Brym wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 10:26:

Dacron wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 08:09:

yonder wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 04:32:
The lawsuit claiming that Valve is a monopoly was dismissed out-of-hand because it failed "to allege the most basic elements of an antitrust case." Valve is not a monopoly.

The folks here crying about valve don't care about the courts. They think Steam is a monopoly, therefore it is.

They ignore the facts there are dozens of digital market places. They ignore court decisions. They just know better than the rest of us as they cry about things that are not true.

Not worth engaging them. Like arguing with children.

This is straying a bit far afield, but this caught my eye because I am a lawyer who sometimes handles antitrust cases. I've long thought that Valve has market power, and their MFN clause and some aspects of how Steamworks operates constitute abuses of that market power that could constitute violations of the Sherman/Clayton acts. Looks like the most recent update on the court case rejected Valve's move to dismiss the case, and found that the plaintiffs' allegations stated a cognizable claim. https://tinyurl.com/328shdxe

The existence of other competing storefronts doesn't mean Valve lacks market power. Microsoft was found to have market power in the 90s despite the existence of Apple and Linux (and other, lesser competitors). If you're sufficiently dominant, you can't use restrictive means to prevent other companies from undercutting your prices. That's exactly what Valve does. The MFN clause means that if another storefront wants to undercut them on price by charging a smaller cut (say 10-15% instead of 30%), they can't pass those savings on to consumers. This keeps prices to consumers higher, which is the #1 thing courts are looking for to find an antitrust violation.

Bookmarking this.

Heh, let's not forget that all the Deck's proton games, worked first on Linux PC's, and copies will be preserved.

If Windows or Directx licenses as proprietary products should die off, difficult as it sounds today, I think Linux wouldn't, a good think for playing them in such a future.

Yeah, Valve's pushing into the Linux space is a positive, even if it's just to expand its reach, it does mean a lot to gamers who use Linux exclusively. I mean the Steam Deck OS is a Linux fork right? All good and dandy, but in practice it means you just can't install other storefronts. If you buy a Steamdeck you're effectively locked into their ecosystem just the same as Apple.

For me the big unsung benefit of the GOG store's no-DRM policy is preservation. Plus being able to download previous builds of games.

We're in an age where consoles are phasing out physical media, soon there won't be any way to capture what a game was on launch, or even experience it at all if some online DRM-infested store decides to "exit the gaming business" (cough MS lol).

It's funny because on PC we haven't had physical media for like 15 years? Did Starcraft 2 have a physical launch? That might be the last I can remember. So we know this reality, and it's a bitch for preservation. We're putting the formative years of our artform in the hands of fickle corps that might just purge everything on a whim... Steam goes pay-2-install 20 years from now and people flee, and GabeN in his golden years says fuckit and pulls the plug, or fast forward 100 years and his grandkid does the same. Lots of gaming history being held hostage here. It's like locking all your child's baby photos in a box with a paper shredder underneath, and one person can flip that switch at any time. Not only are we used to it, us PC gamers (as evidenced by Prez's remarks) are bending over backwards to fuel this monopolistic status quo.

Any title that's released on GOG is going to be playable forever, it's heaven for gaming historians. Over a long enough timeline, it's possible those are the only games that are preserved for future generations unless something changes.

Love CDPR and love their Gog, Slick.
So many old games available only thanks to them, an undeniable feat most gamers should be thankful for.

Also I believe they inspired Nightdive to bring back so many restored-remade loved classics.

On another theme, I use Linux on a PC only for downloads, not gaming (yet) but the existence of the option is wonderful and eventually allowed the Deck:
Thankful admirer of Steam's Proton and Linux games' support.

I think Vulkan, OpenGL and Proton could be one reason we didn't end with a closed Directx MS garden a la Apple.

Slick wrote on Sep 24, 2023, 02:46:

Prez wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 18:23:
I bought a copy of Cyberpunk on GOG, and honestly I regret it. CDPR proved that it's run by the same garbage people now that have ruined every mega corp. 100% of the money does not go to the developers. They get shafted while the execs (you know, the ones who forced a broken game out before its time because MONEY) get bigger bonuses. I personally don't care about giving the rich greedy clueless assholes who did the least work the most money. I strictly buy games based solely on what I want to play and I buy them on my favorite platform. Good luck on your crusade; no one else gives a shit.

