Tim Sweeney Talks About Epic Games Store and Valve's Response? | Games ReCAP Episode 009

[Music] it's a bit really welcome to another episode of jeans recap yeah let's recap some games and game news that happened over the weekend while you guys were out having fun and doing normal people stuff exactly so first up let's talk about this little story I've heard while switch on the lights let's go over there so Tim Sweeney okay you know with all the exclusives are snatching up over at epic right or are trying to explain themselves because gamers I guess mostly gamers are upset okay when are we not upset I guess you know that's a silly joke I'm making fun of our own people but it's true it's true yeah we got some lights in we're good to go I'm gonna bring it back to for Larry but this is

huge news because obviously developers are loving the fact that they have a place to kind of relax and keep their extra 20% profits right as you guys may or may not know steam takes 30% they set the rules and standards that Apple kind of adopted and kind of everybody adopted energy standards all right it became the yeah yeah the monopoly of online digital game stores and for a very long time until epic came around and said eff that what was it 13% around 10% it was yeah yes and they even do a more of a solid where anybody that develops on unreal that 5% royalty gets slighted in a part of that 10% so you're really saving a lot of money so there really isn't a con to actually go the effort story if you get tapped on the shoulders by them the only thing is that you have to be tapped on the shoulder plan you can't just apply

it's it's not like an open gate not yet there's no greenlight process yeah exactly oh I was voted by the fans and so here we are on that big game story I just reach out send me email cinema demo let's see how it goes after exactly so let's look at this article that I pulled up here searching Nova the Donkey Kong mallet this is a great article by the kataka crew let's give him credit this is actually our next story but this is a WCC F Tech write wrote this and caught up with Tim Sweeney and he talks about a lot of cool stuff in this article he kind of detailed his his thoughts great on how everyone's pretty much upset with them but at the same time you know he threw the gauntlet weeks ago saying that hey maybe you guys have a problem with it do better do better and then as you match will stop kind of snatching up aggressively at these exclusives and Larry you mentioned like your thoughts on this look like last

Friday where you're like hey it's the open field it's only gonna help us yeah I think and I can reiterate in like a minute I think sure as a consumer we may not like the inconvenience of having an additional place to go and manage and buy or experience content from like another channel another pipeline because you know the more people that do that the more fragmented or the more I'm gonna have to stay on my toes like okay what games are origin what games are steam what games are Epic Games store what games are discord store what games are so yeah that's probably gonna be a real crappy experience but on the business and the more that people are competing for your dollar the stronger the value of your dollar is because people can't extort you for it because you will leave jump ship and go for a cheaper or more valuable opportunity that's just what's great about competition you know the reason why coke is its prices because Pepsi tries to undercut them so then Coke tries to they stay competitive they're always doing something to try to win you as a customer you know they're trying to put their best foot forward versus if you're the only gig in town you can name your

price you can have an attitude you can have an ego you don't have to do you don't have to do jack squat because it's like either you buy it from us or you don't have it in your life whatsoever so the more competition actually the better it is for your dollar may not be better for your convenience but the better it is for your dollar yeah I mean people are complaining about the issues that you understand right steam took a little out for it to become the steam that we know and love right now took a while for them to get the researcher the friends lists all this stuff work of course epic is soffit suffering the same thing they have the really light on the features right aside from maybe downloading installing and there's really not much there but I mean he responded to a lot of these issues saying that yeah we do have problems but I mean this is the beginning of every every type of new business alright bear with us and people are upset with them with the aggressiveness but they have to be like that for them to be competitive why I mean put yourself in the consumers mind not necessarily saying you personally but can you

identify why they would be upset like what is the upsetting thing if it's not just a small inconvenience issue yeah yeah if that's the only thing like oh man I'm gonna have a hard time patting you on the back so yeah they're there yeah I mean I think we're not gonna they're not like any other place where if you buy your digital game that's gonna get lost if they go out of business they go out of business yeah so your games are gonna be so they're safely maybe the inconvenience like you said is for some reason I can't imagine a network issue where you can't reach your games they have the infrastructure with fortnight they know how to kind of serve server issues so the cool thing that I like of what epic is doing is they're very open and free about their sales figures obviously if it's good numbers they want to just tout that and kind of attract developers but at the same time justify to gamers is like this is the platform here to stay a lot of the things that we talked about let's see here to quote on the comment

epic probably bought up a lot of these cups Newark yeah so the epic probably bought up these consciousness mislead people into thinking their stores working out business works this isn't the music industry yeah there's a lot of straight-up the cool thing about Tim Sweeney is that you tweet out a whole tweet back if it's like worth responding to you so this guy's like by the way the offer wasn't me then a simple no would be easy to say if no one's type buy anything then so it doesn't sound like a denial Snoke says hi and you're reported on Steam also intensely responding when we're partners announce copies sold these number always reflect actual copies of the games - epic game store customers when we provide funny developers of published sure that does not affect the calculation copy so burn there's like nothing shows your ignorance more when somebody rebuts you with just truth yeah

