Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford discusses his thoughts about the Epic Games Store and the years-old exclusivity deal for Borderlands 3 to skip Steam on PC.
I’m genuinely shocked how much Epic poured into the store and it still lacks so much basic features. Sorting games is still extremely barebones, store is filled with NFT/crypto garbage, the store still looks like a college student’s first front-end project, and last time I used the launcher to pick up free games (last year), it was still slow as hell. What were they doing in the past 5 years aside from dropping millions on exclusivity deals?
Epic is going to have to prioritize the store and try some new initiatives while also doubling down on earning pivotal exclusives if it is going to have a chance. I also hope other viable competitors arrive.
I see some larger publishers bemoan the fact that Epic hasn’t caught on, but it should be pretty obvious why. Markets that favor the buyer more than they favor sellers will typically attract the largest user base, and the sellers don’t have a choice to not sell where the buyers are.
Epic giving away free games is a nice buyer friendly action, but literally everything else they’ve done, from paid exclusives to poor client experience isn’t favorable to buyers. They’ve created a market that no buyers want to use unless the product is free or literally not available anywhere else.
Giving publishers/devs better cuts is great, but it does nothing for you if all the buyers are on Steam instead.
I hope it’s okay to ask, because I am being genuine, but why is using the Epic Games Launcher such a deal breaker for you? I have Steam, Epic, Ubisoft, Xbox, Battle.net and I’m sure more that I’m forgetting and I honestly don’t mind at all. It’s never been an issue for me but I think that I’m in the minority on that so I was curious to hear your thoughts.
Funny thing is, I mostly agree with you, but in Epic’s case, it’s a launcher written by a company that’s 40% owned by a Chinese corporation. I can sometimes stomach running their executables while playing something, but not having it constantly running.
Personally, while I do use Heroic to access games from the epic games launcher, I will probably never buy anything from them because of Epic buying exclusivity and removing Steam as an option from games that were crowd-funded.
That makes sense. Sounds like more of an Epic Games thing than specifically an anti-games launcher sentiment, or maybe a little of both? I hadn’t heard about the crowd funded game exclusivity thing though, I’ll have to read up on that. Deeply lame thing for them to do, for sure.
I’ve also run into a few issues with the epic games launcher (i.e. game wouldn’t patch, so I had to reinstall the launcher. Having to reinstall a game because the launcher doesn’t see it anymore, launcher is slow, etc.) which is why I use the Heroic launcher.
Thank you! Ever since the start of the Epic Store, I’ve always thought this whole “exclusive” scandal was blown out of proportion. There is a MASSIVE difference between a game being exclusive to a $400+ console vs to a free launcher that you can install in 5 minutes and add your already multi-launcher platform.
It really doesn’t, I tried finishing Industria while I had no internet and that electron piece of shit refused to open even though I set it up to work offline in the settings, thankfully the game had no DRM so I was able to finish it just by opening the exe.
LOL the Steam launcher is basically just a web browser. Literally the same concept as Electron. It’d be Electron if it were built today, but it was built before Electron existed.
You realize there’s more DRM free games on Epic than on Steam even though there’s less games overall? If your standard for a good launcher is being able to start the game from a .exe then I’ve got bad news about Steam…
Presumably Kecessa is alluding to the fact that, unlike GOG, Steam games open however the developers / publishers want them to. Which is sometimes just a plain exe, sometimes it’s an exe that starts Steam so that it can use its API / DRM, sometimes it opens the publisher’s launcher, and so on. Bit irritating on Linux when you want to pass some options in to the command, and a bit irritating generally when you never want to see the launcher again, but it’s no disaster.
I also think that developers/publishers don’t care about the % cut that much, they would rather just sell a lot of games. Which comes back to your point, the value proposition of EGS isn’t appealing to the buyer.
It’s like I make a competition to Uber with better cuts and working conditions to drivers. That is nice, but if the consumer has to wait 25 mins for my taxi while the Uber is there immediately, than they will not pick me for the same price.
Advertising better cuts to publishers doesn’t mean much when the price is the same across platforms. If epic was consistently 10% cheaper than steam it would get better traction.
They can’t sell the games cheaper than steam as the steam’s conditions doesn’t let devs sell games on steam if the game is available for cheaper somewhere else.
Steam also has a lot of other stores selling their games though. Unless epic is giving it away for free, I’m probably going to get a better deal through a fanatical bundle or someone else than I would on epic.
