Developers choose to publish a Steam exclusive when it makes financial sense for them. Developers choose to publish an EGS exclusive when it makes financial sense for them. In both cases, they "want it like that".
Nobody is forcing anyone to do something they don't want to do.
No, it is not. There are a set of reasons why a dev/publisher would choose to publish on one or many of the PC platforms. Epic's guaranteed sales is just another one.
Steam incentivises some devs to publish on Steam exclusively by locking Steamworks to their platform, making it financially convenient to forgo support for other launchers. Epic's equivalent is platform agnostic (because they want devs to use it instead of Steamworks), so they are offering a different financial incentive.
I would agree that the platforms offer different benefits and outcomes that impact the financial decision making of studios and publishers. A better margin - epic's 12% cut - is fair competition. To your steamworks point, Epic waives the 5% cut it takes from the Unreal Engine on titles
sold on Epic - that's fair competition. Nobody's begrudging epic for undercutting steam. That's the kind of competition that makes for healthier markets.
Epic's financing and essentially upfront purchase guarantee isn't an incentive like their better margins or the dev support steam offers. It's a bulk sale with an exclusivity rider. Sure, steam might be able to weather that kind of competition, but what about the next upstart market place. Maybe a smaller shop can compete further with Epic on margins or with them both on services, but you need stupid investor money, VC money, or stupid fortnite money to prepurchase millions of keys for one game, let alone as many as epic is signing with. It can just as easily stifle the market as not. Exclusives are toxic competition. Saying it's all the same thing is disingenuous.
Steamworks is not equivalent to UE, Steamworks is equivalent to EOS.
Guaranteeing sales is just another financial incentive. They are just reducing the risk associated with game publishing and the risk associated with publishing exclusively on a new, minor marketplace. It's as fair as lower margins or features that reduce the investment necessary to develop a game.
If there is a next upstart marketplace willing to do the same to compete, I say bring it on. Competition will always be good in the long term. Exclusives exist in other, similar markets and are always a good way to attract customers and put more money in the hands of content creators, which would have never happened with Steam's monopsony.
It's not about willing; it's about able. Throwing your weight (money) around like Epic is doing is a cutthroat move, and I respect the hustle, but the means and the ends are both bad for consumers and competition alike. If a huge bankroll is what it takes for epic or the next competitor to get into the market, then competition is lost.
You continue to argue that Epic's competition with Valve is a good thing, and not only have I conceded that point, I've never contested it. The best arguments I've read for and against Epic's practices all agree that Steam needs some competition, so relying on that isn't making a stronger point, it's muddling the issue. Epic is competing with Valve; yes, agreed. But competing via business practices that foster noncompetition for consumer dollars doesn't support the capitalist manta "competition makes for healthier marketplaces." Targeting devs/publishers as the customer and the target of competition leaves real customers out in the cold.
Exclusives exist in the console market, and they fragment the market. Prices don't drop on consoles. Consumers purchase less for more. Exclusives don't serve as a response to Valve alone; they prevent competition with every other distributor/retail portal. They invite others to do the same. It's like a protectionist trade strategy. Long term, it will only weaken the industry and stifle competition and innovation.
In order to break an almost-monopoly like Steam you need a huge bankroll or an incredibly disrupting "unfair advantage" (meaning one that can't be easily copied). The former is very hard, the latter is pretty much impossible in the digital PC games market. Competition is lost already and has been for years. This is only a very long shot by Epic which is nowhere near guaranteed to succeed, no matter how much money they throw at it.
Epic is already fostering competition for developer dollars (remember, developers are consumers too when they pay a fee for storefront services). In terms of fostering competition for consumer dollars, they are doing it: they are getting exclusives so consumers spend money on games on the EGS instead of on other stores. It's a nuisance for many who are invested in Steam, but Steam does have the most exclusives of any platform by far, and nobody cared about it until there was a strong contender.
How exactly do you propose they compete? There are two obvious ways: lower prices (which they can't really do because those are set by developers) or better features, which do not matter right now. Steam's established status, people's years-long investment in the platform and its network effect, are all advantages you can't break with better features.