you know I mean like there's no insults there's no name-calling it's just truth that that just burns worse than any like joke because at least a joke is like oh there's embellishment there's comedy right someone just be like okay look one plus one equals two you don't even understand exactly done yeah the next topic which is the whole Kickstarter buffle right a lot of these exclusive have a backing crowdfunding history with them Shenmue 3 like we talked about last week was one of the biggest recent ones so of course when the issues are talking about what a bit about these time exclusives of these backed games by people right you're kind of [ __ ] on all those early adopters well you know who I actually would blame is I would blame the person making the game right because they're the ones who made the promise of if you give us 40 bucks we'll make sure you get a free copy exactly they're the ones who then say like hey we have this cool deal with the epic game store will we still be able to fulfill all our promises if the answer is no but money I'm mad at the company

that took the deal I'm not mad at the epic game store yes so obviously that that required a response let's say the so the tweets and the backers are always tweeting at wimps meaning why you doing this to us [ __ ] he responds well the Kickstarter situation is tricky because as best we can understand the valve policy the only way the developers can make steam keys available backers is they offer the game for sale public to everyone on Steam with the store taking 30% did you know about this sale more time so the only way that people can prompt be promised steam keys is that they opt in and into the sales you know the famous themselves which just can be up to 58% and still be taking 30% of those well I mean that's it clear like you like do not help me anybody yeah so clearly steam steam isn't a big fan of you paid $40 in development fees

you should get a free copy of the game because you're using our platform to help transition data to the person that is getting a copy yeah so steams like we weren't involved in getting that 40 bucks but you want to use our service right actually I can understand why there's still a fee at least on the steam side yeah right because right you're using my platform this forms a game they're coming in and supposedly getting a free copy somehow way from a deal that you set up that I wasn't part of whatsoever right I can understand steam side of that you know I still go back to the developer I think don't go making promises it you're gonna be on Steam or the epic game store I mean that's some fighting words that like at any point you can tell steam that uh you know just throw that 30% mmm and it just instantly makes valve at the head guy right they were supposed to be in the developers camp they were at the beginning creating a platform to fight the the monopolies

the physical stores have but somehow they became the monopoly on the digital front because everything went digitized they provided the most convenience yes like prior to steam it was go to Babbage's EB Games funcoland or whatever and buy you're boxed copy Amazon wasn't a thing at the time right before big-time steam shows up so yeah you went and bought your box copy steam shows up is like hey just buy it digitally and we'll keep it all organized library for you awesome great yeah so I see their convenience as to why they have a lot of people tied to it yeah but like when I want to change websites I'm not mad that if I'm on polygon and I want to go to Kotaku it's just not already there right it it takes an extra minute to like change the website and go find new articles I still can't believe that's a lot yeah to double-click a different icon you know yes it is hard to kind of argue for the people who don't want to install an extra thing but we are in a period where we're constantly being asked by these publishers to download their platforms to play the game that they want yeah I mean we're divided

between let's say the three the four biggest ones which steam epic game store now I can't believe origins still in the conversation they make a lot of games yes and then of course bad on it right those are its games I mean those are probably the big four and then you play you know the eighth place there's nothing in between they're just in the eighth you because you're the you go stand over in that corner guys you know what I think you're the only one playing that's what they should be you know who can step in and save this situation actually and for all the people involved in any sort of Kickstarter campaign is Kickstarter themselves right yeah if they could make it easier for digital distribution through the Kickstarter platform because that's where the transaction is happening so that's where this delivery should happen especially if it's digital like hey we're gonna put this Exe file in a folder and all the people who purchase this tear will be able to download the CSV file three times yeah one time whoever what are you writing me done done you paid me your

forty bucks we made the game even though the game is on steep on Steam or on Epic Store for public consumption because you're a backer you go to this link on Kickstarter and there's your free copy it doesn't exist in steam though it's like a install like the old-school way yeah on it your computer solo through no launcher but I'm completing the deal I gave you a full a free copy of the game for your 40 but a full copy of the game for your 40 bucks through Kickstarter I think that would just solve the problem and a lot of that angst would disappear - no one's getting screwed anymore the I gave you 40 bucks you made the game but now I have to go to steam and steam says I have to still buy it through the epic game store I wanted it because kickstart doesn't want to get into like the server business or they're like already in hot waters with all these projects like going to empty folders get there like 5% yeah Commission fee and like I get off our platform yeah but they if they don't

take an active stand in making sure that the customers there you there you slot website is getting less and less reliable exactly yeah I think the public opinion with Kickstarter's half and half or even less now right well what's the what do you think the polls I will say this Kickstarter for me actually already came and went for me personally I would love the idea of like seeing every man or average Joe coming up with a thing wanting to make it a real him especially in tech or photography I was seeing some great devices coming through and I wanted to be a part of like making that a real thing it Wayne it wax and wane for me right I don't even look I don't even hear about Kickstarter yes I don't even see good one yet more so me person yeah yes it has built such a bad rep the the the coming in and being gone effect is too often yeah that's why I think like other crowdfunding resources either through your website yourself or patreon is a lot more reliable it's like you've seen the progress you have some kind of repertoire with the developers

