they pay devs (mostly indie) millions to make their games exclusive to epic for up to over a year. i’d rather not support a company that pays to limit your choice as a consumer
I prefer steam, I’d like to be able to choose what platform I buy a game on. Outside of just not wanting a 5th launcher because I hate having a billion launchers, Steam has many features the EGS doesn’t have. Free cloud save backups and screenshot backups, steam workshop for mods, remote play together, game streaming, etc. I also really like steam having player reviews too.
Well mine is pretty petty. Every time I start up my system I’m spammed by epic advertisements in the lower right. It’s just so obnoxious, particularly since I’m on my couch and using my controller, so I have to pick up keyboard to dismiss those.
I’m so lazy I haven’t bothered to investigate options to be fair, but broadly speaking I don’t like how much it screams “look at me, look at me!” when I had no intention of interacting with their store/launcher at all that time.
Tldr: Kickstarter Game with a lot of interest while in development announces a release date on Steam. After the date announcement they get contacted by Epic saying “we’d love to host your game” for an exclusivity deal.
Dev responds that they would be happy to have their game on Epic but promises were made during crowd funding that it would be available on Steam.
Epic replies that they aren’t interested if it’s not exclusive.
This tells me that
Epic is full of shit. "We’d love to have your game, but only if it’s exclusive.
Epic doesn’t care about being a better service for its customers. Having the game available on Epic as well is strictly better for Epic’s customers and they easily could have done that. They chose not to.
Epic is not interested in actually having to compete with other companies. This would require them to provide a better service in some fashion. They are only interested if they can force people “if you want to purchase this game you have to buy it through us” which is anti-consumer.
Its because the other exclusives are the devs/publishers launcher. While epic was actively seeking those 1year exclusivity deals to get more users on the platform.
So it would be better if it was a permanent exclusivity deal, like traditional publishers have?
They’ve been paying out in advance in some cases (Epic Mega Grants, I think) so the devs can finish the game. That’s basically the definition of what publishers do, but when Epic do it it’s somehow “not publishing”?
Well it really depends how you look at it. For the devs it’s better in terms of how much they get per purchase given that epic takes a lower cut than steam, IIRC 15% as opposed to 30%.
But many users hate epic as a platform seeing how it’s not as mature in features, and probably just pure love of steam.
What I’m actually wondering about is if it’s worth signing the exclusivity deal seeing how some people will not bother buying a game on a platform they hate or do enough people purchase for it to even out and even gain a larger profit.
steam and valve has also been generally more respectful with users than mostly any other online business, not even just in the space of online software stores. of course it’s not all rainbows and glitter but the point stands.
I don’t give any attention to the arguments that Steam is “more mature” in regards to features, when the vast majority of users don’t use those features to begin with. Steam has all the community features (and more) of Discord, but I would wager most of the fanboys in this thread don’t even know about that, or where to find those community features, let alone actually use them.
They waited until a game previously announced for Steam was finished development and had a launch date, then tried to bribe them with an exclusivity deal to not provide the game on the platform they promised to backers.
They weren’t paying a damn thing for development, just to eliminate consumer choice. Instead of, you know, providing a better service in some way so people want to purchase from you instead.
don’t hide the full story, they pay devs millions to keep their games exclusive to epic for a year. that is an extremely scummy business practice that you are rewarding and encouraging if you buy from this shitfest of a platform
When Half Life 2 launched, you had to register your game with Steam before you could play it. You had to give up your physical ownership of the product, and lock it to yourself. You couldn’t sell it to anyone else, or even let them play it.
That’s what you were encouraging by buying from that shitfest of a platform.
I really don’t see how bunging devs money for publishing rights is worse. The devs clearly don’t see it that way.
You couldn’t sell it to anyone else, or even let them play it.
Epic lets you sell your games to someone else?
As to your 2nd point I play my friend’s games all the time. I haven’t purchased Satisfactory but have almost 100% it on Steam playing my friend’s copy.
So we’re talking about everything except this moment in time?
