Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney supports the $900 million lawsuit against Valve, arguing Steam is "the only major store still holding onto payment ties and 30% junk fee" [refer to in-app purchases]
9 months ago by alessandro to c/pcgaming
In other news, Pepsi agrees with the claims against coca cola
Right this minute, if Fortnite players were all on Steam it'd be the #2 most popular game there, with a 24hr peak easily hitting #1. I'm not a fan of Tim either, but the game is still massively popular.
But it isn't the same scenario. Apple is a closed system, im steams case there are many alternatives. You don't have to put your game on steam. Alan Wake 1 is on steam and Alan Wake 2 isn't for example. You can also buy keys separately and then activate on steam, you are not forced to use steam like apple.
It's still the steam ecosystem when you sell steam keys. Why should a game be able to use steam to distribute their game that they sell for a free or reduced price then sell micro transactions without paying steam? If you don't want to pay steam a cut don't use their store or distribution.
As far as I know you can sell keys outside of steam, it is allowed and steam doesn't take the 30% if sold outside of steam.
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
It's OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time.
It isn't fair that their store is vastly superior to mine and don't pay developers to use it exclusively like we do! - little timmy wah wah boo hoo
Name 2 anti-competitive actions steam has done.
Simply having a better product than your competiton does not make you anti-competitive.
Using your dominance in one market to gain advantage in another market is anti-competitive. I don't think it's cut-and-dry but I think there's a good argument that they're using their dominance in games distribution to gain an advantage in microtransaction handling.
I think Google (and Apple) using their app-delivery dominance to force app-makers to pay them a fee for in-app purchases is definitely bullshit. Consumers' options are more limited there, but that just means the market dominance is greater: the same argument applies in the case of Steam and the question is just how dominant something has to be for this to be a problem.
I'd argue selling games and selling content in those games is the same market though.
And the problem with Google/Apple wasn't "dominance", but more "absolute control", Apple blocked third party stores completely on their hardware, and Google had secret deals with phone manufacturers where they had to include all the Google apps and couldn't include alternate app stores, and made using third party stores difficult. As long as Valve aren't blocking third party stores on their OS and not being pre-shipped on the OS of most of Steam's customers, there's probably not much of a case.
If the majority of developers gave a shit about the difference between Valve's 30% and EGS's 10 or 15% cut, you'd think they'd actually be going over there. But they're not. If anything, they put their game out everywhere. So clearly the 30% cut thing isn't a problem. The only devs they are coaxing over to EGS over Steam are the ones they strike up exclusivity deals with, which is anti-competitive bullshit.
Sounds like a long winded way to say you don’t understand network effects or monopolies
I’m sorry you can’t understand the difference between a principled anti-monopolist like Lina Khan and a Tim Epic simp
sounds like YOU don’t know what a monopoly is
How does it feel not grasping what it means to be an antimonopolist? I imagine it’s kind of expensive.
Well Timmy that should make it pretty easy to make a platform that both users and content producers like more. If you actually try to compete you might accomplish something.
This is about micro-transactions specifically. Tim Fortnite is arguing that games sold on Steam should be able to offer in-game purchases with payment options outside of Steam.
It’s very similar to Epic Games v. Apple, where Apple had required in-app purchases for iOS apps, notably Fortnite, to be handled through their app-store so they get a cut.
One big difference that I see here: On PC, a developer isn’t required to use Steam to distribute software. Players often prefer Steam because Valve has made Steam a great option and has lots of good-will with players. Still, Steam does dominate a massive portion of the PC market.
And a 30% cut is high. Especially for smaller games with less financial resources. As a developer, that’s a trade-off you’d have to choose. I think it’d be best to offer the game on multiple platforms.
For Steam-bought games, I think having an option to pay off-platform would be fair, but I think the option needs to remain available through Steam too. For many games, I don’t want to give my payment details to yet another developer, company or third-party.
Still, Steam does dominate a massive portion of the PC market.
Steam revenue in 2023: USD 8.5 bn.
