I now have four different online digital distribution services for PC games (Steam, Epic, Uplay and Origin) installed. I can't say I really blame the developers since its seems that the overriding reason more and more developers are leaving Steam is because they feel Valve takes too large of a percentage cut for each digital copy sold.

What I do wonder is whether this trend will end up helping or hurting PC gaming. I think most consumers got spoiled with the "one stop shopping" convenience when Steam was the only game in town but that is now no longer the case and I'm sure some consumers probably feel a bit annoyed and inconvenienced by now having to have multiple online game distribution clients if they want to play everything out there that they are interested in.

And naturally, the exact same trend has happened and is still happening with online streaming services. More and more studios are pulling their tv shows and movies from Netflix so they can offer them instead on their own dedicated streaming service. Both Disney and CBS have done this to a significant degree.

On one hand, competition is good...

On another hand, exclusivity deals are bad.


PC gaming has always been about choice. We game on our PC because we don't want to be beholden to a single platform, operating system, piece of software, etc. We have control of the machine.

But Steam sure has made things easy for us. No more navigating long program lists or folders or command prompt hell. Pick a game and play. Plus they provide fantastic community tools to assist their customers. I'll keep buying from Steam for that reason alone, but if I can get a better deal elsewhere, I will, so long as I'm not forced to through exclusivity agreements. Those are no good and we shouldn't support.


I hear that GOG Galaxy lets you consolidate all the platforms into one launcher?

I remember a GDC Talk with Jeff Vogel,from Spiderweb Software, where we thought it was awesome since he would otherwise have to devote so much of his time, effort and personnel to handle all that stuff that Valve does. It let him focus on what he does and lets Valve focus on what they do and the customers still get their games. Everybody wins.

I think the complaint most devs have is that since Steam currently releases everything under the sun, it's hard for them to get noticed in all that noise.

I realized this a while ago on streaming video. I have cable TV, and I thought about canceling that to save money, just signing up for streaming services, but by the time I got all the same content, it would cost more than the cable bill, and I'd have to manage it through different apps, etc., so it's less convenient.

There's still the issue of things that are only available from certain content providers (Netflix, CBS All Access, etc.), so that's still a frustration.

if you look at it though, people don't moan about having the different stores, its more that each stores wants to use it own launcher, or is a monthly sub, or it buys games for its stores etc. If the stores just sold you the game and that was that, no one would be complaining. But when you think that now EA is a sub, Uplay is going monthly sub, MS is going monthly sub with its Xbox pass thing, Epic stores policy is to just throw fortnight money at devs and be buggered to the actual customers ... gamers are annoyed because if you want to play anything now you need to pay to be on several "stores", use THAT stores particular launcher, THEN pay the price of the game (that the store can remove at any time it wants to), THEN (in most cases) be assaulted by micro transactions and DLC ads, season passes, game packs etc etc .. its all just pure greed, and its obvious. At least with Steam the customer gets stuff back and its all pretty simple (workshop, chat features, screenshots etc) AND you dont have to pay a monthly sub to use it!

GOG Galaxy 2.0 seems to want (is) a one-app for all solution. Still in beta but they already have the green light from all the majors including Microsoft...

Skip to min.1:20

GOG Galaxy 2.0

Red

I just added Epic, but only to be able to play Metro Exodus. Before digital distribution came along (mainly Steam at first) a publisher/developer was lucky to get 40% of the retail cost of a game. Physical media costs, i.e., disk, paperwork, box, etc. were minimal when done in volume, so the rest went to advertising and distribution through a wholesaler and finally the retail outlet.

With Steam, all of the physical and middle man costs went away. Steam took 30% and the publisher/distributor got the other 70%. The net effect was that said publisher/developer almost doubled their cut of the retail. However Steam was also making a bundle with minimal operational cost and little risk. Gabe Newell had to hire extra people just to push the wheel barrel's full of cash to the bank. That's why you'll probably never see a new Half-life episode. Why bother with all the costs related to developing a game--which could probably never live up to expectations, when they can just rake in their 30% cut of the gross of everybody else's games.

Of course, everybody else still always wants a bigger cut of the pie, hence--Epic, Origin, Uplay, etc. I guess the competition is supposed to be good, but it remains to be seen at this point.

Besides, at a net worth of 3.5 billion, does Newell really need any more money

Cheers

Thanks for that great post FO. It has some really good insights into the current PC game market.