from the Microsoft's-store-cries-quietly-in-the-corner dept.
Following an announcement by Fortnite developer Epic Games that it would create its own PC games store, giving 88% of revenue to developers, Discord has announced that it will give 90% of revenue to developers who sell games on its own store:
Discord is looking to make its fledgling game store the most developer-friendly option around. Today, the company announced that it will offer developers a 90 percent share of revenue when its PC game store opens up to all creators starting next year. The store first launched in October with a heavily curated selection of indie games, including Into the Breach and Dead Cells as well as a handful of timed exclusives. Currently, it operates under a fairly standard 70 / 30 revenue split.
"Turns out, it does not cost 30 percent to distribute games in 2018," Discord CEO Jason Citron explained in a blog post. "After doing some research, we discovered that we can build amazing developer tools, run them, and give developers the majority of the revenue share."
Last week, Fortnite developer Epic launched its own PC games store, which similarly offered a more developer-friendly revenue split, taking just a 12 percent cut of all game sales. Both Epic and Discord are looking to make their digital shops more appealing to developers by offering better terms than the current dominant platform Steam.
Also at TechCrunch, Polygon, and Wccftech.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:20PM (1 child)
90% of nothing is: _____
I'd much rather have 70% of 1000 units per month, as opposed to 90% of 100 units per month on a less popular platform, or 100% of 2 units a year selling through my own website.
Of course, if the deals are non-exclusive, then f-yeah, just SPAM it everywhere, like the old shareware trail - how'd that work out?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday December 17 2018, @03:58PM
Shareware trial is a different paradigm, not like listing your game on multiple vendors, so you don't choose your customers platform for them.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:27PM (2 children)
Is that all that Steam does, distribute games?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Apparition on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:36PM
No, but distributing games is all that Steam does well.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Pino P on Sunday December 16 2018, @03:41PM
And take payment from people without credit cards by selling Steam gift cards in brick and mortar retail stores.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Apparition on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:47PM (21 children)
About time. Valve really needs the competition. I'm a hardcore PC gamer, and I can't stand Steam. It's a terrible video games store. Since they decided to let any schmoe add their asset flipped game a few years ago, it's gone down the toilet. Now it's full of asset flipped games, early access games, and hentai. Finding a good game is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. It doesn't help that the Steam UI looks like it was designed in the early 2000s... which is because it was.
Oh, and Discord's developers stated that their store will support Linux [gamingonlinux.com] next year. It's also rumored that Epic Games Store will add support for Linux games next year as well.
Also, unlike Steam, Epic Games Store doesn't add its own DRM. A few of the games on the Epic Games Store are completely DRM free, while others use their own DRM. The problem is that Epic doesn't advertise which games are DRM free and which aren't.
(Score: 5, Informative) by coolgopher on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:53PM (4 children)
There's always gog [gog.com] for your non-DRM gaming needs.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Apparition on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:57PM (1 child)
Yep! I've been a GOG.com customer for years. I currently have over 190 video games on my GOG.com account. :D It became my primary video game store a couple of years ago after I became fed up with Steam. The problem with GOG.com is that while all of the games they sell are DRM free, they don't support Linux outside of Ubuntu. You can try and probably will get games to work on other Linux distros, but it will be an unsupported crap shoot. WINE certainly helps though.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday December 17 2018, @04:04PM
In their defense, it would be quite difficult to support a bunch of random Linux distributions. I don't know of any game outlet that supports your random Linux flavor. They all state specifically this one distribution, if you're lucky it'll support two or three of the major players. Otherwise, there's too many distributions to effectively support them all.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by tekk on Sunday December 16 2018, @09:49PM (1 child)
Unfortunately GOG is moving the direction of phasing Linux out, it seems. Linux support for Galaxy (their steam competitor,) has been "coming soon" for about 3 years without even an update aside from an off-hand comment several years ago in an interview that Linux support "isn't a priority" while there are games on GOG which can't launch for Linux due to their lack of support (Galaxy also adds things like a multiplayer matchmaking service.)
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday December 17 2018, @04:07PM
I'd be surprised, if they are phasing support for Linux out. As opposed to mainly focusing on what the majority of their users have and use. Admittedly I would be quite put off, if they stopped supporting Linux, but I can't very well expect them to provide parity of service for something that most game developers add as an afterthought. Assuming the game devs even look at Linux support at all.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @04:30PM (10 children)
> Since they decided to let any schmoe add their asset flipped game a few years ago, it's gone down the toilet. Now it's full of asset flipped games, early access games, and hentai. Finding a good game is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Compare it to GOG, which is completely curated. I like GOG, but boy, are releases limited. Dozens of quality titles I would like to play have gotten a clear "not popular enough" refusals -- they won't even consider contacting the developers. I prefer the Steam approach, even though it may result in a bunch of crap as well.
