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What's up with Epic Games?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2023
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The multi-billionaire owner with the backing of the Chinese government is claiming that he's the underdog against a popular company/piece of software/GabeN. He's made some poor choices interacting with the community.
Yes, it's probably nice for a publisher to have a guaranteed income, which is why they sell exclusivity. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth, so I choose not to support it.
The rest about the launcher being bad sounds unhinged to me, but some people are really into that.
They bought Rocket League and actively made it worse.
I don't disagree with everything you said here but come on, Steam is basically a privately owned PC games store monopoly that has now been going on for 25 years. Since it's not public we can't really know for sure but there's a very real possibility that Epic is the underdog here
I don't think steam has any anti-competitive behavior that I'm aware of.
Fortnite has roughly 100 million more monthly active users than steam, to say nothing of every piece of software running Unreal Engine, Epic is huge.
Steam was fined in Australia for not providing refunds for games
It was a bit more than just an issue of Valve not providing refunds.
Read about it here and here.
Steam somehow prevents publishers from selling games at a cheaper price in competitors' stores, even if their cut from the store is lower. That is extremely anti-competitive and has to be illegal.
True. I forgot about that in my comment actually. I think they calmed down on that because it was basically illegal in a lot of countries though.
If you sign up to use Steam to distribute your game then one of the things you agree to is to make it available on Steam at the same price you offer anywhere else. This protects Steam's business and ensures that Steam customers aren't disadvantaged.
However, it also applies even if the alternative channels don't make use of Steam directly (e.g selling on Epic). This is where the Wolfire Games lawsuit comes in. Will be interesting to see how it goes.
Epic doesn't make nearly as much money from Fortnite's players as Steam makes from their users though. Same for UE royalties. I don't think there's a single UE license that has a 30% rev share (which is what you get on steam if you don't have big AAA sales). Hell, I don't even think there's one at 10%.
Steam doesn't have anti competitive behavior yet. Gabe has made some bad decisions in the past (may I remind you that he greenlit Bethesda's paid mods idea ?) but he does seem to generally put the users first. But what happens after him ? Imo the company will go public at some point, and it's pretty much downhill from here
Edit: gotta love getting downvoted into the negatives with nobody pointing out anything wrong with my comment, all because I dared criticizing the sacrosanct Steam. I actually quite like Steam but gamers are downright irrational when it comes to this platform.
Gabe had a say in greenlighting horse armour? What?
Horse armor was a dlc, not a mod (well, there were also joke mods), and it was for Oblivion. They tested the paid mods on Skyrim back in 2015. Officially implemented on the Steam workshop and all, and obviously Valve was supposed to get a cut out of every sale which is probably why they were A-OK with it. (Bethesda is apparently having another try right now, although it looks like Valve is out of the picture this time)
Who cares about the backing if it has no effect on anything? I'm more concerned about Valve having a separate Steam client for China, censoring their games specifically for China and even reportedly banning for bringing up Winnie the Pooh.
lol XD, let me tell you, if someone is financing something like that, they sure as heck expect something in exchange someday.
So, you believe a government powerful enough to make unaffiliated companies bow to their liking won't leverage their investment?
Why do you think they invested? Just for fun?
You invest to gain influence, not to have less influence.
Tencent also own WeChat.
https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/wechat-surveillance-explained/
Since this is a gaming community, it would be more relevant to say that Tencent likely has a stake in something that you already play or use, like Discord.
Like Epic which is the topic of this thread.
Most investments aren't to gain influence but to profit. At this time, there is no sign of Epic doing anything that could be explained by the alleged influence of the Chinese government, and as the majority owner, Tim Sweeney has the final say anyway.
I never said it was not for profit. I said you invest to gain influence, which is true by fact, not an opinion. If I buy a significant number of shares in a company, I do so because I want more than money; I want influence on decision-making. I do not think the Chinese government is only interested in monetary gains; do you think that's their only goal?
And again, do you believe a country/government able to indoctrinate any business that wants a share of their market, like the Steam example, is only invested for monetary gains and nothing else?
Tim Sweeney can do and decide many things, but opposing the Chinese government is certainly not one. And I don't know how you imagine influence, but having 40% of a company is something I call influence, wouldn't you? Even if they can't tell him how to run the business, he sure as hell will do nothing that could worsen the relationship between him and his biggest investor, aka Tencent. And who is behind Tencent? The Chinese government.
It's all in the realm of "what if". Sure, it could attempt this or that, but it hasn't, nor is there any guarantee that it would fly. That just brings me back to the original point of when a company that is not partially owned by the Chinese actively works to please the Chinese government to further their business interest but I don't see much of that with Epic. If you look at some of the other companies in which Tencent has a large stake, like Dontnod, there's absolutely no sign of the Chinese agenda in the games either.
Yes, and you are entitled to your own opinion, but that does not change the facts. No, the influence is not "what if it is there" – it is there, plain and simple. That's not up for discussion. It's public knowledge that Tencent owns 40%, and Tencent is a government-controlled entity. It does not matter if they "abuse/use" it actively or not. It sounds like, in your mind, influence is only relevant when you use it actively, which is not true.
They're also just plain unethical. There's never been a government as insidious as the CCP in exploiting vulnerable foreign nations like South Africa or South East Asia thru incentives that are basically just a debt trap.
It's more illustrating that Epic isn't underfunded. I don't know anything about steam in China.
Epic not being underfunded is stating the obvious. Just look at the scope of their Fortnite collaborations.