I'm still playing this game after a few months. Fun, relaxing diversion. Minimal stress, but not without challenge. Recommended for anyone who likes building stuff in games. One con, though, is...
I'm still playing this game after a few months. Fun, relaxing diversion. Minimal stress, but not without challenge. Recommended for anyone who likes building stuff in games. One con, though, is that the DLC is a bit expensive for what you get, but you can always wait for sales for those.
Game 2: Oddworld: New N' Tasty This is supposedly the list of the games to be released: https://mobile.twitter.com/jovanmunja/status/1339958916491448320
Such an incredibly dark, amazingly atmospheric, and wonderfully bizarre game. If anyone hasn't played this yet, I highly recommend picking it up and giving it a try. It's also quite short (~5...
Such an incredibly dark, amazingly atmospheric, and wonderfully bizarre game. If anyone hasn't played this yet, I highly recommend picking it up and giving it a try. It's also quite short (~5 hours), so you don't need to dedicate a huge amount of time to it either.
I was waiting for this game to come up in the giveaway cycle so I could give it a recommendation, and it turns out you said almost exactly what I was going to! Rather than give my own, I’m just...
I was waiting for this game to come up in the giveaway cycle so I could give it a recommendation, and it turns out you said almost exactly what I was going to! Rather than give my own, I’m just going to co-sign on yours. :)
If you liked INSIDE, you should also give Little Nightmares (which is currently only $5 on Steam right now) a try too. They have a similar vibe, and were both short but amazing experiences, IMO.
If you liked INSIDE, you should also give Little Nightmares (which is currently only $5 on Steam right now) a try too. They have a similar vibe, and were both short but amazing experiences, IMO.
The voice acting in Portia is absolutely terrible. I genuinely couldn't stop myself from cringing every time the main character opened his mouth. The gameplay itself was pretty bog-standard for a...
The voice acting in Portia is absolutely terrible. I genuinely couldn't stop myself from cringing every time the main character opened his mouth. The gameplay itself was pretty bog-standard for a life/farming/crafting sim game but still relatively satisfying despite that. And the fact that I played for 30 hours before finally getting bored of it says a lot, since these sorts of games are not usually my thing.
Game 15: Jurassic World Evolution This one is for a full week, and next week is revealed to be Crying Suns, so I guess this is going to continue to be a thing.
I wonder how this can be profitable. How much money do they have to pay to offer these games for free? How many people actually end up claiming these games? Are they just betting that this will...
I wonder how this can be profitable. How much money do they have to pay to offer these games for free? How many people actually end up claiming these games? Are they just betting that this will garner them enough publicity/adoption in the long term that people will eventually spend enough money on their store to offset these costs? I feel like it must be somewhat successful for them to keep doing it over and over, but who knows... It just seems like a very strange strategy to me.
It's not profitable on its own. It's an attempt to break through Steam's network effects. Steam has a pseudo-monopoly on the online PC gaming store (GoG is tiny, and most of the other retailers...
It's not profitable on its own. It's an attempt to break through Steam's network effects. Steam has a pseudo-monopoly on the online PC gaming store (GoG is tiny, and most of the other retailers actually sell Steam codes), and as a result they have two network-effect moats: "I don't want to keep this launcher open when it doesn't have any games" and "My friends are only on steam".
By giving away quality, free games, Epic gets users, and it gets users that care about their accounts, because they open it every day to play their free copy of Civ 6, or Pillar of Eternity, Celeste, etc. That means that you're not as hesitant to buy other games, because you might be opening the launcher all the time anyway, and many of your friends are also on EGS because they're also playing their free Civ 6 copy.
Will it work out? Who knows, but I think it's virtually impossible to really be viable in the long term vs. Steam otherwise. GoG is a good example - it currently runs a whopping profit of 7.8k in the last fiscal year.
To add to this, I also think Epic is making a play for future audiences. Fortnite was a runaway hit with kids, most of whom don’t have the financial autonomy to be able to buy games they want...
To add to this, I also think Epic is making a play for future audiences. Fortnite was a runaway hit with kids, most of whom don’t have the financial autonomy to be able to buy games they want without parental permission and payment. Giving away free games helps them build up libraries and affinity for Epic as a platform. Once they grow up and do become independent, they are way more likely to spend money on Epic than elsewhere for the same reason people like using Steam over others: almost all their games are already there.
Yeah, I guess I'm just wondering how successful that's actually been, versus the more pronounced effect of simply releasing a popular game like Fortnight exclusively on their platform. Also, they...