I like the Ghandi quote in your sig, let me fire one back at you:

"The rich cannot accumulate wealth without the co-operation of the poor in society." -Mahatma Gandhi

"I personally don't care about giving the rich greedy clueless assholes who did the least work the most money." - Prez

It's quite astonishing that you'd write something like that. Why is being a dick something to be proud of? Do you coal-roll electric cars too? You should find something to love that might improve your outlook, you seem a bit down in the dumps.

Also, I never said 100% of the money goes to developers. L2read broooooooooo.

I don't argue against strawman arguments that I didn't make. The way you wrote out you're very poorly thought-out response, I could easily make the counterclaim maybe YOU should learn to read, but I know you already can so I wont stoop to your hyperbole made specifically to score big 'epeen' points. You can think I am a dick all you want - I could not care less. Your repeated passive aggressive "I am better than you because I buy on GOG" is tiresome, so I thought I'd let you know that no one cares and won't care. Consider it a free service.

EDIT: And for the record, just because I agree with one particular Ghandi quote doesn't mean that I agree with all of them. I shouldn't have to say that, but this is the internet , so...

This comment was edited on Sep 24, 2023, 03:33.

WannaLogAlready wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 19:33:
Agree with you.
At the same price I would buy Gog.com for the excellent points you make, specially with the final brilliant quality of their games -even if one had to wait with CP2077-.

I don't do it only because games bought on Steam cost a fraction in my country with its unique relative currency equivalences, below any other store by far.

Also, being a completist, Steam has an incredible number of games unavailable anywhere else, if interested enough in finding the good in gigantic piles of unconsequential ones.


That's totally fair. Everything I've ever said on the subject is assuming price parity between storefronts. If one's cheaper than the other, then you'd be foolish not to buy it there. If they're both the same price though, it's hard to make a compelling argument, especially considering CP2077 is made by the only people who run a DRM-free storefront. They make the game that I want to play, and they run their store the way I'd want it to be run.

Prez wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 18:23:
I bought a copy of Cyberpunk on GOG, and honestly I regret it. CDPR proved that it's run by the same garbage people now that have ruined every mega corp. 100% of the money does not go to the developers. They get shafted while the execs (you know, the ones who forced a broken game out before its time because MONEY) get bigger bonuses. I personally don't care about giving the rich greedy clueless assholes who did the least work the most money. I strictly buy games based solely on what I want to play and I buy them on my favorite platform. Good luck on your crusade; no one else gives a shit.

I like the Ghandi quote in your sig, let me fire one back at you:

"The rich cannot accumulate wealth without the co-operation of the poor in society." -Mahatma Gandhi

"I personally don't care about giving the rich greedy clueless assholes who did the least work the most money." - Prez

It's quite astonishing that you'd write something like that. Why is being a dick something to be proud of? Do you coal-roll electric cars too? You should find something to love that might improve your outlook, you seem a bit down in the dumps.

Also, I never said 100% of the money goes to developers. L2read broooooooooo.

I buy from Steam for one simple reason:

Proton.

Slick wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 12:49:
... ...
Cyberpunk 2077 is a pretty important AAA game recently, and there's an option to buy it from GOG. GOG is owned by the people who actually made CP2077, so a sale there has 100% of the sale going to fund the company that (can't stress this enough) actually made the game. But that's just hippy-dippy capitalization, let's ignore that and just focus on the experience. On GOG I can download the game, with all my cloud saves, and then uninstall the GOG galaxy app, and still play the game indefinitely. Zero DRM. This is what PC gamers have supposedly been clamoring for for decades......right? I can even share the game with a friend by installing on their computer, then logging out of my GOG account, and they have it forever. Seems like a pretty big win for the consumer. And still, I've never met someone other than me who bought the game on GOG, they all buy on Steam.
... ...

Agree with you.
At the same price I would buy Gog.com for the excellent points you make, specially with the final brilliant quality of their games -even if one had to wait with CP2077-.

