Everything except making a store people wanted to use? Ethan Evans, who was previously Vice President of Prime Gaming at Amazon, has a short retrospective of trying to take on Steam.

Everything except making a store people wanted to use? Ethan Evans, who was previously Vice President of Prime Gaming at Amazon, has a short retrospective of trying to take on Steam.

  • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    Would criticizing this specific cut be easier, if we talked about Apple’s iron grip on the App Store? Because it’s the same damn policy.

    Except that it isn’t? Apple doesn’t let you circumvent their store, while Steam not only allows games to have their own monetization system, it allows off-site sales of the game on Steam. That is significantly more permissive, by a degree of magnitude that makes me wonder about your sincerity.

    • mindbleach@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      11·
      5 days ago

      Two comments ago:

      Their cut is so huge that they can afford to let devs sell keys elsewhere, knowing it makes no difference to their immense profit margin.

      Largely because their monopoly is self-reinforcing, and the number of off-site sales is a rounding error.

      Let’s try this again.

      How is a 30% gross cut worse for consumers than 15%? Because that policy, that specific policy, is shared by Nintendo, Apple, Google, Sony, Microsoft… and Valve.

      • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        4 days ago

        And yet again, not one of those other vendors are anywhere near as permissive for developers or as good to consumers as Valve is. You lumping them in with the others is deeply unfair.

        If devs want to get a better cut, Itch.io and GOG are there and they don’t steal people’s information and fuck consumers the way EGS does. I will not support storefronts owned by psychopaths: I avoid Amazon almost completely, I do not buy from Apple or Google stores, and I’m not going to buy anything from EGS either. Put your game on Itch or GOG. Simple as.