They really all came crawlin' back to Steam, didn't they?

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polonyc2

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-After sequestering the Call of Duty games on Blizzard's Battle.net for a time, Activision came back to Steam this year with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0
-Microsoft started releasing games on Steam again in 2019, having failed to make the Microsoft Store essential. (Although it has found success with Game Pass and the Xbox App)
-Following a couple years of Epic Games Store exclusivity, Ubisoft finally released Assassin's Creed Valhalla on Steam this year
-Take-Two also toyed with Epic exclusivity, but only ever for short periods: Borderlands 3 was on Steam after six months, and Red Dead Redemption 2 was exclusive to the Rockstar Games Launcher and EGS for just a month

It feels premature to say that the era of the Steam rival is over, but I do think PC gaming has quietly (and sometimes loudly) endorsed a Steam monopoly...for all of the virtue that PC gamers and this publication proclaim about the platform's openness and freedom of choice, I think it's also understandable that so many of us value the predictability, convenience, and centralization that comes with Steam's dominance...

https://www.pcgamer.com/they-really-all-came-crawlin-back-to-steam-didnt-they/
 
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Wait till everyone winds up back at Netflix or, shudder, Disney+ There is a huge convenience factor to having a "Clearing House Media Hub" that people flock to. One UI, one app.

Origin learned the hard way........nobody wants 20 apps with 20 stores that launch, its just a pointless pain in the ass and saps resources......why all these publishers need their own front-end (aka: Bespoke Storefront) is beyond me. Microsoft's store is all but dead, but Rockstar, Ubisoft, and a few others just cling to life.
 
polonyc2 said:
-After sequestering the Call of Duty games on Blizzard's Battle.net for a time, Activision came back to Steam this year with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0
-Microsoft started releasing games on Steam again in 2019, having failed to make the Microsoft Store essential. (Although it has found success with Game Pass and the Xbox App)
-Following a couple years of Epic Games Store exclusivity, Ubisoft finally released Assassin's Creed Valhalla on Steam this year
-Take-Two also toyed with Epic exclusivity, but only ever for short periods: Borderlands 3 was on Steam after six months, and Red Dead Redemption 2 was exclusive to the Rockstar Games Launcher and EGS for just a month

It feels premature to say that the era of the Steam rival is over, but I do think PC gaming has quietly (and sometimes loudly) endorsed a Steam monopoly...for all of the virtue that PC gamers and this publication proclaim about the platform's openness and freedom of choice, I think it's also understandable that so many of us value the predictability, convenience, and centralization that comes with Steam's dominance...

https://www.pcgamer.com/they-really-all-came-crawlin-back-to-steam-didnt-they/
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If I already have $100s if not $1000s of dollars in games locked to the steam ecosystem. I'm not going to drop it. I might dabble with 1 or 2 others... assuming they aren't trying to get me to install more launchers. (I actually like that Epic is linked with GOG now).
Its very much like the streaming wars. I can deal with perhaps one or two other services beyond Netflix... but when it starts becoming 4 or 5, then to top it off those new ones start PULLING content/games from the one I was already using to try and get me to use them too.

Well they can mostly all piss up a rope. If Epic wasn't giving away games every week (or day right now)... and constantly running coupon sales, they would be forgotten.
 
I don't care which platform they are on, Steam, Epic or whatever. Just as long as it works then I don't care.
 
madpistol said:
Everyone saw the cut of profit that Steam was taking and thought they could create a better platform.

Also, everyone was wrong.
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I remember quite clearly having arguments about this for a long time on these boards.

People complaining on behalf of other clients saying "Steam's cut is not fair" they 'just' have a "hosting platform and that's all they provide". Which is a huge minimization. Turns out huge multi-million dollar corps now also agree.
 
