Damn shame the decision Remedy made to get the funding from Epic looks like it has backfired (since as I understand it AW2 still hasn’t turned a profit). I truly hope this doesn’t affect their upcoming games as Alan Wake 2 is one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had and I want for nothing more than Remedy to keep doing what they’re doing.
It’s unfortunate, but if you’re developing a game and are in dire need of cash, Epic is your best bet.
Way before the whole store debacle, Epic also had a lot of grants and stuff, but those didn’t require you to give up publishing rights IIRC. Honestly, the EGS greed aside, they’ve been excellent for the gaming industry.
Yeah, a big reason why Remedy took Epic’s money was that barely anyone wants to invest in an honest to god sell it once traditional single player game these days. Almost every investor with enough money to finance something like AW2 wanted mtx bullshit and/or live service and epic was one of maybe a handful that had both the ability and willingness to fund the damn thing so credit where credit is due.
For that reason, I don’t mind buying it on Epic. The always online requirement though, that’s a deal breaker.
The good news is that the live service bubble burst so hard and spectacularly that we may see a return to actual good games getting funding after investors are done licking their wounds.
The good news is that the live service bubble burst so hard and spectacularly that we may see a return to actual good games getting funding after investors are done licking their wounds.
Did it?
I honestly have no idea what’s going on in that space anymore. I’m still playing Baldur’s Gate 3 because I’ve been extremely busy since about August 2023. Got into Act 2 yesterday! When I’m finished with that, I can get back to the game I was playing before BG3, which I STILL haven’t finished, which is Elden Ring. I got stuck there and bought BG3 lol
The only good thing about not having time to play video games is that you can fill the entirety of your video game time with awesome single player games.
BG3 and the Cyberpunk dlc sold really well, proving you can turn a good profit from old school single player games still. Simultaneously, live service games like Concord, Suicide Squad, and Dragon Age sold terribly, the current copium is the massive losses from live service will push developers and publishers back towards single player games they can get a nice profit from compared to possible huge losses.
The truth is, the only way good games will be made again is when the publicly traded aaa companies die out and privately owned indie companies rule the scene.
It’s a good game and it wouldn’t have been made if it werent for epic games fronting the cost. Step beyond the silly platform tribalism and just enjoy the game that was made with love and vision while supporting the devs and the choices they made. Or dont, w/e, I’m personally glad I got it there since the devs got a bigger cut than they’d get on steam anyway.
[…] the devs got a bigger cut than they’d get on steam
Inconsequential, considering the game is still not profitable, even after a year. The devs lost money on this game. If it came to Steam, they’d be swimming in cash right now. The cut they get from the store doesn’t matter if the game releases on a single store that most people refuse to use.
If Epic Games would be an actual competitor to Steam instead of trying to lock their content behind a paywall and force users to use them over the competition, then people might consider using their service. But as long as they continue to use shitty practices, most people are going to avoid them and use their competition’s service.
If Epic Games would be an actual competitor to Steam instead of trying to lock their content behind a paywall and force users to use them over the competition, then people might consider using their service.
Exactly, that’s why it worked out so well for GOG.
If you want them to recoup the costs then buy the game instead of taking a pointless moral stance over supporting a monopoly.
What hurts GOG is its stance on DRM, since companies don’t want games to be DRM free. It leads to late releases if it does come out leading to missing out on a lot of the purchases associated with hype. Leads to less games being sold at full price which happens most at launch with games having to rely on discounts older they get.
Games not developed or published by Epic only become exclusive when the publishers and/or devs take their money. Why is no one mad at them? And of course Valve doesn’t have to do much of anything, they have had like a 10+ year headstart on cornering the PC marketplace. GOG has been completely awesome and more ethical than Valve and yet they’re barely scraping by. Gamers/consumers just love to fanboy the hell out of corporations these days. When Gabe is gone and Valve inevitably goes public and enshitifies, you’ll be glad there’s still some competition left. But it’ll suck because 90% of PC gamers have probably damn near 100% of their library locked into one platform. Remember, Steam is a huge reason why PC games went fully digital almost two decades ago.
