An exclusive on Epic Games may as well just not even exist, as far as I'm concerned. Didn't play Anno 1800 until it was finally released on Steam. Nice discount too.
Why do companies do exclusive launches? Presumably they think the money they get from Epic is more than the money they’ll lose in sales. Whether or not they’re right is another question.
They indicate how much of an ass you come across as.
There are tons of people in this world who are right, yet everyone dislikes and doesn’t interact with. Something to think about some day, when you calm down.
The commenter above you said that it’s a gamble as to whether a developer making their game exclusive to a certain platform and the payout from doing so is more lucrative compared to releasing to all platforms. It may be, or it may not be.
I’m not sure if we have the statistics of how well Anno 1800 did in terms of sales when it first launched, but the parent commenter said they obtained the game on Steam when it was discounted. That said commenter didn’t pay full price for it at launch to me speaks to how maybe Anno 1800 lost revenue by not reaching more audiences.
Point is: we don’t know if it was a double win for Anno 1800, or any game by any developer that is restricted to a limited amount of platforms. Don’t claim it was so unless you have evidence one way or another.
Basicaly they do not think their game is any good. So if someone takes the deal. I instantly loose interest. I mean if even the developer think it is no fun…
In what way is it not? They get Epic’s money for exclusivity and know they’ll still get sales after it ends from people that “boycott” them for doing that.
Buying the game later doesn’t hurt them, it just reinforces the same behavior later.
That’s not what a boycott is. If I don’t buy a game because it’s exclusively on Epic, it’s not because I’m taking a moral stance. It’s because it’s invisible to me.
A boycott is when I don’t play Epic/EA/Unisoft/Blizzard-Activism games for the company’s historic shitty behavior.
Getting Epic’s money isn’t a slam dunk for profit. You’re hedging your bets taking guaranteed Epic money for lower potential sales vs non-guaranteed Steam money for higher potential sales. Having a bad exclusivity deal on Epic and then selling your game at a loss (90% discount) on steam isn’t profiting both ways, and sometimes isn’t profiting either way.
I also disagree with the sentiment that you’re reinforcing bad behavior. If anything, you’re signalling to them that you won’t support exclusivity deals, and are happy to wait for a deep discount on Steam. Ultimately, that’s a win for consumers.
That said, fuck exclusivity deals, and I’m much in the same boat where I’m hard pressed to support developers that take them.
Unless they’re actively losing money in their deal, they’re not gonna care if the sale comes immediately or years later. If Epic exclusive + late “hold outs” = $$$, they’re just gonna do that until the equation changes.
Economists cannot predict the future, as much as some people might wish they could.
Whatever break even point the devs of Anno 1800 considered when making the decision between releasing only on Epic and releasing to all platforms may have seemed reasonable at the time the devs were gearing up to release the game, but performance of said game is never guaranteed. Sure you may have statistics to influence things one way or another, but it’s still a gamble.
We don’t know if Epic exclusive + late discounts > full game purchases on all platforms specifically for Anno 1800, and it appears that you’re claiming which way that equation points with no evidence. Do you work for Epic? For Ubisoft? For Blue Byte? Are there public sources pointing to game sales? What research are you pulling from that considers game futures?
I will respect that you’re right about predicting devs’ decisions based on which way that equation points. Everyone is downvoting you though because you’re making it seem like you know the answer when clearly there’s more to this game, and financial gaming decisions like this.
You’re not an expert. You’re a chatter. Unless you can prove otherwise.
When I see sales of Playstation games on PC the numbers are very underwhelming compared to other big third party titles. In contrast helldivers 2 got insane numbers when it launched simultaneously.
I don’t think launch hype sales can be overlooked and how much may potentially be lost. If people are willing to wait then by the time game is available hype is less and it’s more likely for people to move on or wait for even steeper sales.
You need a better definition of „they“. Because I don’t buy from Epic for one particular reason, so they (Epic) don’t get my money. If the game is good and I want to play it I will do so later and at that point the developer still deserves my money.
I just never buy those games. Epic released with exclusives but couldn't process payments in a number of country leaving gamers there SOL. That and some of the higher-ups there just left a really bad taste in my mouth. Anything that also releases as a timed exclusive there doesn't get a purchase from me until years later when it's more than half off (and I think I've only bought one game like that). A Steam monopoly is bad, but Epic are not the solution to that.
Think of it as a “this game is not yet available for purchase” seal. It may also mean “we know our game is not up to standards (it wouldn’t sell well on Steam), so we chose to let idiots at epic decide if they want to pay for it, and hey it worked so that’s something”.
One reason is Valve has put a fuckton of effort into linux support. So for linux users, buying a game on Steam means it’s probably going to work right out of the box. Buying from Epic, it’s a crapshoot.