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polonyc2 said:
-After sequestering the Call of Duty games on Blizzard's Battle.net for a time, Activision came back to Steam this year with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0
-Microsoft started releasing games on Steam again in 2019, having failed to make the Microsoft Store essential. (Although it has found success with Game Pass and the Xbox App)
-Following a couple years of Epic Games Store exclusivity, Ubisoft finally released Assassin's Creed Valhalla on Steam this year
-Take-Two also toyed with Epic exclusivity, but only ever for short periods: Borderlands 3 was on Steam after six months, and Red Dead Redemption 2 was exclusive to the Rockstar Games Launcher and EGS for just a month

It feels premature to say that the era of the Steam rival is over, but I do think PC gaming has quietly (and sometimes loudly) endorsed a Steam monopoly...for all of the virtue that PC gamers and this publication proclaim about the platform's openness and freedom of choice, I think it's also understandable that so many of us value the predictability, convenience, and centralization that comes with Steam's dominance...

https://www.pcgamer.com/they-really-all-came-crawlin-back-to-steam-didnt-they/
Click to expand...

They aren't "crawling back". It's a commonly used profitable strategy, and it's been used before EGS existed, and before Activision started selling on Battle.net.

The strategy is sell as many copies as you posibly can on your platform where you get 100% of the cut. (or in the case of EGS 88%) Then once you've captured all of those users and as much 100% profits you can you sell on Steam where you only 70% of the cut from every user.

They're maximizing their profits. They aren't going "oh no! no one bought the game!" and then giving up and selling on Steam. They're purposely doing it and repeatedly doing it.

That's why nearly every company has it's own launcher and will continue to do so.
 
sharknice said:
That's why nearly every company has it's own launcher and will continue to do so.
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Bethesda recently shut down their launcher...EA changed their launcher from Origin to some new EA branded one...more companies could follow Bethesda's lead
 
I can see nice value of a steam over the start menu, particularly when you game on a TV and on many different PC, on a format it is so easy to reinstall your game, keep your setting, your savesfiles.

Lot of the value disapear when you have many different and you have to fight a little with a third party or adding them, which make the best and more popular one really hard to compete with.

Having a rockstar launcher start when you launch your steam game is just a massive pain with no user value.
 
techie81 said:
Steam has the largest audience and is super easy to use. It's a no brainer. These companies thought they could reinvent the wheel and they were wrong.
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Yeah, they totally underestimated everything Steam did for them, and in retrospect 30% isn't such a bad deal after all.

Let's not forget that the reason everyone flocked to Steam back when it launched was because 30% was a phenomenally low fee compared to how much the retail chain, printing discs, assembling boxes and holding physical inventory cost.

I mean, brick and mortar retail markup is usually 100%, and constricts usually force the manufacturer to take back all returns and deal with them so the retailer doesn't have to, which has a cost associated with it as well.

Then there is the cost of pressing discs, printing boxes and manuals, assembling them, holding inventory, shipping them where they need to go, etc. etc.

Back in the B&M days they probably weren't keeping much more than 10-20% of the overall sales price.

Steams digital distribution for a 30% fee was likely an increase in income of between 3.5x and 7x (!) per sale for them.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Back in the B&M days they probably weren't keeping much more than 10-20% of the overall sales price.

Steams digital distribution for a 30% fee was likely an increase in income of between 3.5x and 7x (!) per sale for them.
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I doubt the giant type that open their own store would paid that 30% figure (that would be I imagine for the mid tier without special deals clients with average sales, pass a certain amount you probably start to get a rebate) and I doubt any B&M store had that type of margin on that type of product, on dvd from movie studio at least, what distributor got was really high once it went to cheaper to make and smaller to ship 100% digital medium like cds-dvds:

https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2005/04/4767-2/
This slide indicates that net profit margins on DVD sales are 50-60%, while the lingering VHS business sees 20-30% net profit. To put this into plain English, your average $20 DVD apparent costs around $9 to produce, advertise, distribute, etc., leaving about $11 on top as pure profit. For an industry supposedly under dire threat from piracy, things look pretty rosy.
 
