The Epic Games store for PC and Mac [2018-12]
- Thread starter BRiT
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tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
Drug dealers give away their product for free. Until they don't.
Obviously the only reason Epic is doing what they are doing is because they want to carve out a piece of the market. Eventually it has to be a sustainable business and you could wonder what happens if Garbage stops paying for the bills or, God forbid, EGS becomes the defacto standard store. Push out your competitors and when both consumers and devs have little choice left, start raising prices.
Not saying that will happen, but the fact that Epic keeps buying exclusives is reason enough for me to not buy anything from them. I'll just wait 2 years and get it for half price on Steam.
I think that is a misrepresentation.
There are as far as I’ve seen two major arguments against the Epic store - one is that people simply don’t like every publisher having their own store front/environment each having their own ideas about when and how much to communicate back to home central, how to deal with updates and so on.
The other is annoyance with making content exclusive to their store.
As far as I can tell, basically noone is arguing in favour of a Valve ”monopoly” (which in itself is a misrepresentation since you are free to buy titles stand alone).
Oculus is facing quite a bit of resistance to their own exclusive store, so it is not a phenomenon unique to Epic. People just don’t like feeling locked in.
Epic tries to build their store using policies that are arguably consumer hostile (and arguably developer/publisher friendly). Some blowback is to be expected.
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Not really, but I see what you mean. It’s a thorny question, because it is actually pretty practical to use a single service to buy all your games, particularly for those who use the social features, compared to trying to keep track of your friends regardless of if they play on Steam, battle.net, Origin, GoG, Epic game store,....
While you may support multiple competitors in principle, for a given individual it’s a pain in the ass.
I use Steam, and I support GoG because I like what they do. Beyond that though, it’s just different megacorps wanting a piece of my pie for no apparent benefit to me as an individual. I have to use battle.net for Blizzard games, but that doesn’t mean I like having to do so.
If Epic had charged publishers 20%, and then used some of that margin to undercut Steam, nobody would have minded. Not saying they would have been more successful, but they wouldn’t have come off as ”publisher first, consumer second".
If I had started gaming on PC today, I would probably have used GoG as exclusively as possible, but history matters.
Valve has policies in place to combat this. They only turn a blind eye to stores like GMG because they are selling Steam keys. Steam would not allow publishers to list the same game with a lower MSRP on the EGS.
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
No it is not. I don't want to support a company that is actively trying to prevent me from having a choice.
And Steam does not have a monopoly.
Then dont support Steam because of their forced price parity clause.
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
Poor comparison as steam isn't preventing games from being sold on multiple stores. Nor does it prevent devs/pubs from getting higher margins from other stores.
Isn't price parity at least in part because Steam allows keys to be generated and sold without steam getting any money from it?
Epic on the other hand is actively preventing consumers from having a choice to begin with.
Isn't price parity at least in part because Steam allows keys to be generated and sold without steam getting any money from it?
Epic on the other hand is actively preventing consumers from having a choice to begin with.
That's identical to how EGS keys sold through Humble work.
Couching your complaints under the cloak of "consumer choice" is a pretty joke. You and your cohorts never once cared about "choice" when it came to all the years of Steam-exclusive games that were denied to people like me, and you still don't. Your concern for "consumer choice" encompasses exactly one consumer's abhorrence to having to make any choice in the first place.
Don't pretend, even to yourself, that you're fighting for some high-minded ideal of broad consumer rights. Call it what it is: selfish laziness.
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
Take your pills and relax.
I didn't knew Steam prevented people from buying games. What did they do?
And I'm not claiming to fight for anything at all. All I'm saying is I personally won't buy games on EGS because I don't like them buying up exclusives.
I didn't knew Steam prevented people from buying games. What did they do?
And I'm not claiming to fight for anything at all. All I'm saying is I personally won't buy games on EGS because I don't like them buying up exclusives.
Gotta give props to Valve for creating a digital storefront that people actively prefer. There’s a lot to like about Steam. To be honest, I’m not sure if I would’ve ever bothered to try EGS without the exclusives, and so in that sense perhaps they’re a legitimate tactic. Now that Epic have a foot in the door, they’ve given me like 20 free games so far. The evil bastards.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
The biggest complains aren't that the Epic Game Store isn't Steam.
Steam has the lions share because of what they offer as a storefront to both consumers and developers. That costs money in terms of developing and improving the storefront, providing customer service to as many users as are using the service in as many countries as the service is offered in.
GoG in many ways operates similarly to Steam in offering a robust storefront to both consumers and developers. However, they are smaller due to their refusal to sell any game that has DRM. Hence it can easily be argued that they deviate more towards consumer friendliness and slightly less developer friendliness depending on whether the developer feels the need to have DRM or not.
Both services provide many things to support their consumers after the purchase. Steam with arguably more after purchase support (like in Home Streaming, for example) and services than GoG.
So while Steam and GoG go about things in slightly different ways, they both invest a lot of money into their storefronts and operations in order to make life easier and better for their consumers while offering their developers various tools in order to promote their games.
The EGS operates in an actively hostile manner (IMO) to consumers with a somewhat hostile but beneficial service to developers. They invest almost no money in the storefront and instead rely on buying exclusivity in order to try to compete. Virtually no money goes into the consumer after purchase experience or support. Hell, there's almost no money put into the pre-purchase experience like game discovery.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If Epic had gone about trying to compete by offering a superior storefront experience and focusing on the customer first, not a single person on the planet would have had a problem with it.