I do like patreon over Kickstarter yeah yeah it just seems to make more sense where there is some kind of accountability on a monthly basis and you know you have it's just being in communication with the people you're backing up so I mean this is just across the board like what what everybody is having problems with so again people are kind of gunning towards Epic soft Kickstarter problems like [ __ ] like we're not Kickstarter see this is where in the case between this type of these types of either the the big company which is epic and then I don't know why people they're not even fighting for Steam right it's more like they're these fanboys are just upset the circus people are upset yes and but everyone's kind of gunning towards epic to answer all the problems it's just don't they're creating a competitor and they're doing what they need to do to be competitive what's silly to me and this might alienate some fans were upset some people yeah but I

feel like people don't even know how to be mad properly you know what I mean like a bad thing happens they don't get upset at the source they get upset at the rich person they think should be responsible for fixing it right like oh because epic is trying to make a competitor for Steam I'm gonna be mad at epic for x y&z like in like when I was explaining earlier that epic was they were not there when you guys did like a Kickstarter deal and promised free copies of your games to people who use Kickstarter why are you mad at epic for creating a platform for the burrs to sell games yes because people who didn't use Kickstarter want to sell there yes people who paid for their own game completely and didn't take any funding want to sell their game yes there's way more customers that are gonna take advantage of using the epic game store Steam or any of those platforms that had nothing to do with a Kickstarter campaign promise being unfulfilled right right so you got to know who to be mad at yes you know what I mean like you like align your anger with the goal that you want to accomplish and find the person who's

responsible right because that's where the leverage actually is right anyone else just doesn't care right and the article clearly points out like an issue that we've known about valve and steam they've always been secretive you know steam spy was created by a third party to kind of look at the business of games and like a lot of publishers and game developers look at that as a resource to like see if there's onra is relevant or not and it is huge and yeah at some point man gaben those guys over there just completely got out of touch with their base and abandoned us in a way they created this place and decided to do a hands-off approach with a greenlight program everybody in and like hey let's this self curate and just enjoy our vacations in March in Hawaii from now on you know I mean it like there's no incentive for them to be in and they've shown no incentive to respond to what's going on and they've never shown an incentive of like hey

we're we're game developer so so which is their strength right yes you know obviously make games they make the engines as well but I would say that valve and steam is still I think overall I better portfolio right they had to come from a very deep place in the gamers hearts and game developers they actually have both sides pretty well locked I think a little ahead of epoch in terms of just their range of IPs but somehow they just got so comfortable where they just completely never looked back or even address any of these issues and just continued with the 30% and even to this point I've kind of upset that they never responded to any like maybe that you're just trying to avoid it well here--here's that's actually a great segue for us to kind of reiterate the value of competition right for the longest time steam had no reason to change anything they said it at 30% because they're like okay we feel like this is sure whatever numbers they

looked at behind the scenes whatever you actually believe I'm sure there's also profit built in to that 30% oh yeah right it's not just this is how much it costs on average to run this service so we're gonna leave it at that yeah there's still a number in there that helps them as a company just actually profit yeah and they had no one challenged them right there was no other show in town that was like hey we're gonna do 25 percent or 20 percent right at the game store now is like no we're gonna do 12 percent or I really I'm sad that I forgot the number because there was such news the day that it came out I was like what yes well % yeah that's the magic number man yeah that's huge that's just a huge leap so now steam has to like actually do something because they're gonna are they well it's been a while I say yes I think I look at it this way let's not look at it this year right let's look at the longer epic lives and thrives the bigger and badder of a force or a competitor that are going to become right they're already talking about 12% right which is undercutting what you

offer at 30% significantly right they're stealing exclusives from you they have the biggest game fortnight right now yeah that's all just this year right so like to look at steam versus epic right now sure you can say all steam doesn't have to do anything right but it's just like the Great Wall of China the epic store is just gonna continue to build continue to grow continue to build continue to grow and if it gets to the point where they're a formidable competitor and you've done nothing that's that's like Lamborghini or Ferrari creating their biggest rival Lamborghini by laughing at the guy who sold tractors telling him how to make a better car guess now who pretty much has the market in supercar sales I would imagine Lamborghini is probably smoking Ferrari this is I'm imagining but I'll tell you this yeah how many more Ferraris would be sold if Lamborghini didn't exist yes it's that you got to look at the long-term yes the long-term is like very important for game developers gamers now we actually have a formidable opponent you know Activision is gonna always have their battlenet but they're

always gonna be pumping out blizzard games it's exclusive for that it's seen with other publishers they're always gonna go for their own games that's why they create the platform yeah steam and epic are the only ones that actually inviting anybody else to play along yeah and that's a huge step forward for us and it's gonna create a competitive field and I'm still waiting on a reply from Steam from valve like what are they doing they they have to be talking about this are you it's not worried do you think that steam should match the 12% or get more at the very least yeah at the very least and I think they need to step up you know I think they're in a better position they still say that they're the underdogs out of two of them right because they are I think epic is worth more as a company maybe that's actually that's interesting they're both privately I don't know where yet because I know that epics huge influx of cash has been within like a

