Aside from targeting AAA games mere weeks before their scheduled Steam release (i.e. Metro Exodus) and crowdfunded projects where backers were promised Steam keys (i.e. Shenmue 3, Outer Wilds), I...
Aside from targeting AAA games mere weeks before their scheduled Steam release (i.e. Metro Exodus) and crowdfunded projects where backers were promised Steam keys (i.e. Shenmue 3, Outer Wilds), I don't really think Epic are being dicks for undercutting Steam and promising better fees for developers in exchange for exclusivity.
What I've learned from the whole Epic Games Store fiasco is that gamers are entitled and toxic assholes.
I'm not even going to link directly to the Medium blog post they made afterwards, because it contains screenshots of racist/ethnic slurs, r*** threats, death threats and just some of the most unhinged shit you'll ever see people on the internet throw out at a couple developing a family-friendly computer game.
If I recall correctly, it later came to light (as part of some lawsuit) that an Epic rep consulted on how to make Ooblets's announcement extra punchy. I think its devs got used a bit to generate...
If I recall correctly, it later came to light (as part of some lawsuit) that an Epic rep consulted on how to make Ooblets's announcement extra punchy. I think its devs got used a bit to generate heated “engagement” about EGS.
You have to pay attention to the bigger picture on things like this. Epic didn't promise lower fees in exchange for exclusivity (well, they do now), they just promised lower fees in general for...
I don't really think Epic are being dicks for undercutting Steam and promising better fees for developers in exchange for exclusivity.
You have to pay attention to the bigger picture on things like this.
Epic didn't promise lower fees in exchange for exclusivity (well, they do now), they just promised lower fees in general for everyone. People are mad they paid for exclusivity.
The exclusivity deals were funded with upfront money, using their success in one area to try to force their success in another despite the fact that their store wasn't worth the using and people didn't generally want to use it.
If epic wanted to help the developers they would have acted as a regular publisher, and encouraged their developers to publish widely so that they make as much money as possible, and taking a cut of it. This wasn't about helping developers, this was about power and control.
In short, their store sucked, you don't want to use it, but because they have a lot of money they were able to force you to either use their store or not be able to play (insert game here).
There's a reason people generally don't like epic, and it's because their attempts here come across as hilariously not genuine, a blatant attempt to capture a market share, using stories like this to cover their tracks and make them seem like the good guys. It wasn't attempt to seize control of the PC game distribution market.
A market that is naturally winner take all.
A market that is currently headed by a generally decent company.
Everyone watching the space understands what epic represents, and what their success would represent. It would represent the transition of power from steam to epic, and with that transition would come even more egregious practices, longer term exclusivity, and ever more "profitable" business deals. They would have found ways to make that extra 10-20% that steam takes look like chump change.
You should not allow people being assholes on the internet to distract from the multi-million dollar company using shitty business practices to capture markets that it shouldn't have the ability to capture.
And you should generally think about the long-term plans that these companies have before you judge the quality of their behavior.
Steam does need competition and regulation. It's good right now but they could change literally tomorrow. However, Epic being the competition is asking for that negative change to happen tomorrow instead of delaying it for when steam finally goes rotten.
Valve is basically forcing competition to exist solely through exclusivity agreements. That isn't to say they wouldn't still be appealing or beneficial to Epic to use them absent Valve's measures,...
Valve is basically forcing competition to exist solely through exclusivity agreements. That isn't to say they wouldn't still be appealing or beneficial to Epic to use them absent Valve's measures, but because Valve forces anyone who publishes on Steam to not set a higher price on Steam than they do on any other store/platform, they've made it so the best way to compete is to NOT sell on Steam. That means exclusivity agreements.
Sure, they could try to compete on user experience, but Valve has a massive headstart there having been around for many years, and being a service that is bolstered by having a large network of friends and purchase history of games, the extra years of being around helps them a ton here as well. New competitors cannot realistically compete against that.
If you campaigned for Valve to get rid of this anti-competitive clause on Steam, you might actually see Epic be able to compete without going so hard on exclusivity agreements.
They don't do exclusively agreements. As far as I'm aware all games that are steam exclusive is thanks to the devs being lazy and not posting elsewhere. Basically every store does this. In theory...
Valve is basically forcing competition to exist solely through exclusivity agreements
They don't do exclusively agreements. As far as I'm aware all games that are steam exclusive is thanks to the devs being lazy and not posting elsewhere.
Valve forces anyone who publishes on Steam to not set a higher price on Steam than they do on any other store/platform
Basically every store does this. In theory it would be good if this were no longer the case or even regulated away so customers were exposed to store prices more regularly, but this doesn't restrict the use of other stores.
Sure, they could try to compete on user experience, but Valve has a massive headstart
And epic can bitch about it all day. Steam has always been happily lethargic for a very long time, it should be easy to blow them out of the water in terms of experience.
Epic didn't, not because it was hard, but because it was easier and more profitable to go the anticompetitive route.
If you campaigned for Valve to get rid of this anti-competitive clause on Steam,
I'd happily support a broad regulation against store price agreements like this.
But you're distracting from the central point.
Epics behavior does nothing to help competition and everything to erase it. They should earn your ire far more than steam, and their actions make a price agreement pale in comparison.
Higher base price, you can still have sales and discounts on other stores. I really don't see a problem with this, it's extremely standard for digital products. This is a bad argument imo. It...
but because Valve forces anyone who publishes on Steam to not set a higher price on Steam than they do on any other store/platform
Higher base price, you can still have sales and discounts on other stores. I really don't see a problem with this, it's extremely standard for digital products.
but Valve has a massive headstart there having been around for many years
This is a bad argument imo. It doesn't take 20 years to build a new service. You wouldn't compare a new car brand to Ford based on years in experience, you'd compare their current products.
you might actually see Epic be able to compete without going so hard on exclusivity agreements.
Or Epic could use the money they spend on exclusivity to improve their sub-par storefront, compete with stuff like Proton, SteamVR, etc.
Epic does nothing that benefits the consumers, they are taking the "easy" road to compete, but they're not actually creating competition for Steam.
That person asked through the developer contact channel this question
Regarding the pricing policy, can a non-Steam variant of a game be sold at a different price than on the Steam store page? I understand that Steam keys cannot be sold outside of Steam at a lower price as to give Steam users an unfair deal, but are games with the Steam functionalities disabled and sold as downloads on other platforms allowed? For an example, would a version of a game with Steam Achievements disabled and sold at a lower price on another platform be considered giving Steam users an unfair deal?
And Valve responded with this answer
It's ok to sell the game off Steam on your own platforms, but we ask that you sell that game at a similar price to the Steam version. Selling the game off Steam at a lower price wouldn't be considered giving Steam users a fair deal.
So Valve is saying developers/publishers aren't giving Steam users a fair deal if they sell the games off Steam at a lower price. Of course for bigger name publishers who have more direct contacts within Valve rather than having to go through publicly available channels, who knows what level of pressure they may apply there. What would any company do if they have more leverage on you than you do them and feel you aren't being fair to them?
Development work is an absolute bitch at times even on a menial typical company task; i.e. make this application/website act this way. A video game is an even more intense undertaking and for some...
Development work is an absolute bitch at times even on a menial typical company task; i.e. make this application/website act this way. A video game is an even more intense undertaking and for some games it blows my mind they work as well as they do. If you're a smaller developer the risks vs rewards results in many never completing their work. The folks who target developers with extreme vitriol for taking an action that might be better for them lo g term really shows they don't understand what it entails.