This is true, here in Brazil we have an official key seller called Nuuvem that has prices so good TikTok banned their ads thinking it was a scam, since they often have small discounts even on new games.
Just have to be careful because sometimes the key is for Uplay instead of steam.
I want to point out that Valve won’t allow games to be sold on Steam and be cheaper anywhere else. With the lower cut Epic takes games could be cheaper there, but Valve uses their dominant market position to force developers to set the same price on other marketplaces if they want to also be on Steam, which is essentially required.
I get some of the hate, but the “fuck Epic” crowd always annoy me. It’s such an ignorant position. That said, I don’t use the Epic store because it sucks to use. Fuck monopolies though. Steam has too much control. We need competition or we’re going to suffer in the future.
Guild Wars 2 expansions are cheaper on the company’s storefront than on steam, without sales. Not sure if they get an MMO pass, but it’s not a hard and fast rule.
With the lower cut Epic takes games could be cheaper there, but Valve uses their dominant market position to force developers to set the same price on other marketplaces if they want to also be on Steam, which is essentially required.
I’ve heard that brought up, but I’ve never seen actual proof of it. It clearly doesn’t apply to sale prices though, because other stores basically always have lower sale prices than steam itself.
As has been pointed out by many other people in this thread, this is untrue.
If you are providing a Steam key, it has to be the same price as Steam. Otherwise, you can set whatever price you want (e.g. if you were selling on both Steam and Epic - like Borderlands 3, which frequently had sales on Epic where the price dropped below the Steam price)
It’s even fine to sell your Steam keys at a lower price in another place - as long as you’re planning to have a similar sale on Steam at some similar time.
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.
TL;DR: Games sold on Epic could be any price they want. They’re no different to Steam, in general, because that’s what publishers choose.
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I see some larger publishers bemoan the fact that Epic hasn’t caught on, but it should be pretty obvious why. Markets that favor the buyer more than they favor sellers will typically attract the largest user base, and the sellers don’t have a choice to not sell where the buyers are.
Epic giving away free games is a nice buyer friendly action, but literally everything else they’ve done, from paid exclusives to poor client experience isn’t favorable to buyers. They’ve created a market that no buyers want to use unless the product is free or literally not available anywhere else.
Giving publishers/devs better cuts is great, but it does nothing for you if all the buyers are on Steam instead.
I don’t even get their free stuff. And if it’s only epic, I won’t even bother checking it out or well…ya know.
I hope it’s okay to ask, because I am being genuine, but why is using the Epic Games Launcher such a deal breaker for you? I have Steam, Epic, Ubisoft, Xbox, Battle.net and I’m sure more that I’m forgetting and I honestly don’t mind at all. It’s never been an issue for me but I think that I’m in the minority on that so I was curious to hear your thoughts.
Funny thing is, I mostly agree with you, but in Epic’s case, it’s a launcher written by a company that’s 40% owned by a Chinese corporation. I can sometimes stomach running their executables while playing something, but not having it constantly running.
Personally, while I do use Heroic to access games from the epic games launcher, I will probably never buy anything from them because of Epic buying exclusivity and removing Steam as an option from games that were crowd-funded.
That makes sense. Sounds like more of an Epic Games thing than specifically an anti-games launcher sentiment, or maybe a little of both? I hadn’t heard about the crowd funded game exclusivity thing though, I’ll have to read up on that. Deeply lame thing for them to do, for sure.
I’ve also run into a few issues with the epic games launcher (i.e. game wouldn’t patch, so I had to reinstall the launcher. Having to reinstall a game because the launcher doesn’t see it anymore, launcher is slow, etc.) which is why I use the Heroic launcher.
I’ve heard a lot about Heroic but honestly never looked into it. Not that I’m old or anything but it reminds me of Trillian from back in the day.
No official Linux support, which means no Steam Deck support as well. Yes, there’s Legendary but I shouldn’t have to jump through those hoops.
It just doesn’t appeal to me? I dunno. Epic just felt bleh compared to steam.
All good! Just curious, truly.
Thank you! Ever since the start of the Epic Store, I’ve always thought this whole “exclusive” scandal was blown out of proportion. There is a MASSIVE difference between a game being exclusive to a $400+ console vs to a free launcher that you can install in 5 minutes and add your already multi-launcher platform.
I always say the reason they give so many free games is because the real price is in having to use that goddamn launcher
It does what it needs to do, you open it, your installed games list is on the left, click and play.