year you know what I mean like within a 12 month cycle have they really been to like oh my god two hundred million three hundred million whereas we're talking valve who has just run a server and a harddrive farm you know what I mean for the last 15 years and they've made like two games you know they've spent two games worth of the finance and I've just raked in money right so I don't know who actually I don't know value-wise on wins that fight this company worth a pig is estimated that in the last 365 they're giving away money now a billion falling for my success let's look at those valve steam net worth gave himself was probably worth more than a pea

yeah it's at least two billion dollars that's steep so we're trying to pull out some facts on the side and let's see if we can get any sort of reasonable evaluation Wikipedia or an estimate for points all right I mean that's something really dang they are in 4.3 billion dollars in 2017 oh they earned just that much in place earn yes I I'm not seeing any right and then gave him sell this for yeah so it's just on that one year they earned four billion dollars yeah all right I'm still betting that steams more phonetic well it's valuable in a way where or they're they've brought in more revenue I don't know their costs but I don't imagine that we're sitting over here spending 4.1 billion and they made 4.3 you know what I mean right it's a you gotta remember steam is still very small yeah and they've been keeping very small we're talking about sub maybe

250 how much do you think they spend in salaries in a year not as much as that yeah I mean they are one of the few game companies can afford not making a game or a hit and in the last five years dude what was the last game they made portal 2 artifact our total under Lords Jota - maybe like like fun projects right they never really realized it wasn't like on the okay high caliber or where like portal 2 and left 4 dead was right you know I mean where they actually put a marketing push behind it yeah let's just release this because it's fun yeah oh it's making some money I mean they have dota obviously Team Fortress everything is monetized even csgo now is enough free so they're they're around in terms of a game business but you know it's minimal it's to them collecting a 30% on every game that's being sold if you're a billionaire right and you walk work you know I'm just saying let's say you specifically were a billionaire and you

walk by a guy doing the like find the Queen with three cards and he's like pay five bucks and you can win 20 yeah are you interested in that yeah exactly yeah that's the problem and it shows and it shows and it starts from the very top I think was just it's been known for years that he's completely disinterested in games he would not even invest in any game projects anymore yeah I mean he made it Paulina a game business is horrible like the gamble is too high I've always said if you had a hundred million dollars to start a game company right you may as well set it on fire yeah because you'll get rid of it faster and have more of a [ __ ] yeah I feel bad saying that but that's mainly because it's true I stand on that for a couple things the amount of competition both in the development space but also in the marketing space I think that it's gonna take a lot of great ideas a lot of great talent and a lot of great execution and an incredible marketing strategy in order to be successful in game

development right now so the more of those risks you can mitigate the more I'll say you have a better shot yeah but it's it's hard for me to look at investing in a game company right now me personally yeah so I don't mean to dissuade anybody who's like hey Larry will [ __ ] you cuz I just I just put you out alone what I'm saying is I'm just beside our game there's no game out there worth investing but here's how we're doing it is different right like we're just me completely honest right now I started a podcast helping to build an audience you gotta build a live audience to make it happen we're trying to do marketing and customer acquisition simultaneously the business of just making the game and going your cave and coming out where the game finish is long gone yeah you can't build a business that way yeah it is it's a business you can't think of a game it's just a game anymore the game industry right now is very pay to win yes and that's the best way I can describe it if you're not willing to show up with big bank to tell a bunch of people about your products and you can handle that first one not being successful and you have to three more tries in the bank if you don't have

that scenario set up for you good luck yes that's all I'm saying good right now there's a huge limitation a lot of gates for game developers to get their games made but also gets sold and if you're looking and approaching two camps the steam cam an epic amp epic is doing a way better job giving you a better royalty cut but also doing what they can in the marketing front and a lot of back-end stuff that steam isn't right there all the offers a and that's it and which is very disappointing like I grew up playing steam games so have you even with all these issues they still are special developers to me but they just quit completely dark on this completely ghosted on us and it's it's very disappointing and disheartening it's like how can you root for guys especially when they're so silent right now it's like now we're just forming opinions for them and that's when it gets dangerous it's like if you guys are trying to go IPO which they have to be right who know that's it actually that's

a tough one well let's unpack that later because I don't want to interrupt your point okay but like if that's what they're going for it's the community that builds your company up which has built their company now they go to steam because of the loyal is here because of what steam represents to them if you wash that out they're totally gonna or be worth less and less in my opinion yeah I agree it's already less and less than the last two years because they haven't innovated or responded to any of the competition yeah and it's gonna go that way even when trading cards yeah I know right like they used to be able to kind of pump out these games and serve all their bases right I grew up on first-person shooter I still look for shooter then built anything for me man yeah they make these car games for you guys it's like what the [ __ ] valve is like yes where you found half-life you know you reinvented