I 100% don't blame some of these developers taking the better deal if that happens to be Epic. If you finally make your big break in this difficult world, then sometimes you have to take what is in your best interests. I'm not advocating for greed, but when a game requires so much effort for the risks it involves in whether or not it even sales, I really can't say I wouldn't do the same.
I'd 1000% would take the safe guaranteed revenue. the industry is fleeting as is, and indie development is like rowing a raft in the middle of a storm in the ocean. Even very established indie...
I'd 1000% would take the safe guaranteed revenue. the industry is fleeting as is, and indie development is like rowing a raft in the middle of a storm in the ocean. Even very established indie devs can be in danger with one bad wave. If absolutely nothing else, that 6-12 month exclusivity window gives me room to breathe and money to eat as I prepare a steam port. While people can be impatient, there's nothing to suggest that later steam releases still don't do super well.
I don't blame them either. They've openly said that Epic have offered them a lot of money to finish Ooblets and release it exclusively on their platform, likely far more than what they were...
I don't blame them either. They've openly said that Epic have offered them a lot of money to finish Ooblets and release it exclusively on their platform, likely far more than what they were earning from donors on Patreon, to finish their game.
Not an excuse to (paraphrased, because the actual quote is too disgusting for Tildes and contains a slur), tell the lead dev that you hope he and his wife get sexually violated.
Epic is frankly nowhere near as egregious as some of the digital marketplaces that have come, gone and otherwise still remain around. G2A gets less shit for literally being a platform where fraudsters can fence stolen Steam game keys, and Ubisoft gets less shit for literally deleting people's accounts with tonnes of paid-for games for inactivity. Aren't we forgetting that OnLive used to demand that players both fork out a subscription to cloud stream on their platform AND buy separate game licences at full RRP?
This actually looks pretty good, from the developers perspective. There's an incentive to join the program, but no burdensome requirements (IMO) and the developer can still sell it directly from...
This actually looks pretty good, from the developers perspective. There's an incentive to join the program, but no burdensome requirements (IMO) and the developer can still sell it directly from their own website if they want. And the opportunity cost of not joining (12% revenue) doesn't seem overly negative so it doesn't feel like they're strong-arming developers into it.
I don't mean this hyperbolically but this is probably the worst thing they could've done gain any money from me. Just more attempting to fragment the PC space without value add. I hate that my...
I don't mean this hyperbolically but this is probably the worst thing they could've done gain any money from me. Just more attempting to fragment the PC space without value add.
I hate that my Steam Deck (and Linux support in general) is influencing my purchasing decisions so much but that's the truth. Either no-DRM, or it's got to work on Linux, hopefully both.
Just in case you don't know, you can launch Epic games on Steam Deck with the Heroic Launcher. It's in the software center repo. It takes a little bit of configuration, but it works a treat. I'd...
Just in case you don't know, you can launch Epic games on Steam Deck with the Heroic Launcher. It's in the software center repo. It takes a little bit of configuration, but it works a treat.
I'd argue that Epic are in fact adding some value by increasing competition in the distribution space. Certainly their revenue split is more favorable to developers than Steam, though not by an awful lot.
Valve have been benevolent dictators thus far, but that may not always be the case. As my recent experiences with certain social media sites has taught me, it's not a good thing for the users of the Internet to put all their eggs in one basket.
It's artificial competition, which does NOT increase value. Healthy competition exists in platforms like GOG, which DOES provide a genuinely competitive service (DRM-free games and older DOS...
It's artificial competition, which does NOT increase value. Healthy competition exists in platforms like GOG, which DOES provide a genuinely competitive service (DRM-free games and older DOS titles).
Imagine Suzy has a lemonade stand. Over the years she's built it up with tons of different flavors, frequent sales, and great customer service. There are some other lemonade stands on the street but Suzy's is by far the best - a reputation that she's earned. Tim wants to open his own lemonade stand but knows he can't possibly compete with Suzy. He doesn't actually care about selling lemonade, he just sees how much money Suzy is making and wants in. So Tim goes to the lemon farm and buys their entire stock of lemons. His lemonade is sour, only allows you to buy 1 glass at a time, and needs to take a photo of your ID before selling you a glass. Sure, his lemonade stand now "competes" with Suzy's lemonade stand. But it's not because it offers a competing product/service - it's because Tim cheated and kicked the stool out from under Suzy.
Valve does the stool-kicking for years. All while keeping their cut relatively high. This abuses Steam's popularity (not so much reputation—just the fact it's common) to discourage publishers from...
Valve does the stool-kicking for years.
clause in its Steam Distribution Agreement forces developers to agree that "the price of a PC game on the Steam platform will be the same price the game developers sell their PC games on other platforms."
All while keeping their cut relatively high. This abuses Steam's popularity (not so much reputation—just the fact it's common) to discourage publishers from bothering with other platforms, even if they would provide them a better cut.
Take this strange price-fixing clause away (how is this legal anyway?), and suddenly Steam would actually start competing, as the game prices on other platforms could be lower without lowering publisher's income per unit. Steam would have to provide extra value, which it maybe does for some people, but not for everyone.
Yeah I don't get how people so willingly and openly embrace the Valve monopoly. I mean I know there's reasons why, but at the same time, Valve is no angel. I think the Epic launcher is quite...
Yeah I don't get how people so willingly and openly embrace the Valve monopoly.
I mean I know there's reasons why, but at the same time, Valve is no angel. I think the Epic launcher is quite unpleasant to use so I get why people don't like games being gated behind it, but if Valve actually had to compete and regulators and judges (like the ones that swat down attempts by the FTC or other regulatory agencies) could be counted on to protect the public from bad businesses, maybe instead of games being gated behind one platform or another, they'd be available on multiple platforms and people would have a choice to pay more for the better launcher or not.
You see it with any dominant platform in the past 2 decades. Users are in love and frustrated when X is not on Y. That is until they fall out of love with Y for whatever reason, which inevitably...
You see it with any dominant platform in the past 2 decades. Users are in love and frustrated when X is not on Y. That is until they fall out of love with Y for whatever reason, which inevitably happens. These kinds of users value convenience above all else, even if one day that company can potentially hold that convinence hostage.
I've been burned enough times that I value control wherever possible (which is hard in tech. I give it up constantly but am always trying out backups in just in case). Ideally I'd want 100% reassurance that whatever I get is truly mine, not bound to any other external service.
maybe instead of games being gated behind one platform or another, they'd be available on multiple platforms and people would have a choice to pay more for the better launcher or not.
Even Valve can't rely on their service argument to keep a lot of people from buying the cheapest option. That's why they undercut other markets with frequent sales and "unlimited" key generation (I think they added a limit recently), require devs to keep price parity when launching on multiple platforms, and have some odd regional pricing choices (as shown by the Postal 4 announcement recently).
same wolf underneath as Epic, but in this case the grandma disguse works perfectly. People instead wonder why Epic isn't making games cheaper with their smaller cut instead of asking why Valve can't let devs set their prices per platform.
This is selling to developers, though. Not users. if a dev wants to go exclusive to keep all the revenue for 6 months, that's on them. And 6 month is plenty of time to work on a steam release, so...
It's artificial competition, which does NOT increase value.