Overall PC gaming revenue that year: 45 bn.
Steam is big but the biggest cash cows are Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft. Neither is on Steam.
Also, Microsoft uses their Windows monopoly to ship the Xbox Games store to almost every PC user.
If Steam had a dominating market position, the EU would have classified it as a gate keeper under the Digital Markets Act.
Do people actually consider that a competitor?
I think we'd be foolish to not. From what I can find Blizzard gets over 25 million monthly users really consistently and that's not including the rest of the store. Toss in Minecraft and Microsoft Store and I honestly would be shocked if Microsoft doesn't hold more monthly users than Epic Game Store.
If Steam was as monopolistic as it is claimed by Sweeny, having exclusivity away from Steam would be a death sentence for a game.
Tim Fortnite is arguing that games sold on Steam should be able to offer in-game purchases with payment options outside of Steam.
But they already can and already do. For example If I wanted to buy ARX for Elite Dangerous, you have to go through Frontier’s website to purchase it. Same for Daybreak cash for Planetside 2. And isn't Maplestoy also on Steam? You most certainly have to kiss the Nexxon ring before purchasing NX.
But they already can and already do. For example If I wanted to buy ARX for Elite Dangerous, you have to go through Frontier’s website to purchase it.
You can buy ARX on Steam now, but you don't have to.
For the life of me I could not find this while I was playing. It always redirects me to a browser with the Frontier store when I try to buy ARX in game. Thanks for this lol I like using my steam wallet funds for this sort of thing over actual cards.
War thunder I can pay either through steam (I prefer that personally) or you can just buy the stuff from their site and ignore the steam part entirely.
By what definition is the 30% cut high? It's the same percentage for Apple, Google, and Steam. Brick and mortar is generally around 50%. Amazon is a large range, but 30% is roughly average or even low. eBay charges less, but doesn't do anything other than facilitate the transaction. Epic charges less to small developers, but that's also mostly marketing.
It's not about the "cut" you're thinking; it refer to in-app purchases.
Once you bought a game, Valve keep demand a 30% cuts on anything you sell once the customer launch your executable (.exe, binary file/game engine).
hypothetical scenario to help visualize (it won't go like that most of the time, but useful to understand the concept):
- customer Install and Launch Steam
- customer buy (Valve earn 30% cutshare) and install game on Steam
- customer uninstall Steam, keep installed game
- customer launch game (if is made in a way don't need Steam dependencies).
- Anything sold while game engine is running must give 30%,of further earning, to Valve.
If a developer doesn't like those terms, can't they just remove their game from Steam or never release it there to begin with?
If a user doesn't like those terms, they don't have to buy the game.
Developers and users are voting with their wallets every day and the votes say Steam is worth the cost.
And a 30% cut is high.
Is it? It's my understanding that it's comparable to what brick and mortar stores would charge to have a game on their shelves.
Also, anyone who thinks EGS will keep developer fees low if they had a higher marketshare is incredibly naive.
I've now lost multiple entire weekends to trying to figure out how to just download assets from FAB, on linux.
Finally, they just made a direct option on the website to just download files, you know, like a normal download.
Prior to that, you basically had to install or compile and install UE5, to be able to download some asset.
... This doesn't work well, because as you say, UE 5 is horrifically borked and improperly documented on linux, they can't even figure out how to list all the dependencies you actually need, and thats on the linux versions they claim to support.
one day he will take me with him onto a yacht voyage
Tim, something, something about preventing games from being released on other storefronts...
Yes.
TIL that Tim Fortnite does not consider Sony or Nintendo to be 'major stores'.
TIL that the video game industry has never had nor currently has titles that are priced exclusively on certain platforms.
(Where 'its only available for purchase on one platform' is an effective price of infinity on other platforms)
Just... from the article:
"Steam’s rules do explicitly prohibit games from steering players to competing purchase methods, forcing everyone to pay 30% to Valve," he [Sweeney] recently tweeted. "Apple and Google did the same until the court explicitly found this practice to be unlawful. Now they don't!"