I don't do it only because games bought on Steam cost a fraction in my country with its unique relative currency equivalences, below any other store by far.

Also, being a completist, Steam has an incredible number of games unavailable anywhere else, if interested enough in finding the good in gigantic piles of unconsequential ones.


Cyberpunk 2077 is a pretty important AAA game recently, and there's an option to buy it from GOG. GOG is owned by the people who actually made CP2077, so a sale there has 100% of the sale going to fund the company that (can't stress this enough) actually made the game. But that's just hippy-dippy capitalization, let's ignore that and just focus on the experience. On GOG I can download the game, with all my cloud saves, and then uninstall the GOG galaxy app, and still play the game indefinitely. Zero DRM. This is what PC gamers have supposedly been clamoring for for decades......right? I can even share the game with a friend by installing on their computer, then logging out of my GOG account, and they have it forever. Seems like a pretty big win for the consumer. And still, I've never met someone other than me who bought the game on GOG, they all buy on Steam.

It's like if electric cars were the same price as any other car, they had features that make them superior to the competition, they go vroom much faster, and there's the hippy-dippy saving the planet angle, but everyone still wants to buy ICE cars because that's what they always have. Still blows my mind because EVERYONE hated Steam when it launched. Online DRM to play a singleplayer game, Half-Life 2. Universally panned. And now everyone loves it. Reminds me of the Star Wars prequels. I'm pretty sure they were universally panned, because they were mostly terrible. But nowadays there's a large contingent of people who grew up with them, and now they'll defend those films to the death.

I bought a copy of Cyberpunk on GOG, and honestly I regret it. CDPR proved that it's run by the same garbage people now that have ruined every mega corp. 100% of the money does not go to the developers. They get shafted while the execs (you know, the ones who forced a broken game out before its time because MONEY) get bigger bonuses. I personally don't care about giving the rich greedy clueless assholes who did the least work the most money. I strictly buy games based solely on what I want to play and I buy them on my favorite platform. Good luck on your crusade; no one else gives a shit.

Brym wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 10:26:
This is straying a bit far afield, but this caught my eye because I am a lawyer who sometimes handles antitrust cases. I've long thought that Valve has market power, and their MFN clause and some aspects of how Steamworks operates constitute abuses of that market power that could constitute violations of the Sherman/Clayton acts. Looks like the most recent update on the court case rejected Valve's move to dismiss the case, and found that the plaintiffs' allegations stated a cognizable claim. https://tinyurl.com/328shdxe

The existence of other competing storefronts doesn't mean Valve lacks market power. Microsoft was found to have market power in the 90s despite the existence of Apple and Linux (and other, lesser competitors). If you're sufficiently dominant, you can't use restrictive means to prevent other companies from undercutting your prices. That's exactly what Valve does. The MFN clause means that if another storefront wants to undercut them on price by charging a smaller cut (say 10-15% instead of 30%), they can't pass those savings on to consumers. This keeps prices to consumers higher, which is the #1 thing courts are looking for to find an antitrust violation.

This is very interesting, thank you for your perspective. Like most people, my eyes glaze over when talking legalese, but I do find it kinda fascinating.

From my perspective as a layman, whether Valve is technically a monopoly or not is beside the point, they're an effective monopoly in practice. When you have the vast majority of PC gamers (boo console walled gardens, I like open platforms!) who will only consider purchasing a game bought on Steam, then that has tremendous real-world effects on the market.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a pretty important AAA game recently, and there's an option to buy it from GOG. GOG is owned by the people who actually made CP2077, so a sale there has 100% of the sale going to fund the company that (can't stress this enough) actually made the game. But that's just hippy-dippy capitalization, let's ignore that and just focus on the experience. On GOG I can download the game, with all my cloud saves, and then uninstall the GOG galaxy app, and still play the game indefinitely. Zero DRM. This is what PC gamers have supposedly been clamoring for for decades......right? I can even share the game with a friend by installing on their computer, then logging out of my GOG account, and they have it forever. Seems like a pretty big win for the consumer. And still, I've never met someone other than me who bought the game on GOG, they all buy on Steam.