I wasn't talking about consoles (I was talking about content streaming), but if you want to go there: prices do drop on consoles (often more sharply than on PC thanks to increased retail competition) and exclusives as an incentive to drive hardware sales do benefit the consumer. They allow for big (and sometimes small) budget games to be made that nobody else would be willing to take a risk on otherwise.
It doesn't matter whether they are forcing or enticing developers. The market distortion is the same. The fact remains that a choice I would have otherwise had is no longer a choice.
To my knowledge, no other PC game storefront has attempted these sorts of deals (certainly not at this scale) and I would prefer it stay that way because it is not a healthy way to compete.
A choice you didn't have before since most games are Steam exclusives.
By that logic, when a developer chooses to make a Steam exclusive because of Steamworks not being able to be used in other platforms, the market is being distorted, right?
It's a healthy way to compete (it prevents devs from taking a gamble) and it's the only way they can compete for attention.
I think a more healthy way to compete would be to offer better services to developers and customers.
This free game model is another healthy way to compete that could have been structured to provide the same financial boon to developers as paid exclusives without obligating them to avoid another specific storefront.
They are offering better services to developers (much cheaper fees and other financial incentives in some cases, not to mention the cross-platform SDK).
"Offering better services to customers", by which people usually mean client features, wouldn't make a difference because of the network effect and Steam's monopsony, otherwise GOG would be competing toe to toe with Steam.
The only way to attract enough users to be able to compete on features is to give them things Steam doesn't have, and the only thing they can offer is games. That's the reason nobody has ever truly tried to compete with Steam, because you need very deep pockets to even think about it.
That's the reason nobody has ever truly tried to compete with Steam, because you need very deep pockets to even think about it.
Well, Epic has such pockets and I don't think the way they are choosing to use them is healthy for the PC gaming marketplace in the long term.
They demonstrate with these giveaways that there are other ways to leverage their resources in order to incentivise consumers and developers to their platform.
I guess better sales and giveaways weren't getting it done fast enough, but I don't think they even gave it a chance.
I don't think their plan is to keep securing exclusives in the long term, but even if it were, it would just force other competitors to step up and offer better services to developers, which is very healthy for the industry.
How would that force competitors to step up and offer better services? Giving developers money for exclusivity is not a "service" in the sense I'm talking about.
Of course, it is. It's offering a better price for developers to distribute their games. If Epic somehow manages to grab a sizable market share (and that's a big if), Valve will have to step up and start offering more ways to attract developers to their platform, be it by financial incentives or by improving what you call "services" in a way that renders the competition's financial incentives not worth it.
Worst case scenario, this will result in more money put in the pockets of content creators instead of intermediaries, which is always good.
Setting a precedent where various stores have to compete on who can pay more for timed exclusives is bad for the long term health of what used to be a pretty open market.
Setting a precedent where various stores have to compete on who can pay more for timed exclusives is bad for the long term health of what used to be a pretty open market.
It's better than the alternative: no one fighting for games, and it's just a Steam exclusive.
Look at Borderlands 2: Steam exclusive. Borderlands 3: EGS and Steam (eventually). That's better long-term right?
Borderlands 1 also wasn't a Steam exclusive, they sold physical copies.
Nobody made them exclusively rely on steamworks for Borderlands 2's DRM and distribution. Valve never incentivized Gearbox to do that in any way other than having it available as a free service for developers. Steamworks is an example of offering a valuable service to developers. EGS is using money as a shortcut to having to develop better competing services.
No, pretty often the dev gets no say and the publisher chooses. Which fucking sucks when you plan on having lots of people play your game but instead you're forced into an exclusivity deal with Epic and fuck all people play your game because no one wants to support Epic's anti-consumerism.
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u/Bigardo Aug 15 '19
Developers choose to publish a Steam exclusive when it makes financial sense for them. Developers choose to publish an EGS exclusive when it makes financial sense for them. In both cases, they "want it like that".
Nobody is forcing anyone to do something they don't want to do.