This is selling to developers, though. Not users. if a dev wants to go exclusive to keep all the revenue for 6 months, that's on them. And 6 month is plenty of time to work on a steam release, so there's really no downside on their end.
it's because Tim cheated and kicked the stool out from under Suzy.
there's nothing "cheating" about Tim in this metaphor. If you are allowed to buy all the Lemons in a farm, that sounds like a governmental issue, not a Tim issue.
regardless, this implies that Epic can just buy out all the games. They aren't even close to that. It's more like they bought a specific lemon tree and a specific bar of people are frustrated that Suzy can't use those specific lemons. Disappointing? potentially. Cheating? Not even close. And most people in town won't even notice the difference in lemon as they continue to buy from Suzy.
It doesn't, no. But IME users at large care a lot less about the platform than they do the game itself. That's probably what Epic is betting on. Entice devs, get some exclusivity windows, devs get...
It doesn't, no. But IME users at large care a lot less about the platform than they do the game itself. That's probably what Epic is betting on. Entice devs, get some exclusivity windows, devs get users to come.
My major concern is that it isn’t apples to apples. Steam grew organically and profitably by providing a service that people needed; I’m not aware of any significant anticompetitive behaviour from...
My major concern is that it isn’t apples to apples. Steam grew organically and profitably by providing a service that people needed; I’m not aware of any significant anticompetitive behaviour from Valve, and as a privately held entity they’re largely free to just keep doing what they’re doing without too much external pressure.
Epic are growing in the space by throwing large amounts of cash at the problem, and their parent company is publicly traded - the market is going to want to see a substantial return on that money followed by ongoing and eternal growth.
Valve shouldn’t have a monopoly because as you say, nobody should, but Epic’s incentive structure leads them to shoot for a monopoly too - and a much worse one, if they happen to succeed.
This isn't fully true. When half life 2 came out you were forced to use steam, even if you bought the physical disks, and it was a buggy mess. Nobody liked it at the time, but they wanted to play...
Steam grew organically and profitably by providing a service that people needed
This isn't fully true. When half life 2 came out you were forced to use steam, even if you bought the physical disks, and it was a buggy mess. Nobody liked it at the time, but they wanted to play half life 2.
It's better now by they definitely also started by holding anticipated games hostage, not by just being an amazing service.
It's still like that for some physical games, although more often these days, games with physical releases are tied to the publisher's store (e.g., EA has its own storefront that its physical...
It's still like that for some physical games, although more often these days, games with physical releases are tied to the publisher's store (e.g., EA has its own storefront that its physical releases are locked to) and may not even have actual discs in the box, instead being just a box with a CD key in it.
I remember people being upset about Steamworks DRM on physical games as recently as Skyrim's original release. Really we still should be, but it's become so normalized that people only complain when Epic does it now, despite Steam being objectively every bit as anti-consumer, if not worse due to being the store that pioneered most of these user hostile business practices.
At least with those disc based DRM systems, you still owned the game in practice. The CD key was tied to the game, not to your account. Steam introduced the self destructing CD key and killed the...
At least with those disc based DRM systems, you still owned the game in practice. The CD key was tied to the game, not to your account. Steam introduced the self destructing CD key and killed the used market, making the "this is a license, you don't actually own it" bullshit real for the first time.
And that's infinitely worse than those other systems. More convenient doesn't always mean better.
And it wasn't entirely more convenient, either. Steam was always online DRM from the beginning. Offline mode existed, but it had (and still has) to phone home eventually, and the license file got screwed up if you shut down your computer without manually exciting steam first.
The online activation was called Steam. Well into the late 2000s, major games were coming out that had no online activation component. It wasn't until 2012-ish that the transition was complete,...
That's only true for the most basic of copy-protection, which largely went out of fashion in the early 2000 and got replaced by some form of online activation. With any kind of online DRM the game flat out stops installing when the server on the other side stops answering.
The online activation was called Steam. Well into the late 2000s, major games were coming out that had no online activation component. It wasn't until 2012-ish that the transition was complete, and it was a transition we have Valve to blame for. Before that, even games that had a CD key and weren't just checking that the disc was in the drive (maybe with some intentionally bad sectors on the disc to ensure it was a legit copy1) used an algorithm to determine whether the key was valid. There was no phoning home to a remote server in the vast, vast majority of cases, even well into the 2000s.
I for one don't miss the days of having to manually install and download five consecutive patches, in the right language and installed in the right order, to get my disc copy up to date. Extra fun when you are dealing with some rerelease where you can't even tell what version you have to start with. Or games where the site with the patches went offline years ago and you now have to download .exe files from random websites. I also don't miss old version of DirectX or other stuff that the game forces you to install messing up your Windows install.
That's the carrot that they used to get you to accept the stick. We could have improved on that without making the DRM so much more onerous.
What Steam offers right now is much better than what we had before and it's not even close. And yes, it's not perfect, the lack of used copies is a real problem, especially with games that have been removed from the store and are no longer available by any means. An the ability to rollback a game to an earlier version is also missing, which can sometimes get frustrating if companies remove or change content, that you'd rather keep.
What Steam offers now is a slice of cake, but you have to take a kick in the nuts to get it. None of the good points you've mentioned have any relation at all to the bad things you're defending.
But when it comes to used copies, even DRM-free falls short here. In theory you can sell them. In practice I have never seen anybody actually doing it, as you might as well just pirate them when there is no proof of ownership. If you want to improve on Steam, you really have to come up with something better than just plain old DRM-free or physical copies, none of them really hold up in a modern world where people have much more games than previously and games are in a constant flux of updates.
You could buy used PC games in EB Games right up until Gamestop bought them out -- and Gamestop stopped because they didn't want to deal with making sure that everything that needed a CD key had a valid one.
After that, you could still find them in more generalist second hand stores. eBay, used book stores, thrift shops, flea markets and so on. And the games did work.
We gave up a lot for the convenience you're describing, and there was no need to do it. The two things are unrelated, and only seem related because the widespread adoption of high speed internet happened around the same time and made both possible.
1 This is all Starforce and Securom were until the last couple of versions introduced limited online activations, and those were following in the footsteps of, you guessed it, Steam.
"We" as in society collectively. There's no need for this shit. It fucking phones home and locks you out of your games if it can't talk to the server. If you think that's not onerous, you've...
Who is that "we"? The few game things I have outside of Steam still have install limits (DCS) or require me to contact support on each reinstall (VorpX). Distributing DRM-free .zip or .exe like GOG and Itch.io isn't a scalable solution either when you are dealing with hundreds of games and games in the 100GB range.
"We" as in society collectively. There's no need for this shit.
Also there is nothing onerous about Steam DRM
It fucking phones home and locks you out of your games if it can't talk to the server. If you think that's not onerous, you've forgotten what it's like to not be a corporate stooge.
The whole thing is enshittification. Physical PC games (which is the topic here -- physical games locked to online DRM platforms like Steam) worked fine, and they were killed to kill the used market. Period.
Ever bought a used DRM-free game?
Yeah, I've got hundreds of them on my shelf, and a drive in my desktop.
There was no consumer facing need to change any of this. It was entirely about locking things down and killing the used market. Something the studios were trying to do with console games around the same time, to the point that they were literally making press releases, dutifully reported in the gaming press as "news", about how bad for the industry the used market was and how it was a good thing that they were trying to kill it. All of the good things you're talking about could have been handled in different ways that weren't built around an always online DRM platform.
