Epic Refunds Upset Backers | Games ReCAP Episode 016

[Music] what's up everybody welcome to another episode of games recap morning welcome back really excited about today's episode because it takes us back to Dreamcast days when I was in high school and I had the best game console ever [ __ ] Dreamcast I had a really cool game on that console and I don't want to give it away but let's let's talk about some topics all right but before we got going to the topics for the first time viewers out there I am Brenda Pham this is Larry Charles we're here every morning rain or shine because we're indoors it doesn't matter 10:00 a.m. on twitch.tv Ford / blue underscore champs it's a way to interact with us while we're doing this live it's the way to complain about us while we're doing this live yeah you got something to say say it to our faces which because these are

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and just watch us yeah but uh finally let's get to do this topic all right let's shoot this up here wrestle that's a little lead-in innuendo a little hint as to what we're talking about today all right so we talked about this a bit last week where epic on their rampage to upset backers and this is not really their fault we're not really blaming epic they're doing what the competitor is always doing what they should be they should be doing here this is more on the fronts of Shenmue and developers that promise backers who supported the Kickstarter backers Kickstarter's at the very beginning and kind of turned their back on them it's called a turn backers and and decided to do a exclusive after the fact that they got funded and so a lot of people who love their steam that have you know it's

a more established platform it's more trusted it's been around longer and so they just more conveniently want it on Steam you know they're not getting the steam keys because now it's exclusive on epic and so there's a whole backlash to that however epic with their fortnight money TRUCKING in say we have a solution if you want a refund we can give it to you and that is that is a huge sign of trust well it's to me like I look at that and I'm like Jesus epic yeah I mean not in a bad way because it's not their responsibility to come forward and save these developers from potentially a bad business move so to speak right the developers knew at the time that they were going on Kickstarter yeah they knew at the time what tiers they were setting up for their goals I go if you pay 30 bucks or if you pay 60 bucks we'll do X Y & Z we will do XY and Z yeah that was the promise yeah everything is coming through to fulfill a promise yeah they didn't even make you know what I mean so

that's them trying to do better than good business they don't have to save developers from their own mishaps from making a promise going to epic and finding out that they're not going to be able to deliver in some way yeah so I'm actually really excited to see that epic would take this kind of a step because that only in my opinion actually promotes me wanting to work with that platform as a developer or like that's like the signal that they're sending like hey look we're going be a good place for you to put your games we're gonna do everything that we can to partner with you and make sure that not only are you happy not only are we happy but the customers happen yeah so much so that we're gonna fix a problem that we didn't even call us man so much money you know how much money you have to have to be like what's their money at it well I mean they probably did the math pretty easily they saw how many you can just go to the kisser even though they're like 20 grand the [ __ ] people look way better for us and we get on the good side for both developers and people who are consumers plus I think it's a smart move anyway just marking me people have been

waiting for this game maybe not as many as half life 3 the Shenmue 3 has a cult following yes a lot of people from the Dreamcast era who they wanted to really excited about getting that story finished yeah never thought this game was gonna see the light of day yeah and the fact that it's this close to being downloadable executable and playable and you know hey I played it I beat it finally I've been able to end this saga I think that it's a smart bet on their behalf to sure we'll take that a little bit of a hit will give you you know 12% right and we're gonna pay off all the backers that are supposed to get a free copy and we're gonna make an exclusive on our store and we still believe we're gonna recoup positive return yeah yeah I mean all the press that they're getting from just saying like hey we're gonna make make right with all the backers we agree with you guys and it gives them a leg up from from all the issues that they had before because there were other games that had backers but for them they can't start with Shenmue and be like this is what we're willing to do refund

anybody that feels like they've been cheated and they don't want to move over and migrate to the epic story here's your money yeah there's really not much anybody can say against them at that point even all the haters and backers is like well you don't like to get your refund that is insane that's that is a smart move and look at all the press they're getting I mean they're getting at our dedicated from us they're getting all these news outlet kind of kind of showing the love man it's it feels really good to have money to be able to kind of just throw it at people do you foresee them doing this more on other games are there's going to be more careful about exclusives that they're gonna have backers with I think I just look at the signals that epic is sending out and everything that I see that they're doing is mutually beneficial even to the point where they're gonna say we'll actually do something that in the in the long run helps us but in the immediate it's gonna cost us you're even looking at those types of strategies and still saying

