Former Valve Dev Says Company Nearly Killed PC Gaming
Mike Sanders / 3 months ago
Valve Gaming
Working under the presumption that you’re very likely a PC gamer, the chances are that you have Steam installed on your system. Over recent months, however, you might have been tempted into adding the Epic Games Launcher as well. It is, after all, a brand new retail platform and has been offering members a number of surprisingly good games for free!
In a report via DSOGaming, however, a former Valve employee has launched a stinging attack on the company saying that Steams policy nearly killed off PC gaming.
Commission
While Steam did recently modify it’s policy, for years it operated on a 30% commission basis. Put simply, of every game sold on the platform, just under a third of the money went directly to Valve.
Answering critics of the Epic Games platform, former employee Richard Geldrich posted the following on Twitter.
Steam was killing PC gaming. It was a 30% tax on an entire industry. It was unsustainable. You have no idea how profitable Steam was for Valve. It was a virtual printing press. It distorted the entire company. Epic is fixing this for all gamers.
— Richard Geldreich (@richgel999) 5 April 2019
Epic Games Store
When the Epic Games Store launched, it went after Steam with gusto. Offering developers only a 10% commission rate, it immediately had an impact and has tempted more than more to go exclusive with the platform.
This, by proxy, has already seen many games releasing for notably less than they were originally intended. This is helped by the fact that Epic Games is openly encouraging developers to pass on their savings to customers.
Admittedly, not everyone likes the Epic Games Launcher. There are, after all, more than a few accusations floating around about how it may monitor your usage. On the whole, however, if it is going to be a success and as much a staple on a gaming PC as Steam has been, then it’s going about it all the right way!
If you are interested in checking out the Epic Games Launcher, you can download it via the link here!
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
If it was killing PC gaming, PC gaming wouldn’t have flourished that much.
30% was a lot less than publishers lost from the physical distribution chain. That was a pretty good figure.
And sure, it’s nicer when the cut is smaller. But ‘killing PC gaming’? That’s plain stupid.