That’s fair, and it’s a good reminder that no business can really be trusted to do the right thing out of the kindness of their hearts, but it does at least avoid the incentive structure problem....
That’s fair, and it’s a good reminder that no business can really be trusted to do the right thing out of the kindness of their hearts, but it does at least avoid the incentive structure problem.
Valve (and EA, and Ubisoft, and…) force you to use their launcher with their games - and it can be shitty and annoying - but it’s done opportunistically. They’re incentivised to try to grab an audience, if they succeed any further sales are a bonus, and if they fail the loss is minimal.
Epic are spending heavily to build that audience, which means they assume they can recoup the investment later - they’re directly incentivised to squeeze devs and consumers as soon as their position is secure.
To be fair, the situation isn't apples to apples either. GOG came out 15 years ago and "organically grew". While it may have good PR and is arguably one of the most consumer catering storefronts,...
To be fair, the situation isn't apples to apples either. GOG came out 15 years ago and "organically grew". While it may have good PR and is arguably one of the most consumer catering storefronts, that doesn't necessarily translate to market share.
Epic is 10 years after GOG, which was already 5 years after Steam. As we've seen with so many established platforms (Facebook, Reddit, Amazon, etc.), you can't just "be a good service" and expect people to switch of their own volition. They each have had multiple large scale scandals and people continue to use them. Valve's bad PR has been minimal and downplayed, but even if it did have a huge scandal it would keep it's dominant position.
There really isn't a "fair" way to break into markets like these that have this established large presence. And historically, every single large platform rose or fell out of dominance based on its exclusive games. If Epic wants to sway developers with better revenue sharing in exchange for exclusivity, then I can't really see the issue. Other medium would simply take ownership of the IP in exchange for such funding.
Epic are growing in the space by throwing large amounts of cash at the problem, and their parent company is publicly traded - the market is going to want to see a substantial return on that money followed by ongoing and eternal growth.
clarification: Epic is still >50% owned by Sweeny. Tencent own 40%. large stake, but it is still a far cry from full ownership.
I'm sure Epic is swayed by money, yes, but Tim still technically has all the power to say 'no' to Tencent. And as one who is more of a holding firm than a policy maker, Tencent really doesn't have much reason to try and rock the boat on such a cornerstone company in the industry.
All very reasonable points - and I think the unfortunate reality is that we really need something like the Paramount Decrees across the tech industry. People would be shocked to have to go to a...
All very reasonable points - and I think the unfortunate reality is that we really need something like the Paramount Decrees across the tech industry. People would be shocked to have to go to a Disney cinema to see a Disney film, but somehow having Sony or Microsoft or Apple or Epic dictate where you can get a given game or app is seen as just the way things are.
You’re right that there’s no fair way to break in to the market, and it’s a shame the regulators have abdicated in their responsibility to make it fair. Problem is, since they have done so, those unfair methods are going to need to be paid for in time: I’m less worried about Tencent handing down a decree later, more concerned that before the store was even launched everyone will have sat in a meeting and agreed to spend this much in the hope of recouping it later. And since all that money will need to come from the consumers and developers, it strikes me as highly unlikely we’re in for a better deal in the long run here.
Perhaps, but it does once again show the difference between hard venues and software. For intstance, people would be be-wildered to need to go to a Disney theatre to watch Infinity War, but they...
Perhaps, but it does once again show the difference between hard venues and software. For intstance, people would be be-wildered to need to go to a Disney theatre to watch Infinity War, but they don't question needing to go to DIsney+ specifically to stream it from their home. And as we saw with Netflix, the solution of a centralized 3rd party doesn't necessarily solve these issues. And of course, the last big issue is international lines: one of the three largest console manufacturers operate in Japan, and the other is sort of half and half in the US and Japan. A regulation in the US would only give the EU/Asian storefronts an ability to serve in ways Microsoft or Steam could not.
I don't really have a proper answer to all this, simply understand there are so many factors at play now compared to the 50's.
Amen. It s sure would be nice if there were some anti-trust regulation in the US. I'm not exactly an Epic cheerleader myself. I think I've actually paid them for a grand total of 2 of the 300+...
Amen. It s sure would be nice if there were some anti-trust regulation in the US.
I'm not exactly an Epic cheerleader myself. I think I've actually paid them for a grand total of 2 of the 300+ games in my Epic account. If I'm any indication, any problems their business strategy might cause will be self-resolving.
To clarify, some Epic store-bought games work on Steam Deck, and many don't. Not that this is any different than the Steam catalog, but it's still worth noting. Anyone who reads the above comment...
Just in case you don't know, you can launch Epic games on Steam Deck with the Heroic Launcher. It's in the software center repo. It takes a little bit of configuration, but it works a treat.
To clarify, some Epic store-bought games work on Steam Deck, and many don't. Not that this is any different than the Steam catalog, but it's still worth noting. Anyone who reads the above comment and comes to the notion that it's super simple should be warned that it's not, nor is compatibility guaranteed. Again, many Steam games also have compatibility issues.
Source: am Steam Deck power user and getting Epic store games to work right is a constant exercise in fiddling and frustration. It's not just a "little bit" of configuration in many cases, and anyone who isn't already super into Linux should be aware of this up front.
Honestly, Epics bullshit arguements about not enabling Linux anticheat for Fortnite pisses me off enough to never buy a tile through EGS. I'll happily click the free button.
Honestly, Epics bullshit arguements about not enabling Linux anticheat for Fortnite pisses me off enough to never buy a tile through EGS. I'll happily click the free button.
When people talk about adding value, they mean adding value to a product i.e. making a product better. Selling an inferior store at lower prices is not adding value.
I'd argue that Epic are in fact adding some value by increasing competition in the distribution space. Certainly their revenue split is more favorable to developers than Steam, though not by an awful lot.
When people talk about adding value, they mean adding value to a product i.e. making a product better. Selling an inferior store at lower prices is not adding value.
depends on what a consumer values. price can very much be the biggest factor for consumers, and otherwise worse services have thrived simply because it was "not completely shit" and had the right...
Selling an inferior store at lower prices is not adding value.
depends on what a consumer values. price can very much be the biggest factor for consumers, and otherwise worse services have thrived simply because it was "not completely shit" and had the right items at the lowest price.
This is clearly not what the original commenter meant by value. I agree with them. I don't care if it's cheaper on EGS. I'm okay with spending more if I get a better product or support the PC...
This is clearly not what the original commenter meant by value.
I agree with them. I don't care if it's cheaper on EGS. I'm okay with spending more if I get a better product or support the PC ecosystem.
My point is value is subjective, and trying to tell others what to value is a fruitless effort. you care about platform quality while others people wouldn't care if they needed to show their real...
My point is value is subjective, and trying to tell others what to value is a fruitless effort. you care about platform quality while others people wouldn't care if they needed to show their real life ID to China in order to play GTA 6. Live and let live.
It's frustrating when the original commenter says their opinion (presumably speaking for a certain demographic) and the response is semantics and claims of subjectivity. Of course it's subjective...
It's frustrating when the original commenter says their opinion (presumably speaking for a certain demographic) and the response is semantics and claims of subjectivity. Of course it's subjective and no one told anyone what to value.
With all due respect: This very much sounds like telling someone what to value. That's what this entire chain turned into. One user said value was not added and another user gave another lens of...
