Nothing more disappointing to me than seeing a game I might enjoy… and then it’s only available on PC on Epic Games store. Why can’t it be available on Epic, Xbox game store and Steam? It’s so annoying, like you have no choice but to use Epic… which I would literally do ANYTHING not to use.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
Yep. I loved Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, and was excielted to hear they made a sequel. Then I learned it’s an EGS exclusive. They can go get bent, not buying from them anymore
If you refuse to buy after it hits steam, then you’re just 1 of several billion who didn’t buy the game.
No, you have it backwards. If people buy the game when it goes on Steam, that tells the developer they can double dip buy going Epic exclusive then releasing at full price on Steam a year later with no repurcussions.
The only way to make the publisher learn to not go Epic exclusive is to not buy those games at all, even after they are brought onto other marketplaces
Two games I anticipated came out on Steam only, so I asked the developers if they planned to sell on alternative platforms and they did, but considering the game isn’t full done yet (they released it in Early Access) Initially I was annoyed, but after their response (they want to focus their effort on the game before adding the extra burden of managing multiple update channels) I understand why they did, on top of being a small team.
I decided to wait for one (came out on GOG on v1.0) and for the second one I decided to buy it on Steam right away since there’s still a lot of work left.
I specifically don’t get upset when a game is exclusively on Steam because of how much work Valve puts into Linux gaming, work that Epic directly and actively opposes.
Oh no, we don’t complain about Steam exclusivity, monopolies are ok as long as they’re the monopolies that we want, ok? What happens when Valve turns to shit and we made sure there’s no viable alternative? That will never happen! Are you kidding?
Everything goes to shit eventually, but pre-emptively making yourself suffer is just silly. Enjoy the time you have, and vote with your wallet once they start doing anticompetitive crap like paid exclusivity deals. Until then, we might as well enjoy the fact that Valve isn’t a public company obligated to chase short term profits for shareholders.
If you think taking a 30% cut to enrich a billionaire isn’t enshitifaction then I don’t know what to tell you buddy.
Most of the 30% cut goes to developing the store, software, and even hardware. Valve has worked to make gaming on Linux way more feasible and easy, popularized handheld PC’s, made game streaming simple, etc.
Meanwhile EGS took 2 whole years to add a shopping cart to their online store and had multiple data breaches. That is what I call enshitification
It goes against every fiber of my being to not utterly despise a multi-billion dollar corporation, but I just don’t have the energy that I used to. I have to pick the battles I want to fight, and they haven’t done enough to make it worth it for me to do that.
Isn’t this whole post just a part of a long running gag where people give shit to Epic for their exclusivity deals after they gave Apple so much shit for their walled garden in much the same way?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”?
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.
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.
-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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’m annoyed when a game isn’t on GOG. Epic’s issue is that I use it the least and so I’m less likely to boot up a game on it unless I’m actively seeking it out.
One of the annoying thing about epic exclusives is that the focus is on steam, but GOG is affected too and loses out on games too until the deal expires.
Wait, who want a monopoly? Epic? The Epic store is like a tenth of Steam’s size, and most of that is down to Fortnite alone. Hard to have a monopoly when you’re struggling to break double digit share.
Well, yeah, presumably they all do. I’m sure the kebab place next door would love to have a monopoly, it just doesn’t look like it’s in the cards, you know?
Yes, and if the kebab store pitched a fit every time someone provided a better product than them, calling that competition a monopolist, I’d have the same criticism of that kebab shop.
If they’re just doing their best to provide a quality product… I wouldn’t like that they have a monopoly, but if they’re not in any way abusing it… that sounds like they’ve earned their place. The problem lies in the people not putting forth enough effort (despite have the resources to do so) to match.
Kebab store if they were epic like in their strategy would not be throwing a fit, but making exclusivity deals with suppliers so that their competitors in the area lose access to them. So trying to increase consumers having to go to their kebab store to get specific meals due to inability of other stores to offer it or not retain the same quality anymore. Also look into regulations to try and prevent potential competitors from opening up next to them or at least delay when they can open.
No, that’s not how that works at all. Monopolies are bad (and indeed unlawful) even if people think you got them by being super cool.
Google didn’t get a monopoly on advertising and search by sucking at it. They had the best search engine and design in a crowded market and that’s why you don’t say you “Altavista’d” something. But that’s still a bad thing and they still should get broken up into manageable chunks, as current regulators are trying to do. Ditto for Apple and all these other oligopolistic online companies.
And… you know, Valve. Maybe. At some point. Not quite there yet. But that’s bad even if you like Steam or if they have the better feature set. Which they do. Especially if they have the better feature set, in fact, because like all these other oligopolistic companies, the more time they have to establish dominance and get people to sink further into their ecosystem the harder it is to break it up later. That’s true of kebabs AND software platforms.
No, people who back monopolistic, anti-consumer companies like EGS want a monopoly.