It's like if electric cars were the same price as any other car, they had features that make them superior to the competition, they go vroom much faster, and there's the hippy-dippy saving the planet angle, but everyone still wants to buy ICE cars because that's what they always have. Still blows my mind because EVERYONE hated Steam when it launched. Online DRM to play a singleplayer game, Half-Life 2. Universally panned. And now everyone loves it. Reminds me of the Star Wars prequels. I'm pretty sure they were universally panned, because they were mostly terrible. But nowadays there's a large contingent of people who grew up with them, and now they'll defend those films to the death.

yonder wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 04:24:

Slick wrote on Sep 22, 2023, 20:47:
I'm really dumb, so someone please explain this to me.

Cuz humans are emotional and irrational. Simply put. Look at the whole "Reddit is the most evil thing that ever existed" a few months ago because they decided to stop providing certain aspects of their services to free to developers who make a living based solely on what Reddit was providing for free.
People who START with something for free, and then make a living based on that, often recoil at the concept of the change of "okay now that our product is continually improving, we're going to start charging you a bit because, frankly, our product is great and it's worth it."

The fact that people *HERE* are editing comments because they clearly didn't read the actual text due to them raging kinda says it all. If people here are reacting emotionally, how do you think the average hobbyist is reacting?

Yes, the initial plan was stupid. Yes, there's a valid concern going forward from here. BUT... the reality is that they're a for-profit, publicly-traded company who makes a great product. And they screwed up the monetization of that product.

If you want to develop a certain type of game... what company would you prefer to go with? Epic?

It's like Twitch streamers throwing a hissy-fit over the times when Twitch does something stupid. They get all upset and pretend that they're going to jump ship to whatever the flavor-of-the-week (currently Kick, y'know, the company founded on gambling and crypto) is, without putting an ounce of thought into it. And some people *DO* jump ship.. and they inevitably regret it.

With Unity, you've got basically one valid competitor. Unreal. Sure, there's Lumberyard (HA!) and Cry (and quite a few more if you just want 2D) but... in all reality most things 3D type games are done w/ Unity or Unreal.

That doesn't mean roll over and take it. But... it does mean... be a grown up about how you give your feedback. Accept when things are corrected.

Maybe... investigate into activities of the company that might indicate WHY they're trying to monetize more. I dunno, like buying WETA for 1.6 billion less than 2 years ago. They *HAVE* to compete with Unreal. And they are.

It's business. And 100% of the people who will be affected by this are in it *as a business.*

Never understood the emotional, immature responses from so many people.

Since you're quoting me, I'll assume this was directed at least somewhat at me.

I don't think I was being emotional, infact I was defending them in a way I haven't seen anyone yet do. When you break down the math, 20 cents is a really really low amount to pay for using an engine, if it was per-sale.

Depending on the type of game I was making, Unreal seems like a pretty great future-proof choice for graphical fidelity. But unfortunately, almost all UE games kinda play the same. I think it's cause of all the modules you can get from their store, like generic third-person action templates, and it's contributed to gaming as a whole feeling more boring than it ever has IMO. They're all the same shit. First or Third person, shooter or melee animations, unlock new abilities through progression, get more powerful, and then big bosses that look imposing, but have the same patterns as they have for 30 years, wait for big attack, dodge roll, wait for combo to finish, counter attack. Yawn. I see why people like Souls-type games, because it's the same shit, but you have to be really precise or else there are real consequences. Still, it's all the same maaaaan.

For what it's worth, I think I've seen more creative gameplay from Unity titles, possibly because they're capable of less graphical fidelity as UE games, so people take more chances. OR perhaps it's because of the low fees. But I'm pretty sure Unreal has a free tier of license for selling games on their engine too, where you don't have to pay a cent until passing a sales threshold.

Either way, I doubt you'd find anyone on here who's against Unity making money for their hard work, that seems absurd. From what I see it's entirely around the "per install" thing, that's the sticking point. Nobody expects a service they use to remain the same price forever. I used to pay $7 a month for my Netflix subscription, now it's like $20. If they give the user more value, then they can charge more. That's not blindsiding anyone. Dreaming up cockamamie monetization schemes that can potentially destroy a studio's finances is the sticking part. Not just raising fees starting in 2024. That's business-as-usual.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 11:36:
Unity: "Hey, those Oracle guys sure seem to be successful. Let's copy them!"

