Summary:
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney publicly posted on social media this week that Valve's Steam "has been dragging down the gaming industry for many years."
The discussion originated from Kiaran Ritchie, the former chief animation programmer of Epic. Ritchie criticized Valve for taking 30% of the game sales, saying that "a Steam alternative can be written in a week using vibe coding", and said that the industry urgently needs a distribution platform that allows developers to retain income.
He admitted that Steam's network effects and players' obsession with the Steam library pose barriers, but if developers can truly earn income, there will be more good games and more success stories.
When some users questioned this analysis and pointed out that Epic's own client performance was mediocre, Ritchie responded that the client is irrelevant now, "Anyone can make a better client than Steam, it is not difficult."
Sweeney later joined the discussion and replied "Exactly",
and further stated that Valve locked the developer's PC game through Steamworks' social wall, resulting in players being unable to communicate with players on iOS, Android, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch and even other PC platforms.
The next day, he added a response, admitting that Valve "did not kidnap you and force you to use Steamworks", but believed that not using it was not feasible in actual operations.
Comments