If you actually look, nobody ever complains about GOG or Itch.io. That’s because they don’t pull anticompetitive bullshit like the paid exclusives that EGS relies on
Except they’re trying to strongarm people into using it by using huge amounts of money to buy exclusivity rights.
People don’t want monopolies because companies can abuse their position to hurt consumers. But steam provides a very user friendly experience with lots of benefits and features like mod hosting, remote play together, etc. Epic provides a store that people hate using, and people only put up with because epic abused fortnite’s success to buy exclusivity deals*. Despite being the much smaller storefront, Epic already feels like the abusive monopoly in the PC gaming space.
*Many people also play on Epic because of free games, which is a valid and pro-consumer way to attract users. I’m 100% cool with this strategy, although giving away merchandise at a loss is also a common monopoly strategy.
People don’t want monopolies because companies can abuse their position to hurt consumers.
It’s important to remember that it’s not only buyers, but developers that use Steam. Steam is currently involved in a lawsuit with developers.
The “commission” would be Valve’s cut on sales made through Steam, which starts at 30% and drops to 20% as sales increase. Valve defended the percentage as “industry standard” when Wolfire’s lawsuit was first filed, but that’s no longer the case: The Epic Games Store and Microsoft both take just 12% of sales made through their stores.
The Wolfire lawsuit estimates that Valve controls “approximately 75 percent” of the $30 billion market for PC game sales, a number that lines up with other public estimates of Steam’s dominance.
I like Steam, I’m not hating on Steam, but rushing to defend it from people saying it’s a monopoly (or calling Epic Games Store a monopoly) is very much denying reality.
Epic is running a loss leader at this point so it’s not an business model to point to, since it’s subsidized by unreal and fortnite.
Microsoft on Xbox is taking a 30% cut so it wouldn’t be farfetched to assume cut is more a strategy to try to expand market share and are willing to increase down the line if they got market share. And Microsoft is Microsoft so has lot of other profitable divisions to be able to run things at a loss.
Which raises the question. What is actually sustainable? Especially the lower cut offered have other much more profitable divisions that are covering potential losses and not being the main source of revenue.
That’s the same as app stores/etc, and is still a common cut to take. I’m not convinced the cuts that Epic is taking are actually sustainable for offering downloads/updates/etc for a game indefinitely, but it’s hard to tell since the Epic store is already bleeding money.
I’ll also mention that Audible (which has a monopoly in the audiobook space) reportably takes a 60-75% cut of audiobooks sold on their platform (they take only 60% if you agree to sell exclusively on audible, but they take the full 75% if you want to sell the book somewhere else as well). Monopolies abusing their position is really common, but I haven’t seen anything similar from Steam that makes me think they’re abusing their position. I suspect PC gaming would be in a far worse state if another company controlled the popular storefront.
That 30% is standard for most storefronts. Just look at Google Play and Apple’s App Store.
If you’re that put off by 30% cuts then don’t look into retail stores because their markups make that look like chump change.
It’s important to remember that it’s not only buyers, but developers that use Steam. Steam is currently involved in a lawsuit with developers.
Actually, it’s generally publishers, not developers that end up paying the 30% cut. For most games the developer gets paid upfront by the publisher, and the publisher pockets the difference between development costs and sales. I’d also like to point out that prices between EGS and Steam are generally the same, so instead of getting lower priced games as promised, the publishers are just pocketing the larger profits.
Repeat Tim Swiney’s fake talking points all you want, the fact of the matter is that Valve isn’t behaving like a monopoly, even if they command a huge portion of the market. The reason they’re so big in the first place is specifically because they’re very pro-consumer
It’s important to remember that it’s not only buyers, but developers that use Steam. Steam is currently involved in a lawsuit with developers.
Actually, it’s generally publishers, not developers that end up paying the 30% cut.
I’m keeping the model simple by equating publisher with developer. Basically, you’ve got the consumer, the store, and the supplier. That some (most) developer studios go through a publisher for funding is a business practice that’s actually unrelated to Steam. Especially because they allow indie content.
Would you do your job and maybe receive an income but only years later, based on results and how happy you made your boss?
The devs and publishers who sign those deals are the ones you should be angry at, Epic is offering them guaranteed income in exchange for timed exclusivity, Valve is offering them access to a bigger player base in exchange for a gamble.
Being a small game dev has a lot of uncertainty and risk. I wouldn’t blame any small dev for taking a guaranteed paycheck from Epic. Larger studios with safe prospects should be blamed though imo. Gearbox with Borderlands 3 for example.
Doesn’t matter the size of the studio, in the end they have people to pay and Steam is asking them to take a gamble in the hope that they’ll make enough to compensate the money they spent. We’ve seen but studios crash and burn, hell Sony wasted home many millions on that game that was online for a couple of days? I’m sure they would have been happy to have gotten a cheque instead of nothing!