Epic doesn’t have disks either so it’s irrelevant to the discussion of Epic games. If you want to complain about eliminating physical media try talking about it in regards to someplace that actually sells physical media.
If Steam is bad because no physical media then so is Epic.
But I guess Epic is okay because of how things are right now right? but I shouldn’t bring up how things are on Steam right now? In direct comparison?
Pick an era in time you would like to complain about, and if it’s the early 2000s then go bitch to people in the early 2000s. I’m sure many of them are complaining about the loss of physical media. People still used Steam anyway and now it’s the norm. Now people are complaining about exclusivity deals, if people still use Epic anyway then that will become the norm.
I mean I see this as a good thing. I have to keep a separate launcher around but… at least that dev is getting a great deal and will probably be able to support that game for a while (or start their next one)
There are apparently 270 million Epic Store accounts made.
Now most of them don’t buy anything and are probably installed on a whim for one free game ad now they’ve forgot their password, while a good chunk of them are probably 12 year olds playing Fortnite who don’t even look at it and hurl all their pocket money into V-bucks so the rest of us get free games, but it’s not an insignificant amount.
They’re paying indie devs millions to remain exclusive for a year. What’s scummy is the Steam fanboys who see that and think it’s better for gamers if those games just aren’t financially successful.
-Valve didn’t kill ownership it was already dead. DLC has been pulled, and games delisted, as well as games made unplayable by server shutdowns. They just happened to be the platform who told you to your face what you were getting into while everyone else lied and said the game was yours until it wasn’t. They also say they’ll provide downloads for a time if they ever shut down, but if you want that long term guarantee you’re probably better off looking at GOG and some kind of data storage for the installers.
-Origin is shit and I hate EA/Origin exclusives too, but it’s basically a launcher for their own games which I understand, but still prefer steam to be included too, so much of the time I avoid EA games (i avoid them for a lot of reasons tbh)
-Battle.net started as a unified launcher for blizzard games, which sort of made sense as they never worked with or were involved with steam, and many of their games were disc based or had its own installer. Subscriptions specifically I don’t think existed with steam for a while so that was sort of a complicating factor. Still wish their games were on steam, but it sort of made sense at its inception.
-I don’t even use the microsoft store unless forced to, I find it annoying and bleh. They’re forcing more games to it and it’s shitty too.
-Epic is annoying, but it’s a special kind of annoying because for many games early on, they would announce steam as a supported platform, some even sold the game on steam, until they changed to Epic exclusives. I think Fall Guys was one example. The bait and switch really lost them trust with a lot of gamers and you’ll find the attitude towards them can be pretty bad because of that history.
Add in that many of the games aren’t published by them, they just threw money at the publisher or devs to make their games epic exclusive. This can be good for developers, like an upfront investment, but sucks for gamers who like to keep things somewhat unified in terms of a game library. Especially when you already have to deal with 5 other launchers, another arbitrary one is pretty annoying.
If you’re wondering why people want their games on steam, look at the features. Free cloud save backups, a decent amount of free screenshot backups, in game recording is new and pretty neat, achievements, community marketplaces, frequent sales, family sharing, steam workshop for easy integrated modding, discussions and guides for all your games, early access games, built in friends, text chat, voice chat, remote play together, game streaming, etc.
TLDR: It isn’t an “oh epic stinky just because” situation. The Epic game store simply doesn’t have feature parity, bait and switched gamers multiple times with exclusives after games were advertised as being on steam, and basically survived on throwing money at devs to put their games exclusively on EGS, at the expense of the people who want to play those games on their chosen platform. Doesn’t shock me that they don’t have a lot of positive PR in the community.
kills? most of them work with a steam emu, even offline. that’s not even cracking. most of those that don’t have a different limitation.
with a steam emu you can do whatever you want with the game files, often you can put it on your pendrive and play it as a portable game (the right goldberg emu settings allow game data to be stored near the game files instead of appdata)
I’m OK if you own the game you are making exclusive to your platform. Bribing devs is shitty practice. They also sit and wait for a game’s early access to gain momentum on Steam first before offering them money to leave.
