Tim Sweeney accused Valve of hindering the development of the gaming industry for years
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has once again taken aim at Valve. This time, he claimed that the creators of Steam have been stifling the growth of the entire gaming industry for years.
In his opinion, the company has created a closed social ecosystem around Steam, making it difficult for developers to ensure full interaction between players on different platforms.
Sweeney wrote about this on 'X' on October 27, supporting criticism of Steam by former lead animation programmer at Epic Games, Kiaran Ritchie.
Ritchie spoke out against Steam's standard 30% commission. According to him, modern technology makes it relatively easy to create an alternative digital distribution platform, but competing with Valve is hindered by Steam’s network effect (an economic phenomenon where the value and utility of a product or service increase for each user as the total number of users grows) and users’ unwillingness to abandon their accumulated game libraries.
Ritchie also questioned why Valve does not allow the use of Steamworks services individually, paying only for the necessary functions. In his opinion, in such a case, few would agree to give the company 30% of their game sales revenue.
Sweeney agreed with Ritchie and stated that the problem goes beyond the commission rate.
“Valve has blocked the growth of the gaming industry for years by locking PC games into Steamworks’ closed social ecosystem, where players cannot interact with users on iOS, Android, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and even other PC stores,” wrote the head of Epic Games.
In the comments, Sweeney was pointed out that developers are not required to use all Steamworks features. Additionally, Valve allows the use of its network technology, Steam Datagram Relay (SDR), outside of Steam under certain conditions.
Sweeney called this clarification inaccurate. According to him, Steam Datagram Relay does not solve the problem he describes: the lack of a unified social system that allows players to communicate regardless of the platform.
Later, Sweeney acknowledged that Valve does not force developers to use Steamworks. However, in his view, opting out of the service is not easy in practice. Studios that decide to implement their own account and social systems have to build them from scratch and risk facing backlash from Steam users, including mass negative reviews.
This is far from Sweeney’s first attack on Valve this year. Back in January, he criticized Steam's 30% commission, calling it unjustified. In June, he accused Valve of irresponsibility towards developers due to the mandatory disclosure of information about the use of generative AI. He returned to this topic in October, calling Steam’s requirement politically motivated.