that day John rrah and you have done nothing give me portal is fine it's a good game I don't want to shoot things right you shooting portal right but that's what I feel like men they're abandoning everyone that has propped them up and Gabe is just enjoying us two homes here's an unpopular opinion yeah the clam the fan clamoring for a half-life 3 yeah is far greater than what they believed they could possibly build to satisfy in an age of review bombs now in the age of one streamer playing a single-player game and giving it away to the whole audience yeah but how many people would be interested in half-life 3 perhaps they're looking at it as significantly losing prep proposition where at most we're gonna tarnish the brand even if we get our best yes how do you feel about that because like maybe again maybe this is a stretch but maybe it's one of those like we're fighting uphill no matter what we do because too many people want this game to exist even if we make it are we gonna satisfy the artist even if we put our best effort

into this right is it then not just gonna get ruined because half-life is I mean very linear storytelling single player experience oh my god ninja did a full playthrough of half-life 3 yeah eighty million people now just saw the whole used to be the innovators right half-life 2 was infinitely better than half-life 1 oh I'll give you that yeah and every level was built around a mechanic that they wanted to build up and they had a classical way of building up the game to make you satisfying the other end half-life 3 is no different there anything like the world can be still used yes they have to innovate on mechanic they have to innovate the storytelling but they are in the best position to do so the respect that I had for that developing team is gone like I love anybody at valve you're obviously really good right but what have you done for me lately but like seriously I can't it's

not a place where you grow it doesn't feel like it feels like a place where you die as a developer because you're not pumping out games in your head yeah I mean you can't get better by not shipping games unfortunately that's the business it's like to be competitive but they're so relaxed over there from the developer side but also if their whole thing is about serving Steam client they're not doing that either so what the [ __ ] are you doing it's really interesting it's automatic by this point right if it feels like a young retirement home in a sense it is what I hear is your desk is on wheels and it's plug itself you can just roll it right next to whoever you want to work your app like so it's like you've got these people active doing stuff but what in the grants that's the most active they do thing will they care around and uh what are you eating for lunch it's like it's that like what that place is a joke to me like I wouldn't want to go there in my opinion of that place is different it used to be my dream place to work at but the last five to eight

years all I hear about is like projects getting cancelled or just people unsatisfied because it gets super political there because there's a lot of old guards there and what their success is like how can you argue is like what we doing why are you making a game we make way more money every day from selling other people's games and it becomes less and less motivating to be creative that's why I feel like with the team that they bought with fire watch I have high doubts that game's gonna come out and you guys can quote me on that what if it does come out valley of the gods yeah all that games coming out yes sure no sure but can you argue with me that say this that team is not being pulled apart on to other projects and other needs I will say this I think that game is gonna finish right it's gonna finish that game didn't start at valve well mark me mark my words they're not gonna make another game a bet that team

right there will not make another purse I hope not look at them no I mean I hope that you're incorrect is what I'm saying not I hope they don't make a better game yes I know but look at that company man every game that they came out with a good amount of them have been bought yeah and internally developed and then never followed up again they get pulled apart with other priorities and I don't even know if their decision to make it be art have you seen that VR set that they made I saw a picture of it the index I was uninspired and wise look at anything she is moving away from wires and yes they're trying to mark it towards the hard core but that's how I relevant they are now it's like dude everybody is I cannae about the no wires they want less horsepower and why are you coming up with this yes maybe it's a little better but is that enough yes used to be [ __ ] valve man can't be late to the party and just a little

better yeah where's the bodysuit where's so where's where's like where's the next step of valve interaction we're in star you know the you see the heartbeat pulse beat her with it like measures your like heart rate and then it pumps up and left for dead the zombie horde you know like wow that's very valve like never came out right but like sure they might be working on crazy things but as a gamer I'm not interested in any more as a game developer it being a platform to go to it's the last place you want to go to now you're looking at all the other options so you had mentioned earlier do we think like valve wanting to go IPO or like that that's what they should be doing I think they're in a very unique position right because usually when I think of companies going IPO their small team or even a big team they have this grand idea that without like a significant increase in funding it's gonna be very difficult or very time-consuming for them or not time consuming the amount of time it will take to bring to fruition versus hey you know what let's sell 40% and let's get

three billion and then we can make this a product next year you know what I mean valve is like what need do they have of money like where is financing so that's what I think for me they're they've been number one for a long time in a like anything any sport any industry when you're number one you become comfortable and stop being competitive and you're become irrelevant I mean that's where they were coming like valve and steam like three years or four years ago was a megalith everybody wanted a piece of it right now not so much if they try to sell it to anybody their motors it's but it's not as interesting here's my big boom I think and I'm ignorant to all the facts behind the scenes at valve so I could be completely wrong I'm still gonna make this statement I think the only person who benefits from valve one Republicans gave himself yeah that's his like okay I mean I sold the company give me a career-ending payday and then I'll just ride off into the sunset yeah I don't see any other benefit we're having more people own that company or just giving

