Epic Games integrates into GoG, and Tim Sweeney advocates for universal game ownership across all platforms

Flogger23m said:
Valve has demonstrated in the past they won't support this. If you're buying elsewhere and redeeming on their store, you're using their bandwidth so its an net loss for them. They did this with Eagle Dynamics and DCS. For a long time they allowed you to redeem your keys on Steam that you originally bought on the developers E-shop, but then they told ED that this had to stop some years back. They weren't going to pay for something that earned them zero profits.

I can't say I blame them.
Click to expand...
I think it's more that Valve has demonstrated it's case-by-case, a question of degrees. Not that they won't support it. I don't know the specifics of the Eagle Dynamics/DCS situation, but GOG is still selling Witcher 3 there and giving a free Steam key. Could be that DCS and its thousands of dollars worth of DLC just got out of hand, and became an abuse of the spirit and intent of Steam's free keys for partners. Whereas something like an Indie developer selling their game on their own website and then providing free Steam keys - and keeping 100% of the profit - is something Valve even encourages.

Steam keys are meant to be a convenient tool for game developers to sell their game on other stores and at retail. Steam keys are free and can be activated by customers on Steam to grant a license to a product.
Click to expand...
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
 
Last edited:
odditory said:
It's more like Valve has demonstrated that it's case-by-case, and a question of degrees. Not that they won't support it. A big AAA publisher/developer selling a game and endless DLC's on their own e-shop, but then trying to exploit Steam's free key generation as a way to circumvent paying their own CDN/bandwidth costs is one thing. Whereas something like an Indie developer selling their game on their own website and then providing free Steam keys to their customers is yet another thing, and more in line with the spirit and intent of the system, and Valve seems to encourage that.


https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
Click to expand...

That is a different scenario and implies the games are Steamworks (meaning games are redeemed on Steam no matter where you buy). The scenario we're referring to are games purchased elsewhere and then Valve taking those keys and merging them to Steam accounts, which is different. Valve will do this for short periods with the intention of moving all future sales to Steam exclusively. Obviously, if you continue to sell alongside Steam Valve will put a stop to the key amnesties.

The other issue is the sale/pricing section your link mentions. You can't price your game cheaper elsewhere if you sell on Steam. I know that page is referring to Steamworks, but they come down harder when you're not using Steamworks exclusively. So you can't sell on your own store for $50 and sell on Steam for $60 to cover the Steam fees. Again that is understandable, Value is in business to make money.

Yes they'll give longer amnesty periods for big developers and probably be more lenient. As an example, EA. Seems like they'll merge all previous Origin keys from 2011 or whatever to early 2020 to get a big EA player base on Steam because EA is now going to sell on both platforms, and EA will bring in a lot of sales. I'm sure they'll give EA more breathing room on Origin sale pricing than an indie dev because EA will give far more business to Valve.
 
In theory I love this, in practice I have 0 ideas on how to make this work. It just seems too good to actually work, the paranoid part of me just sees it as a way for alternate stores to get copies of purchase data and history and other marketable data to sell. Part of me just wants to go back to some form of physical copies. Let me sign up on the developers website let them handle the DRM, and give me a copy on a USB key.... I never wanted Steam back in the day, it was that crappy surprise when I purchased a game from a store and found a disk inside that contained the manuals, a sheet of paper with a redemption key and a copy of the steam installer.
Bah Im just being old and cranky, GET OFF MY LAWN!!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top