With all due respect:
When people talk about adding value, they mean adding value to a product i.e. making a product better.
This very much sounds like telling someone what to value. That's what this entire chain turned into. One user said value was not added and another user gave another lens of value, then you "corrected" their argument which was in and of itself subjective.
I'm simply asking to understand that these are different lenses, neither invalidating the other.
Decreasing. Introducing and normalizing exclusivity deals decreases competition. We are fortunate, incredibly so, that steam did not follow in their footsteps. Competition is bred through open and...
increasing competition
Decreasing.
Introducing and normalizing exclusivity deals decreases competition. We are fortunate, incredibly so, that steam did not follow in their footsteps.
Competition is bred through open and standardized markets. Steam only exists because Microsoft never managed to lock down Windows. Epic is a threat because they threaten to lock down distribution with these exclusivity agreements.
A counter argument to this is that Valve makes it so that this is the best and perhaps only way to compete, because Valve prevents developers/publishers from setting lower prices on other...
Epic is a threat because they threaten to lock down distribution with these exclusivity agreements.
A counter argument to this is that Valve makes it so that this is the best and perhaps only way to compete, because Valve prevents developers/publishers from setting lower prices on other platforms. If Valve removed this anti-competitive clause from Steam, then it's possible we wouldn't see Epic pushing so hard for exclusives.
Epic already is able to get away with literally giving games away free. The price signals are already there and people still don't want to use their system without being forced to through...
If Valve removed this anti-competitive clause from Steam, then it's possible we wouldn't see Epic pushing so hard for exclusives.
Epic already is able to get away with literally giving games away free. The price signals are already there and people still don't want to use their system without being forced to through exclusives
I think you would find that if steam was behaving in a way that was actually anticompetitive the epic store would have next to zero games on it. Because in a game of exclusivity stream wins every single time.
I figure once Gabe goes, so will Valve, but that's why I'm trying to also diversify into more DRM free solutions as well. And, as much as I love tinkering, the whole heroic/lutris stuff is more...
I figure once Gabe goes, so will Valve, but that's why I'm trying to also diversify into more DRM free solutions as well.
And, as much as I love tinkering, the whole heroic/lutris stuff is more hassle than just clicking download on the main Steam OS. I think I'd be more likely to use Heroic on my desktop though but why not just give the money to a company that supports Linux gaming in that case?
Gabe most likely has a replacement lined up that shares his values and desires for the company. While its completely possible that Valve dies with Gabe, I wouldn't assume that's its only fate.
Gabe most likely has a replacement lined up that shares his values and desires for the company. While its completely possible that Valve dies with Gabe, I wouldn't assume that's its only fate.
That gabe feels shares his values and desires, sure. But who knows how a person's colors change once they are exposed to billions of dollars coming in.
that shares his values and desires for the company.
That gabe feels shares his values and desires, sure. But who knows how a person's colors change once they are exposed to billions of dollars coming in.
I mean, Marcus Aurelius had a successor lined up and we know how that went for the Roman empire. I don't want to be pessimistic, for good reason, but it's my default state.
I mean, Marcus Aurelius had a successor lined up and we know how that went for the Roman empire. I don't want to be pessimistic, for good reason, but it's my default state.
I wonder who this is actually targeted at? As I understand it, the largest risk that developers and publishers grapple with is sinking a ton of money into making a game that may not sell well....
I wonder who this is actually targeted at?
As I understand it, the largest risk that developers and publishers grapple with is sinking a ton of money into making a game that may not sell well.
Epic's Exclusivity deals were incredibly attractive since the upfront payment massively lessened that risk, for developers of all sizes.
Trading upfront payment for 100% revenue split sounds great for games confident that their audience will follow them to any storefront (AAA, proven indies, etc...).
But this may not make sense for a plurality of indie developers who aren't guaranteed sales.
This reasoning also makes sense given some comments Epic CEO, Tim Sweeney, made a few months ago:
"We're really honing our strategy based on what we observed worked really well in previous launches, and what didn't work really well," said Sweeney. "A handful of major exclusives really moved the needle … and the smaller games, especially games that had a smaller audience that was typically on Steam, we found that a lot of those players weren't willing to move over."
That's what I figured. Either indie games /studios with cult followings (Supergiant is one of the biggest examples) or AAA games where you can advertise the game by yourself are the big targets...
That's what I figured. Either indie games /studios with cult followings (Supergiant is one of the biggest examples) or AAA games where you can advertise the game by yourself are the big targets here. There's unfortunately so much competition and choice right now that merely selling a "good game" isn't enough to sway people over the convenience of one app.
That interview makes it sound like the "Ooblets" style of games don't work well for Epic currently. A strategy that otherwise worked very well in the Gen 5/6 days where you sprinkle some unique games with the big blockbuster hits. A real shame, I do appreciate those former categories of games. I'm not quite sure if something like Katamari would succeed in the current market.
Aside from targeting AAA games mere weeks before their scheduled Steam release (i.e. Metro Exodus) and crowdfunded projects where backers were promised Steam keys (i.e. Shenmue 3, Outer Wilds), I don't really think Epic are being dicks for undercutting Steam and promising better fees for developers in exchange for exclusivity.
What I've learned from the whole Epic Games Store fiasco is that gamers are entitled and toxic assholes.
Take the Ooblets developers for example, who announced on their blog and to their Patreon followers four years ago that they signed a deal with Epic to become an EGS exclusive. While their announcement post was pretty tone-deaf and ignorant of the fact that people unwittingly paid them money via Patreon for a game that would never come to Steam, it did not excuse the sheer amount of harassment and abuse they got on Discord, Twitter and Reddit.
I'm not even going to link directly to the Medium blog post they made afterwards, because it contains screenshots of racist/ethnic slurs, r*** threats, death threats and just some of the most unhinged shit you'll ever see people on the internet throw out at a couple developing a family-friendly computer game.
If I recall correctly, it later came to light (as part of some lawsuit) that an Epic rep consulted on how to make Ooblets's announcement extra punchy. I think its devs got used a bit to generate heated “engagement” about EGS.
You have to pay attention to the bigger picture on things like this.
Epic didn't promise lower fees in exchange for exclusivity (well, they do now), they just promised lower fees in general for everyone. People are mad they paid for exclusivity.
The exclusivity deals were funded with upfront money, using their success in one area to try to force their success in another despite the fact that their store wasn't worth the using and people didn't generally want to use it.
If epic wanted to help the developers they would have acted as a regular publisher, and encouraged their developers to publish widely so that they make as much money as possible, and taking a cut of it. This wasn't about helping developers, this was about power and control.
In short, their store sucked, you don't want to use it, but because they have a lot of money they were able to force you to either use their store or not be able to play (insert game here).
There's a reason people generally don't like epic, and it's because their attempts here come across as hilariously not genuine, a blatant attempt to capture a market share, using stories like this to cover their tracks and make them seem like the good guys. It wasn't attempt to seize control of the PC game distribution market.
A market that is naturally winner take all.
A market that is currently headed by a generally decent company.
Everyone watching the space understands what epic represents, and what their success would represent. It would represent the transition of power from steam to epic, and with that transition would come even more egregious practices, longer term exclusivity, and ever more "profitable" business deals. They would have found ways to make that extra 10-20% that steam takes look like chump change.
You should not allow people being assholes on the internet to distract from the multi-million dollar company using shitty business practices to capture markets that it shouldn't have the ability to capture.