valve like a huge cash influx is gonna change anything that they don't already have complete control over or could just do themselves yes I think valve having more owners will make them make games there probably be shittier than we expect out of valve yeah really yeah I don't yes prostitute all the IPS yeah in my mind based on what I know and understand the valve right now I think if they went public is because Gabe was ready to call it quits I think they're on that's the only thing they're doing in the background right besides making like shitty VR sets I'm sure it's good I'm sure it's like top-notch yeah but it's too niche into our core and it's again them not paying attention to what's there not being competitive it was like our use your goal is to sell these right or as your goal is just to make them just to pump up your like I feel like everything they're doing is trying to prepare themselves to be attractive attractive attractive to investors and capital investment to buy and go public right who could even

afford valve doctors on the street yeah that would be the best buy Apple if they really want to get into this game business like after they figure out the Apple okay doesn't work valve made four billion in one year right yeah I mean they still obviously make a lot of money and they have that strong branding behind them an epic constantly talks about them yeah they're always relevant man if I own valve I would not sell it for anything less than like ninety billion dollars but it's the truth Laura you know what I mean yes but they made so much money but I'm sure at this point doesn't want to think about the day-to-day activities and going to their studio like Gabe doesn't want to like try to pretend that everyone's making games still you know like that conversation keeps happening and you used to be a places never ship right where they always delay their game now it's like completely not even about delay it's like don't even talk about it

you go to valve as a developer you have a great job you're working with really creative people and you're just like getting paid to just experiment on ideas it seems like and I only say that because we haven't seen anything come to fruition I'm actually sad that they have a VR headset coming out knowing that they like fired the female evangelist who was like I want our Evangelist I she was a developer but I mean she was like the one yeah it was like this is what we need yes and this from the outside perspective again I always caveat when I say this kind of things because I'm not there to see yes the real conversations or the real input or the real value of our work or valves work or they're everything these are ability to work together but from an outsider it seemed like they had somebody who was like this is what we need you and super excited about it bringing good tech creating stuff and then got fired yeah and and she went on to you what was ever that story it just seems like a place where they just don't have a company drive or

at least like enough to kind of align with everyone's little experiments and be like this is what we're gonna do the next five years it's too loosey-goosey man an incredible business model like they're so successful that they can just do whatever yeah like honestly like I love fire wash yeah I feel like it's one of those blossoming small companies that very rarely became a huge hit right obviously they had they're not like truly indie they didn't love us for money but it was like a small team was able to be globalized and market and and champion that side when they got bought out by valve it used to be a celebration hall [ __ ] valve oh yeah when I heard that is the Holub hit they're never gonna make another game out of this that's really the story they're gonna get fatter and more comfortable sure as a developer safer

which I'm always you know happy for developers need like a safe place but what was that buy for like I don't understand that move like is it for them to really get back into the game they they bought a good set of storytellers for sure I I will definitely give that that studio credit for but they're probably taking those developers to work on the other projects let's be honest like when you work in a studio that has multiple projects you're never gonna be working on the game that you got pulled in for it you three six months you're like oh my god these other games are on fire yeah you have the skill set can you'll work on this friend of this games UI is below yeah and this and that's constantly the size the new work experience yeah like it's it's really shitty because as the developer it's the one thing that we always argue for you don't really have a choice okay and I go in there I'm like I think you know it's a two-way street right I interviewed for this job for this game

because I want to work on that game you're telling me and you have no choice with it I feel that's kind of wrong in a lot of these multiple projects studios you're kind of just like hey we we have this game resoled yeah it's a different story it's like hey this game is cancelled don't yes sure of course give me a job but this game is going fine but this gutter games coming out fan you know it's not like dude in most cases not like do you want to work on it's like hey you gotta work on this okay sorry I just got it being an employee of a company that's what it is in 40 of a game you know a quick fun question for you besides valley of the gods and I hope I'm saying that games name right it's valve gonna release another game in the next three years three years yeah like box quality so not like your Lords not like artifact I don't consider artifact of box quality game and I'm not [ __ ] on that game or that team I simply mean that like what I would expect to be like a triple like a big title portal tila for dead exactly so box quite no they're working on er games

supposedly three VR games okay and besides valley of the gods I I think they'll put that on next three years alright sure I think I think that one is coming out yes they have to and then cancelled bought it cancelled it yeah so I don't know what the capacity of their like like the fact that they're gonna come out with VR changes already like how backwards are you know I mean like I love the VR space but it's not there yet who has a VR and if they're making exclusives for their stupid VR index game thing it's like who you making it for for your developers who's gonna buy your set like it's a taste look at Facebook money and they're struggling with like you it's unless your set is able to simulate my whole body with a suit mmm and does something spectacular take it to the

