Yup, but when the game launcued in 2004 it was true. These days it definitely isn’t the most well known but back in 2004, cave story was considered a huge success for the indie game scene
I don’t agree with Epic trying to artificially segment the PC market with needless timed exclusives. If they want to compete with Steam, make a better product, but don’t remove choice from the consumer. With that being said, I vote with my wallet and time on this one, I won’t install Epic, or give them money.
I doubt it was, sorry I didn’t intend to imply this title was an exclusive. It’s just the practice of Epic securing timed exclusives is scummy, so I don’t use their store due to that reason, free games or no.
I visited Games Gathering Kyiv before the full-scale war, there, among small indie booths, was the booth where the developers showcased this game. They are young guys from Kyiv, Ukraine. I had a little chat with them. Once guys and a gal. There, I played it, and, obviously, bought it as soon as it became available on Steam, to support fellow Ukrainians. The game is very funny. I had a great time playing it even before its release.
Darwinia was eventually released in March 2005, but despite a strong opening weekend, sales soon slipped too low to sustain the company. Within six months, the developers were back on UK government benefits until November, when they contacted Valve “on a whim”[10] to try to set up a digital distribution deal on their Steam platform. Valve responded enthusiastically and, following a 14 December 2005 online launch, digital sales, which exposed the game to a new, global audience, kept the company going through to the release of their third game, DEFCON.
Valve didn’t reach out to Introversion to make demands, they actually saved the company. For a game basically no one had ever heard of and abysmal sales for were about to make the company go bankrupt. Valve didn’t pay for this exclusivity. It is however true that 18 years ago, they had an exclusive game.
This is a big difference compared to Epic paying 2K for exclusive access to Borderlands 3 so they can secure the profits of a huge franchise. Epic pays big companies big money to secure early profits to exclusive titles. Valve may have technically had an exclusive game, but Epic’s business model is literally paying for exclusive access to the biggest games they can get, so they can get the biggest cut of the sales at the highest price point, before discounts.
Only one of these two companies is trying to “Pay 2 Win.”
There really isn’t. This is personal opinion.
Some of us just have issues with Epic Games. Some others have issues with Valve.
No private company is really “good.”
But the argument with Epic is things like:
They brought “exclusives” to PC gaming for the first time. Previously, a PC game was a PC game, and it didn’t matter what storefront you bought it from, because it was available at all storefronts. Epic chose to pay companies to restrict their titles just to Epic, in an attempt to move the market towards them.
In a similar vein, trying to fight Valve’s dominance, they started giving away free games. They have been firing people left and right because their financials are in the toilet, and yet they’re still pissing away money on free games and exclusives to their store.
People who care about access to music and paying artists hate them because they have effectively put a death warrant on Bandcamp, buying them for two years, doing nothing with the product, and then selling it to Hedge Fund fuckies who already shitcanned half the staff and the site is officially on life support. They basically killed the last place you could buy music and make sure all the proceeds went to the artist and not a middle man (Bandcamp Fridays).
During all of this, they refused to spend any money on actually improving their fucking game store. Things that have been staples of Steam for a decade now are still on a waiting list of features to be added. The User Experience for Epic Games Store is just bad, bad, bad, bad. There’s no excuse for it, especially when they chose to piss money away on exclusives and free games instead of paying people to produce a better product than Valve has. They refused to even try to release a better product, believing they could buy their way to dominance.
Do you really want to support a company that doesn’t give a flying fuck about your user experience as a customer and has such bad business plans that they’re letting go tons of staff? It’s bad enough that they had a bad business plan, but it also seems like they’re not very good to their employees, either. Compared to Valve’s “flat” management where there are no managers, or where Newell famously paid the writer for Portal to “be sick” for two years while he had a serious disease. “Your job here at Valve is to get better.” This was before he wrote Portal, no less.
One company clearly cares about the user experience that their users experience, and one clearly cares about using every tool at their disposal to be the top of the market, everything from paying for exclusives and free games to suing in court to try to carve out a niche for yourself where you don’t have to pay vendor fees.
Of course, I also encourage you to do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Valve offers a better product, better user experience, and treats their employees with more respect, but it doesn’t mean Valve hasn’t made their own share of anti-consumer decisions.
So unless you bought a physical copy of this game and kept it off the internet (not sure if anyone is collecting any data through FO3 itself), or got it gifted to you through GOG and you don’t have an account there, you’re in the same boat. Except you paid for the game with money in addition to data.
I was going to say. This is probably the opposite. Unfortunately once epic goes down. Because of their awful launcher you won’t actually be able to use it
It’s not a free game. It’s a license to access a file through the epic launcher. They really shouldn’t be able to sell it as a game. It’s inaccessible without epic.
But it’s not a sale. It’s a game, and it’s provided for free, and as of right now there is no end date where your access to the game will expire. No money leaves your wallet.
I still don’t understand.
