Some interesting industry news for you here. Epic Games have announced a change to the revenue model of the Epic Games Store, as they try to pull in more developers and more gamers to actually purchase things.
I mean that’s good for developers I suppose but I’m still not going to be buying from Epic.
This might make more devs consider putting things up on EGS, but unless they are sold for 30% less on average than everyone else (or lock in to be an exclusive), this means fuck all to the consumer.
Unless the consumer has principles and wants to give more money to the people that are the most like them, i.e. the devs, instead of giving it to a billionaire.
In my case Valve definitely deserves a cut, as I’m only buying the game because steam makes it really easy to play it on linux.
Their work on drivers and proton is what makes me buy the games, because if I have to tinker just to play on my preferred OS, I’ll tinker with pirated versions instead.
That’s true, and I completely despise both billionaires and yachts, but still I’ll only buy games through stores that tread my preferred OS as a first party, and currently only steam does that.
Epis is very very bad experience. They are trying too hard to sell, pushing things in your face all the time while there is no option to start the launcher in your library - has to be ads. This library also contains a bunch of games you don’t own with the link “get”, which you have to “uninstall”. After playing a game for 65h, recently epic decided “you don’t own this game” when starting it from a desktop shortcut, but then changes it’s mind once you are in the library. This game also started kicking me out “by anticheat” at the same time (EASYAntiCheat), I think this is connected to epic weird message. Anyway I tried liking epic but it’s a bit too shit. I hope developers don’t choose to limit themselves and us to fucking epic.
There was Doom64, Fortnite, Gungeon, and like 3 others in Library, all with tge link “Get” before I clicked 3 dots and Uninstall. It’s not bs just because you haven’t seen it.
Yep, to show you that if you don’t want to use epic because of a certain bug then you shouldn’t want to use Steam because the same bug happened on their side
Well it would be great if Steam (allegedly) didn’t pressure devs to force price parity with their store. In other words, selling at game at 30% less than Steam on some other storefront could (allegedly) get one delisted. It’s blatantly anticompetitive/anticonsumer and should be illegal.
I know you said allegedly, but the article explicitly says that a policy like that doesn’t exist, and the only thing that would happen (if the game is cheaper somewhere else) is that the game wouldn’t be advertised during a sale.
When pushed on official policy in his deposition, DJ Powers claims that the ‘if else’ is normally this: “If we get to a situation where a partner is telling us that the price needs to be lower on other platforms than it is on Steam, then we will typically choose not to run curated marketing during times where that game is being discounted.”
He also notes that suggesting a game can’t be on the store at all - if not at parity - is “not our typical process”. Which is semi-believable, because a) it’s not in the contract and b) nobody at Valve has time to check and enforce that. But has it happened before, multiple times? Sure. And Wolfire’s lawyers will use that in the case.
Price parity is pro consumer. This is what consumer cares about. What they shouldn’t care about is developers’ revenue split because it doesn’t affect them.
No one would be selling on Epic for a lower “discount-like” price, even if it would be allowed. This notion was never about “hey dev, get your users a cheaper price”, it was always about “hey dev, get yourself more revenue if you choose our platform” (a lie too though since Epic is simply not a good selling platform). Else, you would have seen cheaper games amongst those Epic exclusives that never hit other stores.
When I buy something, I don’t want to be stressed about whether or not it is available elsewhere cheaper. The only case where I think price parity is meaningless is worldwide, but that’s only because regional pricing should be a thing, so that’s a different matter.
I’m pro competition. However a lot of people are deceived into thinking Epic is a competitor to Valve. They do not deliver similar levels of value and service.
Price competition is silly in digital marketplace, where you know any product can go on sale randomly at a very high discount. Thinking “I’ll buy it here now because it’s 30% cheaper, cool” sounds like a recipe for selling your loyalty, for cheap. Though in reality it would never really be 30%, so you’re aiming to sell yourself even cheaper.
Okay so now Epic is getting 0% on 0 sales rather than 12% on zero sales.
Just challenge Steam with better buyer protections and you will actually make proper check out your store. Cause we know after years of your service trying to attract AAA publishers that no Steam users swapped over.
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This might make more devs consider putting things up on EGS, but unless they are sold for 30% less on average than everyone else (or lock in to be an exclusive), this means fuck all to the consumer.
Unless the consumer has principles and wants to give more money to the people that are the most like them, i.e. the devs, instead of giving it to a billionaire.
In my case Valve definitely deserves a cut, as I’m only buying the game because steam makes it really easy to play it on linux.