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At the end of the day, 80% of all PC game sales go through Steam and everybody else is fighting for that last 20%. They tried to shift it with exclusives and price cuts and saving $3 on a $60 game, just isn't worth the headache of having to use multiple programs to install, launch, and update your games.
I mean I am down to 4, Steam, EA, Epic, and Beamdog, I mean technically 5 if I include Ubisoft but I haven't touched The Division since 2020.
 
Lakados said:
At the end of the day, 80% of all PC game sales go through Steam and everybody else is fighting for that last 20%. They tried to shift it with exclusives and price cuts and saving $3 on a $60 game, just isn't worth the headache of having to use multiple programs to install, launch, and update your games.
I mean I am down to 4, Steam, EA, Epic, and Beamdog, I mean technically 5 if I include Ubisoft but I haven't touched The Division since 2020.
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I'm a little bit extreme, but I've had a strict "no new accounts or apps" policy probably since about 2018:ish at this point.

In the beginning of the era of big data I was naive and took the likes of Google at their word, and signed up for some stuff.

I now know that almost every app and piece of consumer software (except in the FOSS community) is collecting data on you and selling it to data brokers.

I can't undo the damage I did by the shit I signed up for in ~2005, but I can stop from making it any worse.

Because of this I have no "smart" devices, no IoT, no voice assistants, and if anything requires me to create a new account (and I mean anything at all in life), I just pass on it. This includes game launchers.

I already had accounts in Steam and GoG when I made this decisions, so I kept them, but I haven't created an account in any other service.

I will even reject games if - after I buy them on Steam - they try to make me create an account in the dev's/publishers automatically downloaded launcher.

This is the reason I still pirate every Far Cry title. Ever since Far Cry 3 those animals force origin (or whatever the new version of their launcher is called on you). I'd happily pay for the game, but I am not going to agree to have their junk spyware running on my machine.

In addition to this, I - too - find it annoying to have to deal with multiple launchers and stores, and would prefer to have an all-in-one, but the spyware angle is the bigger problem as far as I am concerned.

That and I detest Epic's monopolistic paid exclusive approach. It will be a cold day in hell before I ever download their stupid launcher.
 
Lakados said:
At the end of the day, 80% of all PC game sales go through Steam and everybody else is fighting for that last 20%. They tried to shift it with exclusives and price cuts and saving $3 on a $60 game, just isn't worth the headache of having to use multiple programs to install, launch, and update your games.
I mean I am down to 4, Steam, EA, Epic, and Beamdog, I mean technically 5 if I include Ubisoft but I haven't touched The Division since 2020.
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I'm still using 6 (in order of usage):
  1. Steam
  2. GOG Galaxy (not required, but I like its interface and integration)
  3. Microsoft Store/Xbox App
  4. EA Origin
  5. Ubisoft Connect
  6. Battle.net
I have Rockstar's launcher, but the only game I have on it is RDR2.
 
Armenius said:
I'm still using 6 (in order of usage):
  1. Steam
  2. GOG Galaxy (not required, but I like its interface and integration)
  3. Microsoft Store/Xbox App
  4. EA Origin
  5. Ubisoft Connect
  6. Battle.net
I have Rockstar's launcher, but the only game I have on it is RDR2.
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Well shit, I guess gotta add Battlenet to that list when D4 gets around to launching because I know despite my best efforts to avoid it, I will ultimately fail.
 
I'll never understand people that already have 5+ launchers installed and yet when it comes to adding 1 more- such as the Epic launcher- that's where they draw the line and say nope no more...like it's some sort of moral high ground that having 6 launchers instead of 5 means anything...
 
polonyc2 said:
I'll never understand people that already have 5+ launchers installed and yet when it comes to adding 1 more- such as the Epic launcher- that's where they draw the line and say nope no more...like it's some sort of moral high ground that having 6 launchers instead of 5 means anything...
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Some people just don't like Epic as a company.
 
polonyc2 said:
I'll never understand people that already have 5+ launchers installed and yet when it comes to adding 1 more- such as the Epic launcher- that's where they draw the line and say nope no more...like it's some sort of moral high ground that having 6 launchers instead of 5 means anything...
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You remember back in the day when Grandma would wind up with 17 toolbars in IE?
 