Yeah, I guess I'm just wondering how successful that's actually been, versus the more pronounced effect of simply releasing a popular game like Fortnight exclusively on their platform. Also, they seem to like talking about the fact that they're giving away free games, but attempt to make it somewhat inconvenient to actually find and redeem the free game that they're offering (case in point, the free game is at the very bottom of the linked page).
It worked for me with THPS 1+2 being exclusive, but if I get a free game on Epic I like, I end up buying it on Steam to support the dev and Valve, who is doing a lot of work in the Linux gaming...
It worked for me with THPS 1+2 being exclusive, but if I get a free game on Epic I like, I end up buying it on Steam to support the dev and Valve, who is doing a lot of work in the Linux gaming arena. I k ow what Epic's game is and am trying not to completely fall for it.
Yeah, it's basically a marketing campaign. Companies regularly spend millions of dollars on advertising, this is effectively just a different form of it. They don't have to pay to place standard...
Yeah, it's basically a marketing campaign. Companies regularly spend millions of dollars on advertising, this is effectively just a different form of it. They don't have to pay to place standard ads on other sites, because by giving games away people will spread the word on all those platforms for them.
Epic was also making millions of dollars every day from Fortnite on mobile alone (though a lot of that has probably been cut off now), so they have a ton of money they can burn on things like this without it really hurting them significantly.
What else? Them being a Tencent company now, they probably just did some long-term math and concluded that investing a billion now might net them a few billions more over the next couple of years...
Are they just betting that this will garner them enough publicity/adoption in the long term that people will eventually spend enough money on their store to offset these costs?
What else? Them being a Tencent company now, they probably just did some long-term math and concluded that investing a billion now might net them a few billions more over the next couple of years by binding people to their store.
Mosts of the games, cleverly, either are old enough for most people who actually want to play them to have already bought them or cheap enough for it to matter less. Some of them were in pay-what-you-want bundles. It's like the "free" PS+ games, often good games but hardly ever "hot". This stunt probably costs them a couple million dollars (I doubt they pay the devs full price per game claimed, either), which is basically straight advertising to bind people to their service.
I've been wanting to play city skylines for some time now! I finally have a PC that can actually handle stuff (sort of, my gpu is old af). But between epic and GOG, I'm looking forward to hording...
I've been wanting to play city skylines for some time now! I finally have a PC that can actually handle stuff (sort of, my gpu is old af). But between epic and GOG, I'm looking forward to hording as many free games as I can get my weak goblin hands on (ノ＞▽＜。)ノ
I picked up Dangerous Driving. As a longtime Burnout fan, I've had my eye on this for a while. I was waiting to see if it was going to make the jump to Steam (I'm not anti-Epic, I just prefer...
I picked up Dangerous Driving. As a longtime Burnout fan, I've had my eye on this for a while. I was waiting to see if it was going to make the jump to Steam (I'm not anti-Epic, I just prefer games on Steam because of their Linux support), but it looks like it's staying exclusive to Epic for good.
They could give me 100 games and I still would never download the Epic Games store. Its just another terrible ploy by a terrible developer to circumvent existing and established game stores for...
They could give me 100 games and I still would never download the Epic Games store.
Its just another terrible ploy by a terrible developer to circumvent existing and established game stores for their own profit. One day Fornite will fully die and hopefully the Epic Games store dies with it.
Cities:Skylines is a great game though for anyone that's interested in it.
The problem is that Steam is currently the best game platform on the market, the store is just icing as far as I'm concerned. Big Picture mode brings console experience to TV. Customizable,...
The problem is that Steam is currently the best game platform on the market, the store is just icing as far as I'm concerned.
Cloud saves, good enough that I get pissed when devs don't bother to integrate it.
Linux support that no other platform has, including the development of an outstanding compatibility layer.
Eliminates needs for any other game launchers.
Is there stuff I don't like? Sure. Do I wish there was an open standard to migrate collections between game store/platforms? Yea.
So, any 'Not Valve' big game company reading this:. Stop fracturing the market with a storefront and launcher for just your games. Don't use exclusives to lock people in, reach feature parity and then do more. Create an Android to Valves iPhone.
Valve won my loyalty simply because they made more than a chat/store/update launcher. If Steam collapsed tomorrow, I'd probably just stop playing games. Because the fractured ecosystem is not one I'd want to re-enter at this point.
The companies listening to you will fail, because they will start at a disadvantage. This is a job for consumer regulations.
So, any 'Not Valve' big game company reading this:. Stop fracturing the market with a storefront and launcher for just your games. Don't use exclusives to lock people in, reach feature parity and then do more. Create an Android to Valves iPhone.