And you should generally think about the long-term plans that these companies have before you judge the quality of their behavior.
Steam does need competition and regulation. It's good right now but they could change literally tomorrow. However, Epic being the competition is asking for that negative change to happen tomorrow instead of delaying it for when steam finally goes rotten.
Valve is basically forcing competition to exist solely through exclusivity agreements. That isn't to say they wouldn't still be appealing or beneficial to Epic to use them absent Valve's measures, but because Valve forces anyone who publishes on Steam to not set a higher price on Steam than they do on any other store/platform, they've made it so the best way to compete is to NOT sell on Steam. That means exclusivity agreements.
Sure, they could try to compete on user experience, but Valve has a massive headstart there having been around for many years, and being a service that is bolstered by having a large network of friends and purchase history of games, the extra years of being around helps them a ton here as well. New competitors cannot realistically compete against that.
If you campaigned for Valve to get rid of this anti-competitive clause on Steam, you might actually see Epic be able to compete without going so hard on exclusivity agreements.
They don't do exclusively agreements. As far as I'm aware all games that are steam exclusive is thanks to the devs being lazy and not posting elsewhere.
Basically every store does this. In theory it would be good if this were no longer the case or even regulated away so customers were exposed to store prices more regularly, but this doesn't restrict the use of other stores.
And epic can bitch about it all day. Steam has always been happily lethargic for a very long time, it should be easy to blow them out of the water in terms of experience.
Epic didn't, not because it was hard, but because it was easier and more profitable to go the anticompetitive route.
I'd happily support a broad regulation against store price agreements like this.
But you're distracting from the central point.
Epics behavior does nothing to help competition and everything to erase it. They should earn your ire far more than steam, and their actions make a price agreement pale in comparison.
Higher base price, you can still have sales and discounts on other stores. I really don't see a problem with this, it's extremely standard for digital products.
This is a bad argument imo. It doesn't take 20 years to build a new service. You wouldn't compare a new car brand to Ford based on years in experience, you'd compare their current products.
Or Epic could use the money they spend on exclusivity to improve their sub-par storefront, compete with stuff like Proton, SteamVR, etc.
Epic does nothing that benefits the consumers, they are taking the "easy" road to compete, but they're not actually creating competition for Steam.
Seeing as Valve is being sued over it, there seems to be an argument that Valve is not applying it only to Steam keys.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/popular-gaming-platform-accused-of-abusing-market-power-through-contracts-4124057/
Here's someone who asked Valve for an explicit answer and Valve support offered a somewhat ambiguous answer.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/n3k5kw/does_steam_have_a_no_favored_nation_clause/
That person asked through the developer contact channel this question
And Valve responded with this answer
So Valve is saying developers/publishers aren't giving Steam users a fair deal if they sell the games off Steam at a lower price. Of course for bigger name publishers who have more direct contacts within Valve rather than having to go through publicly available channels, who knows what level of pressure they may apply there. What would any company do if they have more leverage on you than you do them and feel you aren't being fair to them?
Development work is an absolute bitch at times even on a menial typical company task; i.e. make this application/website act this way. A video game is an even more intense undertaking and for some games it blows my mind they work as well as they do. If you're a smaller developer the risks vs rewards results in many never completing their work. The folks who target developers with extreme vitriol for taking an action that might be better for them lo g term really shows they don't understand what it entails.
I 100% don't blame some of these developers taking the better deal if that happens to be Epic. If you finally make your big break in this difficult world, then sometimes you have to take what is in your best interests. I'm not advocating for greed, but when a game requires so much effort for the risks it involves in whether or not it even sales, I really can't say I wouldn't do the same.
I'd 1000% would take the safe guaranteed revenue. the industry is fleeting as is, and indie development is like rowing a raft in the middle of a storm in the ocean. Even very established indie devs can be in danger with one bad wave. If absolutely nothing else, that 6-12 month exclusivity window gives me room to breathe and money to eat as I prepare a steam port. While people can be impatient, there's nothing to suggest that later steam releases still don't do super well.
I don't blame them either. They've openly said that Epic have offered them a lot of money to finish Ooblets and release it exclusively on their platform, likely far more than what they were earning from donors on Patreon, to finish their game.
Not an excuse to (paraphrased, because the actual quote is too disgusting for Tildes and contains a slur), tell the lead dev that you hope he and his wife get sexually violated.
Epic is frankly nowhere near as egregious as some of the digital marketplaces that have come, gone and otherwise still remain around. G2A gets less shit for literally being a platform where fraudsters can fence stolen Steam game keys, and Ubisoft gets less shit for literally deleting people's accounts with tonnes of paid-for games for inactivity. Aren't we forgetting that OnLive used to demand that players both fork out a subscription to cloud stream on their platform AND buy separate game licences at full RRP?
This actually looks pretty good, from the developers perspective. There's an incentive to join the program, but no burdensome requirements (IMO) and the developer can still sell it directly from their own website if they want. And the opportunity cost of not joining (12% revenue) doesn't seem overly negative so it doesn't feel like they're strong-arming developers into it.
Yep. I don't mind that at all.
I don't mean this hyperbolically but this is probably the worst thing they could've done gain any money from me. Just more attempting to fragment the PC space without value add.
I hate that my Steam Deck (and Linux support in general) is influencing my purchasing decisions so much but that's the truth. Either no-DRM, or it's got to work on Linux, hopefully both.
Just in case you don't know, you can launch Epic games on Steam Deck with the Heroic Launcher. It's in the software center repo. It takes a little bit of configuration, but it works a treat.
I'd argue that Epic are in fact adding some value by increasing competition in the distribution space. Certainly their revenue split is more favorable to developers than Steam, though not by an awful lot.
Valve have been benevolent dictators thus far, but that may not always be the case. As my recent experiences with certain social media sites has taught me, it's not a good thing for the users of the Internet to put all their eggs in one basket.
It's artificial competition, which does NOT increase value. Healthy competition exists in platforms like GOG, which DOES provide a genuinely competitive service (DRM-free games and older DOS titles).
Imagine Suzy has a lemonade stand. Over the years she's built it up with tons of different flavors, frequent sales, and great customer service. There are some other lemonade stands on the street but Suzy's is by far the best - a reputation that she's earned. Tim wants to open his own lemonade stand but knows he can't possibly compete with Suzy. He doesn't actually care about selling lemonade, he just sees how much money Suzy is making and wants in. So Tim goes to the lemon farm and buys their entire stock of lemons. His lemonade is sour, only allows you to buy 1 glass at a time, and needs to take a photo of your ID before selling you a glass. Sure, his lemonade stand now "competes" with Suzy's lemonade stand. But it's not because it offers a competing product/service - it's because Tim cheated and kicked the stool out from under Suzy.
Valve does the stool-kicking for years.
All while keeping their cut relatively high. This abuses Steam's popularity (not so much reputation—just the fact it's common) to discourage publishers from bothering with other platforms, even if they would provide them a better cut.
Take this strange price-fixing clause away (how is this legal anyway?), and suddenly Steam would actually start competing, as the game prices on other platforms could be lower without lowering publisher's income per unit. Steam would have to provide extra value, which it maybe does for some people, but not for everyone.
Yeah I don't get how people so willingly and openly embrace the Valve monopoly.