NightReaver said:
Some people just don't like Epic as a company.
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and yet those same people have no issues playing their games such as Gears of War or playing games based off of the Unreal Engine, but when it comes to installing their launcher that's where they draw the line in the sand...it's nonsense
 
polonyc2 said:
and yet those same people have no issues playing their games such as Gears of War or playing games based off of the Unreal Engine, but when it comes to installing their launcher that's where they draw the line in the sand...it's nonsense
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No idea. I do know their "store" is pretty shit compared to steam. Hence why I don't use it.
 
NightReaver said:
No idea. I do know their "store" is pretty shit compared to steam. Hence why I don't use it.
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1671230145694.png


Your loss.

New free games every week, Usually 2 per week, right now 1 every day because of Christmas.

I probably bought 5 games total. Spent thousands of hours playing games I didn't pay for, basically unlimited backlog.
The few games I did buy the process went flawlessly and I got them for cheap because of the special coupon promotions.
 
polonyc2 said:
and yet those same people have no issues playing their games such as Gears of War or playing games based off of the Unreal Engine, but when it comes to installing their launcher that's where they draw the line in the sand...it's nonsense
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Because that's not an apples to apples comparison. Signing up for Epic requires that you keep up with a new account and all the baggage that comes with it. That isn't necessarily the case for merely playing a game that runs on the Unreal Engine that you were given for your birthday, ect.
 
Very likely Valve is offering better deals to the biggest publishers. I can see them giving Bethesda and Ubisoft a lower fee ratio than Joe Blow's 2D indie game. Fact is, Ubisoft, EA games, etc. sell. EA also probably wanted brownie points after having multiple flops (BF5, Anthem, Battlefront 2). It would be beneficial to all parties.
 
I always said I wanted a Steam competitor until Epic started buying up games and I was all

giphy (1).gif


So now I've gone 180 and just gave into the Steam monopoly

I also have a ~20 year purchase history on Steam good luck with getting me onto your store/launcher/whatever, that's the truth of it
 
staknhalo said:
I always said I wanted a Steam competitor until Epic started buying up games and I was all

View attachment 534817

So now I've gone 180 and just gave into the Steam monopoly

I also have a ~20 year purchase history on Steam good luck with getting me onto your store/launcher/whatever, that's the truth of it
Click to expand...
Yup. Get tired of a company doing good on steam, then the sequel comes out and they go full sellout mode with Epic.
 
staknhalo said:
I always said I wanted a Steam competitor until Epic started buying up games and I was all

View attachment 534817

So now I've gone 180 and just gave into the Steam monopoly

I also have a ~20 year purchase history on Steam good luck with getting me onto your store/launcher/whatever, that's the truth of it
Click to expand...
I’m still mad (sort of) for how Valve hooked me back in the day but for better or worse I’m here now.

For those too young to remember Valve worked out a thing with EB where they would sell the boxes games but inside was a code to unlock it on steam and the CD just contained the Steam installer. For a college student in the early 2000’s still on dial up that was a painful thing. Haul my system to the library to download it there then haul it back…
 
NightReaver said:
Some people just don't like Epic as a company.
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While I hate times exclusives I also hate waiting. I broke down and installed Epic 2 weeks after the launch of MW5 because wife and kid were gone for a week and there was an incident at work so the office was closed for a week while they fumigated. 5 days of uninterrupted gaming…. So beautiful. Thank you gas leak.
 
sharknice said:
View attachment 534782

Your loss.

New free games every week, Usually 2 per week, right now 1 every day because of Christmas.

I probably bought 5 games total. Spent thousands of hours playing games I didn't pay for, basically unlimited backlog.
The few games I did buy the process went flawlessly and I got them for cheap because of the special coupon promotions.
Click to expand...