this is gonna be positive net you know we're gonna do that the signals that they send out are all very strong all very positive in my opinion they haven't overcrowded their store it's very easy to be one of I don't know maybe forty games on the main page right now and still get some attention the hierarchy in which things are placed I mean it's very clean it's very attractive-looking they're also giving away like a curated free game every couple of weeks or every month I don't know the cadence but I keep seeing my little updates like oh the witness is free now or oh this game is free now and so I think they're doing everything that they possibly can right and this is the power of having money when starting a new thing right now you can force competition you don't have to you know nickel and dime and scrape and and try to cut costs and cut corners you can actually just do good business because you can afford the long haul because they're getting a lot of money coming in from fortnight right now mm-hmm so we're I'm interested in seeing is obviously if if epic just has

fortnight and it continues to just be fortnight the platform it is right now they're gonna see a tail dip right we're like all right I've been playing this game for two years yeah you know I was 14 when I started now I'm 16 I'm interested in cars I'm interested in girls or even girls like oh I'm interested in other things than fortnight right now yeah this reminds me of my early childhood I moved on to something else so when the tail starts to show when the hundreds of millions start coming to be tens of millions I don't know when this will be I'm just saying yeah I want to know like where epic stance will be on being so competitive with the like oh well we'll still just shell out money for this or we'll still you know pay that or we'll still be as competitive as possible yeah I think that 12% cut obviously is because they are making so much money and they can afford to do something like that yeah because they have a one-two punch yeah what happens when it's just the one punch when the epic games store itself to be viable and profitable itself right that's what I want to see how they start doing things then yeah the great thing about the epics store is that I think because they're new in the market

they're being competitive they're more willing to innovate I wouldn't be surprised if they're already having plans like a Kickstarter s oh well type of plan actually their store be very smart like if you take steam top to bottom where it is right now and if you were pushed to innovate these are the options they're thinking Kickstarter from Kickstarter is a downward spiral because they are focused on so many other areas besides games even studied even with games being such a dominant force in Kickstarter campaigns right they're only just a percentage of what they offer as like a crowdfunding platform yeah and for that reason the issue with I don't think it was exclusive to games for a lot of their projects that they were backing there's people that didn't deliver and it's off their platform they don't care about it but it hurts their platform that's all they probably have in plans in kickstarter form to try to

like bring back the loyalty and Trust otherwise like what's happening right now a lot of people are exiting or I'm not even looking at Kickstarter as an option both on the consumer side and developer side is you get lost in the crowd as a developer but as a consumer you don't trust it because there's no restrictions in place for you to get your product or whatever right if I was at big you know the epics store if it's not just a place to sell your games it's a place to fund the games that you want it back oh my god yeah it's about that it seems to be a big such a natural evolution our store should be I think that would be a great addition to what epic is offering yes now I see epic being part of a full development cycle they're very smart they know exactly that Fortnite will eventually lose it's a flare right which is you know in the

last month there's a 38% drop and it's not like failure it's just less successful sure and it's already happening and no matter how great their seasonal drops are people just get super saturated and bored and that's just the cycle of gaming right there's just so much competition so many things taking you know taking your entrance that that's gonna happen so their store is a great backup plan to kind of control the market and get a piece of every game that is sold which is what has what steam and valve has enjoyed for five plus years that's why they're so fat to be relevant and competitive and when you're in first place that is a natural thing to happen as as champions you just have this you just lose your drive and you value other things yeah and you're not looking to compete anymore so to kind of go back though epic store right

look at it this way from the developers perspective yeah if they had like you said a Kickstarter like wink like oh yeah bring your idea sell it to your fans you know get your backer money to develop your game right hmm then boom your games done put it on our store right but then hey we've also alleviated that problem of all the people who paid the 40 books already getting a free copy because they're already in the system they're already through the epic game store because we've added the funding upfront we're already able to distribute and give away the free keys or whatever other things that you've promised you know the logistics that we can offer that's top to bottom right there that makes them very strong you know sorry the wire that's in the way well I yeah you have much room to it's gonna have to be that way it's fine okay oh I mean that was the end of the idea that they're gonna offer top to bottom solution if they had the crowdfunding option right so like hey got your money got your people backing you cool made the game now it's on the epic game store we're still partnering there so not only did we get a small cut of the

fundraising not only did we get a small cut of the developer excuse me of the sales yeah but also we've made it more convenient for the consumer to be both funder and consumers I'm all-in because they already are in the system definitely we handle all that back yes and just me taking two minutes you've solved that stupid issue that Stan has always had it is just like it's so saturated with crap now and you know they try to put the gate up and like go through like a review process which was closer to the solution right for them to open all gates and let everything in D values their their market in my opinion right there's no curation going on and there's just a lot of crap in a lot of like terrible games not just in terms of gameplay but in terms of content yeah and yeah it is hard to kind of subject to that right because it's very subjective right whoever is reviewing it has a preference and whatever sure I

