this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
123 points (95.6% liked)
Linux Gaming
15825 readers
57 users here now
Gaming on the GNU/Linux operating system.
Recommended news sources:
Related chat:
Related Communities:
Please be nice to other members. Anyone not being nice will be banned. Keep it fun, respectful and just be awesome to each other.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yeah, Epic does a lot of sucky stuff. I think that their 12% cut, if they can sustain it, is good, but that isn't an endorsement for all the other things they do.
I'd also argue that Valve is, considering their market position, on the whole extremely light on anti-consumer practices, in a way that a publicly traded company likely wouldn't be.
I am not arguing that Valve is bad, I just believe that a lower cut, if it is sustainably doable, is a good thing. Since neither of us know their numbers (unless your pretty high up in Valve, in that case, Half Life 3 pls), it all comes down to assumptions in the end.
The 12% cut is there to attract developers to their platform. They know they're not going to sell nearly as many copies as Steam, so they need some reason for developers to list their games on EGS. If EGS caught up with Steam, I'm guessing that number would also go up, or they'd add on other nonsense fees to increase profit.
And yeah, a lower cut would be good for devs, but it might not be good for PC gaming (i.e. less investment into stuff like Steam Link). But I agree, I don't have the numbers, so I don't know how much of that cut is profit vs reinvested.