What Steam needs is better search and recommendation engines, not arbitrary fences.
> It doesn't help that the Steam UI looks like it was designed in the early 2000s... which is because it was.
What, needs more whitespace and animations? It looks fine, it works fine. Don't touch it.
> Oh, and Discord's developers stated that their store will support Linux [gamingonlinux.com] next year. It's also rumored that Epic Games Store will add support for Linux games next year as well.
If only I could think of a game store that has had Linux support for 5+ years, and recently introduced Linux support even for non-native games, contributing upstream to Wine and whatnot :D
> Also, unlike Steam, Epic Games Store doesn't add its own DRM. A few of the games on the Epic Games Store are completely DRM free, while others use their own DRM. The problem is that Epic doesn't advertise which games are DRM free and which aren't.
Pretty sure that Steam DRM is also opt-in. At the very least, I have a few Steam games that don't include it.
Anyway, yes, Valve needs competition. (As long as that competition doesn't introduce further fragmentation! Platform exclusives should DIAF.) But everything else you wrote: either I disagree with it or you're just wrong :)
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday December 17 2018, @01:00PM (9 children)
Do "platform exclusives" in this sense include a game that is available only for Linux and Windows until the developer grows to become financially able to port it to consoles? Do they include games that are exclusive to Android because they don't make a lot of sense on a stationary desktop or console or on a device without a multitouch screen?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday December 17 2018, @04:11PM (8 children)
I would be happy, if all Android games suddenly vanished and their contribution to the gaming world removed retroactively. Since, the main thing they introduced / popularized is microtransactions / free to play / devilry.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday December 20 2018, @01:46PM (7 children)
Would you prefer that iOS had a monopoly on touch screen phones and touch screen tablets?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:08PM (6 children)
Assuming, it meant there were no microtransactions and other devilry popularized by mobile games, I would take it as a massive improvement.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:25PM (5 children)
There might even be more microtransactions in an iOS-monopoly situation, if only to recoup the cost of a Mac to run Xcode (in addition to whatever brand of computer the developer regularly uses) and the $99 developer program fee.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:39PM (4 children)
The assumption was that there would be 0 mobile games, no matter the mobile OS. It was just me wishing that these horribly awful payment schemes hadn't made it into mainstream games.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:12PM (3 children)
Then what should people who would otherwise have played a mobile game do instead with that time? Would you instead prefer to give the monopoly to Nintendo? At the time, Nintendo was infamous for the Bob's Game incident when it no-platformed a prospective developer of DS games because it operated out of a home studio.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:21PM (2 children)
Yes, Yes, and more Yes. Either that or come up with real games for portable hardware. Like Sony did with PSP. I would rather see real innovation in creating good games. Than see what is essentially rip-off artists exploiting people with the creation of horrible systems and games.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:50PM (1 child)
Sony has since abandoned PSP and its successor PlayStation Vita without announcing a successor to PlayStation Vita. Seeing as you disapprove of gaming on cell phones, the only remaining handheld video game platform is Nintendo's. This leaves me with two questions:
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday December 20 2018, @10:04PM
It's unfortunate about the demise of the PSVita, but all I can think is that they shot themselves in the foot. One of the major benefits of something like the PSP and Nintendo handhelds are physical media. Sure, it's a negative in some senses as well, but you've got something you can then sell when / if you don't want it.
If you're literally aiming for one platform, you'd better be making sure that it won't be rejected. Sure, they could probably still reject you for whatever reason they see fit. That's not terribly likely, if you're doing what they expect.
I'm definitely not employed by Nintendo and as far as I know, don't have any stock in it. I have purchased the following Nintendo devices though, 1 Game Cube, 1 Wii, and 2 Nintendo DS Lites. I own one or two original Gameboys, but my parents would have purchased those. My Sony purchase history is as follows 2 original PSPs, a PS2, and a PS3 (+1 broken original). I've avoided Microsoft's Consoles like the plague they are. I've already got one terminal infection with Windows, I don't need another. Currently, I have no plans to ever get back into Consoles as they milk their customers for money a lot more than most PC game studios, Blizzard notwithstanding.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Informative) by stretch611 on Sunday December 16 2018, @10:04PM (3 children)
Steam does do a few things right. That being said, competition is healthy and I welcome it.
