Alone in the Dark + Alice? Interesting.

Though I do have doubts that anything will come really close to American McGee's Alice again.

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At this point, it is almost easier counting the games coming out that do NOT have card battles ;)

*goes back to playing Monster Train*

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Quoting: GuestPersonally i think 30% is perfectly fine for AAA devs. I however think that Steam [and other Stores] could lower that Cut for Indie devs.

Funny enough, it is actually the other way around.

Edit:
There's this, which strongly favors AAA to begin with, I just remembered it as AAA devs getting a better cut to begin with (not that the end result is that much different):
https://www.pcgamer.com/valves-new-revenue-sharing-favours-big-budget-games-and-indie-devs-arent-happy/ [External Link]

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Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: TheSHEEEPI've seen that argument a few times, and frankly, it is a myth.
Ever since Valve opened the floodgates and accepted every piece of garbage game on their platform without any moderation whatsoever, the number of games coming out is so huge that a developer gains pretty much nothing from the fact that they are on Steam. This is especially true for indie developers.
Valve doesn't "present" a damn thing, users have to actively wade through the masses of unmoderated games.

Tell how awesome being on Steam alone is to all the developers who didn't do their due diligence, didn't do any marketing, and as a result barely sell anything on Steam.
And if you have to do the marketing routine anyway, what exactly is so great about being "presented" on Steam, again?

What does that have to do with anything? There is too much of everything. Moderation doesn't change that. You won't notice the trash anyway, but do you complain about spotify and bandcamp, too? Everybody can upload their stuff there. There's a billion musicians. Not all of them can break through.

What that has to do with anything is that you were trying to make the point that being on Steam alone would somehow be a good thing for a developer. It is a necessary thing, or at least it used to be, but developers don't gain anything from the mere fact.
Because of the reasons I outlined. Just like simply being on Spotify doesn't do anything for musicians.

And moderation makes a lot of difference, especially strong moderation. There used to be a time when you'd actually notice an interesting new release on Steam. Now there are so many of them that you'd basically have to go through the list every day. Who wants to do that?
On GOG and EGS, there are way fewer new releases per day (sometimes, there might not even be one in a day!), so those do get noticed simply by the fact that they got released.

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Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: TheSHEEEPNot a huge profit margin, mind you, it might be only covering their expenses. And I do expect them to raise it somewhat, as I wrote above.

And covering your expenses is good enough?

Of course it is, while you are growing. Just look at Spotify, etc. I'm not even sure they make a profit at this point, but they sure as hell didn't initially.

Quoting: kuhpunktbut when transfer fees can be up to 15%, it's not covering costs. Sweeney himself once said it's not sustainable in certain areas. And they lose money with their sales, too.

Which is irrelevant as Epic forwards those fees to the users, encouraging them not to use services with absurdly large transfer fees.
https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/epic-games-store-faq?lang=en-US [External Link]

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: TheSHEEEPYou don't see anyone complain because complaining could make you enemies you don't want to have. Also, it would be entirely pointless. What are devs gonna do, not publish on PS4 because they don't like the cut?

And that makes it less hypocritical?

Makes what less hypocritical?
Saying that Steam's cut is way larger than it needs to be? Nothing hypocritical about it, that's just the truth.
Pointing at others doing the same (or worse) is whataboutism and adds no valid points to any discussion.

Quoting: kuhpunktI'm not sure who started with the 30%, but once upon a time it was a dream for developers/publishers to get 70%. And what's so bad about them making profit? I don't think it's exploitative.

Nothing bad about it, I'm just saying that it is better for developers if that cut was lower and that the cut can absolutely be lowered while storefronts would still make a profit.

Quoting: kuhpunktAlso you didn't address the monthly fees for XBOX Live etc. that you don't have on PC.

Because they have nothing to do with anything discussed here. It's just another way for Sony, etc. to make more money to allow them to heavily subsidize their consoles to sell them at a lower price than what would otherwise make sense.

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Quoting: kuhpunktEpic at the moment takes 12%. Do you honestly think they make profit with that, when the payment methods alone can cost more?

Yes, I do. Because I actually work in the same field (not exactly gaming storefront, but hosting and payments costs are hosting and payment costs, no matter what exactly the servers do and which goods are sold) and know the costs. What exactly was your qualification here, other than "I saw it on TV"?

Not a huge profit margin, mind you, it might be only covering their expenses. And I do expect them to raise it somewhat, as I wrote above.

Quoting: kuhpunktAnd you think 10% is fair... Epic is losing money to get into the market.