Epic is nowhere near as good as steam. Steam I can open, leave open and ignore. Epic force refreshes pages like the fucking library and then my internet cracks a fit at the sudden large data draw.
Shop wise both are equal, epic now has reviews on the bottom of games so you don’t buy some 1 star trash without warning, but they are both more than just a shop.
Anyone believing Steam isn’t a monopoly is seriously uninformed on the topic or letting their enjoy enjoyment of the platform cloud their view of reality.
While it sucks to have games get exclusivity agreements with EGS when EGS sucks compared to Steam, it doesn’t suddenly mean that Steam isn’t a monopoly.
Well, yeah, but if I was going to get pissed about that, then Epic would be way low in my list of priorities. It’s Steam sucking up all the oxygen in that particular room. I own every Yakuza game they made available on GOG and they’ve stopped doing that. That wasn’t Epic.
Oh, it was Sega. That’s the thing about having an entrenched dominant position, you don’t need to invest money to get exclusives, even when you are paying out a smaller share.
Gaben may be a libertarian, but I’m not. If you set up systemic reasons why I’m getting boned it’s still your fault.
So are you okay with exclusives but only when the developer is not getting paid for it? Or only when it’s on Steam because you just happen to like Steam?
That’s such a weird take. It owns the inconsistency so thoroughly I have trouble navigating it.
Since apparently I have to explain this for some reason, I don’t particularly like exclusives in general and prefer platform-agnostic games so I can pick where to get them. but if you’re only going to support a store, I’m perfectly fine with developers getting paid by Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Valve, Epic or whever else. You do you and keep your workers employed any way you see fit.
And when I get a choice I tend to pick GOG because… well, they don’t need a little reminder that you’re not buying the game you’re buying in the payment page, so I get to back up my installers and keep them forever.
Now, THAT is a criticsm of Steam that I’m actually making here.
I generally am less bothered by exclusives that are a result of a company deciding to not release at a certain storefront as opposed to being bribed and contractually prevented from releasing elsewhere after signing. Those at least have a chance of being released somewhere else if they change their mind.
Like Yakuza was a console exclusive for a long time but not because Sony forced them to. So when they decided PC games was worth venturing into they ended up doing so as opposed to being contractually prevented. Same goes for Persona.
That’s the difference from contract based exclusives.
That’s called the cost of running a DRM free storefront.
Yakuza collection didn’t release until 2023. Companies usually do delayed releases when sales are on a downward trend if they end up releasing on GOG. And that’s a big if because of no DRM requirements.
Unless you are a recent user of GOG, delayed releases shouldn’t be anything new and has more to do with DRM. If you want DRM free you have to be willing to accept delayed releasing or convince GOG to give up on DRM requirements if you just want games on GOG available right away.
Stuff like denuvo exists because companies are very protective of their assets and are really reluctant to offer DRM free. That’s the main obstacles for GOG. DRM.
Yeah. Because Steam has DRM. Steam IS DRM. That’s the problem it originally solved, back when Amazon was still a bookstore.
So screw Steam and other overprotective corporations, I want my PC games DRM-free, since physical copies aren’t an option (which is my console solution, thank you very much). They can come meet my requirements or I will continue to prioritize GOG where I can and be annoyed at the lack of a GOG release otherwise. I don’t want GOG to give up on the DRM requirement, I want them to get so popular that publishers have to comply with it whether they like it or not.
So from that perspective, if Epic and Steam want to have a pissing contest, I’m in full “let them fight” mode. Who cares.
Sorry but companies were trying DRM even before them using stuff like rotating paper wheels before DRM tech improved. Sony even installed root kits for music CDs. Denuvo was created because it was believed DRM options weren’t strong enough and some companies use additional DRM on top of denuvo.
Zero DRM isn’t the only reason games aren’t published on GOG right away, and that may not even be the main reason for the countless games that release day one without Denuvo.
GOG also doesn’t have the best infrastructure for pushing updates. Stories abound of it being a slow process, whether physically uploading the files or authentication taking a while. Invariably, game updates will show up later on GOG than they will on Steam. GOG also has a very consumer-friendly return policy. All that, combined with it being simply a smaller marketplace, doesn’t place it well in cost-benefit analysis.
GOG is called Good Old Games for a reason. They aren’t losing out by having to wait. I always buy games there first, then Epic (if it’s an exclusive), then Steam.
Nothing beats GOG for preservation and gamers rights to actually own their games.
On July 27th (Saturday) I uploaded a new trailer announcing the Steam launch date. On July 30th (Tuesday) I was contacted by the Epic Store, proposing that I enter into an exclusivity agreement with them instead of releasing DARQ on Steam. They made it clear that releasing DARQ non-exclusively is not an option. I rejected their offer before we had a chance to talk about money.