I mean I know there's reasons why, but at the same time, Valve is no angel. I think the Epic launcher is quite unpleasant to use so I get why people don't like games being gated behind it, but if Valve actually had to compete and regulators and judges (like the ones that swat down attempts by the FTC or other regulatory agencies) could be counted on to protect the public from bad businesses, maybe instead of games being gated behind one platform or another, they'd be available on multiple platforms and people would have a choice to pay more for the better launcher or not.
You see it with any dominant platform in the past 2 decades. Users are in love and frustrated when X is not on Y. That is until they fall out of love with Y for whatever reason, which inevitably happens. These kinds of users value convenience above all else, even if one day that company can potentially hold that convinence hostage.
I've been burned enough times that I value control wherever possible (which is hard in tech. I give it up constantly but am always trying out backups in just in case). Ideally I'd want 100% reassurance that whatever I get is truly mine, not bound to any other external service.
Even Valve can't rely on their service argument to keep a lot of people from buying the cheapest option. That's why they undercut other markets with frequent sales and "unlimited" key generation (I think they added a limit recently), require devs to keep price parity when launching on multiple platforms, and have some odd regional pricing choices (as shown by the Postal 4 announcement recently).
same wolf underneath as Epic, but in this case the grandma disguse works perfectly. People instead wonder why Epic isn't making games cheaper with their smaller cut instead of asking why Valve can't let devs set their prices per platform.
For what it’s worth, game publishers set regional prices, not Steam, although they do publish recommended rates.
This is selling to developers, though. Not users. if a dev wants to go exclusive to keep all the revenue for 6 months, that's on them. And 6 month is plenty of time to work on a steam release, so there's really no downside on their end.
there's nothing "cheating" about Tim in this metaphor. If you are allowed to buy all the Lemons in a farm, that sounds like a governmental issue, not a Tim issue.
regardless, this implies that Epic can just buy out all the games. They aren't even close to that. It's more like they bought a specific lemon tree and a specific bar of people are frustrated that Suzy can't use those specific lemons. Disappointing? potentially. Cheating? Not even close. And most people in town won't even notice the difference in lemon as they continue to buy from Suzy.
And I'm a user, so this doesn't compel me to purchase from Epic.
It doesn't, no. But IME users at large care a lot less about the platform than they do the game itself. That's probably what Epic is betting on. Entice devs, get some exclusivity windows, devs get users to come.
Except Tim doesn't buy the entire stock but like one cask out of thousands and Suzy is doing just swell.
My major concern is that it isn’t apples to apples. Steam grew organically and profitably by providing a service that people needed; I’m not aware of any significant anticompetitive behaviour from Valve, and as a privately held entity they’re largely free to just keep doing what they’re doing without too much external pressure.
Epic are growing in the space by throwing large amounts of cash at the problem, and their parent company is publicly traded - the market is going to want to see a substantial return on that money followed by ongoing and eternal growth.
Valve shouldn’t have a monopoly because as you say, nobody should, but Epic’s incentive structure leads them to shoot for a monopoly too - and a much worse one, if they happen to succeed.
This isn't fully true. When half life 2 came out you were forced to use steam, even if you bought the physical disks, and it was a buggy mess. Nobody liked it at the time, but they wanted to play half life 2.
It's better now by they definitely also started by holding anticipated games hostage, not by just being an amazing service.
It's still like that for some physical games, although more often these days, games with physical releases are tied to the publisher's store (e.g., EA has its own storefront that its physical releases are locked to) and may not even have actual discs in the box, instead being just a box with a CD key in it.
I remember people being upset about Steamworks DRM on physical games as recently as Skyrim's original release. Really we still should be, but it's become so normalized that people only complain when Epic does it now, despite Steam being objectively every bit as anti-consumer, if not worse due to being the store that pioneered most of these user hostile business practices.
At least with those disc based DRM systems, you still owned the game in practice. The CD key was tied to the game, not to your account. Steam introduced the self destructing CD key and killed the used market, making the "this is a license, you don't actually own it" bullshit real for the first time.
And that's infinitely worse than those other systems. More convenient doesn't always mean better.
And it wasn't entirely more convenient, either. Steam was always online DRM from the beginning. Offline mode existed, but it had (and still has) to phone home eventually, and the license file got screwed up if you shut down your computer without manually exciting steam first.
The online activation was called Steam. Well into the late 2000s, major games were coming out that had no online activation component. It wasn't until 2012-ish that the transition was complete, and it was a transition we have Valve to blame for. Before that, even games that had a CD key and weren't just checking that the disc was in the drive (maybe with some intentionally bad sectors on the disc to ensure it was a legit copy1) used an algorithm to determine whether the key was valid. There was no phoning home to a remote server in the vast, vast majority of cases, even well into the 2000s.
That's the carrot that they used to get you to accept the stick. We could have improved on that without making the DRM so much more onerous.
What Steam offers now is a slice of cake, but you have to take a kick in the nuts to get it. None of the good points you've mentioned have any relation at all to the bad things you're defending.
You could buy used PC games in EB Games right up until Gamestop bought them out -- and Gamestop stopped because they didn't want to deal with making sure that everything that needed a CD key had a valid one.
After that, you could still find them in more generalist second hand stores. eBay, used book stores, thrift shops, flea markets and so on. And the games did work.
We gave up a lot for the convenience you're describing, and there was no need to do it. The two things are unrelated, and only seem related because the widespread adoption of high speed internet happened around the same time and made both possible.
1 This is all Starforce and Securom were until the last couple of versions introduced limited online activations, and those were following in the footsteps of, you guessed it, Steam.
"We" as in society collectively. There's no need for this shit.
It fucking phones home and locks you out of your games if it can't talk to the server. If you think that's not onerous, you've forgotten what it's like to not be a corporate stooge.
The whole thing is enshittification. Physical PC games (which is the topic here -- physical games locked to online DRM platforms like Steam) worked fine, and they were killed to kill the used market. Period.
Yeah, I've got hundreds of them on my shelf, and a drive in my desktop.
There was no consumer facing need to change any of this. It was entirely about locking things down and killing the used market. Something the studios were trying to do with console games around the same time, to the point that they were literally making press releases, dutifully reported in the gaming press as "news", about how bad for the industry the used market was and how it was a good thing that they were trying to kill it. All of the good things you're talking about could have been handled in different ways that weren't built around an always online DRM platform.
That’s fair, and it’s a good reminder that no business can really be trusted to do the right thing out of the kindness of their hearts, but it does at least avoid the incentive structure problem.
Valve (and EA, and Ubisoft, and…) force you to use their launcher with their games - and it can be shitty and annoying - but it’s done opportunistically. They’re incentivised to try to grab an audience, if they succeed any further sales are a bonus, and if they fail the loss is minimal.
Epic are spending heavily to build that audience, which means they assume they can recoup the investment later - they’re directly incentivised to squeeze devs and consumers as soon as their position is secure.
To be fair, the situation isn't apples to apples either. GOG came out 15 years ago and "organically grew". While it may have good PR and is arguably one of the most consumer catering storefronts, that doesn't necessarily translate to market share.
Epic is 10 years after GOG, which was already 5 years after Steam. As we've seen with so many established platforms (Facebook, Reddit, Amazon, etc.), you can't just "be a good service" and expect people to switch of their own volition. They each have had multiple large scale scandals and people continue to use them. Valve's bad PR has been minimal and downplayed, but even if it did have a huge scandal it would keep it's dominant position.