I am on the GamingOnLinux site regularly... The Discord announcement specifically mentioned that they would include linux... the rumours about Epic are based on some older tweets and there is no official word or confirmation on linux support from them. I believe in Discord offering linux support... but Epic's non-statement makes me believe it when I see it and I doubt it will come to fruition. (If Epic was remotely serious, I would expect a non-committal statement like "we are evaluating the demand for linux and will add support in the future...")
Steam does contribute to the linux community... both by supporting development of Proton/DXVK and also by using linux... Valves games (although few in number) actually run on linux and its hardware, the steam controller and (only recently defunct) steam link both work with linux as well. The steam link is being replaced by android and smart tv apps as well as a software package for raspberry pi devices.
Steam does support DRM... but does not force it on developers. Titles that include heavy handed DRM crap like Denuvo exist on Steam. (and many times are review bombed because of it.) Steam also has its own mildly intrusive cloud DRM that requires you to be online for authentication, but will allow the games to be run a few times in offline mode for when the internet is unavailable. However, developers are not forced to use DRM at all... While it is easiest to run everything through the steam client, games that do not require DRM can be run out of their installation directories without forcing the steam client at all. (I have only noticed some indie games like this, but admittedly I have not bothered to test most games.)
One nice feature that Steam does have that I have not seen the others mention support is their Steam Cloud. This allows save data to be backed up on their cloud. It is a nice feature, assuming developers take advantage of it and allows you to sync your save games across multiple computers. This is handy if you normally use a desktop at home and a laptop on the road; or if the inevitable hardware failure wipes out your local data.
One of Steams biggest competitors is GOG. (which I have bought from all the way back when they started a little over 10 years ago.) They push their galaxy client but have not supported linux with a client yet. (Not that I really want another game store download/upload client.) They also have not supported linux with all their own software titles. (Witcher III). GOG also seems to be behind when it comes to getting the latest patches for the software they sell as they are inevitable behind Steam in this regard, also some of the titles that have linux versions, do not have the linux version on GOG. One big reason for this seems to be network play as Steam does have network APIs available for linux that GOG does not. But you can't argue that the DRM free aspect is GOG's greatest aspect.
I welcome the competition. But I do not see Steam not being the go to place for games in the near future. It has too much critical mass which makes its reviews and forums enviable from all competitors.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 17 2018, @02:14AM
Epic's main product, the global sensation known as Fortnite, is not officially supported on Linux (it is on Android).
That alone should tell you how much they care about Linux.
All of Valve's major games as well as an upcoming one, In the Valley of Gods, support Linux. And they've contributed to Linux gaming in other ways.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @02:24PM (1 child)
You can't even download Steam game without their client. DRM'd or not. Sounds pretty DRMy to me.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:29PM
The same could be said for GOG, the main difference is that once you have the game from GOG, you can backup your installer on a drive / dvd / something. Then, from that point on you wouldn't need to authenticate with GOG or use their client. Even, if you nuked your game machine, so long as you still have the installer. Thus, you're much more free to use the software you purchased and won't need to continually be purchasing yet another copy of the game. Sure, that's not necessarily "good for business" from a publisher's point of view, but it certainly builds a loyal customer base. Which is good for the publisher and platform.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @07:58PM
"Also, unlike Steam, Epic Games Store doesn't add its own DRM. A few of the games on the Epic Games Store are completely DRM free, while others use their own DRM. The problem is that Epic doesn't advertise which games are DRM free and which aren't."
You do realize that not every game on Steam actually requires Steam to run right? Yes, you require Steam to actually download the game initially but isn't that going to be the case with any online digitial platform? I can confirm that there are games on Steam that work just fine without Steam being opened - just launch the exe directly and it goes fine. If a game, launched by it's exe directly, opens Steam or refuses to run without Steam - then it's something that was added by the dev. Yeah, games being run outside steam won't get steam cards, etc, but that's to be expected.
And the problem of Epic not telling you which games are DRM-free or infected with the shit is an instant fail. Anyone who actually cares about the DRM will simply trust anything that isn't explicitly DRM-free as being infected. Why risk it otherwise. That's actually the BIGGEST reason I never buy shit at launch on Steam anymore - because while Steam requires third party DRM to be disclosed on the store page, there are some large and popular devs/publishers that "forget" to disclose it until gamers find out about it on their own, which generally takes a couple days.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday December 16 2018, @03:53PM (7 children)
I've read about this in a couple of different places, and I find the reactions rather odd. You'd think people would be glad to see competition. It would motivate Steam to improve (and reduce their rates). It would provide all of us with more options.