…
It was important to me to give players what they wanted: options. A lot of people requested that DARQ be made available on GOG. I was happy to work with GOG to bring the game to their platform. I wish the Epic Store would allow indie games to be sold there non-exclusively, as they do with larger, still unreleased games (Cyberpunk 2077), so players can enjoy what they want: a choice.
What’s the point of your comment? It doesn’t change the fact that, at the end of the exclusivity period, those games will show up on GOG, which doesn’t care if they’re “old” games that don’t sell much.
Nobody is paying more than a couple dollars at most for Fallout 1 & 2, but do you see GOG throwing a fit about that? How do you suppose Epic exclusives are going to change that?
The fact that gog.com let me forego launchers all together as well as letting me download the game installers and put them on my NAS means a lot to me. I don’t remember the last time I had GOG Galaxy installed, I just download, install and play the games and then call it a day.
You can go that way. I’d rather have a front-end to manage it, but having the option means you can do it manually, rely on Galaxy or use a third party front-end pretty interchangeably.
Yeah, there are a bunch of third party launchers with integrations. Launchbox will do most PC storefronts.
I wish Galaxy was a bit lighter, though, because once I plug in everything it supports we start getting into five digit counts and the whole thing slows to a crawl. It’s a bit better now, but it was borderline unusable at some points.
Epic pays for exclusivity sometimes. It’s funny, I keep picking up the free epic games but I don’t think I have ever once played a single game on there.
I just use the heroic/legendary alternative launcher for any single player games I actually want to play from egs. It’s open source and gives epic less footprint on my machine.
Unfortunately if you want to do anything multiplayer then you need the real client.
I’ve been picking them up religiously after I found out I missed Frostpunk. The only ones I’ve played were the big names like Control, Death Standing, and the old Fallout games. For everything else, the client doesn’t give you enough information to decide if it’s worth your time or not. I keep having to go back and forth between Epic and Steam to read reviews and the “similar to other games you’ve played” thing. It’s not worth the effort.
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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.
So they still got your money eventually. That’s a double win, in their eyes.
In what way is that a “double win”?
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.
I’m aware of what an actual boycott is.
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.
It’s less money in their pockets and more money in ours. That’s not going to be a double win in their books.
Nobody ever hurt a company or made them reconsider their decisions by giving them money, no matter how little it was.
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.
I’m not sure why you’re trying to convince me about it. I’m not the one deciding to sell out to Epic.
It would be except I forgot it existed while it was in purgatory on Epic
if it was discounted then they didn’t get as much money.
And? It’s still profit. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be listed.
Profit matters on a quarterly basis.
If a company gets the full profit of their game as they predicted they might in 1 quarter, then that’s basically the best case scenario.
If instead that full profit is spread of multiple years, then quater-to-quarter the game might look like it is underperforming, or severely so.
The timing of profit matters just as much as how much profit there is. Time value of money is a pretty useful concept in the financial world.
and… instead of getting $60 immediately, they are getting $30 or whatever later. clearly one is better than the other, no?
They lose day 1 hype, tho. Sure, the game eventually comes to steam, but that’s after it’s already been overplayed on twitch and YouTube’d to death.
In what way does that matter outside of driving sales? Which people like op happily still gave them?
It’s not “new”. There is no FOMO. Early adopters for games are a large chunk of sales.
If that was actually a concern, why would companies do it at all?
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.
Congrats on getting the point.
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…
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.
If I like the game then good for them. Epic didn’t get any of my money and they’re the one I have an issue with.
Well they decide to lose customers, up to them.
Yep. I loved Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, and was excielted to hear they made a sequel. Then I learned it’s an EGS exclusive. They can go get bent, not buying from them anymore
TIL, they made a soasr sequel. Was it good?
No idea, I refuse to buy it. The first one was good.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1575940/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire_II/
It’s on steam now
I am aware. They’re still not getting my money
If you refuse to buy on Epic, you send the message that you don’t like to buy from Epic.
If you refuse to buy after it hits steam, then you’re just 1 of several billion who didn’t buy the game.
Why would you continue to not buy?
No, you have it backwards. If people buy the game when it goes on Steam, that tells the developer they can double dip buy going Epic exclusive then releasing at full price on Steam a year later with no repurcussions.
The only way to make the publisher learn to not go Epic exclusive is to not buy those games at all, even after they are brought onto other marketplaces
Wait a year for the exclusivity clause to expire and it to appear on other stores.
Do you also get this upset when a game only appears on Steam?
Two games I anticipated came out on Steam only, so I asked the developers if they planned to sell on alternative platforms and they did, but considering the game isn’t full done yet (they released it in Early Access) Initially I was annoyed, but after their response (they want to focus their effort on the game before adding the extra burden of managing multiple update channels) I understand why they did, on top of being a small team.
I decided to wait for one (came out on GOG on v1.0) and for the second one I decided to buy it on Steam right away since there’s still a lot of work left.
Do epic and gog even have early access avenues?