People are mad at them. However, Epic is the one enabling this shitty behavior so they are the ones getting most of the hate.
they have had like a 10+ year headstart on cornering the PC marketplace
So Epic had like 10 years of learning from steam and doing it better, offering a competitive platform and experience. However, they didn’t do that because that actually takes time, money and effort so they just artificially tried to limit the amount of titles for sale on steam, which is basically trying to strongarm consumers into using their platform. Which is quite the same practice you see from any big players in any industry, from apple to john deere - and all are getting hate for it.
you’ll be glad there’s still some competition left
Competition like the EGS? No, I’m definitely not happy about that.
Steam is a huge reason why PC games went fully digital almost two decades ago
Not really. Games would’ve gone digital either way, it was the obvious path to go. Steam might’ve sped up that process by a few years, but pretending that without steam, digitalization of the games industry would’ve never happened is naive at best and dishonest at worst.
Not really. Games would’ve gone digital either way, it was the obvious path to go. Steam might’ve sped up that process by a few years, but pretending that without steam, digitalization of the games industry would’ve never happened is naive at best and dishonest at worst.
And yet consoles still have physical game copies available all these years later. Why is PC so much different?
And I’m not saying to be happy that Epic is competition, I’m saying that if GOG dies, you’ll only really have Steam and Epic. That sucks ass, but it’s still better than only having ONE option. And like I said, once Gabe is gone, I 100% believe Valve will go full on enshitification mode. I wouldn’t have to worry as much if I could still buy physical fucking copies of modern PC games.
As for Epic competing by creating better platform, I completely agree. Their launcher has made improvements, but it is still very bare bones and not great. I try to remember that tons of common sense software features we take for granted get patented. Hell, that’s why so many streaming services felt so much shittier than Netflix for so long. It’s not as straightforward as just emulating what Steam does but slightly better. That’s still no excuse though, and they still fall very short of offering the mostly comfortable user experience we’ve grown accustomed to. Steam didn’t start off where they’re at now, they’ve had 20 years with an entire company dedicated to developing it.
My main point is, we all love Steam and Valve because they’ve been a mostly ethical corporation so far as well as mostly improving the experience of PC gaming, especially with Linux (minus expediting and enabling 100% digitization so they could attain better profit margins on Half-Life 2 sales). But nothing lasts forever, and pure monopolies are bad. Fuck Epic for buying exclusive rights for third party games, but in this specific context, it is their game, so it is what it is.
And yet consoles still have physical game copies available all these years later. Why is PC so much different?
It isn’t. You can still buy physical copies of PC games, mostly AAA tho, but nobody does it anymore. Also, there are consoles that are delivered without a cd drive, so they are digital only.
And I’m not saying to be happy that Epic is competition, I’m saying that if GOG dies, you’ll only really have Steam and Epic
To be fair, steam is my platform of choice now anyways because of their awesome linux support.
I 100% believe Valve will go full on enshitification mode. I wouldn’t have to worry as much if I could still buy physical fucking copies of modern PC games
Certainly a worry, however, in case they do become shitty, I’ll just download a bunch of cracks for my games and leave the platform.
Steam didn’t start off where they’re at now, they’ve had 20 years with an entire company dedicated to developing it.
I don’t care tho?
Seriously, this is the worst argument to me. Why should I as a consumer care about that? If someone sells a flip phone now, you’re not going to say: “Oh man samsung had such a big headstart obviously their phones are better”. If a company enters a new space, they have to compete on the same level, not on the level of 20 years ago.
Fuck Epic for buying exclusive rights for third party games, but in this specific context, it is their game, so it is what it is
Ye agree, it is their game rn so they can do that. But a majority of games weren’t.
I was about to say it isn’t the same before googling and realising that they are the publisher for Alan Wake 2.
I guess there might still be the nuance of develop vs publish, does Valve publish any games that it didn’t develop/weren’t mods of their titles? (Genuinely don’t know)
Either way, I’m still buttmad about the rocket league situation
This kind of thing happened with “American Nightmare” and “Quantum Break”. While I’m not aware of any formal policy that Remedy has, I suspect this happens because they’re a smaller shop trying to leverage whatever they can.