For example, I spent hours trying to get Red Dead Redemption 2 that I had bought from Epic to work. Never did, something with rockstar launcher compatibility. Gave up and bought it again on Steam, worked the first time I hit play.
I agree with the sentiment that people should shut up already about the launcher thing. I know it's aggravating, but, there's options.
However when it comes between Steam vs Epic as storefronts, you'd be hard-pressed to try and find anything to like about what Epic has done with their launcher vs the years of hard work and labor for Valve to get Steam to where it is today. Epic's launcher is like where Steam's was - 17 years ago. It's noticeable, you can't hide it.
Hell, Epic takes less of a share of the sale. It is better for devs.
88% of 1.000 vs 70 of 1.000.000? Which one is better? People don’t like what they did with exclusives. I’m kinda okay-ish if you keep the game you founded locked on your store for a year or 2 but not all the games you get by paying devs to release it exclusive to some shitty launcher
I say this every time Epic comes up but it remains the same.
Steam is the pro-consumer storefront. Epic is the pro-developer storefront. What Epic seems to fail to understand is that by being so staunchly pro-developer, they effectively become anti-consumer. And as a consumer, I’m just not going to spend money on an anti-consumer marketplace.
When Epic considers adding necessary pro-consumer measures like actual user reviews so I can hear how a game actual performs from real end users, then and only then will I consider Epic a real storefront viable for consumers.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Epic’s main selling point was it’s lower storefront fee (15% vs 30%, if I recall). It didn’t offer any other benefits for consumers and I think Epic realised rather quickly that the people who are actually supposed to be paying money for all of this are the buyers and not the sellers, and thus they’ve resorted to strategies like making games “exclusive” or trying to bribe players with free games.
I understand that they are pro-developers, like, they only tale 15% of the sales etc. But why are they anti-consumers?
I use Heroic Games Launcher on Nobara Linux and my experience is more seamless than buying and installing games from Steam. I don’t have to bother with Epic Games Launcher, I just download a game and run via proton or wine.
I gave what I see as a significant example in my original comment. Not being able to see comments or reviews from those who have purchased games through the storefront is a problem for me. If a game has a bug or problem, especially if it is one that could potentially be tied to or unique to the EGS version, I would like to know about it. That EGS currently doesn’t provide readily available user feedback when it frankly has been the standard as defined by steam, just doesn’t for me.
So you have to ask yourself why they wouldn’t include such a simple a rudimentary feature - the only result I can come up with is to appease developers who want to prevent being negatively impacted by bad reviews. Thus what we have is prioritizing the wants of developers at the expense of features which benefit consumers.
The fact that you can’t use the Epic games launcher on Linux should be telling you what you need to know.
How is their 12 foot interface these days?
How is their position on running things via wine? Tim the bellend has generally been telling Linux users to use wine, but at the same time been generally hostile to it.
I agree they don’t have to be anti-consumer to be pro-developer, but my point is that that is how they are approaching being pro-developer - by limiting pro-consumer features at the behest of developers. Or perhaps I should be saying more actively publishers, to be fair.
Yeah, but frankly the high seas usually provide less than Steam does even with money in the equation. And that’s probably the only case when high seas is worse, with all the other services in my experience the high seas provide better service(spotify was close). So the point is if a game doesn’t release on Steam it’s release date just moves to the moment it releases on Steam. Not the best scenario, but Steam really has little competition and Epic surely isn’t trying to be one.
Pretty much everything really. It’s basically a store and that’s it, no cool features that Steam has. They may have achievements now but not positive. Think it took two years just for them to add a shopping cart. They dump money on developers to release exclusively on Epic instead of spending it making a good experience for customers. No reviews, no forums, no workshop etc.
I grab the free games they offer every couple weeks and use Heroic to play them, not touching their launcher.
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.
Everything but I will focus on the main point of the apps. Selling and managing games.
Steam store page has tags for what genre the game is and user reviews as well as information about system requirements. Plus links to click on to go to the developers and publishers pages to see what else they’ve made. You get plenty of information while it’s still easy on the eyes and digestible.
Managing your games with steam is a breeze. They’re listed down the side and the search is there and quick. Click on a game and get more information about it and see a large install or play button. Scroll down to see info about the latest update or activity from friends playing. Right click to get more information like where it’s installed locally.
Epic, at least when I last used it. Didn’t have user reviews, the page had large widgets for all the information making everything feel clutter while giving you less info about the game. Didn’t have tags and sure it did label the publisher but not the developers and you couldn’t click to see their other works.
Epic’s library management once again large widgets while giving less information. Feels cluttered. Install button is small. At the time I used epic there was not easy way to open install location. You had to go in file explorer yourself and find it.
While I’m on the topic of stores to why do console store pages suck as well compared to steam?! The console is literally sold at a loss and make money by selling you games but their store pages are shit compared to steam.
lemmy.world
Najstarsze