Their work on drivers and proton is what makes me buy the games, because if I have to tinker just to play on my preferred OS, I’ll tinker with pirated versions instead.
They could afford to do all of that and take a smaller cut if Gaben didn’t collect yachts.
That’s true, and I completely despise both billionaires and yachts, but still I’ll only buy games through stores that tread my preferred OS as a first party, and currently only steam does that.
This is good for indie devs, but don’t get it twisted, this is about attracting major publishers to the platform.
Epis is very very bad experience. They are trying too hard to sell, pushing things in your face all the time while there is no option to start the launcher in your library - has to be ads. This library also contains a bunch of games you don’t own with the link “get”, which you have to “uninstall”. After playing a game for 65h, recently epic decided “you don’t own this game” when starting it from a desktop shortcut, but then changes it’s mind once you are in the library. This game also started kicking me out “by anticheat” at the same time (EASYAntiCheat), I think this is connected to epic weird message. Anyway I tried liking epic but it’s a bit too shit. I hope developers don’t choose to limit themselves and us to fucking epic.
The launcher has your games on the left on the front page, it doesn’t show games you don’t own, cut the bullshit.
There was Doom64, Fortnite, Gungeon, and like 3 others in Library, all with tge link “Get” before I clicked 3 dots and Uninstall. It’s not bs just because you haven’t seen it.
No other report of such a thing anywhere but sure buddy, that happened.
Not your buddy, pal… Why are you debating this at all? There’s no reason to make this up. Here’s a link about it: https://www.epicgames.com/help/en-US/c-Category_EpicGamesStore/c-EpicGamesStore_LauncherSupport/why-have-my-games-gone-missing-or-games-i-never-owned-are-appearing-in-the-library-a000090508. If I thought I’d have to prove this to a rando, I’d make a screenshot…
Oh so a bug happened and you’re acting like it was intentional?
https://old.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/dgmoan/games_i_dont_own_appearing_in_my_library_latest/
https://old.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/1bsezr0/why_are_these_games_in_my_library_ive_never_added/
Get rid of steam then.
These links are about steam…
Yep, to show you that if you don’t want to use epic because of a certain bug then you shouldn’t want to use Steam because the same bug happened on their side
Well it would be great if Steam (allegedly) didn’t pressure devs to force price parity with their store. In other words, selling at game at 30% less than Steam on some other storefront could (allegedly) get one delisted. It’s blatantly anticompetitive/anticonsumer and should be illegal.
https://newsletter.gamediscover.co/p/does-steam-price-fix-and-does-that
It would be like Amazon threatening to pull a brand from their store if it was cheaper somewhere else.
Prefer Steam? Totally fine. But personally I would take a 30% discount for the extra hassle, barring some game-specific benefit.
I know you said allegedly, but the article explicitly says that a policy like that doesn’t exist, and the only thing that would happen (if the game is cheaper somewhere else) is that the game wouldn’t be advertised during a sale.
Dude is just a loser shill. Imagine being that far up Epic’s ass.
I wouldn’t play games from Epic’s storefront if I were paid to.
Price parity is pro consumer. This is what consumer cares about. What they shouldn’t care about is developers’ revenue split because it doesn’t affect them.
No one would be selling on Epic for a lower “discount-like” price, even if it would be allowed. This notion was never about “hey dev, get your users a cheaper price”, it was always about “hey dev, get yourself more revenue if you choose our platform” (a lie too though since Epic is simply not a good selling platform). Else, you would have seen cheaper games amongst those Epic exclusives that never hit other stores.
Price parity is anti competitive, the fuck you’re talking about???
When I buy something, I don’t want to be stressed about whether or not it is available elsewhere cheaper. The only case where I think price parity is meaningless is worldwide, but that’s only because regional pricing should be a thing, so that’s a different matter.
So you’re anti competition and anti consumer in a capitalist system.
I’m pro competition. However a lot of people are deceived into thinking Epic is a competitor to Valve. They do not deliver similar levels of value and service.
Price competition is silly in digital marketplace, where you know any product can go on sale randomly at a very high discount. Thinking “I’ll buy it here now because it’s 30% cheaper, cool” sounds like a recipe for selling your loyalty, for cheap. Though in reality it would never really be 30%, so you’re aiming to sell yourself even cheaper.
That’s some Mickey mouse logic is I’ve ever seen it
Okay so now Epic is getting 0% on 0 sales rather than 12% on zero sales.
Just challenge Steam with better buyer protections and you will actually make proper check out your store. Cause we know after years of your service trying to attract AAA publishers that no Steam users swapped over.
If they would do the steam sale prices 100% of the time, I bet people would buy their games over there.