next step and closing the matrix nerve feelings why are you making your own stupid set you idiots I mean they have a deal with five but this just illustrates the further point you're so out of touch you're so non-competitive that you don't even pay attention to the market like you like why are you making three VR games money I think this is this is an outsider perspective I always I hate to have to always say that but I do I want to cover my ass because this is the age of dragging if you get anything wrong publicly valve has the money that they don't have to care about competitive analysis and I think that that's actually hurting them as a business as a company that has the prestige that it has they don't actually need to give a [ __ ] because like they have infinite money oh my god to make four billion dollars and I would imagine they maybe spent 26 million dollars to make the four billion okay that's a guess maybe even less yeah I mean what I mean that's

that's a yes that's the salaries that like exactly Hawaii year they didn't buy Campo Santo so they didn't have to spend 50 billion that or 50 million that you know I'm just like that wasn't a year that they acquired any companies that year so if it was just running steam I just was like being funny by saying they may spent 25 million but they made 4.3 billion yeah if you have that kind of return on investment please yeah why are you gonna waste somebody's time saying this could be risky right we might we might lose six million dollars on this what is six million dollars to you I'm just upset with them man like we've been a mystery long enough there's so few companies that has their ability to not have risk yeah and be able to be in a position to innovate and change and be the front-runner but they just forgot about everything here's a Greg where they came from yeah do you recall them

hiring or losing any sea level employees in the last ten years oleg execs yeah they you know the lead writer Doug Lombardi or not is it Doug let me look that over let me look at my taxi so other than gave like have they brought in our lost chief of operations have they brought in or loss of chief of technology have they brought in her loss anyone doing finance like I can't I can't name one name that is gone in or out well here's a good article right here and let me look this up real quick because I know like a few like couple years ago there was a lot of high departures hmm content creators still though well yes like not executive manager well I mean like these guess what yeah yeah that goes to your point actually of it being like a creative leaving creatives going thinking they want to do stuff and then execs like staying to kind of monitor but like it's worth noting like you're Jay Pinkerton he's one of the lead writers laid low wah wah these are like original half like dodge these guys are like cons number fourteen of the company

and they can literally sit there and just earn millions you know because you know they have a percentage of the company right and I'm sure they still have a stake in it but as creative you know you're not creating yet bored fast well and as a developer you have to look at this is like yeah at the og I think that's actually great right so that's that supports both of our points again which is now money was no problem for them right so there's no reason for them to like stay for money because they're both at all those guys that you just name is probably so well-off and so taken care of just from their experience at valve that now they can literally just make a decision based on their own happiness of like do I want to keep getting this meaningless money which I don't need more of at this point or do I want to go out and make do I want to have that excitement again like when we made and release half-life and half-life 2 like if money wasn't a problem for me I would create so differently than I do right now but I would definitely be creating yeah well I mean this is worth

knowing - because this is snort a story that we cracked because Kerbal space program on our game dev Unchained program we don't know we cracked that story they hired a large part of that team and they've been around there since 2000 seven what the [ __ ] they been working on 1717 2017 rights they've been hanging around there and this is what they do they gobble up developers that have like huge creative potential and they squash it fatten them up I don't get what the point of that is like give us good games I think Val they just saw all the talent and like this is what life is when you don't make games and and it takes it it takes a step back I don't know it's it's kind of like really heavy to kind of lay it all on Steam and valve shoulder to say hey the industry is suffering yeah what are you doing about it but [ __ ] if

you're the lead I feel like there's needs too if these guys have been to the trenches they have the opportunity a platform to kind of like champion game development and really be a model for all of us and and do great things and they don't how rare the opportunity is that when we're gonna get another valve or steam to kind of step up and do something yeah but other than that they're like destroying any of these like smaller innovative companies from doing that of course people can argue like sure you know they're giving them more resources but it's been three [ __ ] years what happened the those guys done three VR games that no one gonna play what is the data behind this is a hey VR hasn't been blowing up the way we did I know we fired the original boss because our original intuition is kind of correct but what let's say we create a new VR set with a lot more wire it's just for fun fun and you know what we're gonna

triple down on this platform create three VR games and no one's gonna play it with us how would you guys think yeah this is a great idea it's like idiots like this is uh this is where it actually gets dangerous you know we're always trying to champion soon game developers right and I'm always gonna fight for game developers but there is a there is like a our argument to be said that if you give too much power the game developers away from marketing it's bad right you can't let a roomful of creatives just be creative it's no idiot it's we're business we're an insane business for us to be competitive we have to continuously look at as a business and look at what others are doing and be [ __ ] competitive that's how we grow right this is a situations where you're a bunch of creatives are still fattened up that they're just doing what they want it's like three VR games idiots it's like yes I understand VR is fun yeah to develop four it's fun

to play I get it yeah but we're not there and for us to grow and be taken seriously we got to think bigger than that yeah I think it's like stop dude this now this is a tough one for me to say but I think in order for VR to actually be a next big thing we need all the platform makers to find some sort of way to actually lessen the amount of competition right now because I think we're dealing with a saturation issue yeah where a lot of people are paralyzed to even jump in yeah because the $600 that they maybe be able to spend on VR it's too tough of a decision to have to decide between five six devices right Plus yeah a PC yeah it's like you're moving backwards I like what Facebook is trying to do I like that yes I think that should be cool that should be cool but with even with that in place it takes another five years for them finally everyone maybe have hits it yeah love a nut kind of asked if you think epic would buy them if they had the chance no would everybody fly itself there's no

