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Comment by judge2020 | Hacker News Reader

judge2020

> PAYING game developers for exclusivity is much different than CHARGING game developers 30% of their revenue.

It definitely is - one store, Epic, offers deals publishers can't refuse to make a game exclusive to their storefront which limits a consumer's ability to use a platform of their choice to purchase a game. The other, steam, puts no limits on where you can distribute your game (unless you use assets from Valve's own games, but I digress) and has done no exclusivity deals that would force a game to only use their store. Publishers are free to use steam if they want to have 30% taken, but otherwise they can completely forego steam in their distribution.

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Can't refuse? Is this the Godfather now?

Didn’t you know that Epic holds developers hostage until they agree to their terms? I thought this was common knowledge!

Just like Apple holds a gun to developer’s heads to develop for the iOS.

Epic is at least bringing the joy of console exclusives to the desktop. Innovative!

Apple holds the majority of the US market to developers' heads to develop for iOS.

Buying a new console costs hundreds of dollars, while creating an Epic Store account costs nothing. It's really not the same situation.

https://screenrant.com/borderlands-3-sales-5-million-unites-...

> a recent financial report suggested that Epic paid over $10 million to get Control as an Epic Game Store exclusive on PC, and it's possible the company has done the same to snag some of the more important releases of the year.

A little hard to turn down 10 million.

> A little hard to turn down 10 million.

What if the game would have made $20m if it was non-exclusive?

Exclusivity deals mean both parties - or either party - is making a huge risk or there's information-asymmetry involved.

And yet, today you can buy Control on Steam.

I mean, that's an ordinary business deal. Presumably, the $10m price was chosen because it's at a point where both parties believe they're benefiting from the deal.

The colloquial definition of an "offer you can't refuse" is one that would be a bad deal for you, but that you have to accept anyway because otherwise the counterparty would do something even worse to you.

Ya, my bad, haven't seen The Godfather and haven't heard that phrase used much.

That isn't the common use of offer you can't refuse

That's not what a deal that someone "can't refuse" means -- that's just a deal, a mutually beneficial exchange, one of the foundations of society. "Can't refuse" generally means a threat of out-of-band (e.g. physical) harm if the deal isn't accepted.

The Epic Store is free (as in beer) to create an account on, and there's no hardware lock-in -- Steam, the Epic Store, and other platforms like GOG Galaxy/itch.io/whatever Ubisoft has can all be run on the same computer at the same time. The situation is completely different from Apple's app store.

Offer you can't refuse usually means someone has offered you more than you think you're worth so you'd be crazy to refuse it. At least in the US.

Apparently it has two meanings. I've only heard it in terms of implying bodily harm, and I'm also in the US. Probably a phrase to be avoided if you don't mean bodily harm because there's a high risk of misinterpretation.

Please watch or rewatch The Godfather. It is a very good movie.

And that's why it's competition. Steam could offer the same, but they don't. Epic is offering a service that Steam isn't.

https://www.techradar.com/news/epic-games-store-to-keep-nabb...

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