understand in that standpoint but 80 to 90% of games on Steam is turning to crap now especially with triple-a developers kind of pulling out it's it's becoming a problem it feels reminiscent of like what I'd say the iTunes Store games right now where you you still have like quality titles there you still have a lot of fun stuff worth discovering and playing yeah but if Apple themselves didn't curate it in a special way if it's like maybe three months outside of its primary release no and not getting that attention but still like a polished game like a gem its diamond in the rough yeah because man if you're not within two to three clicks away from like the top of the genre category yeah you're in yeah ain't gonna be family right it's right now no one's gonna click 4 5 6 7 8 9 pages in and filter through all like a bunch of like crappy games to find like oh there's that game that was forgotten about right so like I imagine a platform because they had like the steam greenlight thing before it's like

popular opinions basically if you have a audience they would upload your game to get into the store that was closer to me or to achieving like making sure great content gets interests or a step above that would be get your game funded and once your game funded it gets to be on the store and that's it that's a step above where it feels like yeah you know it's gonna be good for a valve right because the game that is being funny to get a percentage of that answer for the game to be me but also when it sells you know maybe they can work out a deal and get a sales at the cut maybe it's all one thing yeah but that's just them that that's just being competitive and like how can I make this experience better for consumers and developers and they just completely skip that and you know we're getting money no matter what well let's just figure it out and whoever is a victor you know we still achieve from the low side of like shitty games but also on the high side because our 30% cut will add even it's like a thousand

shitty games and they only make $5 we get 30% of it and that adds up for us and they just backed away from that it's like that's fine we went our way plus there's also an opportunity where because of repeat business you can make the cost of each opportunity to do business lower yeah so the developer feels that is like wow so break that example down okay you fund through us we're gonna take 5% cut of all revenue you know that you bring in cool you also put on our store instead of the normal 12% maybe we take 8% you know what I mean yeah but then the combining of the cut that they take from the funding and then the cut that they take from the sale could total up to more than what they would have gotten had they charged more for just doing the sale and not been included in the funding right also from the developers perspective if both of those numbers are lower than the competitive market like if I were to go to Kickstarter for funding platform and your number is lower than Kickstarter and then I go to your store to actually sell because your number is lower than Steam that actually feels like a double win they're like wow both of these are

actually lower than what I would have done elsewhere so I'm going to go to epic so therefore epic has now lowered the barrier a little bit because they're combining the two opportunities to sell to you into one place or one product even though both together is better than each one individually would have been yes what I'm saying the advantage the epic has is right now is that they have to select your game to be on the store yeah and you gotta look good you gotta be buttoned up to get noticed by sim exactly so what what is happening is that you go in the epic store it's just all great games and I hope they keep that because it has made the cut everything is made to cut everything they have to keep that standard up because the quality over quantity it's that's the business right now that's what's been missing yes so if they stay that way I mean they may have to stay there yeah I would say sure you might be cutting off revenue right because let's be honest steam having hundreds of thousands of games let's be available yeah sure top to bottom who cares you know there's probably a lot of revenue that

that's generating of course where if epic was like look we're gonna stay committed to making sure we have finally curated content that means there's a lot of content that there are not gonna have so there's a lot of revenue that they're not going to get to get a point though but from the consumers like user experience I think that that's always CU that's always gonna be in their favor yeah cool I know that when I go to the epic store like you said it's always gonna be cream the clock cream of the cream of the crop quality content that's provided I only have two to three pages to click through max yeah right versus chapters and epilogue of content that I was growing scrolls III go to a steam store and this is overwhelming mm-hm and unless I know what I'm getting and trying to search for which used to be like big Triple A games which isn't anymore the case rate everyone's pulling out I can't imagine a two years down the

line like what am i searching for yeah I'm gonna be faced with games I never heard of that 99% of its crap because there's no curation going and you know they have like a curated way to do things where that you follow come on man yeah you're not gonna you're not gonna be face but lucky very not gonna put Facebook effort into it yeah or twitter twitter effort and whatever the kids are doing nowadays twitter is more popular now but like if I'm gonna follow a curator right the in an ad that social aspect to steam in which they try to do it needs to have more than face value right it needs to be wait deep because you go beyond that layer you're having your because the friendslist is a separate list and then you go on the steam page and there's people that you follow and you click on those people it's just it's not as simple as it could be right if I go to the steam page and they kind of have that where if you have people you follow your it's kind of

personalized yeah to the curated content but the games that you see at first are just games you never heard of and there's no there's no valve recommends it's the best deal games like what's the best descent off of Kinokuniya number 17 yeah and not to hate on Walmart but I'm feeling it's really cheap you know I mean I'm walking the walk I'm walking into a Walmart store versus a target right and it just shows the lack of care and it's just more about maintenance and let's let's beyond involve is a really small company right they don't have the resources to make games and I'll tend to the store I'll say they haven't committed to getting the resources maybe this is kicking them in the butt to make them realize their [ __ ] number-one resources under under fire right now and