reason well they're beating them in the store front way I mean they're so far from it earning like four billion dollars I think if every ball valve what do they inherit other than like a bunch of headaches because they're gonna try to make all those Steam games work inside of their float you know and then they're gonna take on those infrastructure costs which may not be advantageous to them at this point right because steam also has like a lot of like 99-cent like shitty gene I don't I don't want yeah but you know what I mean just those like shovelware game full full of that right I don't even know if the epic game store team staff is ready handle to take that conversion task and I think it would be unfair I think it would be unreasonable and I also think that the epic game store is working for them the way that they need right now which is they've already made a splash they're already competitive and it's the size that they are experienced level ready capable for right like they just started doing this they have a smaller store it's gonna grow as they grow I

think that's smart I I would not just buy out valve I would just beat valve yeah I think that yeah I McDonald's do you think anybody who works at Burger King at a c-level is not making fat loot you know what I mean right like I would I would concentrate on building Burger King and I was letting McDonald's be McDonald's me personally yeah no I'm exactly the same place there's no reason for them to buy them up I don't even think they can afford them to be honest yeah that's a big loss see what they made in one year I was like oh man I cannot imagine like if if I was selling a company and you were trying to buy me out of working for this company that just made four billion dollars last year as a 20-17 is that maybe making if I just work another 365 days my company's gonna see another let's just say four billion dollars yeah you know how much money you have to put up to get me to say I'm gonna let go of that revenue stream yes you're not just gonna buy what I'm worth today you also have to buy me out of the next two three years it would take a like a Microsoft mega corporation you all the fortnight's he's all the fortnight Perigord dad's

making one hundred million dollars each month sure Year's Eve or bust now every dime yes they're not at that point either and Microsoft yeah right they're not there yet it's an interesting thought I I definitely think that valve is preparing for IPO but they're shooting themselves in the foot man they're not attractive right now they're losing a lot of ground space in the storefront if that's their main thing right if you're not gonna make games fine but at least dominate in the storefront which they are but like they're leaving so much opening is like everybody's making their own storefront now like where are the major game you're gonna be left with Sheva we're valve should solve their own problem and start a marketing division like a like an actual branch of valve that sees the store data and knows what the big winners are and then start helping devs with let's call it free more right like they're like look your game is qualified we're going to pump some money into marketing your game because we know we get a 30% cut and that 30%

cut is gonna bleed into 20 30 40 million dollars for us based on projections but we're only gonna spend six million in actually marketing it yeah I think valve actually is in position to do something like that yeah that will help win over developers again because they're like wow the biggest problem we've had with your platform is getting noticed and I'm sure you're still gonna have a problem getting noticed on the platform for helping getting noticed but at least it's one tear broken down even further to make it even that much more of a chance but you tell the developers it's free marketing from them that they're gonna put money in because they see the data and say this is a worthwhile investment man that will be a huge win for the just the rapport that developers would want to have a steam and they try to pull some favor back to their company if I was steam I actually would try to set that initiative up like today right baby just gotta earn somebody's love back yeah there I I don't I haven't played a steam game since portal 2 mm-hm yeah you've been out for a while ps3

exactly they've been missing a whole console generation in my opinion when was the last game on a console left 4 dead but for the Navy portal was 2 portal 2 for sure and then left 4 dead left 4 dead 2 it was was that console though do you remember it yeah has to I think an orange box was in between yeah okay but that's a whole generation of people that don't know about vowel go and they're becoming more and more niche and again when you leave a room full of tech geeks just doing whatever they want to do it becomes so irrelevant it's like you're making y3 br3 you can't just do one and give us two regular games the idiots let's shout through everyone working a steam if you want to help us understand your company better invite us down show us behind me just like sweet snack bars and everything else that you're eating yeah this is the think snack a Tron what

is that well just think of any snack appears exactly I can't imagine I'm making games down there I'm sure that the developers are happy and I'm sure it feels like a safe haven where they're allowed to be creative and everything and roll their desk around but there are a benefit there is a benefit to deadlines and real accountabilities if products don't feel I know a lot of people we you know preach against that as being developer ourself it's like hey you know when it's ready is ready yeah but there is a huge benefit to actually you know think of it like a businessman and I don't think they have any of that pressure over there you know you're a sculptor eventually you chip away there's no more there's nothing latter to work with right so there does come a point where you have to like be done yes the other way around doesn't work because you can just keep adding and adding and adding and in and bloat and bloat and just have a career of working on things that no one ever sees yes all right government well that wraps it for games recap stay on for invisible walls

next but that ends it for me yeah well you know it's like going back to school to graduate a second time consider yourselves recapped [Music] [Music]