He considers that the theft of 30% of profits is “unsustainable” for the industry.

When it seemed that the rivalry between Steam and Epic Games Store could not get any further, Borderlands 3 came to stir the controversy. Among the many voices that discuss the issue is that of Richard Geldreich, a veteran of the video game industry with a long history in Valve (CSGO, DOTA 2, Portal 2 …) who has not hesitated to criticize the economic distribution that the Half-Life parents impose on their platform.

” Steam was killing PC games, ” Geldreich responds to a fan criticizing the Epic Games store. “It was a 30% cut across the industry, it was unsustainable, you have no idea how lucrative Steam was for Valve, it was a virtual printer, it distorted the entire company, Epic is solving this for all players.”

A comment like this obviously attracted the answer of many more users, so Geldreich was forced to clarify that, in reality, this whole issue is rather linked to different historical stages and situations. “At the time, charging 30% of Steam profits seemed good compared to 50% of stores,” he says in an answer.

He also predicts that the signing of exclusivity agreements with playable blockbusters will not stop in a year or so, until Steam is relegated to “indies, games of the second [double A], shovelware [low quality content] and porn “, because it is” where the industry is heading at the moment “. He also believes that Tim Sweeney will force the team to expand the features of Epic Games Store to match those of Steam and win the favour of the fans. On the other hand, he believes that the controversy of exclusivities hardly impacts 5 or 10% of the sales of those games.

Although there is no doubt that Geldreich’s words are as hard as iron, they do not seem to be less true. Companies as big as Ubisoft have already extended the publishing agreement with Epic Games for their next games, without going any further.

Source: 3djuegos

Steam was killing PC gaming. It was a 30% tax on an entire industry. It was unsustainable. You have no idea how profitable Steam was for Valve. It was a virtual printing press. It distorted the entire company. Epic is fixing this for all gamers.

— Richard Geldreich (@richgel999) 2019. április 5.