Gog does. The game manor lords is in early access on gog.
https://www.gog.com/en/game/manor_lords
Neat
Good question 🤔
GoG does, dunno about Epic.
I specifically don’t get upset when a game is exclusively on Steam because of how much work Valve puts into Linux gaming, work that Epic directly and actively opposes.
Epic refuses to enable the Linux support for EAC on Fortnite despite being super easy, and specifically removed Linux support for Rocket League.
That’s what I said.
Oh no, we don’t complain about Steam exclusivity, monopolies are ok as long as they’re the monopolies that we want, ok? What happens when Valve turns to shit and we made sure there’s no viable alternative? That will never happen! Are you kidding?
When it turns to shit, we have the high seas.
Everything goes to shit eventually, but pre-emptively making yourself suffer is just silly. Enjoy the time you have, and vote with your wallet once they start doing anticompetitive crap like paid exclusivity deals. Until then, we might as well enjoy the fact that Valve isn’t a public company obligated to chase short term profits for shareholders.
“make yourself suffer”
I open Steam, switch to the library open my game and play
I open Epic, open my game from the main screen and play
So much suffering! Heck, I also sent more money to the devs through that suffering!
If you think taking a 30% cut to enrich a billionaire isn’t enshitifaction then I don’t know what to tell you buddy.
Most of the 30% cut goes to developing the store, software, and even hardware. Valve has worked to make gaming on Linux way more feasible and easy, popularized handheld PC’s, made game streaming simple, etc.
Meanwhile EGS took 2 whole years to add a shopping cart to their online store and had multiple data breaches. That is what I call enshitification
No need to defend the guy who owns a yacht collection buddy, I’m sure he does perfectly fine without you
“Making yourself suffer” by boycotting Steam.
It goes against every fiber of my being to not utterly despise a multi-billion dollar corporation, but I just don’t have the energy that I used to. I have to pick the battles I want to fight, and they haven’t done enough to make it worth it for me to do that.
Never said I boycott Steam, I said I don’t boycott any of them
Yes, we should reward decisions we dislike. That’ll show 'em.
Isn’t this whole post just a part of a long running gag where people give shit to Epic for their exclusivity deals after they gave Apple so much shit for their walled garden in much the same way?
The apple walled garden is still really bad for users
Literally anything besides not getting that game?
There are too many games to care about the tiny amount of them that aren’t available on steam.
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.
EGS buyers can beta test it for me, that’s fine.
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.
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.
So venture capitalism. Because that worked out so well for consumers with the rest of the tech industry. Wcgw?
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.
Who knows, anything could happen.
🧲 time
Valve kills physical ownership of games: I sleep
Games exclusive to Origin: I sleep
Games exclusive to whatever the fuck Blizzard made: I sleep
Games exclusive to Microsoft Store: I sleep
Games exclusive to Epic: REAL SHIT
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”?
https://medium.com/@unfoldgames/why-i-turned-down-exclusivity-deal-from-the-epic-store-developer-of-darq-7ee834ed0ac7
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.
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.
-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.
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
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.
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)
Yeah and get in return like 10 players? Only who has no faith in their game sells it to the demon
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.
You know it also counts ghost accounts made while linking your steam to epic or when you use a game with EOS and it creates a dummy account yee?
Buying the game. I thought it was obvious but I guess not
You don’t even need to do that. Use Heroic and you can combine Epic, GOG, and Amazon into one launcher.
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.
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.
No. You can with physical. Well, before that just meant a steam key with a disc.
That come much later. Try to keep up.
So we’re talking about everything except this moment in time?
If Steam is bad because no physical media then so is Epic.
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.
So much this
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.
It is also available on the pirate bay.
TPB is a honeypot now.
And unless you’re an idiot, it’s pretty nigh impossible to get caught in that honey trap.
what is the problem with epic? I like the weekly free games
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 guess I don’t feel limited because I already have an epic account, which was free to create
free lol. did you look at the privacy policy, or just accepted it hastily?
care to state your point directly?
https://tosdr.org/en/service/624
I get a game and indie devs get millions. When you put it that way, it seems morally better to use Epic over Steam.
Oh no, they gave indie developers guaranteed money and helped finance the completion of their games!
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.
Hey! Epic has a review system too! But it’s nowhere near the standard system someone would except
fair
Copying my reply to someone else:
Epic is anti-customer: https://medium.com/@unfoldgames/why-i-turned-down-exclusivity-deal-from-the-epic-store-developer-of-darq-7ee834ed0ac7
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
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.
I like them too but I’ve noticed that some games are not updated to the same version as their Steam counterparts.
Because no one gives a shit about epic? Even devs contact care to update their games there as much as steam
I’m annoyed when a game isn’t on GOG. Epic’s issue is that I use it the least and so I’m less likely to boot up a game on it unless I’m actively seeking it out.
