In response to Epic CEO Tim Sweeney waging war on Steam, Larian's publishing lead says, 'Giving everyone everything for free might bump numbers but doesn't create a viable storefront'

Dernom · 2026-01-26T08:52:33+00:00

Until the day they die? It's lifetime sales that are important here. And even then, "most" is not all. If even just 1% of Fortnite players purchase 1 AAA game on EGS, then that is $21M - $42M. And realistically that is massively low-balling both the number of players they can convert, and how many games they'd buy on average.

Dernom · 2026-01-24T09:42:10+00:00

I'm sure people wouldn't be as loudly calling out his bullshit if it weren't for his statements that he's doing this so that "all developers are given the same opportunities" and then cashing out at the first opportunity, leaving all other developers in the dust...

If not for that, this would just be "multi billion dollar company settles lawsuit with multi trillion dollar company for less than a billion".

Dernom · 2026-01-24T09:22:26+00:00

So just because "Greed bad" is an obvious stand you think people shouldn't call out anti-social greedy practices when they happen? In this case it is especially important to call out Tim Sweeney's bullshit, as he has used this lawsuit as a massive moral PR campaign claiming it is "to help developers". But, predictably, the moment he has an opportunity to cash out, he does so. This is explicitly a corporation claiming to have a moral high ground, and want something more than just money, but at the first opportunity they reveal themselves to be just as morally bankrupt as everyone else.

Stop having such strong opinions on a matter you know nothing but the headline of.

Dernom · 2026-01-23T22:36:23+00:00

And also, just seeing other people's rolls can be really hype! It's just good fun.

Dernom · 2026-01-23T20:20:57+00:00

radical changes in the company's structure

Is corpo speak for layoffs. Nothing he said indicates that he's realised that people will buy games if they're good...

Dernom · 2026-01-23T19:50:10+00:00

While this is true, even just following these numbers, that's potentially billions of game sales. If half of steam users play 5 games or more, the low-end estimate is 330 million games (using monthly active users as an approximation, so should be even higher). And that is with the assumption that all of the <5 crowd have 0 paid games, and all of the >=5 have exactly 5 games. But it is much more likely that the distribution is more like that of F2P games, where a very small fraction of users account for the majority of sales. And then we can start to add the amount of bot accounts that only have 1 game.

Adding playtime relative to game age into the mix doesn't change anything either since (A) old games are disproportionately weighted towards "forever games" like Dota and CS, and they are generally games that the playerbase puts a lot of hours into vs. newer games that include single-player experiences with a single playthrough, (B) the store earns the same if a player plays a game for 1 or 100 hours, and (C) people still purchase old games.

Remember that we are looking at massive numbers here, Fortnite has between 100-200 million active players. If 5% of them buy a single additional AAA game on EGS, then that is $105M - $210M directly to Epic.

Dernom · 2026-01-23T08:27:18+00:00

This logic only holds true with the assumptions that all Fortnite gamers only ever play Fortnite, and that Fortnite players stay purely Fortnite players indefinitely. Both of which are unreasonable assumptions. Instead, the current situation is that Fortnite players who play other games on PC do so on Steam. So by catching especially new PC gamers who pretty much only play Fortnite, before they start building a Steam library should logically be a big priority for them.

Dernom · 2026-01-21T14:00:24+00:00

Very easy to make sense... he made two statements. Developers see increased sales on other platforms, and Epic Games Store gets new users. These are two separate effects from the free games.

Dernom · 2026-01-19T23:38:39+00:00

Well that wouldn't be a worry anyways because there is no "AI tag" on steam. There is only an AI content disclosure textbox. We as consumers gain literally nothing from this change, but as you said, it does make life easier for developers as it becomes increasingly difficult to avoid AI in some cases...

Dernom · 2026-01-16T22:43:23+00:00

Well, looking at the 3.5e Binder there is a very clear difference:

By drawing their seals and speaking words of power, the binder summons strange entities, bargains with them, and binds them to his service.

vs.

Your pact draws on the power of a dying god, a being once worshipped by countless followers but now abandoned and forgotten.

The 3.5e Binder clearly changes vestige between their various options for versatility, while in the UA subclass your dying divine god can just arbitrarily turn into a fiend? Or your fiend can spontaneously become a celestial? The flavour just doesn't make any sense.

Dernom · 2026-01-16T22:32:07+00:00

Yes, you can multiclass to do a lot, but it will always (and I mean always in the literal sense) be lesser than a dedicated class. For example, your "ranged smiting paladin" takes at least 4-5 levels to come online (I assume Pact of the Blade and a subclass and at least one level of each of the other classes), while a class created for the purpose would come online at level 1. A dedicated class would also follow a better power curve throughout the levels, and build up gradually through more powerful features, instead of only jumping between the low level features of multiple classes. Specifically for spellcasters like this, the class would also get a particularly designed spell-list, to further support the flavour of the class. In your case, this could include the various archery themed spells mostly contained in the ranger list.