Is this some sort of coping mechanism by people who paid for the game 10 years ago?
… because unless you bought it from GOG over Steam (which is my preferred place to buy digital games, not Epic), you’re in the same boat: Haven’t bought a game, you’ve bought a license. Except with Epic, it’s $0.00 today.
Mate I got it. I have all the free games from epic.
My point was that it’s not a “game” in the traditional sense. Anything online that requires a launcher is a licence.
Similar to me “purchasing” a film on prime. I don’t actually purchase the film, I purchase a license to access the file solely through their system.
They can revoke or lose that license and I lose access. Different to me buying a DVD and I can use it whenever I want as long as I have a DVD player.
I agree. I was just following on the point from above. It is shit that we can’t buy from company. I bought the game 10 years ago. Bit of double dipping. I’ve rebought a bunch of older games.
It’s definitely a game in the modern sense. If you want games in the traditional sense, your choices are pretty much GOG and physical copies. And even those aren’t a guarantee, with things like…
“Physical copies” that are really just download codes or a DRM key on a disc
Day one patches
Patches that make the game drastically different than it was on launch, particularly when the game was drastically different (aka. shittier) on its unpatched launch
Games that require proprietary servers to run the game properly, and won’t be kept alive after a certain date because they won’t release the required code for fans to run their own servers
For a lot of gamers, “licenses to games” or any of the above cases make up the majority of the games they play. Yet we still call them gamers, we still call them games, and we still call it gaming.
Tell me you don’t understand business terms like “license” without telling me you don’t understand business terms like “license.”
Also:
Valve has made clear that if they ever go out of business, they will transfer a copy of each game you have a license for to you (providing they still have distribution rights).
This isn’t even a problem with GOG because they still distribute games in the old way where you can download a standalone installer and keep that copy of the game in perpetuity.
Again I don’t disagree. I think untill gamers or consumers lobby the industry, we will keep getting shafted. None of those things listed help the consumer. Maybe patches and new updates but not if it doesn’t ship with a completely unbroken game
Ultimately, if you want a free game and have no issues with Epic, then hurray, you get a free game. Some of us don't like Epic and prefer to give them nothing (including our data), even if it means passing up on free games. I have no shortage of games to play, so I won't be missing a free copy of FO3 or whatever else they decide to offer up.
They brought “exclusives” to PC gaming for the first time.
Please stop with this horseshit. Valve and GOG had both done third-party exclusives before EGS was even a thing. Epic absolutely in no way "brought [them] to PC gaming for the first time.
Yes, they did make them a pillar in their strategy to try to enter a marketplace that was dominated by an 800-pound gorilla - which is a perfectly legitimate approach to take - which neither of the other two did, but they 100% categorically did NOT bring the practice to PC first.
they refused to spend any money on actually improving their fucking game store.
Wow, you’re just full of misinformation on this post. They have constantly been updating their store since day one. No, it’s not on parity with Steam (and it likely never will be), but to just flat out say that they haven’t spent anything on improving it when there has been a steady stream of improvements over the years is ignorant at best and actively disingenuous at worst.
How was it exclusive if it was available to purchase in two separate places? Maybe if your comment had a qualifier like "digital download version exclusive" it could be considered correct
What’s your point though? Every one of Epic’s exclusivity deals is done with the consent of the game publisher. Does it matter who makes the offer? Do we even know that there aren’t cases of publishers reaching out to Epic?
Does anyone know how to permalink a post on Lemmy? Anyway, here’s what Snot said:
Also, to be clear on the differences, Valve didn’t reach out offering to pay for a massively popular upcoming game, which is what Epic does as a business model. They had a company that was about to fail reach out to them, and they made an exclusivity deal with them, but Valve did not pay them for this deal. If you really fail to see the difference between those two things, I don’t know what to tell you.
Are we pretending publishers not bothering putting their games on every storefront is the same as paying publishers to not put those games on competing storefronts?
Steam was literally forced on those who owned a physical copy of Half-Life and wanted to play it. The dominant position has nothing to do with the service offered by Steam. It was dominant when it barely had any features. GOG competing with it on features and in fact offering the bonus of DRM-free games hasn’t improved its market share of about 0.5%.
No one is upset about having to use EGS for Fortnite. Their own games that they develop themselves they can do what they want with.
The issue is when Epic approaches other developers, especially those that have already announced a Steam release, and try to get exclusivity out of them: medium.com/…/why-i-turned-down-exclusivity-deal-f…
Epic: We would love to have you on our service
Dev: I’m not interested in exclusivity
Epic: then we have no interest in having you on our service
Having more options for their customers makes their service better, but Epic isn’t interested in being a better service.
For real, Steam literally took off because they made HL2 exclusive to it. It doesn’t matter that it’s a first party game, the effect and intent was identical. They could’ve made it generally available but chose not to. They forced people to use their proprietary product to install a game.