It's a combination of both them not doing anything to provide a good storefront and them trying to limit choice by throwing money at developers in order to sign exclusivity deals.
Steam is where they are because they provide a good service to both developers and consumers. Not buy ignoring their storefront and throwing money at developers to buy exclusivity. GoG does it that way as well. I'm going to go out on limb and say the Origin store, while much smaller, also does things that way.
On top of that a recent move by Epic shows just how little they care for developers other than what developers can do for them, hence many smaller developers pulled their games from the Epic Store. Epic recently had a promotion for 10 USD off any game purchase 14.99 USD and more. Only they didn't give a shit about developers and rolled out that promotion in all territories. So there were cases where developers games were being sold for 0 USD because they had discounted those games in less financially stable countries in order to help consumers there buy their games instead of pirating them. But Epic included those games in the sale regardless due to them being sold for 14.99 USD in NA.
What a clusterfuck that was. And the best thing was, there was no communication with devs before they put that promotion on. When Steam has their sales, they always communicate it with the developers prior to rolling out the sale. And developers have to Opt-In to the sale. I'm assuming that GoG operates in a similar manners with their sales and promotions. That's different from the Epic promotion where all titles were included in the promotion unless developers Opted Out of the sale. Which they couldn't do prior to the sale being rolled out because they weren't informed until the promotion was already running.
What's more disturbing, at least to me, is that no major gaming site covers what happens to the smaller indie developers that are the most negatively impacted by such moves. The only things the major news sites covered was what happened with some AAA and AA developers. The only way to find out what happened to the smaller devs and what they had to deal with was by hearing it through some of the smaller developers on various podcasts. Or by talking directly with the smaller developers.
But then, I guess there's a lot of people that support monopolistic behavior. So go on supporting the Epic Game Store.
Honestly, I hope Epic comes to their senses and invests in their storefront and stop buying exclusivity. Do those things, and I'd have no problems recommending the store to other people.
Regards,
SB
Steam has the lions share because of what they offer as a storefront to both consumers and developers. That costs money in terms of developing and improving the storefront, providing customer service to as many users as are using the service in as many countries as the service is offered in.
GoG in many ways operates similarly to Steam in offering a robust storefront to both consumers and developers. However, they are smaller due to their refusal to sell any game that has DRM. Hence it can easily be argued that they deviate more towards consumer friendliness and slightly less developer friendliness depending on whether the developer feels the need to have DRM or not.
Both services provide many things to support their consumers after the purchase. Steam with arguably more after purchase support (like in Home Streaming, for example) and services than GoG.
So while Steam and GoG go about things in slightly different ways, they both invest a lot of money into their storefronts and operations in order to make life easier and better for their consumers while offering their developers various tools in order to promote their games.
The EGS operates in an actively hostile manner (IMO) to consumers with a somewhat hostile but beneficial service to developers. They invest almost no money in the storefront and instead rely on buying exclusivity in order to try to compete. Virtually no money goes into the consumer after purchase experience or support. Hell, there's almost no money put into the pre-purchase experience like game discovery.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If Epic had gone about trying to compete by offering a superior storefront experience and focusing on the customer first, not a single person on the planet would have had a problem with it.
It's a combination of both them not doing anything to provide a good storefront and them trying to limit choice by throwing money at developers in order to sign exclusivity deals.
Steam is where they are because they provide a good service to both developers and consumers. Not buy ignoring their storefront and throwing money at developers to buy exclusivity. GoG does it that way as well. I'm going to go out on limb and say the Origin store, while much smaller, also does things that way.
On top of that a recent move by Epic shows just how little they care for developers other than what developers can do for them, hence many smaller developers pulled their games from the Epic Store. Epic recently had a promotion for 10 USD off any game purchase 14.99 USD and more. Only they didn't give a shit about developers and rolled out that promotion in all territories. So there were cases where developers games were being sold for 0 USD because they had discounted those games in less financially stable countries in order to help consumers there buy their games instead of pirating them. But Epic included those games in the sale regardless due to them being sold for 14.99 USD in NA.
What a clusterfuck that was. And the best thing was, there was no communication with devs before they put that promotion on. When Steam has their sales, they always communicate it with the developers prior to rolling out the sale. And developers have to Opt-In to the sale. I'm assuming that GoG operates in a similar manners with their sales and promotions. That's different from the Epic promotion where all titles were included in the promotion unless developers Opted Out of the sale. Which they couldn't do prior to the sale being rolled out because they weren't informed until the promotion was already running.
What's more disturbing, at least to me, is that no major gaming site covers what happens to the smaller indie developers that are the most negatively impacted by such moves. The only things the major news sites covered was what happened with some AAA and AA developers. The only way to find out what happened to the smaller devs and what they had to deal with was by hearing it through some of the smaller developers on various podcasts. Or by talking directly with the smaller developers.
But then, I guess there's a lot of people that support monopolistic behavior. So go on supporting the Epic Game Store.
Honestly, I hope Epic comes to their senses and invests in their storefront and stop buying exclusivity. Do those things, and I'd have no problems recommending the store to other people.
Regards,
SB
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How much of Epic is owned by Tencent?
A little less than half I think.
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