It's not clear exactly what rule Sweeney's referring to here, but Steam's own guidelines state that "it's OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time." Though Valve would also prefer that developers "don't give Steam customers a worse deal than Steam key purchasers."
It's almost like this guy is malding, crashing out even, and has just... departed from the realm of even trying to make sense.
What is happening here is that Tim is losing his mind because Unreal Engine 5 only runs on GPUs (mostly from Nvidia) that cost as much as an entire PC did 2 or 3 years ago, and so many AAA studios that used UE 5 to make a pretty but hollow and buggy game are now collapsing or seeing a dramatic consumer pullback.
See how this is all connected, and these idiots did this to themselves?
Nvidia decides that Real Time Ray Tracing is the new paradigm for gaming graphics, and Unreal is the primary way people will experience this, by having all the lighting be done 'auto-magically' by UE 5, from the perspective of game devs.
Fastforward 5 or so years, half of everything computer hardware is too expensive now, hugely funded AAA games are routinely failing and causing financial disasters for publishers, Unreal Engine 5 is a hugely stigmatized joke because its not any kind of optimized for hardware people actually have, and outside of AAA games, is notorious for low quality UE asset store flips and actual scam games...
...this paradigm doesn't work.
Compare that to Valve pretty close to singlehandedly developing its own VR hardware, and showcase AAA tier game for it... and well hey shucks, yeah, its too expensive for wide adoption, but that didn't ruin their entire business's financials.
They just actually properly accounted for the costs of trying that paradigm shift, and are today still iterating on and improving it, ala the upcoming SteamFrame and new software layer for translating ARM to x86 calls.
That's not true!
Developers are also forced to use it to manage their Unreal Engine installs for some godforsaken reason.
Timmy, if even charging a lower fee, devs prefer steam over your shithole, I'm gonna go ahead and say that maybe there is a reason: your store sucks. Big time.
Right, because managing, securing, updating, and operating steam is all black magic that costs valve nothing.
Listen, they need that revenue for their R&D for the steam deck 2 and steam machines and shit. Fuck off ya hoser, eh?
How about you fuck off defending the mafioso vig that Apple, Google, and Valve have extorted from game developers for years, you monopoly bootlicker?
FYI: Games like Ready or not have started the early access outside of Steam.
So if you advertise your game properly, you can make it as well. Just need to work on your discoverability.
But Steam makes it way easier.
So either go with Steam, Epic, GOG, Itch.io or any other store.
No need to fixate on only steam
Aw, those poor hardworking app stores with their razor-thin ::checks notes:: 78% profit margins
I don't know much about in-game purchases, but as long as i can remember, it was possible to register cd keys from other stores or even the keys from hard copys of games. To me this looks like a totally different thing than what was going on with ios and android. Also a little wild for epic to complain about locking out competition when i am still waiting to purchase Allan wake 2 on any other store than epic....
I really hope Remedy can buy the publishing rights for Alan Wake 2 one day and release it on Steam / GOG. Such a great game.
Says who, the guy who is all-in on AI and is probably a TESCREAL-believing dipshit?
Steam is different from the Google or Apple stores, because they aren't the gatekeeper of a platform.
But yeah maybe 30% is a bit high for games that don't use any of the steam features, just the payment processing, review section and download servers.
Devs are also paying for the Steam recommendation algorithm. It’s not just a store that puts games on a shelf and just forgets about it. The store actively promotes games to the right audience. The algorithm is how small indie games from a team without an advertising budget can blow up into millions of dollars in revenue. No other digital games store has a recommendation algorithm that is as good (for the buyer and the seller) as Steam.
Yeah people consistently forget this, and will say things like 'Valve isn't even doing any marketing for me!'
No, they are.
Its just that its on their platform.
Via their categorization and recommendation snd review systems.
As opposed to... other pay to win ad platforms that shove ads in peoples faces depending on how much money you throw at them.
Also, while this is more of a minor point, Valve's cut drops to 25% for games sales past $10 million, 20% for game sales past $50 million.