Oh man... Oracle, don't get me started. F*ckers.

Unity: "Hey, those Oracle guys sure seem to be successful. Let's copy them!"

The Flying Penguin wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 10:29:
More galling is that, according to this dev, he and other 'high tier' devs were shown early versions of this new fee system for their feedback (under NDA, I presume). All of them informed Unity that it was a terrible idea and that there would be tremendous backlash, and Unity completely ignored them.

LOL, nice. So, they really are the idiots they appear to be, good to know.

The new plan is quite reasonable.

The trouble is, as a a dev pointed out in a Wired article, you have to be concerned because this comes off as desperation. Unity has (apparently) a business model problem, and they were trying to bludgeon devs into a new monetization scheme to fix it.

More galling is that, according to this dev, he and other 'high tier' devs were shown early versions of this new fee system for their feedback (under NDA, I presume). All of them informed Unity that it was a terrible idea and that there would be tremendous backlash, and Unity completely ignored them.

All this leads to a lack of trust. How can you ever trust them not to try this again?

From the article:

"Some solid change here, but it feels like they’re putting the rug back in place and hoping you just stay standing on it until the next time they give it a pull,” wrote a dev from WB Games Montreal. “Unity leadership still can’t be trusted to not fuck us harder in the future,” posted another from Among Us creator Innersloth.

https://www.wired.com/story/unity-walks-back-policies-lost-trust/

Dacron wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 08:09:

yonder wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 04:32:
The lawsuit claiming that Valve is a monopoly was dismissed out-of-hand because it failed "to allege the most basic elements of an antitrust case." Valve is not a monopoly.

The folks here crying about valve don't care about the courts. They think Steam is a monopoly, therefore it is.

They ignore the facts there are dozens of digital market places. They ignore court decisions. They just know better than the rest of us as they cry about things that are not true.

Not worth engaging them. Like arguing with children.

This is straying a bit far afield, but this caught my eye because I am a lawyer who sometimes handles antitrust cases. I've long thought that Valve has market power, and their MFN clause and some aspects of how Steamworks operates constitute abuses of that market power that could constitute violations of the Sherman/Clayton acts. Looks like the most recent update on the court case rejected Valve's move to dismiss the case, and found that the plaintiffs' allegations stated a cognizable claim. https://tinyurl.com/328shdxe

The existence of other competing storefronts doesn't mean Valve lacks market power. Microsoft was found to have market power in the 90s despite the existence of Apple and Linux (and other, lesser competitors). If you're sufficiently dominant, you can't use restrictive means to prevent other companies from undercutting your prices. That's exactly what Valve does. The MFN clause means that if another storefront wants to undercut them on price by charging a smaller cut (say 10-15% instead of 30%), they can't pass those savings on to consumers. This keeps prices to consumers higher, which is the #1 thing courts are looking for to find an antitrust violation.

yonder wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 04:32:
The lawsuit claiming that Valve is a monopoly was dismissed out-of-hand because it failed "to allege the most basic elements of an antitrust case." Valve is not a monopoly.

The folks here crying about valve don't care about the courts. They think Steam is a monopoly, therefore it is.

They ignore the facts there are dozens of digital market places. They ignore court decisions. They just know better than the rest of us as they cry about things that are not true.

Not worth engaging them. Like arguing with children.

CEO to his propaga... uhm... press office: "Call them and tell them the opposite!" And whispering to himself: "And we will try again next year."

jdreyer wrote on Sep 23, 2023, 02:09:
As for your confusion, I share it. They were going to "calculate" the number of installs using some algorithm based on... sales? Google searches? Twitch streams? Astrology? There's nothing in the engine that phones home so I have no idea how they were planning on estimating it. Seemed wildly open to abuse and challenge.

How does Epic collect royalties from Unreal Engine licensee revenues? It seems like that's also based on self-reporting. So isn't that pretty much the same?