There really isn't a "fair" way to break into markets like these that have this established large presence. And historically, every single large platform rose or fell out of dominance based on its exclusive games. If Epic wants to sway developers with better revenue sharing in exchange for exclusivity, then I can't really see the issue. Other medium would simply take ownership of the IP in exchange for such funding.
clarification: Epic is still >50% owned by Sweeny. Tencent own 40%. large stake, but it is still a far cry from full ownership.
I'm sure Epic is swayed by money, yes, but Tim still technically has all the power to say 'no' to Tencent. And as one who is more of a holding firm than a policy maker, Tencent really doesn't have much reason to try and rock the boat on such a cornerstone company in the industry.
All very reasonable points - and I think the unfortunate reality is that we really need something like the Paramount Decrees across the tech industry. People would be shocked to have to go to a Disney cinema to see a Disney film, but somehow having Sony or Microsoft or Apple or Epic dictate where you can get a given game or app is seen as just the way things are.
You’re right that there’s no fair way to break in to the market, and it’s a shame the regulators have abdicated in their responsibility to make it fair. Problem is, since they have done so, those unfair methods are going to need to be paid for in time: I’m less worried about Tencent handing down a decree later, more concerned that before the store was even launched everyone will have sat in a meeting and agreed to spend this much in the hope of recouping it later. And since all that money will need to come from the consumers and developers, it strikes me as highly unlikely we’re in for a better deal in the long run here.
Perhaps, but it does once again show the difference between hard venues and software. For intstance, people would be be-wildered to need to go to a Disney theatre to watch Infinity War, but they don't question needing to go to DIsney+ specifically to stream it from their home. And as we saw with Netflix, the solution of a centralized 3rd party doesn't necessarily solve these issues. And of course, the last big issue is international lines: one of the three largest console manufacturers operate in Japan, and the other is sort of half and half in the US and Japan. A regulation in the US would only give the EU/Asian storefronts an ability to serve in ways Microsoft or Steam could not.
I don't really have a proper answer to all this, simply understand there are so many factors at play now compared to the 50's.
Amen. It s sure would be nice if there were some anti-trust regulation in the US.
I'm not exactly an Epic cheerleader myself. I think I've actually paid them for a grand total of 2 of the 300+ games in my Epic account. If I'm any indication, any problems their business strategy might cause will be self-resolving.
To clarify, some Epic store-bought games work on Steam Deck, and many don't. Not that this is any different than the Steam catalog, but it's still worth noting. Anyone who reads the above comment and comes to the notion that it's super simple should be warned that it's not, nor is compatibility guaranteed. Again, many Steam games also have compatibility issues.
Source: am Steam Deck power user and getting Epic store games to work right is a constant exercise in fiddling and frustration. It's not just a "little bit" of configuration in many cases, and anyone who isn't already super into Linux should be aware of this up front.
Fair enough. I haven't found it particularly troublesome myself, but that's a sample size of one.
Honestly, Epics bullshit arguements about not enabling Linux anticheat for Fortnite pisses me off enough to never buy a tile through EGS. I'll happily click the free button.
When people talk about adding value, they mean adding value to a product i.e. making a product better. Selling an inferior store at lower prices is not adding value.
depends on what a consumer values. price can very much be the biggest factor for consumers, and otherwise worse services have thrived simply because it was "not completely shit" and had the right items at the lowest price.
This is clearly not what the original commenter meant by value.
I agree with them. I don't care if it's cheaper on EGS. I'm okay with spending more if I get a better product or support the PC ecosystem.
My point is value is subjective, and trying to tell others what to value is a fruitless effort. you care about platform quality while others people wouldn't care if they needed to show their real life ID to China in order to play GTA 6. Live and let live.
It's frustrating when the original commenter says their opinion (presumably speaking for a certain demographic) and the response is semantics and claims of subjectivity. Of course it's subjective and no one told anyone what to value.
With all due respect:
This very much sounds like telling someone what to value. That's what this entire chain turned into. One user said value was not added and another user gave another lens of value, then you "corrected" their argument which was in and of itself subjective.
I'm simply asking to understand that these are different lenses, neither invalidating the other.
Decreasing.
Introducing and normalizing exclusivity deals decreases competition. We are fortunate, incredibly so, that steam did not follow in their footsteps.
Competition is bred through open and standardized markets. Steam only exists because Microsoft never managed to lock down Windows. Epic is a threat because they threaten to lock down distribution with these exclusivity agreements.
You should tell that to Sony circa 1995, or Microsoft c. 2002. The only difference is they got to stick their names in the credit as "publisher".
Or Microsoft today. The console market is and was a clusterfuck and nobody should buy them.
A counter argument to this is that Valve makes it so that this is the best and perhaps only way to compete, because Valve prevents developers/publishers from setting lower prices on other platforms. If Valve removed this anti-competitive clause from Steam, then it's possible we wouldn't see Epic pushing so hard for exclusives.
Epic already is able to get away with literally giving games away free. The price signals are already there and people still don't want to use their system without being forced to through exclusives
I think you would find that if steam was behaving in a way that was actually anticompetitive the epic store would have next to zero games on it. Because in a game of exclusivity stream wins every single time.
I figure once Gabe goes, so will Valve, but that's why I'm trying to also diversify into more DRM free solutions as well.
And, as much as I love tinkering, the whole heroic/lutris stuff is more hassle than just clicking download on the main Steam OS. I think I'd be more likely to use Heroic on my desktop though but why not just give the money to a company that supports Linux gaming in that case?
Gabe most likely has a replacement lined up that shares his values and desires for the company. While its completely possible that Valve dies with Gabe, I wouldn't assume that's its only fate.
That gabe feels shares his values and desires, sure. But who knows how a person's colors change once they are exposed to billions of dollars coming in.
I mean, Marcus Aurelius had a successor lined up and we know how that went for the Roman empire. I don't want to be pessimistic, for good reason, but it's my default state.
Marcus Aurelius knew all things pass, even benevolence.
I wonder who this is actually targeted at?
As I understand it, the largest risk that developers and publishers grapple with is sinking a ton of money into making a game that may not sell well.
Epic's Exclusivity deals were incredibly attractive since the upfront payment massively lessened that risk, for developers of all sizes.
Trading upfront payment for 100% revenue split sounds great for games confident that their audience will follow them to any storefront (AAA, proven indies, etc...).
But this may not make sense for a plurality of indie developers who aren't guaranteed sales.
This reasoning also makes sense given some comments Epic CEO, Tim Sweeney, made a few months ago:
- Source: Epic isn't done with Epic Games Store exclusives, it's just focused on big ones, PC Gamer
This new program feels like a transaction where Epic gives up its revenue share in exchange for attracting "Big Games" with sticky audiences.
That's what I figured. Either indie games /studios with cult followings (Supergiant is one of the biggest examples) or AAA games where you can advertise the game by yourself are the big targets here. There's unfortunately so much competition and choice right now that merely selling a "good game" isn't enough to sway people over the convenience of one app.
That interview makes it sound like the "Ooblets" style of games don't work well for Epic currently. A strategy that otherwise worked very well in the Gen 5/6 days where you sprinkle some unique games with the big blockbuster hits. A real shame, I do appreciate those former categories of games. I'm not quite sure if something like Katamari would succeed in the current market.
As the old saying goes...
No tux, no bux.