The companies listening to you will fail, because they will start at a disadvantage.
You are correct about regulations. But I don't know about a disadvantage. Android, for all it's faults, unified a hugely diverse set of interests (from manufacturers to carriers) behind a common...
You are correct about regulations. But I don't know about a disadvantage. Android, for all it's faults, unified a hugely diverse set of interests (from manufacturers to carriers) behind a common OS and propped up a viable competitor against IOS.
Imagine if Microsoft, EA, Epic, and Blizzard (the best launcher of this bunch) had all merged behind a common platform, had a solid migration path (the way GOG does) when they first saw Valve's rise to dominance. It would have been a viable competition, and Valve's dominance would be less cemented.
You might be right that it's probably too late, and Valve has a distinct advantage in not being publicly owned. But the switch to a VR platform is not assured.... although if everyone doesn't unify against Facebook soon it may be too late.
Fortnite is single-handedly subsidizing a generation of PC gamers. It's pretty wild.
First free game is Cities: Skylines, will need to be claimed sometime today.
I'm still playing this game after a few months. Fun, relaxing diversion. Minimal stress, but not without challenge. Recommended for anyone who likes building stuff in games. One con, though, is that the DLC is a bit expensive for what you get, but you can always wait for sales for those.
If you don't have Hades yet, you can use the $10 coupon to acquire it for $14.99.
100% worth it too. All of Supergiant's stuff is great.
Game 2: Oddworld: New N' Tasty
This is supposedly the list of the games to be released:
https://mobile.twitter.com/jovanmunja/status/1339958916491448320
Game 3: The Long Dark
Game 4: Defense Grid: The Awakening
So far, the list appears to be accurate.
Game 5: Alien: Isolation
Game 6: Metro 2033: Redux
Game 7: Tropico 5
Game 8: Inside
Such an incredibly dark, amazingly atmospheric, and wonderfully bizarre game. If anyone hasn't played this yet, I highly recommend picking it up and giving it a try. It's also quite short (~5 hours), so you don't need to dedicate a huge amount of time to it either.
I was waiting for this game to come up in the giveaway cycle so I could give it a recommendation, and it turns out you said almost exactly what I was going to! Rather than give my own, I’m just going to co-sign on yours. :)
If you liked INSIDE, you should also give Little Nightmares (which is currently only $5 on Steam right now) a try too. They have a similar vibe, and were both short but amazing experiences, IMO.
Game 9: Darkest Dungeon
'Tis the season!
Game 10: My Time at Portia
The voice acting in Portia is absolutely terrible. I genuinely couldn't stop myself from cringing every time the main character opened his mouth. The gameplay itself was pretty bog-standard for a life/farming/crafting sim game but still relatively satisfying despite that. And the fact that I played for 30 hours before finally getting bored of it says a lot, since these sorts of games are not usually my thing.
Game 11: Night in the Woods
I was waiting for Inside and forgot which day it was, bleh.
Game 12: Stranded Deep
Game 13: Solitairica
Game 14: Torchlight II
Game 15: Jurassic World Evolution
This one is for a full week, and next week is revealed to be Crying Suns, so I guess this is going to continue to be a thing.
Thanks for posting all the daily updates, moocow!
It was given before too. Have it in library. :(
You should ask for a refund then! /joke
I wonder how this can be profitable. How much money do they have to pay to offer these games for free? How many people actually end up claiming these games? Are they just betting that this will garner them enough publicity/adoption in the long term that people will eventually spend enough money on their store to offset these costs? I feel like it must be somewhat successful for them to keep doing it over and over, but who knows... It just seems like a very strange strategy to me.
It's not profitable on its own. It's an attempt to break through Steam's network effects. Steam has a pseudo-monopoly on the online PC gaming store (GoG is tiny, and most of the other retailers actually sell Steam codes), and as a result they have two network-effect moats: "I don't want to keep this launcher open when it doesn't have any games" and "My friends are only on steam".
By giving away quality, free games, Epic gets users, and it gets users that care about their accounts, because they open it every day to play their free copy of Civ 6, or Pillar of Eternity, Celeste, etc. That means that you're not as hesitant to buy other games, because you might be opening the launcher all the time anyway, and many of your friends are also on EGS because they're also playing their free Civ 6 copy.
Will it work out? Who knows, but I think it's virtually impossible to really be viable in the long term vs. Steam otherwise. GoG is a good example - it currently runs a whopping profit of 7.8k in the last fiscal year.