Both are horrible mess, I don’t really understand this deepthroating of steam their ui is horrible, they do behave like a monopoly, games by them have drm by default. Same can be said about epic.
As evidenced by this post, they are not a monopoly. So what does this statement actually mean?
This post gives evidence of the contrary, game that dared not to be published on platform that has 70-80% of pc market share ( geekwire.com/…/gaming-giant-valve-hit-with-anothe… ) shouldn’t even exist and even stating otherwise is a blasphemy, lol. As for more anecdotical examples, games that are published on steam only, are majority most don’t even list other platforms on their web sites, in cases when they can be bought elsewhere. Even more, updates and patches often do not reach other marketplaces. So yeah steam is a shitty marketplace with horrible ui and captured fanatical clients.
Lawsuits are cheap and meaningless. Unless actually ruled on, they don’t mean crap (and even then, sometimes it’s just clear evidence of jury / judge bias, like the infamous patent trolls of East Texas).
70-80% of pc market share
This source puts their market share at ~20% of the PC gaming market. Your source is for ‘85% market share in multi-publisher PC game stores’, which is not the same thing, and it’s based on a random tweet by their competitor CEO attacking them, which should carry approximately 0 credibility.
You keep using the word monopoly. It does not mean what you seem to think it means.
Your “source” is an image that doesn’t even differentiate between various stores and lists everything as blue, with text that says “steam revenue is probabaly x billion”. I couldn’t find anything except other similar images when looking up Pelham Smithers reports. In reports from previous years steam is not mentioned. I will rephrase it then if you dislike the word I am using: Steam has a dominant position in the pc gaming market and uses it to their benefit which doesn’t (in my opinion) coincide with consumer benefit, also their app is shit.
Also, Steam’s estimated revenue and the PC gaming market are numbers available from various sources. I’ve pointed out why your source is nonsense, and provided more accurate figures.
uses it to their benefit which doesn’t (in my opinion) coincide with consumer benefit
That’s changed from your original ‘behave like a monopoly’ comment, and which I’m still waiting for clarification on. How exactly do they behave like a monopoly supposedly does?
You post the same data now with article that doesn’t even have word “steam” in it. Your various sources weren’t linked. I think that clears why your source is “nonsense”.
Yes my words are changed because, you somehow read me saying multiple times of steam being monopoly in single use of phrase, steam behaves like a monopoly. I repeat, not liking one store doesn’t make me a fan of another, they both are horrible.
As for examples of anti-competitive behaviour, price matching that is being discussed in comments here is a big one, don’t you think?
No, Steam games do not have DRM by default. By default Steam is a mere download manager. For Steam DRM to be applied, the publisher has to run the drm_wrap command: partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm
Ok, sorry I was wrong. So I can filter out drmed games on steam, right?
Steamcmd looks unrelated, why would I need to use it? Also the wiki page only confirms my earlier thought about steam ui being horrible, whole article is avout how to install it and what kinds of problems exist, not telling how to do some basic things with it.
The way Coffee Stain explained it for satisfactory is that the exclusivity windfall gave them enough runway to finish the game.
If the system of temporary exclusivity in exchange for upfront development cash continues I think it’s an overall win for the gaming community as games get to come out at less rushed pace and with potentially less cash generation grabs in the game itself.
Nothing has gone wrong, and it’s been going on for years at this point. But yeah, maybe you’re right. Maybe aliens will invade us because people use Epic. Maybe the sun will go supernova because the Epic store doesn’t have reviews.
That’s great that devs can benefit from it, I will not purchase the game until it’s available on other platforms due to Epic’s general shitty behavior.
I don’t like it when something is only available on Epic either. I also don’t like it when someone is only available on Steam - which happens far more often.
But why should this matter to a consumer? If you don’t like Steam or Valve’s business practices, it’s much more difficult to avoid Steam because of its exclusives.
There’s a class action lawsuit against Valve now, over Steam’s practices similar to price fixing. Part of the reason Epic has to pay for exclusives is that Steam prohibits publishers from offering lower prices on lower cut stores like Epic. If publishers could pass on part of the savings to consumers from the smaller cut, Epic could be more successful without exclusive contracts. Anyway, hopefully what comes out of the suit will be better for consumers in the end.