Been that way for 7 or 8 years.
There are other platforms devs can release games. GOG, microsoft, epic store, or you can release physical CD copies to sell at retailers. Steam isn't gate keeping anything.
The price cut is the only thing Tim cares about.
that seems like an issue that the makers of games can decide. they are not under any gun to choose steam. if the devs don’t see value in steam then they can go elsewhere. for me as a buyer it’s steam, or it’s the developers own website. i will not buy from another store front
I miss old Epic games from 20 years ago. This greedy prick is an aggressive blight on PC gaming. Maybe he'll die soon.
Hilarious. Didn’t Epic just introduce microtransactions for user-created content in Fortnite with intention of taking 63% fee on that? All the while, trying to turn the said Fortnite in Roblox-like major store for games?
Funny thing is I don't support Valve or Tim Sweeney. While by American standards, Valve are angels, that is a very low standard. Sweeney is your stereotypical American corporate degenerate:
But honestly Valve is no better. Europe (and other countries/regions) should either force Valve to have to de facto white label their store for Europe (where they are a junior partner and hold minimal control) or kick them out. And I am not saying there can't be collaboration on common goals; e.g. investing into Linux support and open platforms, but you can't have Americans in charge of major platforms. That ship has sailed.
There are many massive issues with Valve:
- They made a huge contribution to the rise of lootbox gambling schemes
- They initially attempted a fraudulent scheme on local consumer laws on refunds
- For most of Steam's life their TOS had mandatory arbitration requirements which is a local corruption scheme that is not too different from Soviet kangaroo courts. In their defence they did add that "as far as your country’s laws permit".
I will admit that the overall logic of the case doesn't make sense.
Apologies, in retrospective that was wrong to say.
I should have said "entities based in the US jurisdiction (or that are influenced by American-style corruption)".
You are correct that the nationality plays no role in this.
That being said, it is fact that all major US B2C tech platforms support corruption, engage in crime, engage in spyware activities and leverage shallow pompous PR copytext about alleged belief in free speech and "government official this or that".
That ship has really sailed.
Just realize Americans are not a homogeneous group, of course Google/Meta/MS/Oracle are all shitbag companies with leaders who support Trump, as far as I'm aware Gabe does not and has not contributed to rightwing government.
I understand the frustration and mistrust, I live here. But it's important to realize that is a small minority of people no matter how much of an outsize influence their power and corruption has over all of us.
Israel is bad, but not all Israelis or Jews are, not supporting Israeli companies that are govt backed/ran by "ex"IDF makes sense, but companies that don't shouldn't be lumped in just because of that.
I apologize for the broad generalisation (in my defence, the use of demonyms in such a context doesn't always suggets complete generalisation). That was uncalled for.
I've lived for several years and travelled a lot around the US (both while living there and during subsequent visits). The impression I got is that corruption is not purely a far right thing and a far larger proportion of say the centre-right voting public enable it than would think. They might not be as openly committed to crime and corruption as say the far right, but much for the centre-right voting is simply too well off to risk rocking the boat and pursuing true anti-crime measures.
Let me give you an example of the latter. Meta has been found to knowling enable and support fraud to the tune of $16 B (10% plus of revenues) in 2024 alone. They even had a playbook to enable this scheme, so there likely entent to engage in crime.
This is a more pedestrian example, there also the enablement of Rohingya genocide (I don't support capital punishment, but I would be willing to consider exceptions for egregious crimes against humanity, but let's go with a more clear cut case.
Am I being unreasonable in stating that the vast majority of the centre-right voting public may vaguely believe Meta's action to be criminal, but they fundamentally oppose any actions that might address such criminal activities. Things like immediate internment of all Meta executives and senior operational staff involved in this scheme, raids on their properties to uncover evidence, asset seizures for any entities involved in crime (so Zuckerburg would lose ownership stake in Meta if his engagement was proven during criminal proceedings)
The facts are pretty clear in this case, Meta didn't even deny it, they decided to try PR their way out of it, hoping the issue would be forgotten.