One of the annoying thing about epic exclusives is that the focus is on steam, but GOG is affected too and loses out on games too until the deal expires.
Steam is their scapegoat, they want a Monopoly without having to say they have a Monopoly.
Wait, who want a monopoly? Epic? The Epic store is like a tenth of Steam’s size, and most of that is down to Fortnite alone. Hard to have a monopoly when you’re struggling to break double digit share.
… right, which is why I said they want a monopoly, not that they have a monopoly.
Well, yeah, presumably they all do. I’m sure the kebab place next door would love to have a monopoly, it just doesn’t look like it’s in the cards, you know?
Yes, and if the kebab store pitched a fit every time someone provided a better product than them, calling that competition a monopolist, I’d have the same criticism of that kebab shop.
If they’re just doing their best to provide a quality product… I wouldn’t like that they have a monopoly, but if they’re not in any way abusing it… that sounds like they’ve earned their place. The problem lies in the people not putting forth enough effort (despite have the resources to do so) to match.
Kebab store if they were epic like in their strategy would not be throwing a fit, but making exclusivity deals with suppliers so that their competitors in the area lose access to them. So trying to increase consumers having to go to their kebab store to get specific meals due to inability of other stores to offer it or not retain the same quality anymore. Also look into regulations to try and prevent potential competitors from opening up next to them or at least delay when they can open.
No, that’s not how that works at all. Monopolies are bad (and indeed unlawful) even if people think you got them by being super cool.
Google didn’t get a monopoly on advertising and search by sucking at it. They had the best search engine and design in a crowded market and that’s why you don’t say you “Altavista’d” something. But that’s still a bad thing and they still should get broken up into manageable chunks, as current regulators are trying to do. Ditto for Apple and all these other oligopolistic online companies.
And… you know, Valve. Maybe. At some point. Not quite there yet. But that’s bad even if you like Steam or if they have the better feature set. Which they do. Especially if they have the better feature set, in fact, because like all these other oligopolistic companies, the more time they have to establish dominance and get people to sink further into their ecosystem the harder it is to break it up later. That’s true of kebabs AND software platforms.
People who hate on Steam alternatives want a monopoly
No, people who back monopolistic, anti-consumer companies like EGS want a monopoly.
If you actually look, nobody ever complains about GOG or Itch.io. That’s because they don’t pull anticompetitive bullshit like the paid exclusives that EGS relies on
You think Steam isn’t a monopoly?
Read my comment again
The company providing an actual alternative to steam’s real monopoly is not the one to be complaining about
Except they’re trying to strongarm people into using it by using huge amounts of money to buy exclusivity rights.
People don’t want monopolies because companies can abuse their position to hurt consumers. But steam provides a very user friendly experience with lots of benefits and features like mod hosting, remote play together, etc. Epic provides a store that people hate using, and people only put up with because epic abused fortnite’s success to buy exclusivity deals*. Despite being the much smaller storefront, Epic already feels like the abusive monopoly in the PC gaming space.
*Many people also play on Epic because of free games, which is a valid and pro-consumer way to attract users. I’m 100% cool with this strategy, although giving away merchandise at a loss is also a common monopoly strategy.
With regards to
It’s important to remember that it’s not only buyers, but developers that use Steam. Steam is currently involved in a lawsuit with developers.
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/the-antitrust-lawsuit-against-steam-is-now-a-class-action-and-that-could-have-big-repercussions-for-valve/
Also relevant, from 2021 but the same lawsuit,
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/04/humble-bundle-creator-brings-antitrust-lawsuit-against-valve-over-steam/
I like Steam, I’m not hating on Steam, but rushing to defend it from people saying it’s a monopoly (or calling Epic Games Store a monopoly) is very much denying reality.
Epic is running a loss leader at this point so it’s not an business model to point to, since it’s subsidized by unreal and fortnite.
Microsoft on Xbox is taking a 30% cut so it wouldn’t be farfetched to assume cut is more a strategy to try to expand market share and are willing to increase down the line if they got market share. And Microsoft is Microsoft so has lot of other profitable divisions to be able to run things at a loss.
One actually better to point to might be GOG which is also taking 30%, but in 2021 had a 1 million dollar loss. https://www.pcgamer.com/gog-looks-like-its-in-a-much-healthier-spot-after-a-hairy-2021/
Which raises the question. What is actually sustainable? Especially the lower cut offered have other much more profitable divisions that are covering potential losses and not being the main source of revenue.
All retail establishments utilize loss leaders. It’s not some underhanded duplicitous tactic, it’s just a common business strategy
That’s the same as app stores/etc, and is still a common cut to take. I’m not convinced the cuts that Epic is taking are actually sustainable for offering downloads/updates/etc for a game indefinitely, but it’s hard to tell since the Epic store is already bleeding money.