Exclusives? Never heard of them paying devs to release only on steam, epic did that and still does that (?? I think). Steam offers a better store and features to devs so they release the games there.
You know steam offers you to generate infinite (?) Steam keys to sell them on your website or anywhere else and valve gets 0% from it? It’s plenty of bad practices and devs accepting money just before the steam release (Metro exodus, I’m talking about you)
If it’s only on Steam and no other PC platform, it’s exclusive. I don’t see the relevance from a consumer’s point of view whether money changed hands for that exclusivity. You could even argue that no money changes hands, Epic just doesn’t take its cut from the game’s sales is how I believe that works.
If Steam has the better store, then it should have no need to require publishers to match their prices. Of course if you’re buying a game on a fully featured, 30% cut store, it should cost more than on a less fully featured 12% cut store. Steam is using their large market share to bully publishers into not passing on savings to consumers from lower cut stores.
Steam keys can be generated, but the product can’t be discounted, ie again the 0% cut savings cannot be passed on to consumers. So all this does is create an extra inconvenience for the consumer to sign up to some publisher’s storefront to get the same product at the same price.
The difference is the developer deciding they don’t want to bother going through the effort of making their game available on every platform on the Internet, vs. a dev saying “we are going to release a game on this platform”, even doing presales, and then saying “oh, some guy just gave us a bunch of money to not sell you the thing we promised.”
Ya, that’s great for the devs being given a bunch of money, but that’s shitty for me so I’m not going to give money to the rich asshole doing this so that he can keep doing it
If the allegations in the current lawsuit are true, and they are still being tested, then Valve is leveraging its market dominance to keep prices fixed at a higher level. If you have bought more than 0 video games in recent years, this is most certainly interfering with things in your life.
That lawsuit is ridiculous and misses a ton of huge boons to developers. The fact is , valve only takes that sales cut for games sold on their platform but they never require you to make that sale on their platform. In fact, they are totally cool with you making the sale elsewhere and giving a steam code out which means steam makes nothing on that sale and they still host the software distribution for said sale. You can use their multiplayer infrastructure, their distribution infrastructure, and their communication infrastructure without paying them a dime if you sell your game on your own website. And it’s by design that you can do this.
As for consumer benefits, steam has a system that allows you to give your friends and family members access to your library. They are constantly selling games at steep discount (after getting permission from developers to do so). They allow a huge range of content with very light handed censorship policies. They have a robust multiplayer system and communications platform that integrates seemlessly with the games they sell and distribute. I won’t get into the Linux stuff but all I will say is Proton wouldn’t be where it is without valve and steam.
Steam is single handedly the most pro-consumer and pro-developer platform on the market. When developers put their games on steam, everyone wins. And it’s never a requirement that those games only exist on steam. When steam is the only place a developer sells their game, it’s because steam is legitimately the only place that developer wants to sell it anyway.
they are totally cool with you making the sale elsewhere and giving a steam code out which means steam makes nothing on that sale
And they can afford to do this because they still require price matching, so all it does is create an inconvenience for the user to sign up for another site (something Steam fans don’t have a problem noticing in other contexts). They still get the game at the same price. I personally have hundreds of games on Steam and I don’t think I have ever purchased a Steam code this way, and I expect it’s the same for the majority of Steam users.
Steam is single handedly the most pro-consumer and pro-developer platform on the market
The lawsuit wants to create a world where a new game can come out for $60 on Steam and $55 on Epic. Valve doesn’t want this. Valve wants you to be required to pay the same price on Epic and Steam. This doesn’t seem very pro consumer.
It’s great that Steam is investing in their platform and Proton and Steam Deck. But they shouldn’t be requiring publishers to pretend that that stuff is free, to make consumers pay other storefronts like Epic as though Epic is also investing in these things.
I got a ton of my games through humble bundle, Which distributes steam codes. I’ve also gotten steam keys through Itch.io.