Yes, they are. Because of their exclusivity deals. Not because of their cut.
Also, I said 10-20%, don't put words in my mouth just to try to make a point.

Quoting: kuhpunkt30% is the standard everywhere and I have yet to see developers complain about MS, Sony, Nintendo, Apple etc. - and I don't think they offer as much as Valve does - and when they do, they charge for their service.

You don't see anyone complain because complaining could make you enemies you don't want to have. Also, it would be entirely pointless. What are devs gonna do, not publish on PS4 because they don't like the cut?

Do you honestly think 30% would have become the standard if there wasn't a fat profit margin in it?
Capitalism, baby!

Only on PC, there is now the situation that someone comes in with a lower cut and exclusivity deals and all that is shaking up some rusty structures.
It will be interesting to see where it leads. For developers, I think this is all-in-all a very positive development. And as a developer - even if not games, yet - that is my perspective.

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Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: kuhpunktAnd how low should they go?

10-20% is fair, with a higher cut as developers can opt in to additional services (forum, matchmaking, etc.) with 20-30% being the cut for all services used.

The problem is that at the basic level (which is what most developers actually use), they really just host their game and offer the community service with it - but they don't really have any work with it that would justify the high share for developers.

How do you know that 10%-20% is fair? Do you have the numbers? gog uses 20% to pay the bills to run the service and the other 10% as actual profit.

I have been working on the backend side of many web services for many years. I know about the cost of hosting huge amounts of data with loads of traffic, web and application development pretty well.
You can roughly extrapolate what income Valve gets from what little data they give us (which is certainly not nearly all the data or income they make, which non-publicly-traded company does that, right?) combined with some average gamer spendings per time period. And if Valve aren't running an entire country, there simply isn't a way they really need that 30% share.

The 10-15% Epic takes (forgot the exact number) is much closer to the real cost of a service (+ profit) and I don't see Epic ever raising that cut to more than 20%. Except if there suddenly was a giant increase in hosting cost.

GOG can claim those numbers (do they, actually?). I don't believe it one bit, as I just know a bit more about the backend side of things and its cost.
And even if that were true. One third profit margin? Holy shit, that's already some incredibly good margin. Only very few things have such a margin.
Which is exactly my point, you don't need a one third profit margin to run a successful business, and the real number is likely even higher than that.

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Quoting: Ehvis

Quoting: TheSHEEEP10-20% is fair, with a higher cut as developers can opt in to additional services (forum, matchmaking, etc.) with 20-30% being the cut for all services used.

You're forgetting the biggest value. Steam presents the product to 100 million monthly active users. No other store comes close.

I've seen that argument a few times, and frankly, it is a myth.
Ever since Valve opened the floodgates and accepted every piece of garbage game on their platform without any moderation whatsoever, the number of games coming out is so huge that a developer gains pretty much nothing from the fact that they are on Steam. This is especially true for indie developers.
Valve doesn't "present" a damn thing, users have to actively wade through the masses of unmoderated games.

Tell how awesome being on Steam alone is to all the developers who didn't do their due diligence, didn't do any marketing, and as a result barely sell anything on Steam.
And if you have to do the marketing routine anyway, what exactly is so great about being "presented" on Steam, again?

Of course, you still have to be on Steam, because that is just something users expect. And that's IMO the only reason Valve hasn't reacted with a share cut. Yet.

Quoting: Ehvis

Quoting: TheSHEEEPFrom a developers perspective - and most devs don't care about Linux, that's the sad truth - the Epic deal is really damn good.

It's clearly not a great deal unless Epic throws money at devs. Although for at least some it is that they prepay the devs for a number of sales in exchange for exclusivity. But after the period they all go back to Steam because that's still where the real money is made.

Just to be clear, that is the deal I'm talking about. Basically free money for a year or a half, and then additional income once that agreed upon number of "guaranteed sales" is reached.
And then you get your Steam&other release later, which you can roll the marketing drums for a second time.
That IS a great deal (for developers).

I don't blame any developer or publisher for accepting - I only blame them for not being completely straight about the reason: "We do it for the money".

Quoting: EhvisAt the end of the day, Valve doesn't need to change anything because the majority of customers are still on Steam. When that changes, things will change.

If Valve aren't completely daft, and I don't think they are, they will react way before that happens.
They should, anyway.
Right now, they have the users and the (much) better software and services. But they'd be crazy to just sit on that and hope nobody will ever catch up.

Of course, Epic should also improve their client and services, but man are they slow about it...

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: TheSHEEEPHard to tell for sure at this point, but the recent developments seem to point toward Epic succeeding.