yes they still have to lead by far it's not even close right but they're losing a lot of steam well let me let me ask you about your user experience with steam right when do you go to steam when you know you want to make a purchase just just that the only time I go to steam right now is that there's a game out and I know that I want to play it on my PC so you already knew ahead of time you're going for a specific game yeah and I go to steam I don't go to steam to browse for games that what can i buy now what about aesthetic do you see the like advertised like Steam sale or like on social media like oh the summer sale I don't go to it as much anymore I stopped going click-throughs I guess you didn't see the sales yeah like three plus years ago okay because they bathe the big dollars is from it's about wish listen now people are not looking to pre-purchase like even any developers that we talked to on our other podcast game dev unchain don't even promote the

fact to pre-purchase the game it's like can you wish list my game you know knowing that that's the way most people do it now okay so next question then is what's your experience with wish listing do you yeah if I see a game that is interesting I wish list it okay but the percentage of me buying it is a the only time actually if somewhat interested is when they email me and say hey this is on sale exactly okay and that's what everyone is doing now yeah so it sounds like just if I'm using you and this little sample exercise to kind of represent the bulk of the audience the family dangerous yeah family man this is the family man prospect but I guess the point that I'm digging for is like it sounds like okay your experience was you're a lot less about going to steam because it's a shopping opportunity and more going to steam because it's a savings opportunity yeah so you're already ready to not spend the rate that's the world we live you're waiting for it to be unless then the

value that you perceive the game to be worth like oh this is a $50 game but I got it for 30 bucks yeah I'll commit now yeah no this was a twenty dollar game but I got it for five bucks I'll commit now that I would say if that's the customer user experience right now for steam that hurts for the developers because we've made this great game people are incentivized to not be day one to not be early adopters to not be early supporters they want to wait till you're failing and then yeah you're like hafta because of like business you have to be competitive you're like [ __ ] man we got to cut at 30% 40% 30% boom now people are showing up you know even if you were to say okay well then let's just start and sell it from 30 bucks people are still gonna do the 30 bucks I'm gonna wait till it's 10 yeah yeah they're always looking at ways to save there's so much competition right now I'm not mad at that I'm this I'm unearthing it so that we can say this and look at epic right go over there I'm more inclined to check out what epic story looks like if I were to choose between you two because I know like all

right so somehow these games got on there so they've been somewhat vetted these are good games right yeah so I'm more willing to like you know what's hot right now I would check at epic is it more of a shortcut on Steam I don't get that kind of treatment I don't know what's hot you know even if valve like has like a cover page with all their best picks they don't even have that either a top 10 for this month yeah you know they don't do any of that right epic is the closest to do on that but even then when I go to epic it's like it's games do I want to buy now there's a there's a epidemic right now within in the game developer community and gamer community of the day one buys right do people actually buy into that as much anymore well I'm sure valve has studies to kind of show like is is that completely dead so here's what I would imagine I think day one buys will be strong with a game that is primarily based around multiplayer yeah that isn't games of service freemium model right so like a

game like God war Grand Theft Auto spider-man these games were like me specifically I'm attracted to the single-player option I have two things working against that a current backlog of games that I haven't gotten through yet and to the fact that I know that when I finally do jump into it its most likely gonna be less expensive than if I were to buy a damn yeah and a single-player experience that I haven't played is always gonna be just as good in my opinion there will never be a planning time like if I'm like oh man I should have got this 4 summers ago when it was popping when everyone was playing this single-player game yeah like no way like I could get God of War 3 right now if I hadn't played and still enjoy it you know yeah it's a brand new so what would be a solution to that to kind of saw that as Sheba's developers maybe had like one year runway after the game ship to kind of stay on that game and see if it makes money well or is it developer should plan two years after your game ships to - to stay afloat for sure I'd say my immediate solution but when I

look at the economics of it and this is I'm going off on a limb here but the the businessman in me says something like this if I recognize the behavior I say people are trying to get more value per dollar right that doesn't necessarily mean that I have to offer my product at less they just want the amount of money that they spend to be worth more right there $20 is buying a full game because they waited and they waited for it to drop from $60 to $20 what if there's an opportunity to say no sorry this game is gonna be $60 for the next two years but if you buy it three months from now I'm gonna pack in three or four more old games that like completely CEL at all so like you're still buying god of war for for $60 but we're also gonna give you God of War three two and one digitally if you buy it at this point so now your $60 buys you four games especially if you haven't bought those games before the developers are still getting their $60 cut the consumer is still in an opportunity where it's psychologically they may be doing the same thing which is Wow my $60 is now worth four games instead of just one