As for your price argument, price matching is only for the lowest price steam has ever sold the software for. So you can sell your games at steam sale prices 100% of the time and have a higher price on steam. So you’re literally just wrong.
Cool, but myself and I bet most others don’t bother making accounts on other sites for the same price as Steam.
So you can sell your games at steam sale prices 100% of the time and have a higher price on steam. So you’re literally just wrong.
Source or example of someone doing this (regular price on reseller is lower than regular price on Steam)? The legal documents contain plenty of examples of Valve even complaining when there’s a sale on another platform but no comparably priced sale on Steam recently. I can’t imagine they’d tolerate basically a permanent sale.
It’s OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time.
What about that is unreasonable considering you’re using their platform to deliver your software and their multiplayer framework. Steam makes no money on the sale of your keys.
Also, if your issue is that steam is a monopoly, then go make accounts in other places and stop supporting that monopoly you’re mad about…
Right, so you’re just conceding you lied about being able to set a price lower than Steam on a reseller.
The main issue is not Steam keys. I personally think the Steam key situation is fine, even with their limitations. The reason they’re included in the lawsuit, is to reveal Valve’s hypocrisy. Valve forces publishers to offer the same price as Steam on Epic, GoG, etc, stores which have nothing to do with Steam’s “software and their multiplayer framework”. Despite those stores being lighter weight and taking smaller cuts.
Also, if your issue is that steam is a monopoly, then go make accounts in other places and stop supporting that monopoly you’re mad about…
I have accounts on several other storefronts, as should all gamers, but the issue is that Valve’s anti-competitive behavior is making every store (including Steam) worse for consumers. I can’t get a lower price on Epic, despite that store taking a 12% cut compared to Steam’s 30% cut. If Steam’s platform is so expensive and awesome and well developed, it’s natural for a game to cost more on Steam. But Valve doesn’t like its competition to be able to compete the best way they can – on price.
That’s not why epic has to pay for exclusives. They have to pay to cover the income gap developers would face from eschewing the better store.
Publishers are free to skip using steam and pass along their savings, but they invariably don’t. They just pocket the difference.
That epic game store exists, takes a lower cut and gives away free stuff, and still struggles to be viable is an indicator that valve isn’t be anticompetitive.
It’s not illegal to have a better product, only to use your market position to keep other products from trying to compete.
It’s one thing to be generally against big companies, and another to be against one in favor of another, when the stakes are “which company keeps money”.
It’s not illegal to have a better product, only to use your market position to keep other products from trying to compete.
That’s exactly what the lawsuit alleges though. The only way smaller featured storefronts have to compete with Steam is on price. Valve uses its market dominance to prohibit offering a better price on smaller stores. If you offer a better price on Epic, Valve will kick you off Steam.
Valve not letting you use their advertisement and distribution network at the same time you undercut them on sales elsewhere doesn’t feel anticompetitive to me.
Some games choose to skip steam and use epic. Epic pays them to do so, and the publisher doesn’t lower prices.
If you’re a publisher, why would you want to offer a lower price elsewhere? The appeal to a lower cut to you is higher revenue, not equivalent revenue.
Some games choose to skip steam and use epic. Epic pays them to do so, and the publisher doesn’t lower prices.
Evidence? Even if we went down the list of launch Epic exclusives and somehow determined that the price is equivalent to what it would launch at on Steam, the economics of an exclusive launch on a smaller platform are going to be completely different.
If you’re a publisher, why would you want to offer a lower price elsewhere?
Maybe ask the publishers who got together to sue Valve for the ability to do this, and check their many examples of comms with Valve where Valve was upset that publishers were offering lower prices on other platforms.
The appeal to a lower cut to you is higher revenue, not equivalent revenue.
There is a phenomenon called price elasticity. Example, a 5% price cut might result in 10% more units sold, giving you higher revenue.
How much does Diablo cost? How much did StarCraft 2 cost? Alan wake 2 ? Every Nintendo game? PlayStation or Xbox console exclusives?