Until it eventually does come to steam. Please don’t listen to these fuckers. They will say whatever they can for profit. It wouldn’t be the first time these people have lied about this exact thing only for the game to come to steam a year later.
You already got an answer more or less, but to specify, Fitgirl is one specific repacker of games that a lot of people trust. She (or he, or they or it, nobody really knows) specializes in compression to make the releases quick to download on slow Internet connections. Of course if you’re sitting on gigabit download speeds or something, the decompression will take way longer than what you save from the download.
Thank you for the details, much appreciated. I extrapolated from the other response - more or less, as you said - but you provided plenty I couldn’t have guessed.
There’s also the fact that her(?) repacks sometimes don’t install for some people, for some reason nobody has really figured out yet. But they’re a solid choice for those who sail the high seas, because at least you know they’re clean.
Epic actually financed Remedy’s development of the game, as opposed to swooping in at the last minute to offer a timed-exclusivity deal. In that case I was fine buying the game on their platform if it meant the game got to exist at all. After all I do not expect Valve to sell their games on another platform than their own.
Don’t get me wrong: I’d rather the game was sold on Steam, or even better, DRM-less on GOG. I did wait for a number of those timed exclusives to find their way on Steam or other stores (Borderlands 3, Kena, Journey, Control, Hades, etc). It’s a shame that so many people will not get to experience AW2 because of its delivery platform, because it’s a damn unique game.
As much as I hate Epic, I actually bought AW2 based on that logic but ended up refunding it because, and I can not stress this enough, FUCK ALWAYS ONLINE REQUIREMENTS ON PURELY OFFLINE GAMES. I refuse to pay for an offline game that locks me out when my internet isn’t working…doubly so when the pirated version works perfectly fine without internet.
P.S. I also refuse to pay for single player games with arbitrary online “features” made to force a DRM check, or games published by cunts that do layoffs and shutter studios while posting record profits but that’s a different conversation.
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Damn shame the decision Remedy made to get the funding from Epic looks like it has backfired (since as I understand it AW2 still hasn’t turned a profit). I truly hope this doesn’t affect their upcoming games as Alan Wake 2 is one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had and I want for nothing more than Remedy to keep doing what they’re doing.
It’s unfortunate, but if you’re developing a game and are in dire need of cash, Epic is your best bet.
Way before the whole store debacle, Epic also had a lot of grants and stuff, but those didn’t require you to give up publishing rights IIRC. Honestly, the EGS greed aside, they’ve been excellent for the gaming industry.
Yeah, a big reason why Remedy took Epic’s money was that barely anyone wants to invest in an honest to god sell it once traditional single player game these days. Almost every investor with enough money to finance something like AW2 wanted mtx bullshit and/or live service and epic was one of maybe a handful that had both the ability and willingness to fund the damn thing so credit where credit is due.
For that reason, I don’t mind buying it on Epic. The always online requirement though, that’s a deal breaker.
The good news is that the live service bubble burst so hard and spectacularly that we may see a return to actual good games getting funding after investors are done licking their wounds.
Did it?
I honestly have no idea what’s going on in that space anymore. I’m still playing Baldur’s Gate 3 because I’ve been extremely busy since about August 2023. Got into Act 2 yesterday! When I’m finished with that, I can get back to the game I was playing before BG3, which I STILL haven’t finished, which is Elden Ring. I got stuck there and bought BG3 lol
The only good thing about not having time to play video games is that you can fill the entirety of your video game time with awesome single player games.
BG3 and the Cyberpunk dlc sold really well, proving you can turn a good profit from old school single player games still. Simultaneously, live service games like Concord, Suicide Squad, and Dragon Age sold terribly, the current copium is the massive losses from live service will push developers and publishers back towards single player games they can get a nice profit from compared to possible huge losses.
The truth is, the only way good games will be made again is when the publicly traded aaa companies die out and privately owned indie companies rule the scene.
That’s what they said about red dead redemption too
Guess I’ll never get it then.
