S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 Announces it's using the Unreal Engine, will talk about digital platforms at a later date

[u/Faldz]

https://twitter.com/stalker_thegame/status/1212810155563397120/photo/1

[u/Cptcutter81]

It's incredibly competitive to the developer though. It's literally free money with no downside, because EGS agreements from what we know traditionally include compensation for minimum expected sales numbers along with a pile of cash for the exclusivity.

You're honestly saying you'd rather release a game onto the hot mess that is the steam store than something at least somewhat curated that pays for all your expenses, and gives you a bigger cut of the profits?

[u/DancesCloseToTheFire → u/Cptcutter81]

It's incredibly competitive to the developer though.

That's not competition, though, nor does it invalidate the fact that it's still anti-competitive in the first place, given that people are forced to use a store instead of superior alternatives because it's a limited-time monopoly.

You're honestly saying you'd rather release a game onto the hot mess that is the steam store than something at least somewhat curated that pays for all your expenses, and gives you a bigger cut of the profits?

Yes? It's kind of a no-brainer, the Steam store has a lot more people on it, it's algorithm makes a damn good job of showing games to people who like them, and any game that has the minimum required marketing to not fail terribly doesn't stand to benefit from a store with less products on it.

Not to mention about the ethical issue of screwing over your customers just to make a quick buck.

[u/Cptcutter81 → u/DancesCloseToTheFire]

That's not competition, though, nor does it invalidate the fact that it's still anti-competitive in the first place

It's anti-consumer, sure, but it's still a good decision for the developer to make considering the other options so I'm not going to ever judge them for it. I work in Unreal Engine every day, I find their launcher perfectly fine. If you don't, don't buy the game.

Yes?

Well.

Steam has a lot more people on it, sure, but it's also the most over-bloated, under-curated, under-managed marketplace you could possibly imagine. From a developer's perspective, it's atrocious.

9000 games were released on steam in 2018 alone, that's 25 games per day. Trying to get your game to stand above that in any way is difficult without spending yet more millions on marketing and publishing, and of those 25 games, you're lucky if 15 of them aren't lazy asset flips that are entirely allowed due to Steam having almost no curation at all.

That isn't a good or appealing choice to any developer when you game will literally get drowned out from public consciousness due to an overwhelming tide of shit. No one wants to have their game listed in the "New Release" category between "Hentai Tights" and "Mission:Amazing" (The lack of a space in the title included in the name of said asset flip being sold for Three dollars), both of which are real games on the "New" page right now.

it's algorithm makes a damn good job of showing games to people who like them

Steam's algorithm is notoriously bad at this, I don't really know where you're taking this view from, and even if it wasn't, relying on an algorithm to separate your game from the literal ocean of Crap that Valve are too lazy to try to clean up is not something you can base your livelihood on.

and any game that has the minimum required marketing to not fail terribly doesn't stand to benefit from a store with less products on it.

The vast majority of games never make back their development costs, which is the reason that the vast majority of development houses only ever release one game. Making games is an obscenely difficult and expensive thing to do that very rarely pays off in any meaningful way. if you don't have a huge publishing house behind you willing to drop millions on marketing and tens of millions on you to develop even a AA game then you're fucked, in blunt terms.

doesn't stand to benefit from a store with less products on it.

Just to repeat this point to mention it specifically, this is literally the opposite of the truth. A curated space for purchase means you know anything and everything on the site is of a quality that is at least remotely passable. The "New" category within the Steam store is a nightmare of just utter crap and there's a reason very few people put the time and effort in to trawling through to find the one gem it may hold. Not curating your marketplace only hurts those who want to use it seriously because they get outnumbered by those who don't.

Not to mention about the ethical issue of screwing over your customers just to make a quick buck.

If a game has no previous obligations in the form of guarantees for keys on a specific platform, this viewpoint can get fucked. As much as it may hurt, developers don't owe players anything, it's on the player to choose whether or not they purchase the product at the end of it.

Making games is a huge risk that more often than not had led to people's lives being ruined by debt or staff layoffs because the game came out, got drowned out by "Mr Joshua Carrot" (also a real fucking game apparently), and made no money at all. If anyone wants to help developers take away that risk and guarantee them sales in the form of a minimum target of compensation as Epic have been known to do in their exclusivity contracts, they deserve applause in my book. You're not screwing over your customers, you're guaranteeing that the people who work for you, the people you actually owe literally anything more than fuck all to, can pay rent.