It’s trivially easy to find full featured games that didn’t launch on steam and have the same price point as a full featured game on steam.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “the economics of an exclusive launch on a smaller platform are going to be completely different”.
Isn’t your whole point that the smaller platform can compete by taking a smaller cut and allowing developers to offer lower prices for the same revenue?
How does developers not doing that become irrelevant?
And it’s two small publishers who had their remaining claims joined by the court after variously having them dismissed and reframing them. Class action doesn’t mean that a large number of publishers have actually made the complaint.
How much does Diablo cost? How much did StarCraft 2 cost? Alan wake 2 ? Every Nintendo game? PlayStation or Xbox console exclusives?
I don’t know. Do you want me to do your research for you? Interesting that you list Nintendo and consoles who take 30% cuts from their monopoly stores.
But checking your example of Alan Wake 2, looks like it launched at $60 on consoles (30% cut) and $50 on Epic (12% cut). Huh, funny how that works.
Here’s an example of a communication from a court document:
A Valve employee informs [redacted] in an email that Valve will be delisting one of its games due to discrepancies between Steam and other platforms. When describing Valve’s decision, Valve states, "Ultimately [redacted] retail strategy is yours to control in whatever way you see fit. However, it is our job as stewards of the platform is [sic] to protect Steam customers and to ensure that they are being treated fairly. We will not knowingly invite customer regret by offering your game at a premium to other retailers.
You going to the platform that nerds get excited shovel money into, or are you going to cash out up front and have Epic hand your your game to Fortnight kids for free while pissing off excited potential customers.
What? I will always pick the platform that offers me a better service and Piracy is better than Epic but steam is my favorite. Don’t care about epic and they giving away the games
I’m also confused. I was implying that taking a deal with Epic makes you shitty sellout on a untrustworthy platform they have to bribe users, and the custom will remember that.
Great, the devs of good games deserve that money. The way you’re putting it, makes it seem morally just to buy Epic exclusives whenever possible. Thank you!
Epic games launcher is no where best as bad as anyone says. The storefront is also one of most responsive ones, especially compared to the likes of GOG.
For me, I just buy a game wherever it’s cheapest. Like I got satisfactory on epic because I could get it like £15 cheaper than steam.
Like I don’t understand why people are so irked by a steam alternative. It’s not like it requires new hardware to play it’s exclusives like with consoles. Aren’t we all supposed to be against monopolies, steam needs competition, look at how shit its sales have been for like 10 years now compared to what they were like prior.
Wait until you read all the problems people have with EGS!
I’ve read people complaining they lost their account and support couldn’t do shit because “of security reasons” while steam needs a few stuff and you get it back. I’ve helped someone getting his steam account back after someone stole his account changing mail + password in like ~12 hours (?)/1 day
Was very simple:
Yo steam I lost my account here a bunch of pics proving my email was the owner of said game: There you can see my old steam user, email address and purchase
Let me check Yep, you’re right. Changed back your email and your password has been reset. Log back in and change it
I’ve experienced losing my old email address, and all traces of my old digital identity. They went above and beyond to work with me till I could prove to their satisfaction that I was the original owner of the account, then restored it to me. Steam support is generally amazing.
Epic games launcher is no where best as bad as anyone says.
Is it better now? Last I used it, earlier this year, it still took me half a year for any UI change to happen when I did anything.
To be clear, I hated Steam for ages too. Only maybe 6 years ago I started actually buying games there. Before then I’d just pirate everything. The Steam application often had issues and I had no money before then anyway. But nowadays I find Steam more convenient than piracy. I do not find EGS more convenient than piracy. I do wish Steam had more meaningful competition.
I’m gonna have to agree. It used to be about the most slow and bloated thing in existence, but they actually fixed a lot of performance issues last time I checked. It’s still slow, but in the same time period Steam on Windows decided to add a pointless splash screen increasing the load time by 4x, letting Epic take the W by a wide margin in load times, while responsiveness is a draw.
Yes, I know that Steam is more feature complete and consumer friendly which is why I still prefer to buy from Steam when possible.