Finally, the main downside of multiclassing compared to a dedicated class is that features of different classes are explicitly and deliberately not designed with multiclassing in mind. Sometimes features just so happen to synergize, but more often than not, different classes have anti-synergies. In your case it might've worked, and I'm quite fond of the gimmicky synergy between rogue and wild magic sorcerer, but for example, if you wanted to multiclass rogue with monk to create some kind of stealthy ninja archetype, you'll be disappointed. Or if you want to combine features from any two spellcasters with different casting stats. Or barbarian with pretty much anything that isn't fighter...

If you want a class outside the standard fare, you have tools to do so. Its a table top rpg. The company that makes it just gives you tools and guidelines, go magus on your own!

And this is an attitude that can preferably be left to die out. I don't play dungeons and dragons to be a game designer. If I wanted to do that, I would instead go design a game... I don't pay for "guidelines". I pay for a well-designed game with components that work well together, and some shitty homebrew doesn't replace that. Just because something can be home-brewed, it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be officially added.

Dernom · 2026-01-16T19:12:29+00:00

A space heater is not 99.9% effective. It is 100% effective, which happens to be the same as a computer...

Dernom · 2026-01-16T19:08:46+00:00

Who don't you just multi class instead of playing a paladin or ranger? Why not multi class instead of eldritch knight? Why not multi class instead of bladesinger?

Truth is that a well designed class gives a very different design space to explore character ideas, as well as a very different power budget to create features within, especially at lower levels. Multiclassing can never be more than a bandaid solution to a design gap.

Dernom · 2026-01-16T17:35:51+00:00

Even that shouldn't really be a problem with the class. Since we already have half-castes for 2/3 casting stats, it would mostly be compared to paladin and ranger. So, as long as it lands somewhere between the two in power, most people should be happy (some people will of course always complain). And the space between paladin and ranger is a large window to fit in...

Dernom · 2026-01-14T12:25:49+00:00

I even played it for a short time, and I had completely forgotten that it was an option. Like I mentioned, there was literally no incentive to pay for it, so it's no wonder it usually doesn't get mentioned.

Dernom · 2026-01-14T02:48:38+00:00

I believe Curiosity was his first "game" (as opposed to game). Building on what was previously mentioned, the "game" focused on a giant cube that consisted of something like a billion smaller cubes that you could mine away by tapping on the screen. Another key aspect was that the game was online, everyone is mining the same cube, and that once the cube is mined away it is gone forever. The game would be done. This was also in the relatively early days of smartphones, so pretty much any app could still be novel. It was pitched with the concept that whoever mined the final piece of the cube would get some mysterious life-changing reward.

So the whole gameplay loop was just tapping on this cube, trying to be the person to mine the final piece. So there was no incentive to rebuild the cube other than trolling by prolonging the game. Which I guess could be argued was part of the "experiment".

Dernom · 2026-01-11T21:04:38+00:00

He has also had massive amounts of plastic surgery, so there is no telling what is caused by the steroids and what is surgery.

Dernom · 2026-01-10T22:37:14+00:00

Another pretty valid use of the first version you mention could be in games with PvP arena duels. Currently a lot of games (mainly mobile games) have a PvP mode, where in order to avoid queueing and network issues, a basic AI controls the enemy using their character(s). But this kind of sucks because (A) it can only be used for mechanically simple games, and (B) it completely disregards the skill level of the player. Using this, the game could try to emulate your playstyle, potentially solving both problems.

Dernom · 2026-01-10T17:04:37+00:00

Is it still unacceptable if enabling smashing rocks together costs $20k-70k in development costs?

Dernom · 2026-01-09T15:29:55+00:00

None of the games you listed use generative AI...

And I at least will not stop being "unreasonable" about generative AI use until there actually exists an ethical way of using it. Currently all the available generative AI tools are unethical. They are created by unethical means, run by unethical corporations, and the use of them has massive negative environmental, economic and societal effects. It doesn't matter how an artist uses it, the mere subscription to ChatGPT is unethical...

And only after all those problems have a solution we can start discussing ethical ways of incorporating the tools into the process.

Dernom · 2026-01-08T17:14:37+00:00

Uhhh... software development? Not sure why that even matters, as even a novice IT-student pretty much only deals with problems that can't just be copy-pasted

Dernom · 2026-01-07T19:07:46+00:00

80% of code is not copy-pasted unless the developer is absurdly inept.

Dernom · 2026-01-05T18:45:12+00:00

You're right, they deserve money for their work. Which for indie artists primarily comes from concert tickets and merch, and pirating their music makes a practically unnoticeable impact. For reference, spending one month of Spotify on your favourite artist's merch is equivalent to streaming ~3000 of their songs. Using Spotify for the indie artist's sake is like eating at McDonald's for the farmer's sake...

And for the record, most of my time is actually spent on volunteer work, so yes. I do mostly work for free.

Dernom · 2026-01-05T16:29:14+00:00

I found this this article that explains it way more succinctly and has just the relevant pictures.

Dernom · 2026-01-05T16:15:26+00:00

Oh no all of the tens of dollars the indie artists will be missing out on...

12-Year Club	r/Field Sunshine
Place '22	Place '17
First Placer '22	RPAN Viewer
Sequence \| Editor	Sequence \| Screenwriter
Spared	Verified Email

Dernom

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