game instead of saying my $60 I don't want to spend because I'm waiting for it to be worth twenty dollars you're saying if the developers have a backlog of their own games that they can package it with I'm just I guess I'm bringing it down to try to find the opportunity to still get your money but to still give the consumer increased value for the money because if I break down the actual numbers and just say what is the behavior that I see happening I see people wanting to get more for their money they want to spend less money or get more for it I think those two things could be related so like hey yeah you know what God of War has been out its this is our Shenmue 3 it's been on sale for two years it's still 60 bucks but now to sweeten the deal we're giving you Shen me to show me one Sonic Team Racing and some other Sega products you know stuff that's not selling anymore that maybe you don't have to hopefully sweeten the deal so that you still get that feeling of I'm gonna get way more out of this spend then I would have gotten if I bought it back then mm-hmm I I don't know I would try that I would try that I I don't see the data I don't know but I guess I'm kind of on that

camp of like well let's try to figure out the behavior yeah and then see what we can do to incentivize it in a way that still makes it profitable for us let's look at the the other entertainment business and how they solve this issue because you know the movie business having Netflix now and streaming services has so many different options you know but like the movie theaters are still coming strong I think people are still I guess part of the hype right wanting to watch it spoiler free and attitude day one they want to watch it and enjoy it and be able to talk about it the following weekend yeah is there anything there that the game developers gamer community can benefit like turning from the movie model yeah I mean like any other entertainment industry that has this issue there's more than one way to watch a movie sure the now there's more than several ways to play the same game on Steam or whatever but then the wish listing and the bat logging everything's

working against us to say wait but sometimes developers don't have the time to wait so that would also mean a lot of great games there don't get through or get attempt well because of how there's a spiral down one song what's interesting to me is the dynamic of the amount of respect that people have for the content I feel like differs between games and movies so let's take a big game assuming let's take a big movie like Avengers spoiler culture is great for big movies because of the fact that people know people are gonna want to talk like immediately and just you have those friends that like get excited about ruining movies and like I can't remember how many times I saw people like wanting to be that big who posts you know spoilers of Avengers endgame or whatever because of that you have a lot of people who are like rushing to go see it in xiphoid I've blocked the internet until I've seen this movie and like all kinds of stuff in games we're like no way man that new game came out I'm going straight to twitch I want to see it I

want to I want to see it I I want to get the experience for no investment because that's what twitch is allowing right now and so that's the spoiler is getting the entertainment for no investment like hey here's the story here's what happens you waiting for 10 years for this to come up you know what I mean like something about it's just there's it's different you know it's different and both of them cost money it cost me a movie ticket to see Avengers it cost me 60 bucks to play you know uncharted or excuse me Last of Us - I for sure went to the movies to make sure that I saw you know the New Avengers I might potentially wait for Uncharted for Last of Us - you know like I probably wait I don't care that other people gonna be online switching it I don't care that people gonna be talking about it I'm probably gonna buy it when I'm like alright cool I've gotten through like four or five more games in my backlog I'm gonna now spend whatever the cost of that game is because I know it's probably gonna be lower than if I bought it day one then put it in my list of things to play and then finally get to it when I could have bought it for 30 bucks yeah the percentage of people that put

their lists on their lists of plays obviously gonna be a lot higher than people who just buy it day olan I feel like the bigger games can can take the hit right but it's the indie titles that obviously don't have with the same percentage working in a smaller pool it's it can be very destructive and of course any developers already know this they're working ways around it and just trying to plan ahead and trying to have some overlap with their past games and their new games to kind of have that one year wave of until the steam summer sale to actually see some revenue Hey like it's always gonna be the hardcore people at the beginning that wants to support you in banking so let's say less than 5% right a little huge percentage that wish lists it and wait till a steam sell to support you you further is there no way around this to kind of incentivize people and bring

more percentage to day one to kind of help support developers is there anything as a gamer that you feel like this is something that you know would be on equal footing as day one Avengers I mean it's not you know that's okay I just I'll say an on-the-spot answer that I feel like it's gonna have some like sustenance and and sort of substance and value is hard yeah because there's really a lot of pieces in play that I would want to evaluate and like really like think you know and then dive deep on and say this would be my strategy so the best thing that I can offer any game developer dealing with like this type of thing is just understand that like your market is like the ocean it's always changing it's always flowing there are things that you can count on right like waves you know water yeah you're drowning so you know like floating like there's things about the dynamics of the market that you can trust but you can't just look at the ocean and say the water is gonna do exactly this or exactly that because any little thing can change the