There may be structural reasons for not pursuing such crimes, but that's a weak excuse. Every country has problems (some far more challenging than American structural issues),
I stand by what I said, tech platforms (especially B2C, but not only) run by entities either based in the US or being subject to American influence cannot be trusted.
I will happily change my stance; it brings me no joy to see any country become a bastion of negative forces such as oligarchy and global promotion of crime and corruption. But there are limits to open mindedness and a desire to emphasis the positive elements of a given culture/nation.
At some point, there has to be real world changes and impact. I do not believe a hypothetical win by the centre-right in both legislative and executive office will change anything (FWIW, I actually lived in the US under Obama). I will also note that the issues with Valve were implementing during Obama's terms.
I wish I didn't know things about Tim, and could just see him as the guy who gave CliffyB his start, wrote ZZT and Jill of the Jungle, and is at war against Valve.
I loved ZZT so much as a kid. I had such a positive opinion of Tim until I learned anything about him.
I had a positive opinion of him because he gave me all three parts of Jill on floppy when I was a kid at a show.
Now I wish I knew less about him.
More like, steam is the only major store.
WTF is this comments section here? I don't give a rat's fuck (if that is a thing), about what Tim Sweeney thinks about Valve, or if Valve is a good company or not.
Charging 30% of revenue for a digital store is clearly nit justifiable and Valve makes insane amount of profits just by having a near monopoly on PC game sales. They don't need that much and it's still just digital feudalism regardless if who does it.
You guys are just stuck in the good guy/ bad guy mentality and honestly, it's kind of embarrassing to get this defensive over a company.
Having a 21 year old Steam account and having bought quite some games makes it hard to stay subjective about this for me. I don't disagree with you but I see Valve as the best monopoly if I could choose. And I don't see Epic performing the same services while tryharding tremendously to be the monoply themselves by giving away free games.
agreed, i feel like Valve is using their monopolization for good then bad, look at Valve's competitors using their monopolization stance for bad.
and i feel like Valve has monopoly cause they do less mistakes then their competitors(compare Steam with like Epic Games and GOG)
am not defending valve here,am not saying Valve is a saint.
They aren't a monopoly, they are simply better than all their competitors in every feature that matters. They aren't anti-competitive, and Epic is free to try making a decent product instead of the pile of garbage they currently have.
as long as they avoid enshittification that hurts the consumer they may continue to get away with it.
I think it's worth discussing though.
What about game devs though? They are clearly hurt already by the insane fees.
Just think about it. When you buy a game for 10€ on steam, steam get's a flat 3.33€ just for giving you a "buy game" button. The gamedeev get's maybe half of what you payed (Taxes, engine fees etc.).
Don't you think, that there is something kind of fucked up about that?
if that was all they got the money for, and the devs were indeed hurt to a significant degree by it, a competitor with a lower fee (say, epic, with their 8%) would have outgrown them years ago, since steam doesn't do exclusivity deals.
That's not how this stuff works. Gamers decide, what stores succeed, not game devs.
Also Valve has policies, that say that you can't offer your game for cheaper elsewhere, which means, that gamers can never notice the difference between a 30% cut or an 8% cut.
That's disingenuous. They do a lot more than that.
Discovery for one. Hosting the game so that downloads are fast and paying for the server and network infrastructure for that. Handling payment processing from all around the world.
That all has a cost. And any developer can just drop the installer on their own website and pay all of these things themselves.
it's not really hurting the devs. if anything it hurts consumers, but even that's a stretch considering the service both sides are getting.
holy hell can't you see the difference between EGS and steam? one works reliably. the other is all over the place. to me that's worth 30%
if it’s not justifiable, then the game devs can go elsewere.
That's not how the network effect works. If Deva go elsewhere, nobody buys their game. Most people will never even know of the games outside of steam.
and why would gamers not buy their game elsewhere?
you could try answering, but conceding works just as well
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Tim Sweeney supports a lawsuit against Valve?!?!
I'm shocked.
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