I’ll also mention that Audible (which has a monopoly in the audiobook space) reportably takes a 60-75% cut of audiobooks sold on their platform (they take only 60% if you agree to sell exclusively on audible, but they take the full 75% if you want to sell the book somewhere else as well). Monopolies abusing their position is really common, but I haven’t seen anything similar from Steam that makes me think they’re abusing their position. I suspect PC gaming would be in a far worse state if another company controlled the popular storefront.
That 30% is standard for most storefronts. Just look at Google Play and Apple’s App Store.
If you’re that put off by 30% cuts then don’t look into retail stores because their markups make that look like chump change.
Actually, it’s generally publishers, not developers that end up paying the 30% cut. For most games the developer gets paid upfront by the publisher, and the publisher pockets the difference between development costs and sales. I’d also like to point out that prices between EGS and Steam are generally the same, so instead of getting lower priced games as promised, the publishers are just pocketing the larger profits.
Repeat Tim Swiney’s fake talking points all you want, the fact of the matter is that Valve isn’t behaving like a monopoly, even if they command a huge portion of the market. The reason they’re so big in the first place is specifically because they’re very pro-consumer
I’m keeping the model simple by equating publisher with developer. Basically, you’ve got the consumer, the store, and the supplier. That some (most) developer studios go through a publisher for funding is a business practice that’s actually unrelated to Steam. Especially because they allow indie content.
Would you do your job and maybe receive an income but only years later, based on results and how happy you made your boss?
The devs and publishers who sign those deals are the ones you should be angry at, Epic is offering them guaranteed income in exchange for timed exclusivity, Valve is offering them access to a bigger player base in exchange for a gamble.
And that’s why I don’t buy games from those devs and publishers
Being a small game dev has a lot of uncertainty and risk. I wouldn’t blame any small dev for taking a guaranteed paycheck from Epic. Larger studios with safe prospects should be blamed though imo. Gearbox with Borderlands 3 for example.
Doesn’t matter the size of the studio, in the end they have people to pay and Steam is asking them to take a gamble in the hope that they’ll make enough to compensate the money they spent. We’ve seen but studios crash and burn, hell Sony wasted home many millions on that game that was online for a couple of days? I’m sure they would have been happy to have gotten a cheque instead of nothing!
Are they providing an actual alternative, or just creating a pseudo alternative then bitching about how someone else gets more attention?
It is, in fact, an alternative to steam. What a stupid thing to say
Epic is nowhere near as good as steam. Steam I can open, leave open and ignore. Epic force refreshes pages like the fucking library and then my internet cracks a fit at the sudden large data draw.
Shop wise both are equal, epic now has reviews on the bottom of games so you don’t buy some 1 star trash without warning, but they are both more than just a shop.
I’m not sure what you’re responding to, but it wasn’t anyone I said
Anyone believing Steam isn’t a monopoly is seriously uninformed on the topic or letting their enjoy enjoyment of the platform cloud their view of reality.
While it sucks to have games get exclusivity agreements with EGS when EGS sucks compared to Steam, it doesn’t suddenly mean that Steam isn’t a monopoly.
Well, yeah, but if I was going to get pissed about that, then Epic would be way low in my list of priorities. It’s Steam sucking up all the oxygen in that particular room. I own every Yakuza game they made available on GOG and they’ve stopped doing that. That wasn’t Epic.
Sounds like that was Sega.
Oh, it was Sega. That’s the thing about having an entrenched dominant position, you don’t need to invest money to get exclusives, even when you are paying out a smaller share.
Gaben may be a libertarian, but I’m not. If you set up systemic reasons why I’m getting boned it’s still your fault.
So the systemic reason of… providing a quality storefront? Are you demanding that they just make things shittier so that other people have a chance?
This has got to be the most twisted criticism of Steam I’ve ever heard…
I… wait, what?
So are you okay with exclusives but only when the developer is not getting paid for it? Or only when it’s on Steam because you just happen to like Steam?
That’s such a weird take. It owns the inconsistency so thoroughly I have trouble navigating it.
Since apparently I have to explain this for some reason, I don’t particularly like exclusives in general and prefer platform-agnostic games so I can pick where to get them. but if you’re only going to support a store, I’m perfectly fine with developers getting paid by Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Valve, Epic or whever else. You do you and keep your workers employed any way you see fit.
And when I get a choice I tend to pick GOG because… well, they don’t need a little reminder that you’re not buying the game you’re buying in the payment page, so I get to back up my installers and keep them forever.
Now, THAT is a criticsm of Steam that I’m actually making here.
I generally am less bothered by exclusives that are a result of a company deciding to not release at a certain storefront as opposed to being bribed and contractually prevented from releasing elsewhere after signing. Those at least have a chance of being released somewhere else if they change their mind.
Like Yakuza was a console exclusive for a long time but not because Sony forced them to. So when they decided PC games was worth venturing into they ended up doing so as opposed to being contractually prevented. Same goes for Persona.