That’s fine, I will never purchase Alan Wake 2 then
It’ll eventually be included in a giveaway anyways like Control was. So if I haven’t bought it by now I’m fine waiting for the giveaway.
mfw i don’t pay them money
Here’s the thing about CEOs: they’re beholden to a board of people who like money
It’s a good game and it wouldn’t have been made if it werent for epic games fronting the cost. Step beyond the silly platform tribalism and just enjoy the game that was made with love and vision while supporting the devs and the choices they made. Or dont, w/e, I’m personally glad I got it there since the devs got a bigger cut than they’d get on steam anyway.
Inconsequential, considering the game is still not profitable, even after a year. The devs lost money on this game. If it came to Steam, they’d be swimming in cash right now. The cut they get from the store doesn’t matter if the game releases on a single store that most people refuse to use.
If Epic Games would be an actual competitor to Steam instead of trying to lock their content behind a paywall and force users to use them over the competition, then people might consider using their service. But as long as they continue to use shitty practices, most people are going to avoid them and use their competition’s service.
Exactly, that’s why it worked out so well for GOG.
If you want them to recoup the costs then buy the game instead of taking a pointless moral stance over supporting a monopoly.
What hurts GOG is its stance on DRM, since companies don’t want games to be DRM free. It leads to late releases if it does come out leading to missing out on a lot of the purchases associated with hype. Leads to less games being sold at full price which happens most at launch with games having to rely on discounts older they get.
This is the bullshit that makes me hate Epic games. I want Fortnite to die already so Tim Sweeney can eff right off.
A exclusive war only one person is waging…
I dislike Epic as much as the next guy, but he’s not the only one waging it, lol. Try to find any of Valve’s games on the Epic marketplace.
Not really comparable IMO. Epic has paid devs/publishers in the past for not releasing on steam. Gearbox, Ubisoft etc
Nobody is mad that fortnite isn’t on steam.
Games not developed or published by Epic only become exclusive when the publishers and/or devs take their money. Why is no one mad at them? And of course Valve doesn’t have to do much of anything, they have had like a 10+ year headstart on cornering the PC marketplace. GOG has been completely awesome and more ethical than Valve and yet they’re barely scraping by. Gamers/consumers just love to fanboy the hell out of corporations these days. When Gabe is gone and Valve inevitably goes public and enshitifies, you’ll be glad there’s still some competition left. But it’ll suck because 90% of PC gamers have probably damn near 100% of their library locked into one platform. Remember, Steam is a huge reason why PC games went fully digital almost two decades ago.
People are mad at them. However, Epic is the one enabling this shitty behavior so they are the ones getting most of the hate.
So Epic had like 10 years of learning from steam and doing it better, offering a competitive platform and experience. However, they didn’t do that because that actually takes time, money and effort so they just artificially tried to limit the amount of titles for sale on steam, which is basically trying to strongarm consumers into using their platform. Which is quite the same practice you see from any big players in any industry, from apple to john deere - and all are getting hate for it.
Competition like the EGS? No, I’m definitely not happy about that.
Not really. Games would’ve gone digital either way, it was the obvious path to go. Steam might’ve sped up that process by a few years, but pretending that without steam, digitalization of the games industry would’ve never happened is naive at best and dishonest at worst.
And yet consoles still have physical game copies available all these years later. Why is PC so much different?
And I’m not saying to be happy that Epic is competition, I’m saying that if GOG dies, you’ll only really have Steam and Epic. That sucks ass, but it’s still better than only having ONE option. And like I said, once Gabe is gone, I 100% believe Valve will go full on enshitification mode. I wouldn’t have to worry as much if I could still buy physical fucking copies of modern PC games.
As for Epic competing by creating better platform, I completely agree. Their launcher has made improvements, but it is still very bare bones and not great. I try to remember that tons of common sense software features we take for granted get patented. Hell, that’s why so many streaming services felt so much shittier than Netflix for so long. It’s not as straightforward as just emulating what Steam does but slightly better. That’s still no excuse though, and they still fall very short of offering the mostly comfortable user experience we’ve grown accustomed to. Steam didn’t start off where they’re at now, they’ve had 20 years with an entire company dedicated to developing it.
