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So... BL3 would have been a good self present... [Rant]
6 years ago
General
Except that... well... Epic Store is a thing...
I wrote a journal a while back on my initial thoughts on the store. Looking back, some of my points still stand, but others seem misinformed.
Competition
My initial point still stands. Steam has very little in the way of competition. The only competitors I know of at the moment are GoG and Humble Bundle. You could argue that the presence of another store selling games is competition... but there's a flaw in that argument.
Competition requires overlap.
If it was competition, games would release on both storefronts around the same time, but at different rates. Say... $60 on one store, and $50 on the other. But that's not what Epic is doing. What they're doing is more akin to extortion. Best guess: paying for an equivalent of x sales up front in exchange for 1 year of exclusivity.
The Outer worlds: Announced for Steam, but is now set to be a 1 year exclusive.
Metro Last Light:... had pre-oreders on Steam, but was pulled just before launching. Retail copies have stickers put on physical copies.
Phoenix point. Kickstarted, and had the promise of steam keys. The devs have admitted all the kickstarters could request a refund, and they'd still be in the black.
But Steam takes 30%. Epic only takes 18%. That's more money for the devs!
I see 3 issues with this argument:
1: Google Play, Spotify, and the Apple Store also take 30%. From what I understand, that's a common profit margin.
2: The cut only applies to things purchased through Steam itself. Steam doesn't get a cut if you purchased a key from outside of it (GoG, Humble, Etc. I thought it was odd that it distinguished retail keys from digital keys...).
3: This is speculation, so take this with a grain of salt. If money goes from store to publisher, then publisher to developer, what's the publishers cut? What's to stop the publisher from taking more, leaving the actual devs with the same remainder than if the store took more and publishers took less? Look at the music industry. Most of the cut after sales goes to the labels, not the artists. Besides... Sweeny himself said the store is trying to cater to publishers... not developers... or consumers for that matter...
I don't see the big deal in installing another program
1: There are users who don't like superfluous programs on their systems. I understand that Steam does fall into this category. However...
2: It's not just a program, it's a service. A service that requires an account with access to financial data. A service whose parent company has had security issues. Steam wasn't perfect in the beginning, and has had its share of breaches. However... 14 years does have its advantages.
Piracy / Boycott...
I don't think sailing the 7 seas or boycotting the games completely will work. In my opinion, both of those will lead to the same outcome; sales will only come in on the non-favored store, which will discourage releases on other storefronts.
The adage 'vote with your wallet', I think, is the best option. If you're going to get the game, get it from your preferred store front. I think if sales are greater from non-favored fronts... it may send a message. Again... market share.
But Metro sold 2.5x as much on Epic as Steam...
1: Comparing 2014 data from product A to 2019 data from product B doesn't provide grounds for an accurate comparison.
2: Stating a multiplier does no good without raw data. I could argue I made 2.5x more sales if I sold 5 things on store B, as compared to 2 on store A.
---
It's not the idea of another store that's the issue, nor is it a loyalty issue. It's the way the store is going about trying to establish itself... by any means necessary. I get that underhanded tactics work, but what's the long term cost of them?
I wrote a journal a while back on my initial thoughts on the store. Looking back, some of my points still stand, but others seem misinformed.
Competition
My initial point still stands. Steam has very little in the way of competition. The only competitors I know of at the moment are GoG and Humble Bundle. You could argue that the presence of another store selling games is competition... but there's a flaw in that argument.
Competition requires overlap.
If it was competition, games would release on both storefronts around the same time, but at different rates. Say... $60 on one store, and $50 on the other. But that's not what Epic is doing. What they're doing is more akin to extortion. Best guess: paying for an equivalent of x sales up front in exchange for 1 year of exclusivity.
The Outer worlds: Announced for Steam, but is now set to be a 1 year exclusive.
Metro Last Light:... had pre-oreders on Steam, but was pulled just before launching. Retail copies have stickers put on physical copies.
Phoenix point. Kickstarted, and had the promise of steam keys. The devs have admitted all the kickstarters could request a refund, and they'd still be in the black.
But Steam takes 30%. Epic only takes 18%. That's more money for the devs!
I see 3 issues with this argument:
1: Google Play, Spotify, and the Apple Store also take 30%. From what I understand, that's a common profit margin.
2: The cut only applies to things purchased through Steam itself. Steam doesn't get a cut if you purchased a key from outside of it (GoG, Humble, Etc. I thought it was odd that it distinguished retail keys from digital keys...).
3: This is speculation, so take this with a grain of salt. If money goes from store to publisher, then publisher to developer, what's the publishers cut? What's to stop the publisher from taking more, leaving the actual devs with the same remainder than if the store took more and publishers took less? Look at the music industry. Most of the cut after sales goes to the labels, not the artists. Besides... Sweeny himself said the store is trying to cater to publishers... not developers... or consumers for that matter...
I don't see the big deal in installing another program
1: There are users who don't like superfluous programs on their systems. I understand that Steam does fall into this category. However...
2: It's not just a program, it's a service. A service that requires an account with access to financial data. A service whose parent company has had security issues. Steam wasn't perfect in the beginning, and has had its share of breaches. However... 14 years does have its advantages.
Piracy / Boycott...
I don't think sailing the 7 seas or boycotting the games completely will work. In my opinion, both of those will lead to the same outcome; sales will only come in on the non-favored store, which will discourage releases on other storefronts.
The adage 'vote with your wallet', I think, is the best option. If you're going to get the game, get it from your preferred store front. I think if sales are greater from non-favored fronts... it may send a message. Again... market share.
But Metro sold 2.5x as much on Epic as Steam...
1: Comparing 2014 data from product A to 2019 data from product B doesn't provide grounds for an accurate comparison.
2: Stating a multiplier does no good without raw data. I could argue I made 2.5x more sales if I sold 5 things on store B, as compared to 2 on store A.
---
It's not the idea of another store that's the issue, nor is it a loyalty issue. It's the way the store is going about trying to establish itself... by any means necessary. I get that underhanded tactics work, but what's the long term cost of them?
... so many launchers... x.x