Dusk Developer David Szymanski: I'd rather pay Valve 30% and put up with their de facto monopoly than help Epic work towards their own (very obviously desired) monopoly
If I'm honest, I don't disagree.
I would love for Steam to have **actual competition. Which is difficult, sure, but you could run a slightly less feature-rich store, take less of a cut, and pass the reduction fully on to consumers and you'd be an easy choice for many gamers.
But that's not what Epic is after. They tried to go hard after the sellers, figuring that if they can corner enough fo the market with exclusives the buyers will have to come. But they underestimated that even their nigh-infinite coffers struggle to keep up with the raw amount of games releasing, and also the unpredictability of the indie market where you can't really know what to buy as an exclusive.
Nevermind that buying one is a good way to make it forgotten.
So yeah, fully agreed. Compared to Epic, I vastly prefer Steam's 30% cut. As the consumer I pay the same anyways, and Steam offers lots of stuff for it like forums, a client that boots before the heat death of the universe, in-house streaming, library sharing, cloud sync that sometimes works.
That's because you are not in a position to produce and sell a game.
As a user it sure is the case but as a developer you are in a position that you either have to take their 30% cut or accept that you are selling way less
The fact that pretty much immediately after epic launched their store steam lowered the cut for big publishers tells you that they are fully aware that 30% is too much to be reasonable but they completely could get away with that because Devs just didn't have a choice.
Because of epic that now changed since even if you don't actually sell more games you at least can get a guaranteed profit as if you sold those games that you miss out on by not being on steam.
Sure the way epic is doing it is not good but I really don't see another way how a significant number of buyers would ever come to another store. That didn't work for EA, that didn't work for Ubisoft, that also didn't work for GOG where you actually own the game without DRM and not just a license to play it as long as the server is allowing you.
People are fundamentally lazy and hate changing their routines - that's why forcing them into buying at your store is necessary if you want to get them to switch.
how long do devs think this is sustainable?
to me it seems like devs are trading long term sustainability for short term profitability. sure, your game Cracksnot was profitable because EGS paid out the butt to make it exclusive. now hardly anyone has played your game, how many people are going to get excited about Cracksnot 2 in a few years? will epic still be willing to pay you upfront for Cracksnot 2 exclusivity?
if egs never really takes off (which so far, it hasn't), eventually epic will cut their losses and stop throwing money at it.
That's what everyone is doing nowadays. Trading long term "potential" for short term gains. Let's face it, the earth isn't gonna last forever, it'd be a neverending hellscape in like what 40 - 50 years. Better to enjoy it while you can by getting the most of what you need right now.