That’s the difference from contract based exclusives.
That’s called the cost of running a DRM free storefront.
Yakuza collection didn’t release until 2023. Companies usually do delayed releases when sales are on a downward trend if they end up releasing on GOG. And that’s a big if because of no DRM requirements.
Unless you are a recent user of GOG, delayed releases shouldn’t be anything new and has more to do with DRM. If you want DRM free you have to be willing to accept delayed releasing or convince GOG to give up on DRM requirements if you just want games on GOG available right away.
Stuff like denuvo exists because companies are very protective of their assets and are really reluctant to offer DRM free. That’s the main obstacles for GOG. DRM.
Yeah. Because Steam has DRM. Steam IS DRM. That’s the problem it originally solved, back when Amazon was still a bookstore.
So screw Steam and other overprotective corporations, I want my PC games DRM-free, since physical copies aren’t an option (which is my console solution, thank you very much). They can come meet my requirements or I will continue to prioritize GOG where I can and be annoyed at the lack of a GOG release otherwise. I don’t want GOG to give up on the DRM requirement, I want them to get so popular that publishers have to comply with it whether they like it or not.
So from that perspective, if Epic and Steam want to have a pissing contest, I’m in full “let them fight” mode. Who cares.
Sorry but companies were trying DRM even before them using stuff like rotating paper wheels before DRM tech improved. Sony even installed root kits for music CDs. Denuvo was created because it was believed DRM options weren’t strong enough and some companies use additional DRM on top of denuvo.
Zero DRM isn’t the only reason games aren’t published on GOG right away, and that may not even be the main reason for the countless games that release day one without Denuvo.
GOG also doesn’t have the best infrastructure for pushing updates. Stories abound of it being a slow process, whether physically uploading the files or authentication taking a while. Invariably, game updates will show up later on GOG than they will on Steam. GOG also has a very consumer-friendly return policy. All that, combined with it being simply a smaller marketplace, doesn’t place it well in cost-benefit analysis.
GOG is called Good Old Games for a reason. They aren’t losing out by having to wait. I always buy games there first, then Epic (if it’s an exclusive), then Steam.
Nothing beats GOG for preservation and gamers rights to actually own their games.
https://medium.com/@unfoldgames/why-i-turned-down-exclusivity-deal-from-the-epic-store-developer-of-darq-7ee834ed0ac7
What’s the point of your comment? It doesn’t change the fact that, at the end of the exclusivity period, those games will show up on GOG, which doesn’t care if they’re “old” games that don’t sell much.
Nobody is paying more than a couple dollars at most for Fallout 1 & 2, but do you see GOG throwing a fit about that? How do you suppose Epic exclusives are going to change that?
The fact that gog.com let me forego launchers all together as well as letting me download the game installers and put them on my NAS means a lot to me. I don’t remember the last time I had GOG Galaxy installed, I just download, install and play the games and then call it a day.
You can go that way. I’d rather have a front-end to manage it, but having the option means you can do it manually, rely on Galaxy or use a third party front-end pretty interchangeably.
If you use GOG Galaxy it has Epic store intergration to launch games, and then closes the app when you quit too. Never have to see the Epic launcher.
Yeah, there are a bunch of third party launchers with integrations. Launchbox will do most PC storefronts.
I wish Galaxy was a bit lighter, though, because once I plug in everything it supports we start getting into five digit counts and the whole thing slows to a crawl. It’s a bit better now, but it was borderline unusable at some points.
Yeah it’s a bit of a slog with too many but I find it’s perfect for Epic and Microsoft games.
Exclusives of any kind are bullshit marketing ploys, at best.
Every time someone takes the epic deal it just makes it easier to choose which game to ignore forever
Epic pays for exclusivity sometimes. It’s funny, I keep picking up the free epic games but I don’t think I have ever once played a single game on there.
I claim but I don’t even have the launcher installed. If it wasn’t for the giveaways I’d completely forget about the place.
I don’t even get the free games…they aren’t worth my time. I’ll pay to get them elsewhere instead even if it’s free there when I’m looking
I’m claiming them for the day when Epic games store shuts down and they give out keys for redeemed games on steam. I’m playing the long game. :D
I just download the games that are drm free (which is actually quite a lot) and put a zip archive on my backup drive(s)
Bethesda did that after shutting down their launcher.
I just use the heroic/legendary alternative launcher for any single player games I actually want to play from egs. It’s open source and gives epic less footprint on my machine.
Unfortunately if you want to do anything multiplayer then you need the real client.
I’ve been picking them up religiously after I found out I missed Frostpunk. The only ones I’ve played were the big names like Control, Death Standing, and the old Fallout games. For everything else, the client doesn’t give you enough information to decide if it’s worth your time or not. I keep having to go back and forth between Epic and Steam to read reviews and the “similar to other games you’ve played” thing. It’s not worth the effort.