market so it's better to design your business around being a surfer and less about being a swimmer because a swimmer is gonna try to plow through yeah and it doesn't matter what the market is doing they're gonna try to swim through and that takes the most energy yeah whereas the surfer is like what are the way doing okay how is the wave gonna propel me how do I like use my board to use the least amount of energy to get the longest ride yeah you have to respect the market like the ocean and design your business to be more like a surfer so here's why I say that let's play is something new in the market for us yeah stretched a twitch streaming just in general surrounding the market for us you know crowdfunding something new in the market for us freemium premium models is like new in the market for us now I'm talking about older let's just say the last 10 to 15 years all these changes are happening so you can't be that company that's still like no make its name sell it this way do it this way like a swimmer who thinks they're just gonna plow through you have to be the surf and say okay things are different now how do we as a company that made

single-player games make a single-player game in the era of twitch streaming of spoilers of Let's Plays of yeah try it for 10 minutes to get my refund money from Steam yeah what types of things can we do to protect against that yeah and that's that's really the best thing that I can offer you know on the spot yes well I I kind of want to take a look at like what epic is doing I mean are they solving any of these issues with their store that you feel I mean we were we we jump started off of them refunding backers I think that's a huge I mean that's great huge advance it's very smart of them to do so I hope they continue that if they decide to kind of it shuts down any exclusive talk because the great thing that they're doing right now with the epic story that no one is talking about steam might be instantly get coverage every week now which is great for their store a lot of interest and even people who don't want to go to epic story after the 19th time hearing about they'll check it out and that's part of what their marketing is and this

is why it was such a smart move them through to to do this refund because look at all the press they're getting right it's the doctor disrespect model yeah whatever anyone doing is helping aside from the like lower percentage but they're acting as publisher which steam that I feel like has never done which is really silly if you think about it right I mean gave has been on the record saying that he would never back a game studio knowing how hard the game studio business is and it's hypocritical but because it sucks yeah it sucks like here's a guy with infinite power you know that crawled through the trenches know how difficult it is made it on to the top and revolutionize digital storefronts right or likey and created a digital storefront and created a trend and he in know parts of steam

success were they ever was there ever a funding initiative isn't that crazy I have a huge problem with Gabe specifically being you know the person in charge of steam and the opportunities that exist there and the amount of resources that I know steam has at their disposal to be the one that says I would never back a game studio because I know how hard it is that actually that really rubs me the wrong way right because you're sitting on top of the biggest mountain of pile of resources yeah I would say for the size of your company that I've ever seen in my life you have a storefront platform that is probably the most primarily a dominant PC store front platform yeah two of the biggest problems with Y games is hard as a business you have such control over and such ample amount of support over that those risks almost don't even exist and even if you failed the hit that you would have taken is

like a blip yeah I wouldn't even known yeah in my opinion he's the perfect person who could potentially do something to try to make the challenges that help game industries be games I mean or you own you own the game stops of the digital world right you have a perfect opportunity to bring these games and promote it and get some money behind it in front of it first and then behind it after it ships yeah they never done any of that and this is when I think about that it's so it makes me not just upset but not give the same level respect that I used to develop like it doesn't feel like they're in it with us anymore and more like just just standing back they've lost such goodwill with developers and gamers in the last few years from first of all not making any games yeah right that's their first

mistake and then secondly with developers kind of just taking a backseat and just letting people fight it out themselves right that's valve is like a produce company that only wants to sell the produce that other farmers yes bring to them never wanting to invest in see yeah I never wanted to invest like making it so that those farmers can continue to supply them with the thing that exactly and epic of course you know it's not all a tree you see let's be honest right they saw an opportunity to own the gaming market on a digital world right there's not the PC market is still dominated by steam and Microsoft Sony all these guys are just concentrating on the console storefront right they don't want to even fight with anybody on the PC yeah and so it's like dude a piece of every game PC is not dead right every year they tried to proclaim that is dead but it's growing and it's becoming like a

must develop for in addition to all the consoles yeah and and valve just just just sat on their bed superfast it's too risky but like that's what's great about what epic is doing it by being competitive there they're giving a chance to these great developers and right and although these developers are already kosher they already made success they're betting on success already but they also allowing other type of developer that isn't on the meet wake up what's that game meathead meat boy meat boy meet boys level to have a chance at it like by buying exclusives and be like hey here's a buttload of money right ship it on our store and we'll do everything we can to promote it yeah and so other games you know they've been publicly released is 500,000 copies sold

right that's a huge amount of win for these developers and you know they get a percentage that it you know it it adds on to their reputation it adds on to them as being just friendly enough to everybody to want to help the inte game ministry that so even with all this yes there needs to be a reason behind the green to to endorse this because they have a board of directors we can't just donate me on the AP people right no no so we get 12% of everything so it is in our power to actually own the storefront promote it as Epic Games get all this press and then we still find this is a sustainable yeah this is a Sistina model that doesn't rely on all our creatives to crunch on fortnight right all the time like fortnight will die like every game will mmm right it's not gonna be hitting these numbers forever forever

