Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
- Thread starter Buio
- Start date
They abandoned their fans on GOG and Steam for a slightly higher payout by a Chinese storefront. That's what I call greedy. It's typical behavior you often see in indie developers, which have gotten too successful.
Part of Epic Games that do the Unreal Engine.. Isn't it..
Are they Chinese and if so.. who cares..
I don't know the cuts GOG takes, but Steam wil take 30% of your earnings, IIRC. If I were an indie dev, I would sure as hell NOT release my game on Steam.
Yes, they are owned by Tencent, a company this forum complained about just recently: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/456135-The-influence-of-Tencent-on-game-content
You won't release your game on Steam and have no sales, except if you get bribed with a exclusivity deal offsetting that.
Beside that for the consumer it doesn't get cheaper and the ToS and Privacy Statement is ridiculous.
That wasn't my point. I was simply saying Steam is a HORRIBLE platform for presenting your game. There are dozens-to-hundreds games "released" on steam every day, so unless you (aside from giving them 30%) don't spend a ton of cash on advertising all over the net, your game will never get noticed. That is a no-go for every reasonable developer.
That is what I call a business decision. This whole 'greedy' thing is absurd, that is exactly why every single company exists: to make money. Calling indie developers greedy because they don't want to give 30% to greedy steam is just laughable.
Itch.io allows dev to choose the cut, down to 0% should they wish so, yet they chose to pay 12% with Epic. It's almost as if there were a few more factors to consider. But as you state yourself, you indeed are not an indie dev.
Wait till they announce individual ship prices if you dont want to fly a potato through space.....evil...I m telling ya
So what? They were promised some interest from Epic? Why does that make them "greedy" or me wrong?
The simple fact that a dev decides to switch publishing platforms has nothing to do with greed.
It's their decision to make and it's crazy to imagine that it has nothing to do with greed. If they were a charity or a non-profit open source project, sure, maybe. But they're a business trying to profit from what they invested in developing the game in the first place. Of course there's a degree of greed involved. They're into this for themselves first, that's the whole point. If they can make more people around them happy about it, publishers and customers, they'll certainly go for that too, but that comes after their financial well-being.
As for you being "wrong", I was simply addressing the silly idea that whatever cut a storefront takes is the only consideration. It's not even necessarily the most important, as itch.io not having dwarfed the rest of the market shows. You'll notice too that RGO is a timed exclusive, and that they do plan to release on Steam in 12 months time. Which seems to indicate that there's more to running a business than the preconceptions you seem to have from your end.
That said, for someone who not long ago was very vocal about gaming media needing to listen and do what their customers wanted as opposed to what was better for them financially, I'm happy to see you've developed a better tolerance for business concerns. [up]
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lol
I'm not even sure it's worth replying...
Are you aware that there is a differnce between content and publishing?
My problem with media is not where they publish and how much money they're earning but with what they are publishing. Shilling to big companies is what irks me off. They are parasites.
Your comparison doesn't make sense and frankly, it's offensive to any developer. If they make a good game, why should I (or you) care where they publish it or how much money are they asking for it? You are free to not buy it if you have a problem with it, but to call it greed is really daft.
I'm curious, in what way have indie devs gotten "too successful"? By what metric are you making a statement like that?
They announced that it is 12 months exclusive to Epic Store. A short FAQ about this.
https://rebel-galaxy.com/rebel-galaxy-outlaw-launching-on-epic-games-store-qa/
https://rebel-galaxy.com/rebel-galaxy-outlaw-launching-on-epic-games-store-qa/
The metric for 'too successful' is envy.
I picked up Rebel Galaxy on a Steam sale but I couldn't really get into it. Outlaw, on the other hand, looks more in my wheelhouse. As a spiritual successor to Wing Commander : Privateer I'll be all over it. 
I'm glad they're planning on mod support, too. Chris Simon is right - that's something that I wish more devs would take into consideration as it really does prolong the life and enjoyment of the game.
As far as the store exclusivity - more power to them. I like Steam, although it has its faults, but competition is a good thing. Steam has had a relatively stranglehold over the PC games distribution scene for a long time now and having more options means more competitive pricing and service. (Although I do give Steam props for their consumer-friendly refund system. That alone makes me buy from them these days).
I'm glad they're planning on mod support, too. Chris Simon is right - that's something that I wish more devs would take into consideration as it really does prolong the life and enjoyment of the game.As far as the store exclusivity - more power to them. I like Steam, although it has its faults, but competition is a good thing. Steam has had a relatively stranglehold over the PC games distribution scene for a long time now and having more options means more competitive pricing and service. (Although I do give Steam props for their consumer-friendly refund system. That alone makes me buy from them these days).
Store exclusivity deals are not "competition", they are anti-competition. The competition is consoles, which profit big from further PC fragmentation shenanigans.
Consoles release exclusives for the exact same reason...