It’s crazy how many people shill for valve on Reddit and lemmy when they’ve already done most of the shit Epic gets accused of.
An important detail regarding exclusivity. What made a ton of people pissed off (and justifiably so, in my opinion) is that they bought exclusivity for games that were kickstarted which resulted in the option for Steam keys being removed for these games.
I really don’t know what to say about the modern pcgamer, at least the terminally online one like this.
I don’t want to being whataboutism into this, but you likely support many companies that do truly terrible things every day, but this one is a bridge too far? This one? It’s wild.
Eh, you always can. But that’s beside the point. The point I’m making is not that you don’t boycott other things, it’s that this is the only thing you choose to. Which is just a symptom of being online in toxic places waaaay too much. You just shouldn’t care this much about a mostly harmless video game company. It’s super weird.
It’s like when those weirdos keep voting EA as the worst company of the year every year, like EA? Really? Okay, that’s where your priorities are.
But it does. You're still giving them your data, which they can use for all manner of things. If that's something you don't care about, then more power to you - enjoy your free game.
If you really think you’re less clever than an entire industry that has been built up around tracking people and keeping ghost profiles on them, go ahead and keep patting yourself on the back, bud.
They know who you are, that’s not anywhere near as clever as you think.
I guess things like Speech Pattern Analysis don’t exist then, nor has Big Data ever been known to sift through data to connect data points.
Like unless your job is director of IT Security for Microsoft, I doubt you have the credentials to be as anonymous as you think you are.
On top of the fact that most people know that the more you try to anonymize yourself, the more you actually make yourself unique in terms of data because very few people use obfuscation techniques, and those techniques are well known. Thus, if they think you’re obfuscating your identity, you’re now just thrown in the “people who like anonymity” bag of data, which when connected with previously collected data on “people who like anonymity” can be used to create a profile on you, specifically.
If I believed Epic was really that good at making money by secretly collecting data, I don’t know why I’d believe they need me to download their launcher to do it. They’re either cartoon supervillains or they’re not.
They own Easy Anti-Cheat, which has kernel level access and collects data as part of its user agreement but these people keep regurgitating the debunked claim of the launcher being spyware. Occam’s razor, anyone?
Literally the only data they can get is basic hardware info and your e-mail address which is easy to fake. You can even use an alternate launcher like Heroic and give them basically nothing. The point isn’t to “take people’s data”, they give away games to try to generate interest in EGS and get people to download it and spend money on the store. You lose nothing by redeeming the game.
Sure, their primary focus is most likely generating interest and usage of their platform, but they'll also use analytical and statistical information to influence their business decisions.
If that's something you don't care about, then more power to you - enjoy your free game.
On a personal note, I made the decision as a consumer to not interact with them as much as possible. Even when I did have an account to collect free games years ago, the only thing I actually played was a Satisfactory alpha/beta event. I have more than enough games to play, so I am not concerned with collecting their free games.
This is literally a bog standard privacy policy. Any closed source website or app you use will also track analytics and usage, and basic hardware info like I mentioned. You might as well go on a crusade against Steam for doing the same thing. You and people like you making these comments act like Epic, specifically, is bad for privacy as if nobody else has trackers. You’re misleading people.
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I am not against Epic because of their privacy policy. I don't like Epic because of their business practices and owners, and don't want to give them anything, even if it's just a bogus email address and a few clicks or whatnot. And no, I never tried to imply other companies don't do the same thing.
Here's the bottom line, as far as I'm concerned:
I don't like Epic, and want nothing to do with them. If others want to interact with them, even if it's just for the free games, that's their decision to make.
You can use legendary worth heroic as a user interface (both open source projects) to download and play games you own on epic, no need to install their software.
Epic games store is honestly quite decent m8 I’ve been using it since 2020. Some of the good things I’ve noticed on epic games is
free games
alot of the sales for games can be cheaper than steam sales
It’s hardly no different to steam gog or any other game launched out there although it lacks official linux support which is a negative in my books when it comes to privacy I’ll argue they’re both as bad as each other if you think your being smart by avoiding epic games because it’s owned by tencent and your concerned for your privacy then you should stop using steam ubisoft ea gog and the many other launchers as well they’re both as invasive when it comes to your privacy as the other plus hear me out… YOUR NOT THAT IMPORTANT I’m not sure the feds are coming after a 32 year old IT tech support worker because he said wrongthink on a tiny social media network
If your still super paranoid first uninstall all your game launchers then maybe pirate and look into foss alternatives or try GOG out you can install games on the Web without a launcher and the games don’t have invasive drm
You’re calling out the wrong people, completely missing the point of everything privacy or why the epic store is a bad thing and being an idiot and asshole.
For anyone wondering if it’s that bad, I played it when I got it on Steam and it ran just fine. Then patched it no problem through the either the Workshop or the Nexus Mods manager like three months later
store.epicgames.com
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