It really doesn’t, I tried finishing Industria while I had no internet and that electron piece of shit refused to open even though I set it up to work offline in the settings, thankfully the game had no DRM so I was able to finish it just by opening the exe.
Never had an issue with offline play, so there, my anecdote is just as valid as yours
LOL the Steam launcher is basically just a web browser. Literally the same concept as Electron. It’d be Electron if it were built today, but it was built before Electron existed.
No, you don’t need a launcher to run an exe. lol
You realize there’s more DRM free games on Epic than on Steam even though there’s less games overall? If your standard for a good launcher is being able to start the game from a .exe then I’ve got bad news about Steam…
What bad news about Steam?
You can’t just launch Steam games without Steam running, Steam itself is DRM.
not true; that’s a developer thing, not steam itself.
steam offers it as an option, it doesn’t force developers to use it.
plenty of games bought on steam can be run entirely without steam.
Presumably Kecessa is alluding to the fact that, unlike GOG, Steam games open however the developers / publishers want them to. Which is sometimes just a plain exe, sometimes it’s an exe that starts Steam so that it can use its API / DRM, sometimes it opens the publisher’s launcher, and so on. Bit irritating on Linux when you want to pass some options in to the command, and a bit irritating generally when you never want to see the launcher again, but it’s no disaster.
I also think that developers/publishers don’t care about the % cut that much, they would rather just sell a lot of games. Which comes back to your point, the value proposition of EGS isn’t appealing to the buyer.
It’s like I make a competition to Uber with better cuts and working conditions to drivers. That is nice, but if the consumer has to wait 25 mins for my taxi while the Uber is there immediately, than they will not pick me for the same price.
Advertising better cuts to publishers doesn’t mean much when the price is the same across platforms. If epic was consistently 10% cheaper than steam it would get better traction.
They can’t sell the games cheaper than steam as the steam’s conditions doesn’t let devs sell games on steam if the game is available for cheaper somewhere else.
This is only true for steam keys. https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
That doesn’t apply to exclusive games which also don’t have lower prices.
How could it apply to exclusive games if they don’t exist in steam in the first place
Industry standard prices exist. If an exclusive matches them you aren’t getting a discount.
They still have to sell for what the publisher/devs want to sell the game for, a bigger share goes to them if it’s the same price as it is on Steam.
Which I as a buyer don’t care about. That’s the whole point of the parent.
Just saying that it’s not Epic’s fault
They do often have better sales, but you have to launch the store to know and personally I would rather pay the extra $1 to buy on Steam…
Steam also has a lot of other stores selling their games though. Unless epic is giving it away for free, I’m probably going to get a better deal through a fanatical bundle or someone else than I would on epic.
This is true, here in Brazil we have an official key seller called Nuuvem that has prices so good TikTok banned their ads thinking it was a scam, since they often have small discounts even on new games.
Just have to be careful because sometimes the key is for Uplay instead of steam.
I want to point out that Valve won’t allow games to be sold on Steam and be cheaper anywhere else. With the lower cut Epic takes games could be cheaper there, but Valve uses their dominant market position to force developers to set the same price on other marketplaces if they want to also be on Steam, which is essentially required.
I get some of the hate, but the “fuck Epic” crowd always annoy me. It’s such an ignorant position. That said, I don’t use the Epic store because it sucks to use. Fuck monopolies though. Steam has too much control. We need competition or we’re going to suffer in the future.
Guild Wars 2 expansions are cheaper on the company’s storefront than on steam, without sales. Not sure if they get an MMO pass, but it’s not a hard and fast rule.
That’s because the versions sold on the company site are for ArenaNet keys, not Steam keys.
The rule is only for selling Steam keys.
I’ve heard that brought up, but I’ve never seen actual proof of it. It clearly doesn’t apply to sale prices though, because other stores basically always have lower sale prices than steam itself.
As has been pointed out by many other people in this thread, this is untrue.
If you are providing a Steam key, it has to be the same price as Steam. Otherwise, you can set whatever price you want (e.g. if you were selling on both Steam and Epic - like Borderlands 3, which frequently had sales on Epic where the price dropped below the Steam price)
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
It’s even fine to sell your Steam keys at a lower price in another place - as long as you’re planning to have a similar sale on Steam at some similar time.
TL;DR: Games sold on Epic could be any price they want. They’re no different to Steam, in general, because that’s what publishers choose.