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0 pointsepicide5y ago0 comments

You make a good point to bring up indie development (WoW excluded), but I think looking at the storefronts is also important.

For these big conglomerates, the trendy thing is to have your own games store. Complete with exclusivity deals, privacy concerns, and plenty more.

That's not to say that every game on a store has these issues. However, I think the lesson from mobile app stores is: don't discount the impact that a storefront can have on what's allowed to succeed. Stores can exert their control with more than just removals.

Indies can't escape this. Even if they wanted to sell their game independently, not being on one of the big stores hurts visibility. Not all of them get the luxury to be able to expect their users to follow them to their own site/store/etc.

Right now, Steam is still the leader and obvious home for a lot of these otherwise-independent developers. Again, if the big conglomerates get what they want, this won't always be the case.

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ehnto5y ago

I also quite like a lot of the blockbuster games as well as the indie games. An indie dev will never release a game like Red Dead 2, for one example. I definitely play more indie games, but I would rather the blockbuster market be healthy too.

cpach5y ago

I feel the same about the movie business. Indie films can be awesome, but some kinds of movies are hard to do without a large budget.

teddyh5y ago

Pyramids are hard to build without a super-feudal economy and society. But we got rid of that, losing the practical ability to make pyramids in the process, because we value other things like democracy higher.

bobthebuild1235y ago

Uhh we still build things like pyramids all the time - Three Gorges Dam, Burj Khalifa, One World Trade Center - it's just we don't build pyramids themselves anymore.

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kingbirdy5y ago

> Pyramids are hard to build without a super-feudal economy and society

[citation needed]

The 10th-tallest pyramid was built in Memphis, TN 30 years ago [0] and it's now used as a Bass Pro shop. Say what you will about working conditions in the US in the 90s, but I don't think it'd be fair to call it "a super-feudal economy and society".

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_Pyramid

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gowld5y ago

Huh? Pyramids exist because they are the easiest comparably thing to make. no one makes them because they have better skyscraper designs now and no one cares about making a 4000yr old tomb.

You know what's today's 4000yr long monument to vanity? Elon Musk's orbiting Tesla

tinus_hn5y ago

> For these big conglomerates, the trendy thing is to have your own games store. Complete with exclusivity deals

How else are they going to get people to use these stores?

nonbirithm5y ago

Also the fact that the Epic Games Store exists is a step towards countering Steam's monopoly on mainstream titles.

People complain about the loss of functionality like screenshots or the in-game browser when using Epic. And there are exclusivity deals. Complaints against those things are valid, and the actual implementation of the storefront needs a lot of improvement, but I'm wondering if a Steam monopoly would have been any better for consumers and developers.

To me it sounds like a lot of consumers were happy with the monopoly and saw the exclusivity deals as disruptive as they had to migrate their friends list and set up a lot of things just to play that one hyped title. But when it comes down to the hard issue of staying afloat I can see how the money Epic offers to game studios is enticing.

tubularhells5y ago

Steam has been good to me with their native Linux client, Linux client support, proton compatibility tools and community tool support (glorious eggroll proton version). Epic has nothing to offer me.

Furthermore, I know some gamedevs personally who release an early access level title with exclusivity deal on epic's playform just so that they gain access to further funding to finish the game and release on Steam for the actual shot at success. They take advantage of the money to fund their work, but have said that the numbers do not compare to that of Steam.

qchris5y ago

I began gaming for the first time (unless you count playing on my roommates' XBox in college) this past week, mostly for The Witcher 2/3--both on Linux. The Witcher 3 was never supposed to run on my platform, but somehow Steam and Proton/Wine made that not only possible but actually enjoyable.

I know technically they're doing it to make money, but I can't help like feel it's also something of a labor of love as well. It would have been much easier to leave people in my (our?) position behind, so I appreciate the heck out of Valve for putting in the effort. I imagine they're going to have my goodwill for a long time as a result.