My main point is, we all love Steam and Valve because they’ve been a mostly ethical corporation so far as well as mostly improving the experience of PC gaming, especially with Linux (minus expediting and enabling 100% digitization so they could attain better profit margins on Half-Life 2 sales). But nothing lasts forever, and pure monopolies are bad. Fuck Epic for buying exclusive rights for third party games, but in this specific context, it is their game, so it is what it is.
It isn’t. You can still buy physical copies of PC games, mostly AAA tho, but nobody does it anymore. Also, there are consoles that are delivered without a cd drive, so they are digital only.
To be fair, steam is my platform of choice now anyways because of their awesome linux support.
Certainly a worry, however, in case they do become shitty, I’ll just download a bunch of cracks for my games and leave the platform.
I don’t care tho?
Seriously, this is the worst argument to me. Why should I as a consumer care about that? If someone sells a flip phone now, you’re not going to say: “Oh man samsung had such a big headstart obviously their phones are better”. If a company enters a new space, they have to compete on the same level, not on the level of 20 years ago.
Ye agree, it is their game rn so they can do that. But a majority of games weren’t.
I was about to say it isn’t the same before googling and realising that they are the publisher for Alan Wake 2. I guess there might still be the nuance of develop vs publish, does Valve publish any games that it didn’t develop/weren’t mods of their titles? (Genuinely don’t know)
Either way, I’m still buttmad about the rocket league situation
Rocket League was my turning point as well.
This kind of thing happened with “American Nightmare” and “Quantum Break”. While I’m not aware of any formal policy that Remedy has, I suspect this happens because they’re a smaller shop trying to leverage whatever they can.
Until it eventually does come to steam. Please don’t listen to these fuckers. They will say whatever they can for profit. It wouldn’t be the first time these people have lied about this exact thing only for the game to come to steam a year later.
Maybe, but its on fitgirl now if they don’t want your money
Lol I just checked there after seeing this news
I’m afraid to ask what that is.
Yar har
Ah, I think I understand. Thank you.
You already got an answer more or less, but to specify, Fitgirl is one specific repacker of games that a lot of people trust. She (or he, or they or it, nobody really knows) specializes in compression to make the releases quick to download on slow Internet connections. Of course if you’re sitting on gigabit download speeds or something, the decompression will take way longer than what you save from the download.
Thank you for the details, much appreciated. I extrapolated from the other response - more or less, as you said - but you provided plenty I couldn’t have guessed.
There’s also the fact that her(?) repacks sometimes don’t install for some people, for some reason nobody has really figured out yet. But they’re a solid choice for those who sail the high seas, because at least you know they’re clean.
What a shame, it’s in my top 3 games I’ve ever played, but I pirated it because Epic app sucks ass. Was going to buy it once it was on Steam.
Epic actually financed Remedy’s development of the game, as opposed to swooping in at the last minute to offer a timed-exclusivity deal. In that case I was fine buying the game on their platform if it meant the game got to exist at all. After all I do not expect Valve to sell their games on another platform than their own.
Don’t get me wrong: I’d rather the game was sold on Steam, or even better, DRM-less on GOG. I did wait for a number of those timed exclusives to find their way on Steam or other stores (Borderlands 3, Kena, Journey, Control, Hades, etc). It’s a shame that so many people will not get to experience AW2 because of its delivery platform, because it’s a damn unique game.
As much as I hate Epic, I actually bought AW2 based on that logic but ended up refunding it because, and I can not stress this enough, FUCK ALWAYS ONLINE REQUIREMENTS ON PURELY OFFLINE GAMES. I refuse to pay for an offline game that locks me out when my internet isn’t working…doubly so when the pirated version works perfectly fine without internet.
P.S. I also refuse to pay for single player games with arbitrary online “features” made to force a DRM check, or games published by cunts that do layoffs and shutter studios while posting record profits but that’s a different conversation.
Sucks for Remedy then, since they won’t be getting my money.
So, what’s the over-under on when it’ll show up on Gamepass?