acknowledge that now got it cool people will buy games yeah that's a fact people who own PCs especially love to buy games that's a fact if we own a percentage of every game that is sold on PC we will be more than just unreal fortnight yes right and this is where steam has been just unchallenged the last five years ago and and they are still very 99 percent of the PC market steam is still head they can still turn things around anything wants you them doing the VR index sure them doing three exclusive games for the V aren't index sure them not involving themself in funding any of these games is insane to me yeah being that they are valve right there a developer first before becoming a storefront like I wouldn't expect the same from EA I wouldn't expect the same

from Activision right there publishers right and they're their business is publishing but they're they're more of like the corporate darkside titles Valve still has a special place in our hearts earth why aren't they not having any funding exclusives with all their money they'd have in fairness of valve I guess what I'll what I'll produce first to like you know kind of talk about here because there's two things I want to say what if they're in a scenario of golden handcuffs where because I'm I don't have the best memory of how valve has tried to do things in the past and what backlash was but like them being the number one supported by hundreds of millions of people right it's very hard for that type of a company to then say like hey we're gonna do some stuff differently because so many people can be outraged like we've already seen what happens when small people do like we're gonna do this differently know if that go back go back go back you're ruining steam you're ruining this you're ruining that so like valve might be in a different scenario where we're talking about like adjusting course for a hundred thousand people died all this talking about adjusting course for pretty much the entirety of

the America's population right sure but like if they were to not just change first like their interface or whatever they're changing just to add a funding initiative sure sure holy crap that people will go to valve right now and so that's the second half of where I say valve is folly because they've never been there they're making moves as if they don't understand that it's a symbiotic relationship yeah steam does not exist as a platform without people supplying the games to be on steam if steam does nothing to help then that means that it's difficult for like I don't want to say it's difficult they could make it easier for those developers by doing things that help developers choosing to not to because of the opportunity loss is why I say it's more difficult than it could be right they're not making it more difficult but it could be less difficult if they were to step in this is a symbiotic relationship they have to understand that so like even though steam looks at these people is like little fish cleaning the little meat out of the

whale's teeth the whale depends on those little fish to be able to actually have teeth to be strong and solid that aren't full of bacteria that haven't basically fallen all out because they have no maintenance plan right this is a cycle of I help you you help me I do things to help developers developers make more games I sell more games I make more yeah the well without those fish losses teeth can no longer eat you no sorry can't eat big things I guess if you inhale - yeah but you get where I'm going with it yeah yeah I do want to point out with questions so we have let's be awkward asked what if the industry adopted a rule of no sales for one year on new games kind of how if you don't watch a movie in theaters you have to wait until they're available elsewhere how do you feel about how that would help or hurt the game industry against what are your thoughts and that was question from Twitter audience yeah it would it would definitely help right I think if there's a clear indication like these new games are not gonna be on sale there's no sales on this if you

want to play it now play it my fear is that consumer is there's so many games on Steam right now but that's all my wishes so that is three plus years I'm ok with that you know I mean it's not it doesn't incentivize me to go buy that it's just too many games right now at this point that waiting a year makes no dent to me yeah it would have to be if so we just gotta go back to the base of the problem which is what why would we need a ruling that it's to help the developers right developers you just can't rely on other people fixing your problem yeah right there are so much so many avenues the epic exclusive stuff is an avenue being paid before any selling your game is the business of making games I've said there's so many times we do we we have another podcast native unchain we we interview game developers all the time and from 195 episodes of interviewing different people if you're waiting for

your game to go on sale to make money to be profitable you are in a losing position already if you didn't make enough money for you to fund yourself and your your company and your team to make a second game before the first game goes on sale yeah you have miscalculated and I say that because of all the things that Larry has stated before Kickstarter all this different way of getting exclusives talking to publishers the doing pre-sales right doing dev Diaries getting on patreon getting paid monthly getting support like you need to do all of that before you even have a ship date and you if you do all those things right there are developers out there that are being paid handsomely in the bonus the bonus and this is the world we live in the bonus is selling it when it goes on sale yeah this we're in the we're in a world of star citizen that game hasn't

been out yet and has made over a hundred million dollars that is the wall you know we're in the world of fire festival before before anybody breaking sand I'm gonna say dirt there's no dirt on the island right breaking sand to set up tents they had the money but they had the money before that is what the industry is like because everybody if you're waiting for the consumer to support you after hearing about you being marketed after it finally goes on sale you you will be dead on the raipur risky super risk super risky and I'll say that like I I can acknowledge that it would be very hard right for like hey we're gonna make a 300 million dollar game right now so let's go ask a publisher for 600 million dollars yes I can see that being very difficult so I understand like super huge ships may not be able to ask for to to build one yeah but anything below that right yeah like

