All Steam is doing is requiring disclosure of AI usage. Keep in mind that the average consumer likely doesn’t care enough to abhor AI for ethical reasons. Basically, AI had no visible positive impact on gaming so far. Otherwise, disclosing AI use would not harm your ability to sell your game. Fact is, there’s no killer app pro AI people can point to.
Tim should just start his own store where he can set the rules and let the market decide whether or not they like the disclosures.
If he’s right, his store would be a dominant force, and … what’s that? He’s been trying that for the better part of a decade and nobody buys anything there?
Maybe if he starts using slimy business tactics like store exclusivity on a normally open platfo- hold on, I’ve just been given a note… ok, wow.
Next I’ll find out he’s been giving games away and still can’t- oh, another note… interesting…
But at least he has a bunch of fantastic programmers making the store the best it can- ok, this note just says “AI”.
A disclosure for transparency is not a hate campaign. Actually, Tim is doing a hate campaign against Valve.
“This week, Tim Sweeney pulls more shit out of his ass because he still isn’t capable of running a company good enough to have an accidental monopoly.”
If he keeps going like this, Steam will be getting a Christmas bonus out of a slander case.
Good grief, Tim Sweeney is such an insufferable cunt.
It’s too bad, I really like his early work. Jill of the Jungle, Epic Pinball, Jazz the Jackrabbit, Tyrian, all the Unreal Tournament games, Unreal Engine 1/2/3
Epic Pinball was made by the founder of Digital Extremes. He and the team he built there did a ton of Unreal through UT2003. UT2004 was the end of the partnership, with Epic handling the new design work and Digital Extremes being relegated to art, UI, and a few maps.
Tyrian and UT:GOTY were two of the greatest games to come out of the 90’s.
Theres an opensource port of Tyrian called opentyrian.
I’ve got my original install (copied 500 times) running in DosBox and UT:GOTY from the Old Unreal project.
Fuck off with your slop, Sweeney.
Sweeney Slop, The Demented Dev of Epic
Has no one sat Tim down and explained to him how much free marketing he gives Steam?
He’d probably just blame Gabe for that too.
Translation: “stop giving consumers alternatives. It makes it difficult for us to beat them into submission”
What a mega loser…
You might even say he’s an epic loser…
It’s hilarious how out of touch with gamers Sweeny is.
I’ve gotten a refund on one game so far that got outed for using AI. Even with that, it’s really easy for a dev to sweep away all AI discussion on their community forum.
Steam is doing the bare minimum in terms of AI disclosure. I guess even that is enough to make Sweeney seethe.
No matter what your living conditions, you can never beat Valve on the price of real estate. Because they will live for free in Sweeney’s mind as long as he’s alive.
All digital storefronts take 30% btw
Edit: Most All*
And selling to brick and mortar (which doesnt exist much anymore anyway) ends up costing even more.
The big take away is him arguing AI discloser is somehow an afront to developer privacy. Bullshit. I like the response in the screenshot: Sweeney is telling us to be okay buying food without ingredients lists. AI slop is cancerous to the industry and the vast majority of indie dev communities for instance despise GenAI and want the disclosures.
Epic is 0% up to $1 million and 12% after.
Microsoft store is 5% if it’s through your website and 15% if it’s through the app.
GoG is 30%
Google Play store is 30% after 1 million
Why lie?
They may just be misinformed. Sony and MS take 30% on both their platforms so that may be why they think that.
30% used to be the standard, all consoles took 30%, Apple and Google took 30%, and all the PC game storefronts did. Sweeney doesn’t give a shit about saving anyone money but himself. He’s been on a decade long crusade to avoid paying these fees and will say whatever he can to make them go away or get lower.
Used to. Not anymore.
Steam takes less as a game sells more copies. Iirc their minimum is a 20% cut
Man, that’s so backwards. The one thing I truly applaud Epic for is that they take a smaller cut from small projects. Much more constructive for new devs. The game’s that are selling more copies don’t need the reduced cut, they’re already making more money
Stop literally taking my money by making me work hard on my project.
Tim, you’re just dumb. You think people don’t see right through your business-brain bullshit, and it makes you look even dumber. Sit down and shut up.
