing anyone would assume.

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Finally, they wisened up.
They failed the game and its potential at launch, and there was simply no coming back from that.

It's not like No Man's Sky where everyone wanted "a game like that" and was willing to give the game another go years after.
Rome is simply NOT a very hot topic right now, so a game launching with that setting would have to be almost perfect at launch to get a large following. They didn't manage to pull that off even remotely and so there was no audience that they could have lured back to it with continued support.

I was honestly surprised how long they tried, though.

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Quoting: TuxeeIf you don't sell anything, you won't pay. And if you have to rely on the additional few percent per sale you can get on alternative stores you have been doomed from the get go.

Obviously, but if you think in the low-margin world of indie development a difference of 10-15% in income cannot make the difference between "can live from it" and "nope!", then you are sorely mistaken.

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Quoting: orochi_kyo

Quoting: TheSHEEEPAll true, but doesn't change how I think about it.
As I said, I hope it succeeds and I hope they eventually lower their cut.
But do I think this will happen, and soon? Nope.

rofl

That fanboy rambling is hilarious, I can see more strawmen here than I would if I watched Wickerman on 20 TVs at the same time and less coherent logic than if I did the same with Fast & Furious.
Please continue :grin: :grin: :grin: :grin:

And no, I do not hate Steam. And I bet nobody else here who criticizes Valve for their business practices does, either.
I just don't turn a blind eye to the bad stuff Valve does because of the good they do.

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Quoting: x_wingThey got $265 Million from third parties, which means that they got a profit of 26.5 million. Remove the millions they spend with exclusives and free games plus Fortnite benefits and you will be far from making any profit with that 12% cut.

The very article you link to also has Epic stating that 12% is enough to cover their running cost. Yes, no profit from that alone. So increase it to 15%. Now you've got profit (3% is a very good profit margin as every trader on this planet will tell you) and still only take half of what Valve takes.
Hell, take 20%. Now your profit margin is in the "investors' wet dream" area and STILL 1/3rd less than Valve's...

Weird how that goes, huh?

Quoting: x_wingBTW, seems that GOG takes a similar cut from devs and had financial problems not long ago. Anyway, what a greedy bastards!

Not anymore, though. So the same cut you imply was not enough now suddenly is.
Seems to me they just didn't know how to run a business in their field and then wisened up a bit, cutting costs.
Besides, don't forget that Valve also gets their share of MTX from games, which is a large amount. GOG doesn't, afaik.
Also don't forget about DLCs, which often enough mean practically 0 additional cost for the storefront (DLCs tend to be tiny and they share the same infrastructure as the main game).

And finally, GOG is simply MUCH smaller than Steam.
Costs scale inversely to size - probably in all fields, but especially when it comes to IT infrastructure. Based on that alone, Steam could affort a smaller cut than GOG.

Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoSteamplay 2.0 aka PROTON, from my point of view, is a service for the consumers (and developers) and is paid with that 30%.

Paid indirectly by the developers, who will maybe get AT MAX 1% more sales due to it. Doesn't make up for the difference between 30% and a more reasonable cut.

Besides, as a developer, I honestly don't care in the slightest what else Valve does with their way-too-high-cut.
And I shouldn't care. If I (as a developer) don't benefit from it, why the hell should I pay for it?
Out of the good of my heart?

Quoting: x_wingValve implemented the discovery queue and curators recommendation. And during the sales, you have to explore the discovery queue in order to get a trading card. At least in my case, I was able to discover many nice games with the DQ.

That's a drop in the ocean. It changes practically nothing for developers having basically 0 visibility just by being on Steam.

To be fair, I don't think that's Valve's fault.
They could still curate and the problem would be mostly the same - now devs would struggle to get on the platform due to the number of competitors instead of struggling to be on the platform but have no customers find them due to the number of competitors.
There are simply too many developers putting out games - the only way through that is to do good old PR legwork. And/or luck, of course.

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Quoting: Ehvis

Quoting: TheSHEEEPI hope the lawsuit succeeds, although chances are naturally slim.
Their cut is and always has been too high.

Yes, they offer a ton of services, but practically no developer utilizes even half of them.
The solution is simple: Lower the minimal cut to something reasonable (closer to the Epic cut), then allow developers to opt-in to features they actually need, which would then increase the cut.

All of that is irrelevant though. The reason why Valve can continue to ask for their cut, is because they can the deliver a lot of potential customers. No other store comes close. Even the big publishers that tried to sell exclusively on their own platform have been crawling back to Steam. And until that changes, Valve has no reason to make big changes to their pricing.

Basically the whole industry left Valve alone for a decade and didn't wake up to the future until it was too late. And now trying to break into the market in which Valve has a huge head start is nearly impossible. It's actually not unlike trying to make a new desktop OS to break into the Windows market share. Nice idea, but nearly impossible to achieve.

All true, but doesn't change how I think about it.
As I said, I hope it succeeds and I hope they eventually lower their cut.
But do I think this will happen, and soon? Nope.

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I hope the lawsuit succeeds, although chances are naturally slim.
Their cut is and always has been too high.

Yes, they offer a ton of services, but practically no developer utilizes even half of them.
The solution is simple: Lower the minimal cut to something reasonable (closer to the Epic cut), then allow developers to opt-in to features they actually need, which would then increase the cut.

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That... does look improved, sure, but not like a 70GB game.

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The reactions to that search bar announcement are just wonderful.
Everyone is making fun of them - and deservedly so.

It's like a Russian doll of funny.
A high-tech company not offering a search bar in their product for years now.
Perhaps because of so few games that it wasn't necessary at the start.
Apparently nobody in their team (or the decision makers, anyway) noticed this glaring oversight on a store page.
Their PR people seriously trying to celebrate the addition of a search bar as if such a feature couldn't be added by an intern in a day (two if it's supposed to be a good one).
All of this being baffling already, just gets turned up to 11 by the realization that the company is owned by Google.
Finally, turning it up to 12 and breaking the volume control, the project is Stadia, which just doesn't seem to take a breather.

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Well, that is fairly amazing.
Since FMOD didn't really have Linux support (tool-wise), it was always out of the question to work with for me.
But now, that apparently changed.

Will certainly dig in at some point to see what it can do that Godot on its own can't.

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