Now their $10 holiday coupons have been reduced to 25% offs (I know its better on big titles... but no more loading up on $20-30)
I have a feeling Epics give aways this year will be 3/4 repeat titles with perhaps 1 or 2 ok titles at the end. The last year the weekly giveaway has been mostly iffy independent titles.

I don't know Epic doesn't seem to have the same we are going to win zeal.

On the up side the added linking to GOG. Its nice I can install and play all my Epic give away titles via GOG galaxy.
 
sharknice said:
They aren't "crawling back". It's a commonly used profitable strategy, and it's been used before EGS existed, and before Activision started selling on Battle.net.

The strategy is sell as many copies as you posibly can on your platform where you get 100% of the cut. (or in the case of EGS 88%) Then once you've captured all of those users and as much 100% profits you can you sell on Steam where you only 70% of the cut from every user.

They're maximizing their profits. They aren't going "oh no! no one bought the game!" and then giving up and selling on Steam. They're purposely doing it and repeatedly doing it.

That's why nearly every company has it's own launcher and will continue to do so.
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The new COD MWII was a day one release on Steam AFAIK. Other major publishers like EA and MS are going same direction of backtracking from storefront exclusivity, timed or otherwise, in favor of Steam. That seems to qualify as "crawling back" to me.

Zarathustra[H] said:
Yeah, they totally underestimated everything Steam did for them, and in retrospect 30% isn't such a bad deal after all.

Let's not forget that the reason everyone flocked to Steam back when it launched was because 30% was a phenomenally low fee compared to how much the retail chain, printing discs, assembling boxes and holding physical inventory cost.

I mean, brick and mortar retail markup is usually 100%, and constricts usually force the manufacturer to take back all returns and deal with them so the retailer doesn't have to, which has a cost associated with it as well.

Then there is the cost of pressing discs, printing boxes and manuals, assembling them, holding inventory, shipping them where they need to go, etc. etc.

Back in the B&M days they probably weren't keeping much more than 10-20% of the overall sales price.

Steams digital distribution for a 30% fee was likely an increase in income of between 3.5x and 7x (!) per sale for them.
Click to expand...

30% cut but with access to a market that all but guarantees higher sales volume really isn't a bad deal at all, provided that the games being sold are worth playing of course.
 
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polonyc2 said:
I'll never understand people that already have 5+ launchers installed and yet when it comes to adding 1 more- such as the Epic launcher- that's where they draw the line and say nope no more...like it's some sort of moral high ground that having 6 launchers instead of 5 means anything...
Click to expand...
As a Linux user, installing that launcher is a bit of a problem, as in it doesn't exist for Linux. It does for useless Mac OSX. Steam does support Linux, and even if the games don't, at least Valve makes good effort to try and do so with Proton. Epic took Rocket League away from Steam, and therefore away from Linux as Rocket League did have a working Linux port. The Steam Deck and Valve in general supports Linux, so I would hope that Epic does as well. So yea, it's kinda a moral high ground but it's also practical. The Steam Deck is awesome, and also runs Arch Linux. So in order for me to use Epic Launcher on the Deck, they need to support Linux.
 
DukenukemX said:
As a Linux user, installing that launcher is a bit of a problem, as in it doesn't exist for Linux. It does for useless Mac OSX. Steam does support Linux, and even if the games don't, at least Valve makes good effort to try and do so with Proton. Epic took Rocket League away from Steam, and therefore away from Linux as Rocket League did have a working Linux port. The Steam Deck and Valve in general supports Linux, so I would hope that Epic does as well. So yea, it's kinda a moral high ground but it's also practical. The Steam Deck is awesome, and also runs Arch Linux. So in order for me to use Epic Launcher on the Deck, they need to support Linux.
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You can use heroic launcher for epic on Linux. Not that you should be using desktop Linux in the first place...
 
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