Aren’t we all supposed to be against monopolies, steam needs competition
Steam is not a monopoly. The vast majority of PC gaming revenue is made outside Steam. Fortnite: EGS only, not on Steam. Minecraft: own web storefront and Microsoft Store, not on Steam. Roblox: I think it has its own storefront, it’s not on Steam.
Steam has an estimated revenue of 8.6bn out of PC gaming’s overall 45bn. It’s very far from even approaching 50%, let alone surpass it.
I don’t mind other storefronts. What I mind is people spreading the false narrative as if one of the most widely installed storefronts (EGS because of Fortnite) is somehow the little underdog.
Does the image have a source? Also I don’t think just revenue some us the only Barometer for a monopoly. If something has very few users but had really high prices that they’re willing to pay for them by your metric they’d be closer to a monopoly than steam
Yes, the image has a source and everything is detailed in the lower part of the image.
Also I don’t think just revenue some us the only Barometer for a monopoly. If something has very few users but had really high prices that they’re willing to pay for them by your metric they’d be closer to a monopoly than steam
But that’s exactly why the EU classified Apple as digital gatekeeper: iPhones have a lower installed base than Android in the EU but higher spending.
Given the massive popularity of Fortnite, I wouldn’t bet if Steam has a higher installed base than EGS. People just prefer to buy on Steam.
The apple thing wasn’t about apple vs android for a monopoly. It was about how there’s no alternative option on ios for purchasing apps. Android is completely irrelevant to that decision.
The apple thing wasn’t about apple vs android for a monopoly. It was about how there’s no alternative option on ios for purchasing apps.
Nobody in the EU would have cared if the commercial app market wasn’t dominated by Apple. Plenty of devices out there don’t let you install random stuff off the internet but if the market dominance isn’t there, the EU won’t care.
I can’t think of any other devices that have apps in the same sense where other developers can also release their apps as long as there is a cut for the platform holder where there is no other legal alternative to get apps elsewhere.
The only examples I can think of are games consoles, but they are seemingly next on the chopping block. I think the only thing that has stopped that from happening as soon as the apple one is the fact that for the majority of games, you can still get them physically elsewhere at prices that aren’t completely dictated by the platform holder.
There are so many games that I don’t even care about all the games available on Steam (that I’d be willing to play). We have so many games coming out that I’d have to play game for a living to play all the games I want to play, and even then I’m not 100% sure I’d be able to play everything I’d be open to play. I have multiple games that I’ve purchased and installed thinking “I’ll get to them soon enough” and they’re just taking drive space. I also have multiple games on my wishlist that are “waiting for a discount” but I’m probably never going to pick them up because actually they’re waiting for my backlog to clear and it will never clear.
Does it suck that Alan Wake is Epic exclusive. Sure. Does it really matter to me? Not really because I’m oversaturated with games I want to play. Missing one great game doesn’t matter when I already have a backlog of great games I won’t purchase because I have a backlog of great games I’ve purchased that I won’t play because I have a backlog of great games I really want to play.
Steam has made great strides in helping to make the gaming scene more consumer friendly. They constantly have sales, make refunds extremely easy (and in some cases have forced refunds), and are even now setting guidelines to battle passes and how you can’t just advertise it as a battle pass and instead have to list whats in it. Epic hates consumers and their main business strategy is to force business by paying publishers to only release on their store.
It doesn’t matter how good the game is, I’m not purchasing from a store that doesn’t have the customer in mind.
Nothing of this that you’ve described is related to the one specific game. I don’t really like Epic Store because it has a shitty UI, but I like Alan Wake 2 enough to want to buy it on release. I don’t want a personal crusade to stand in a way of me enjoying a great game. I don’t give a shit, honestly, I will get my favorite games wherever they are available as long as it’s on PC.
That’s because I wasn’t talking about my opinion of the game. I was talking about my opinions on the store. Crazy how I wouldn’t bring up the game when the conversation is about the store. And that’s okay. That’s your choice. I really don’t care. I was just offering some perspective that I thought was help and would benefit you and others. You know, how commenting typically works in platforms such as this.