if I'm making $100,000 game I asked the publisher for two I think that's more reasonable to like seeing that be successful or at least 150 like hey we have half of the next project we can at least get that far into it and have a chance to line up funding or the line of publishing through another deal that first one was already done and we're already working on the second one not trying to do business development with nothing in the minke so yeah I agree I think that the more you can do safely obviously the better the bear because it helps you in several ways right by doing everything before you shoot your game of course make your game make it awesome that that is of course rule number one right rule number two is like building that audience getting familiar with marketing putting yourself out there seeing what works what doesn't work having a following because those people that you're talking the first day buys are the hardcore fans who are your hardcore fans are you giving them a reason to be hardcore fans those are

only people that you care about for day one buys everyone else won't be a day one buy they just simply won't if they haven't bought into your ecosystem whatever you're trying to market yourself as before the game ships they're not gonna be dating one buys and you can't count on them you don't you shouldn't care what valp does the only thing that we're promoting without talking about you know Big Ben Redux saying about val dev grants right is it's part of the epic exclusive stuff yeah thou should definitely have a grant to help the little people to kind of get back on good terms with them but also fun and and curate that's how they would curate their content and put it on the front page this is our valve pics because I still trust valve as a developer having good tastes right all those that team over there that is just fattening their wallet every week you know there are still good developers out there in valve that can look at these games it's like these this is a this is a game picked by valve the valve team right we are funding it and we are

promoting it it's like holy [ __ ] if I see that in the headlines later I'm gonna check this game out yeah and I guess valve has the data right like all the stuff that we used to be able to see through Steam spy yeah Val had that data first they have more data they have more points that they can like evaluate and say like oh this company has a way better track record than this company this company's products have come out at this price point and here's the percentage of value based on how much it originally cost how much they sell they lower the price image how much it sold they lower the price here is how much Val sees everything that goes from or they see every piece of money that goes into buying a product through their platform and they know the numbers they know how often how many they know when they see all of this they are primed to be the ones to be able to to say if I were to invest in a game studio which one would it be in how much right like to say it's too risky like they're playing poker face up with everyone else's cards except for theirs you know what I mean like

they're in the least risky position to make a call like that in my opinion if you're the base on track record if you do base on like customer support if you do base on all these things like they have way more advantages to be less wrong yes also if they just financed ten of these games they'll have a game every quarter we wouldn't make fun of valve not putting out their own first party games it's crazy how much power they are and how little they're doing with it they can literally have a game put out every three months and with the valve stamp on it published by valve and we would buy into it and they would sell way more and they would make way way more money than they are making they were making a lot of money right now but they would make way more and then I would go back to steam that's gonna check these games dude I just solved your issue here's what they don't care okay here's the thing valve the game developer and valve the owners of steam are the same company and that is the problem they need to pull a Google alphabet and say steam is a platform that is owned by a parent company valve is a game development studio yeah

if they had a CEO if they had a team that was like okay we are now a wing that is just doing game development and then we are the wing that is just doing the steam even though a parent company owns both yeah I promise you all the people complaining about not seeing valve games anymore that would be solved because you have a company that is explicitly an exclusively driven to make the bottom line for game development yeah any company explicitly and exclusively driven to make steam the best alternative hmm so that's that's my that's my two cents well that is both our two cents that one cent each this is games recap thank you for joining us we are here 10:00 a.m. Pacific time we go an hour we come into this with a headline and we go off tangent sure but we bring up right so they discuss because it's a great discussion because this is important and we come with it with a game developer spective and we're talking from experience you think Larry and I started the game industry to start doing podcast now Matt this is how we make a game this is what we're doing we're doing exactly

like what we're saying because this is how it is all right you gotta build an audience first yeah make some money off of that and then sell your game yeah that's our strategy that is our strategy so if you want to support us yes let's go a patreon.com for slap blue chance if you miss any second of this you can be a twitch prime subscriber and you can access this on Twitch if you want an early access and you can go straight to our patreon again you get this a week early but games recap is daily this is not behind a wall but all our other shows are a week later that makes sense but speaking of other shows so we do have invisible walls coming up next we're gonna do a five minute hydration period and we're gonna come back with you to break down walls yeah right talking about breakthroughs breakthroughs bettering ourselves and this is our only non-gaming show so what else is there besides gaming everything else so that's the everything else show and it's a gotten quite interesting the

last few episodes so tune in for that and I'm gonna leave it to Larry to exit us from this conversation yeah you know when you uh see you tomorrow guys [Music] [Music]