"Store Wars: Epic Games Takes on Valve, Google with Own Games Store"

[JamesD]

"The craziest thing about Epic Games opening its own online store is learning how much cash Steam takes from digital game sales."
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/epic-games-launches-games-store,38195.html

[youxia]

It's been known since forever, but people are able to rationalize away just about anything, especially seeing as Valve & Google are the Good Guys* in the modern online narrative.

 

*eyeroll.gif

[Tanooki]

Wow 30% that's despicable they'd pull that garbage. I know they're providing a service, but come on, there's plenty of other choices out there that don't involve steam that are as known. I don't blame Epic for deciding to do their own and charge about a 1/3 of that extortionate rate. It makes me feel a bit better that I've stopped using Steam unless some game permanently appears to be exclusive there. I know I take advantage of sales on GoG, Steam, whatever, but still, that's a deep cut. Hell we complain about ebay being parasites wanting 10%FVF on the item+shipping, and here these game makers are getting baked to nearly a third of the profit.

 

I can't foresee why Steam can't take a similar smaller cut and not work out well for them unless they live lives of corporate excess and infinitely bad money management that it's required to stay afloat.

[Flojomojo]

It's always been 30%, just like Google, Apple, and Microsoft. Network bandwidth isn't free, nor is handling (not to mention storing and securing) financial transactions.

 

If anyone can pull this off, it's "two million dollars a day" Epic, but they're soooooo late to the game.

 

Apple has already been talking about special deals with their favorite partners, and I suspect the other stores do too. Competition might drive down profitability so none of this necessarily trickles back to us the consumers.