Instead, most of the comments are complaints. For example, poor Joe Gamer will have to keep track of which service contains which game. Oh, how my heart bleeds, and anyway, installed games generally leave a start icon directly on the desktop.
Steam has done good stuff, not least of which is allowing most games to play on Linux. But competition is good: Steam can improve more, or maybe one of the new competitors will have some great new ideas.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Murdoc on Monday December 17 2018, @01:50AM
Why does it have to be one or the other? Competition has both its upsides and its downsides. Yes it can provide more choice (in some ways) to the consumer and often (but not always) help keep prices down, but that doesn't mean that these people's complaints aren't legitimate. For an example look at video game consoles; keeping prices down doesn't really help when I have to buy all three expensive consoles just to get all the games I want. Competition is also inefficient, and wasteful of resources. So really while it may sometimes be better for the consumer in the short-term, it brings with it many disadvantages and is an expensive way to mitigate what is really a fundamental flaw in free-markets.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Pino P on Monday December 17 2018, @01:03PM (3 children)
Yet once they're purchased, they all run on the same machine. It's not like having to keep track of, say, that Super Mario series is exclusive to Nintendo consoles and Halo series is exclusive to Xbox.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday December 17 2018, @04:22PM (2 children)
The game services I care about are GOG and Steam, any others are annoying oddities that I'm likely to forget about. While, you'd have to "keep track" of what series goes to what hardware, at least your generally limited to 3 companies. As opposed to the online storefront thing could splinter into tens, hundreds, or even thousands of separate entities.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday December 20 2018, @01:51PM (1 child)
Purchases from Itch.io, GOG, Humble Store, or directly from the indie developer's website are more likely to ship without digital restrictions management (DRM). This means you need not care where the DRM-free installer came from; you can just restore from your own backups without needing to activate your purchase over the Internet. The same is true of video games distributed as free software and delivered through something like GitHub releases, such as Libbet and the Magic Floor for Game Boy [github.com] or Thwaite for NES [github.com].
As for "annoying oddities" and "splintering", let's draw an analogy to the grocery market. In an area with Walmart, Target, Kroger/Harris Teeter, ALDI, Save a Lot, and other grocery stores (substitute your own area's counterparts), do you consider those other than your favorite to be "annoying oddities" and a "splintered" market?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:28PM
The main difference between GOG and Humble Store is that GOG really pushes the No DRM ideal. Whereas with Humble Bundle / Store it's more of a nice thing on the side for some things. Can't say I'd heard about those two games, but I assume they were developed for emulators or released as open source after quite some time?
It's quite a bit different with the grocery store analogy as they have differences in target audience. While Walmart, ALDI, and Save a Lot are generally competitors in the same demographic, Target and Kroger are usually for people who have enough money not to care that everything is marked up 10% or more.
It's also much harder to setup a grocery store chain and the analogy breaks down further the more you look at it.
Better scenario with grocery stores:
Green Giant has the only supply of Green Beans.
Heinz has the only supply of Ketchup.
Hormel has the only supply of Chili.
Kraft has the only supply of Macaroni and Cheese.
Green Giant only supplies Walmart, Target, and ALDI, because they were able to get the grocery stores to only take a 10% cut.
Heniz is fed up with the grocery stores taking a 30% cut, so they decide to make their own Store. But, since they can't just sell Ketchup, they also convince Hormel to be an exclusive to the Heinz Store.
While Kraft continues to let everyone have their product in their stores.
Now, multiply that scenario by however many products in a "grocery store" that have different suppliers.
I hope you now enjoy your store hopping to get your weekly supply of goods.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Touché) by nobu_the_bard on Monday December 17 2018, @01:43PM (1 child)
There's only two things all gamers hate:
* Change
* The Way Things Are Right Now
If either of those comes up in a conversation they find complaints.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:31PM
I would love it, if all the studios suddenly decided to stop using DRM and adopted other customer friendly stances.
What I hate is change, because change.
I love the current state of the GOG store. Yes, I would like them to do more and acquire more titles for their store, but their Power is over 9000.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @03:28AM (1 child)
Fortnight, Fortnight, Fortnight, it's the only game that exists!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday December 17 2018, @04:13PM
Fortnite is the name of the game, and yes it's quite popular with the kind of gamers I try to avoid.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"