Please note that this is something I'm genuinely looking for more information about, so I'm not being sarcastic when I ask, what developments would those be?

The number of exclusives EGS is racking up, for one thing.
As is the number of free giveaways (of otherwise still quite new and expensive titles) - and the people that talk about it.
But most importantly, just how normal and accepted EGS has become. Sure, when the whole thing started, the outcry about those exclusivity deals was huge. But it isn't anymore, not in most places.
Here, of course, people are very negative about EGS, which makes sense.
But outside of Linux communities, people talk very openly and normally about using EGS, the number of "China bad!" screechers is dwindling, as is the people chiming in about how terrible exclusivity is and how bad Epic is, etc.
Streamers playing EGS games see less negative comments about that as well. And those are probably the no1 gamer influence source right now.

What we are seeing is just the process of something new becoming normal, which, I think, is very much a positive development for Epic.

You'll always have those who just won't use EGS no matter what. But that group just isn't as big as it might have seemed at first or you'd still see the big outrages everywhere. The rest are split somewhere between getting a game on EGS if they really want it or just waiting for a year.
Personally, I'm in the latter camp, but that's really only because EGS doesn't support Linux. If it did, I wouldn't care about exclusivity deals and just get the games I want wherever I can get them when I want them.

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Quoting: scaine

Quoting: TheSHEEEPEpic just has the better deals for developers.

My hope is that Valve will wake up from its slumber and starts giving developers better deals as well. A cut lower than the absurd 30% would be a very good start.

Concerning the game at hand, it does suck for Feral I imagine, but I was never interested in the "Saga" series to begin with. Too limited in scope.

I wish more devs would dual launch on Itch and Steam.

So do I...

Quoting: kuhpunktAnd how low should they go?

10-20% is fair, with a higher cut as developers can opt in to additional services (forum, matchmaking, etc.) with 20-30% being the cut for all services used.

The problem is that at the basic level (which is what most developers actually use), they really just host their game and offer the community service with it - but they don't really have any work with it that would justify the high share for developers.

Quoting: randylInteresting that you hope Valve changes its fee schedule for "developers" while not mentioning all the other stores that still charge 30% (with no sliding scale like Valve) and these "poor developers" happily sell their games on.... PlayStation, Xbox, Win10 Store, iOS App Store, Google Play Store, Nintendo. What's up with singling out Valve on this? Why do gamers buy into the propaganda that this is a Valve problem?

I don't give a flying fuck about what happens on consoles or mobile - the latter hardly even qualifies as gaming to me.
The others on PC should naturally follow suit and also lower their share. This will either happen, or developers will continue to go to Epic. Or, of course, Epic's strategy fails and things go back to what they were. Hard to tell for sure at this point, but the recent developments seem to point toward Epic succeeding.

Quoting: TobiSGDIf that is your wish than be prepared for the outcomes. Valve takes 30% (as most other stores) and then reinvest that money into developing their platform, but also help with developing games, for example by providing debugging tools, and even more so, they specifically help Linux gaming, for example by hiring developers working on graphics drivers. What do you think will be cut first if Valve cuts down their income?

You have no idea about the insane amounts of cash Valve makes. Would they reduce their cut to, say, 20%, they'd still be swimming in money.
Their service is good, but not 30% good. They are just getting away with it because, so far, everyone took those 30%. Not anymore, though, which is a good development for developers. More money for the people who actually make games.

Quoting: x_wingValve already do that. If the issue was the revenue, publisher only have to set their prices 20% higher (or around that value) on Steam compared to the same game in Epic. But nope, seems that if you want to publish on Epic you must go full epic for a year... which definitely points towards that Epic subsidies the publishers.

That's just an amalgamation of misinformation.
A) You can't just sell your game at 20% higher. Game price points are a very important and sensitive variable that you can't just alter like that if you want more money.
B) Nobody forces you to go Epic exclusive, there are lots of games on EGS that aren't exclusive to it and never were. It is moderated, though, similar to GOG. Something as high profile as a Total War game certainly would've been accepted on EGS without exclusivity. But that exclusivity is highly profitable for developers/publishers, after all, they still get to release on Steam. Just later - it's like a free second release hype.

Finally, guys, don't shoot the messenger.
From a developers perspective - and most devs don't care about Linux, that's the sad truth - the Epic deal is really damn good.

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Epic just has the better deals for developers.

My hope is that Valve will wake up from its slumber and starts giving developers better deals as well. A cut lower than the absurd 30% would be a very good start.

Concerning the game at hand, it does suck for Feral I imagine, but I was never interested in the "Saga" series to begin with. Too limited in scope.

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