Seriously? Maybe read the article from gamasutra I posted written by a dev and not “Steam fanboyz” if we are too much of a Steam Fanboyz for you. Also, fuck off.
I completely agree with this and also wish there were competing stores on console platforms. And it would be perfect if all games made for consoles could be available on all those stores so that those stores would have to compete on quality, features, pricing.
Thanks for the answer! Also great chart!
It looks like there is a developer piece to that chart, can you post that too? That’s the part we know Epic is trying to address, and I am curious how that compares.
Thanks for posting that chart. It’s really interesting.
Reading through it I find that I’m most likely a far outlier in that there are very few features that are meaningful to me.
I literally don’t use any other features whatsoever. Perhaps that adversely affects my viewpoint.
Achievements, trading cards, badges - all meaningless to me, I ignore them
Friends list/matchmaking - I use separate apps for this
Steam workshop - I despise because it sometimes locks mods to the Steam ecosystem
Reviews - I use other sites, Steam is typically the last place I go to for that info
If there is, I haven’t seen it, but Lars Doucet wrote a good overview from developer’s perspective:
Itch is the most developer-friendly it seems.
Yes, everyone has different use for different features. I do not care about achievements either, but big picture mode and controller compatibility? Brilliant. Linux support via Proton? I may not be using it now, but I love that Valve is working on it.
At the bottom it looks like the green highlighted text is for developers. Obviously DRM support is a negative for consumers, for example.
The chart of course is made to answer the very question that was asked, and probably from a Steam perspective. None of it looks false. You just have to filter the laundry list to what’s really meaningful.
Cute, but thanks for the laugh and the chart. Especially the chart!
Yeah, some of those innovations or returned features didn’t even start with them. They don’t even have to be first to get a win, neither does Epic. I mean sure for people who see applications as a glorified ftp site and nothing more for games that works but Steam has an ecosystem that many people enjoy.
If Epic only wants the people who sees their site as a deposit of files to grab and leave, that’s fine. I just don’t think that approach is a Steam killer… and I question about much of a Steam competitor it will even be.
I might be getting colorblind because I did not notice the green at all. Only now that you pointed it out. And yeah those are developer-related features :)
In other news, just now from Lewie Proctor’s twitter:
Don’t want to just keep harping on about this, but if you want an example of why refunds and user reviews are so important, Ashen has been for sale on Epic store for days, with broken multiplayer. No mention of this whatsoever on the store page.
On a store like Steam, that wouldn’t happen. User reviews would warn players that online was broken, and you wouldn’t be surrendering one of your limited opportunities to get a refund by forking over your cash.
Hopefully they can fix the multiplayer soon, but who knows how long it will take. No kind of warning or disclaimer on the store page is hardly going to instil buyer confidence in a fledgling store.
I’m just glad I caught myself before I trashed the spreadsheet!
I see the green, it’s the bottom handful of the list. Why would Matchmaking be a developer feature?
By providing Matchmaking-centric code, it can reduce the development time required from the studio.
Hmm, interesting. It’s also a feature for customers. Maybe that’s why we see that option so prevalent in games now too, assuming this is like an Easy button for devs, short-cut.
Thank you. Anyway the Matching-making and down is green text thus the developer features. Easy to overlook. I would have made that text a different color since green is used on the right.
I wish. Nothing in software is an easy button, sadly. Even building a simple web app/page can yield surprisingly large headaches with scale.
I don’t mean literally there is no work. They wouldn’t do it if it didn’t bring some benefit. I just meant they must be providing it to make the feature easier.
Network code is a pain where all your assumptions about how code is executed gets laughed at by physical limits. Matchmaking isn’t the hardest part, but, at least, it needs NAT traversal (blackish magic) and your filled friends list too.
Have to admit I’m bewildered why this topic is spawning post after post. Another storefront. Woo.
I think people like to debate various business models and designs that affect them. It’s kind of like console wars – not the kid stuff, but things like here on QT3 where people like to criticize the latest plan.
It doesn’t bother me but I’m still considering the mute button due to the volume. This is where a 2 week snooze option would be so handy in Discourse.
It’s not quite just “another storefront” - it is a pretty disruptive storefront that introduces some very unwanted console-like business practices into our open platform that is PC gaming, but that also introduces more friendly developer revenue split, and that is created by Epic and Tencent, which are behemoths of the industry.
I thought the discussion was interesting. On all sides.