Let me rephrase it for you. If the game i have the most hours in and I love the most suddenly became an epic exclusive I would never play it again.
And just to make you happy, I don’t like Alan Wake, not my cup of tea.
Also the “one specific game” isnt even mentioned in the post?? That wasn’t the point of the post??
Thank you for bringing me up to date on all the Epic Store hate opinions, not like I’ve read that a million times before. I’m glad you decided that the conversation was about the store when my original comment was about a game. Why are you changing the topic of discussion?
The “one specific game” wasn’t mentioned, yes. Just to me it’s pretty weird to make decisions on whether I like the game or not, based on the store and not the quality of the game itself. So I stated my opinion on that part specifically. You know, how commenting typically works in platforms such as this.
Well you brought up your opinion. Which is fine. It’s valid. I don’t agree with it, but that’s for you to keep, not me. But then I gave you my opinion. And now you seem upset and irate. You posted an epic store neutral opinion in a thread where nearly everyone is dogging on them. And you seemed clueless. So I gave my perspective on the epic game store. Maybe you just didn’t know, you did seem a little clueless. But then you just got angry. And now I’m wondering if you have brain worms. Because who in their sane mind, would walk into a tiki bar, and then start stomping on the toes of everyone wearing a Hawaiian shirt. And you can at least cure brain worms.
I didn’t get upset, irate or angry though. None of my questions were hostile. I was keeping a softer tone than you did in any of your responses. In fact, from my side, you seem pretty angry right about now. Maybe you are, maybe you are not. I don’t really care.
Regarding your “tiki bar” comment — last I checked, this is a Games community, not a Steam community. I stated my opinion, like you said. I know the opinion of the capital G Gamer on Epic Store perfectly well. The thing is that I enjoy poking people into their hypocrisies every now and then, in hopes that they will spot the contradictions in their argument and that will make them think for themselves a little bit. But I guess the capital G Gamers are not the best audience for these exercises.
I have a friend that uses epic games. I met him on steam. I’ve never played an epic game even though he keeps telling me about free games or whatever on epic games.
Yeah it’s not like valve or any of the other companies that sell games on steam too. They’ll all have your data and some what people think are so dastardly, (when in reality it’s just grown-ups playing with numbers).
Nah, pretty sure this isn’t about the data. They just want to encourage people to go through the effort of setting up an account and downloading their launcher in the hopes that they can then later entice you to buy something else while you’re there. Every time you run one of those free games they get to show you another offer, and since you’re already signed up, the hurdle to buying something is far lower than it otherwise would have been.
Correct, as an added bonus, they get to report X million monthly active users on top of that to their investors (that’s why they make you come back every week for a new game). Likely at relatively little cost to them since they don’t have to pay full price for those games.
It’s probably still expensive as hell but when you have a competitor as big as Steam in the market, you gotta be able to afford some ammunition, and the Unreal Engine likely still brings in tons of cashflow.
Actually it is (or at least was) surprisingly cheap for them. A while ago internal data leaked and they paid surprisingly little for the giveaways. Either the Devs are desperate or there was some kind of backdoor deal like no or very little fees (for engine and distribution) for the next game they develop or something like that. Look it up, the data is still out there; incredibly cheap.
Most of the free games are crap but they have on occasion given away absolute bangers (double- or even triple-A titles, although of course usually older titles or ones that didn’t sell well). I recently got The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice for free (a game I wouldn’t otherwise have bought or even known about), and I ended up having a very solid ~55 hours of fun with it. I still do all my buying either on Steam or GOG because I don’t trust Epic and I hate their godforsaken launcher so I refuse to pay for anything that’ll be tethered to it, but getting a free game of that caliber certainly made up for the pain of installing it.
I got exactly one free epic game (subnautica) that I uninstalled and bought immediately the day I couldn’t play the game because I lost Internet and there was no goddamned offline mode.
Epic store is shovelware, and I can’t believe the amount of people who defend a 4th rate store comparing itself to the gold standard that can’t even offer basic functionality expected of a modern platform. But people always have liked trash, so meh.
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