To add to this, I also think Epic is making a play for future audiences. Fortnite was a runaway hit with kids, most of whom don’t have the financial autonomy to be able to buy games they want without parental permission and payment. Giving away free games helps them build up libraries and affinity for Epic as a platform. Once they grow up and do become independent, they are way more likely to spend money on Epic than elsewhere for the same reason people like using Steam over others: almost all their games are already there.
That's a really good point. Similar to companies like Microsoft and others providing free ecosystems for students.
Yeah, I guess I'm just wondering how successful that's actually been, versus the more pronounced effect of simply releasing a popular game like Fortnight exclusively on their platform. Also, they seem to like talking about the fact that they're giving away free games, but attempt to make it somewhat inconvenient to actually find and redeem the free game that they're offering (case in point, the free game is at the very bottom of the linked page).
It worked for me with THPS 1+2 being exclusive, but if I get a free game on Epic I like, I end up buying it on Steam to support the dev and Valve, who is doing a lot of work in the Linux gaming arena. I k ow what Epic's game is and am trying not to completely fall for it.
Yeah, it's basically a marketing campaign. Companies regularly spend millions of dollars on advertising, this is effectively just a different form of it. They don't have to pay to place standard ads on other sites, because by giving games away people will spread the word on all those platforms for them.
Epic was also making millions of dollars every day from Fortnite on mobile alone (though a lot of that has probably been cut off now), so they have a ton of money they can burn on things like this without it really hurting them significantly.
What else? Them being a Tencent company now, they probably just did some long-term math and concluded that investing a billion now might net them a few billions more over the next couple of years by binding people to their store.
Mosts of the games, cleverly, either are old enough for most people who actually want to play them to have already bought them or cheap enough for it to matter less. Some of them were in pay-what-you-want bundles. It's like the "free" PS+ games, often good games but hardly ever "hot". This stunt probably costs them a couple million dollars (I doubt they pay the devs full price per game claimed, either), which is basically straight advertising to bind people to their service.
I've been wanting to play city skylines for some time now! I finally have a PC that can actually handle stuff (sort of, my gpu is old af). But between epic and GOG, I'm looking forward to hording as many free games as I can get my weak goblin hands on (ノ＞▽＜。)ノ
Is GOG doing free games too?
Never mind, I found this - https://www.gog.com/partner/stay_at_home
Yes! Yesterday prison architect was free as well. I'm not sure how many games they'll be giving out for free, but at least a few it seems.
I picked up Dangerous Driving. As a longtime Burnout fan, I've had my eye on this for a while. I was waiting to see if it was going to make the jump to Steam (I'm not anti-Epic, I just prefer games on Steam because of their Linux support), but it looks like it's staying exclusive to Epic for good.
I wonder why it only works on Windows. Isn’t the game cross-platform on Steam?
Epic doesn’t support Linux like Steam does. Use Lutris to install epic launcher first. It’s not guaranteed to work though.
They could give me 100 games and I still would never download the Epic Games store.
Its just another terrible ploy by a terrible developer to circumvent existing and established game stores for their own profit. One day Fornite will fully die and hopefully the Epic Games store dies with it.
Cities:Skylines is a great game though for anyone that's interested in it.
The problem is that Steam is currently the best game platform on the market, the store is just icing as far as I'm concerned.
Is there stuff I don't like? Sure. Do I wish there was an open standard to migrate collections between game store/platforms? Yea.
So, any 'Not Valve' big game company reading this:. Stop fracturing the market with a storefront and launcher for just your games. Don't use exclusives to lock people in, reach feature parity and then do more. Create an Android to Valves iPhone.
Valve won my loyalty simply because they made more than a chat/store/update launcher. If Steam collapsed tomorrow, I'd probably just stop playing games. Because the fractured ecosystem is not one I'd want to re-enter at this point.
The companies listening to you will fail, because they will start at a disadvantage.
This is a job for consumer regulations.
You are correct about regulations. But I don't know about a disadvantage. Android, for all it's faults, unified a hugely diverse set of interests (from manufacturers to carriers) behind a common OS and propped up a viable competitor against IOS.
Imagine if Microsoft, EA, Epic, and Blizzard (the best launcher of this bunch) had all merged behind a common platform, had a solid migration path (the way GOG does) when they first saw Valve's rise to dominance. It would have been a viable competition, and Valve's dominance would be less cemented.
You might be right that it's probably too late, and Valve has a distinct advantage in not being publicly owned. But the switch to a VR platform is not assured.... although if everyone doesn't unify against Facebook soon it may be too late.