Quoting: scaine

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: scaineThe same argument and frustration is often voiced around Play and Apple's store - they take their 30% cut but unless you magically put out the next minecraft, factorio or limbo, you're gonna languish with pitiful sales until you go out of business.

And the solution would be what? Everybody is always screaming for CoMPetItiOn... and when they have that and lose against other more popular titles, it sucks. Go figure.

The point is how they get popular. If the algorithm was fairer for new titles, then indies would have a better chance at leveraging Steam and becoming the next big thing. But since it doesn't, they never hit the front-page and the same tired (but popular) games are constantly regurgitated on the carousel and in the discovery queues.

There's also a huge amount of opacity around how that algorithm works. It used to be "okay" for indies, but a couple of years ago (maybe 2018?) it changed, and multiple indies saw their revenues destroyed. They weren't even being surfaced during sales. It put some studios out of business.

You can't force being popular. No algorithm in the world can change that. It used be be "okay" for indies, because there was less competition. Less games that would take away your attention.

Valve already tries what they can with Game Festivals and whatnot, where they highlight hundreds of games.

Do people complain about Bandcamp or iTunes or Amazon, because their unknown albums and movies aren't able to compete with Taylor Swift and Star Wars?

The algorithm did change that. It's nothing to do with competition. Sure, you can't force being popular, but even 1000 sales for an indie were important and they got those sales, year after year, sustainably. Then the algorithm changed (devs were informed by Valve that this was happening, but no details as to what it meant) and 1000+ sales turned into less than 100.

So, multiple indies reporting that their sales literally fell off a cliff, as a result of this one change.

These aren't popular games, but they're solid games that used to get exposure. Now they don't. So the 30% cut by Valve, for these devs, is particularly insulting, because Valve is adding precisely no value. Indeed, many of these indies saw (for the first time, ever, over years) greater sales via Itch, than on Steam.

Yeah, and they change the algorithm again and they constantly tune it and they have the Steam Labs (they just released the new store to hopefully improve visibility), but when you are one in 50000 games, how is Steam supposed to give everybody the same exposure?

And if they aren't happy on Steam, they can just leave and be successful elsewhere, like Itch. Free market.

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Quoting: HoriThe 30% cut is terrible but that doesn't make Epic the good guy. FAR from it.

What wouldn't be terrible?

I'd still like to see a number that's actually sustainable.

Video distribution for wrestling, boxing etc. is available on fite.tv - their cut is about 50%.

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Quoting: scaine

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: scaineThe same argument and frustration is often voiced around Play and Apple's store - they take their 30% cut but unless you magically put out the next minecraft, factorio or limbo, you're gonna languish with pitiful sales until you go out of business.

And the solution would be what? Everybody is always screaming for CoMPetItiOn... and when they have that and lose against other more popular titles, it sucks. Go figure.

The point is how they get popular. If the algorithm was fairer for new titles, then indies would have a better chance at leveraging Steam and becoming the next big thing. But since it doesn't, they never hit the front-page and the same tired (but popular) games are constantly regurgitated on the carousel and in the discovery queues.

There's also a huge amount of opacity around how that algorithm works. It used to be "okay" for indies, but a couple of years ago (maybe 2018?) it changed, and multiple indies saw their revenues destroyed. They weren't even being surfaced during sales. It put some studios out of business.

You can't force being popular. No algorithm in the world can change that. It used be be "okay" for indies, because there was less competition. Less games that would take away your attention.

Valve already tries what they can with Game Festivals and whatnot, where they highlight hundreds of games.

Do people complain about Bandcamp or iTunes or Amazon, because their unknown albums and movies aren't able to compete with Taylor Swift and Star Wars?

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Quoting: scaineThe same argument and frustration is often voiced around Play and Apple's store - they take their 30% cut but unless you magically put out the next minecraft, factorio or limbo, you're gonna languish with pitiful sales until you go out of business.

And the solution would be what? Everybody is always screaming for CoMPetItiOn... and when they have that and lose against other more popular titles, it sucks. Go figure.

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Quoting: SoltrummanLooks like ArtPlay managed the impossible and ported Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night to "Linux" after declaring it too much of a hassle during their Kickstarter. Maybe it's just that the middleware they used works on Stadia? Or the big pile of cash offered by Google...

It's obviously a lot of cash.

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Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: kuhpunktI think it's actually kinda funny that they aren't even planning to release it on the Epic store.

It's not like there's any reason to. It's a terrible storefront with no customers that isn't available for all of the platforms the game has been developed for. Plus I'd imagine that Feral are privately quite salty about Troy.

Yeah, Epic isn't paying for it this time, so why bother?

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I think it's actually kinda funny that they aren't even planning to release it on the Epic store.

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: RoosterSmall off-topic feedback: I do not like this Promoted Comment thing. I understand that Samsai is part of the staff, but I think rather than him having a Promoted Comment, his comment on the topic should be part of the article. Or maybe just have it worded differently, like "Comments from Staff members" This way it makes it seem like his take on the topic is somehow more than the rest of us.

On topic: Was Stallmans former exclusion from FSF really stated to be only because he refused to use "correct" pronoun for trans people or was this just the one highlighted from many other issues?

It was because a VICE article distorting his comments about one of his deceased friends accused by someone of being a rapist related to the Epstein affair. He dared to talk back to an accuser.

He then said that he NOW understands how damaging sex with kids can be. How do you not grasp this as an adult in this century? And he was victim blaming. And you want a person like this leading the FSF?

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Quoting: Liam DaweI would like to point out, that people need to stay respectful and not post comments about subjects surrounding this that are, well, gross. Comments will be removed if people continue to post such things. If you had a comment removed, you should know why.

The subject is gross, yes. But the comment I quoted is ok, when he's defending it? Stallmann shouldn't be in any position of power.

Also, people need to stay respectful, yet him calling others "idiots" is ok?

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Quoting: LanzIs VR still a major pain to get running on Linux?

That's a big question for the future. There are patents for a stand alone HMD from Valve. What would that run on? Steam doesn't have any ARM games yet... would that change with a new VR headset? Or will they use x86 hardware and run Linux?

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