The Epic Game Store

Gaming
#21

There is a difference between competition and artificial competition. Trying to compete by tying exclusives to your store is artificial. How about actually proving your store is the better option…

Never heard of any pc gamer being in favor of exclusives ever. Might be something that console gamers want for their platform but definitely not something pc gamers endorse. Pc platform has always been about open access.

As for data mining , slight difference between epic and facebook/instagram,ect. Epic used another program’s data to data mine, facebook and co used the data on their platform. Both are wrong but epic went way more out of their way to data mine…

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#22
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#23

Yet another Jimothy video about the Epic Games store, this time about devs and publishers temporarily removing their games from the service when Epic effectively discounted unpublished games without checking with the devs first:

While I’m with Jim when he argued that it was lame of Epic to launch specials on unreleased games without at least telling the devs about it, I still disagree with him on what he calls “cAAApitalism”.

It’s silly to argue that Epic should not be allowed to pay for exclusives. Reading between the lines, he seems to suggest that it would be acceptable for Epic to secure exclusives so long as its launcher was better.

Even if that’s not his intention, his argument that this is an example of “unchecked capitalism” is nonsensical at best.

While I certainly advocate for a better Epic Games Launcher, Jim’s argument is riddled with errors in logic.

People just need to vote with their wallets. If you think it’s inexcusable that the Epic Games store doesn’t have a shopping cart, or cloud saves, or Linux support, or any of that stuff we’re used to from Steam, don’t spend any your money there.

I know some of the games people are looking forward to will be exclusive to Epic for a limited time, but—here’s a revolutionary idea—you can just hold off on buying the game (or not buy it at all if you want to send a stronger message re: exclusivity.)

On the issue of exclusivity — Epic is doing 100% the right thing with its sweet, sweet Tencent capital.

You won’t get people to switch to you from Steam by asking nicely, or even through cheaper prices (which they wouldn’t be able to sustain anyway because of their more favourable revenue split for developers).

And to catch up to Steam in terms of features would require a tonne of development resources.

So what do? If you want to compete, you have to try something else.

The kicker here is that Epic is stepping in the same trap as upstarts that try to win customers through short-term cut-price deals (i.e. not Amazon — but predatory pricing is a rant for another time).

It doesn’t help they’ve got the exclusives in place, but the platform still requires so much work. A shopping cart during a special is essential. Cloud backups are basically non-negotiable.

These features are apparently coming soon™, but will it be soon enough?

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#24

My personal feelings around the Epic Store and that specific side of the Epic Games business is that what they are doing will be unsustainable in the long run. I hate (yes, that strong) exclusives on PC tied to a specific launcher/store. If you want my money just offer me the product at a better price than your closest competitor. It gives me the warm and fuzzies if you give the developers/publishers a bigger cut, but that’s not a big enough reason to sway me.

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#25

While I know that you know what you mean, and mean what you say here, a lot of people forget just how common this practice is:

  • All of Blizzard’s games are linked to its own online platform and launcher now.
  • The last big EA game I remember being able to get on Steam was Mass Effect 2. Since then, if you want any EA-published game, it’s Origin for you.
  • If you buy a Ubisoft game at retail, it gets linked to the Uplay launcher.
  • If you bought The Witcher 3 at retail, you had the option to link it to GOG for easy updating and launcher-ey features.
  • The old Borderlands games all hooked into Steam — you had no choice not to.
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#26

Yup, there are some exceptions. Like Watch_Dogs where Steam just launches/links to uPlay and they all play nicely together. Tropico is available on Steam and Origin. Witcher…seems to be available everywhere. Assassin’s Creed plays with Steam, Origin and uPlay. It’s not difficult to be non-exclusive.

I get why a publisher (like Ubisoft) would want their games from their development divisions to be tied to their storefront. What I’m talking about is more around a storefront/publisher trying to grab exclusive rights to selling a title by a 3rd party publisher/developer. I find it slightly scummy

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#27

I think there’s signs that they starting to realise that already, nevermind “in the long run”, and that the backlash and negativity from Epic’s exclusivity deals is coming back to bite them now. Personally, I sincerely doubt that Epic have come anywhere close to recouping the costs of those exclusivity deals from any one of the games they secured.

I get the sense that game sales through the Epic Store have not been what they had hoped for, and they’re starting to get worried about it. Starting to find ways to somehow get more eyeballs onto their storefront and push a few more sales into the financial reports.

The poorly handled Epic Mega Sale, which clearly wasn’t run past the developers before they launched it, is a case in point. As is the fact that it seems like the much lauded “get a free game every 2 weeks for the first year” is changing to get a free game every week.

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The problem to my mind is simply that they refuse to accept that their initial approach to things was flawed from the start. Rather than actually address and correct some of those missteps, they continue to double-down on the area that have turned people against them in the first place.

When they launched the store all sorts of assurances were made about improving the experience with forums, reviews, cloud saves, etc. And in all honesty, in the half a year or so since, absolutely nothing has changed. Seriously, how do you even begin to consider running a sale when you still haven’t implemented a simple shopping cart system?

If they want to become a genuine competitor to Steam, and start to earn back the respect of the PC game buying public, they need to make some fundamental changes to their business model. Either provide an equal level of product with competitive pricing, or a significantly better product at the same price.

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#28

Big difference there. Those games are developed by those companies who stores they are exclusive for. No issues with developers who developed the game having a bigger piece by keeping it on their store.

Epic didn’t develop 99% of the games they have exclusive rights to…

Also this excuse that launcher will be improved with time is a poor excuse for a shoddy launcher. Gog’s launcher was 100% better at launch. So why couldn’t epic with all fortnite $$$ come up with a better launcher…Oh yeah don’t need a proper launcher when you can force people to use it if you have exclusives…

Exclusives is simply a scummy move to try and win market share. Can’t compete by offering a better deal or features for the consumer so lets force them to buy from us…

#29

Steamworks was added to Borderlands at a later stage after gamespy died.

#30

While I agree in principle, in practice this is impossible.

What I’d have let slide is them launching with at least a minimum viable product and then trying to win market share through aggressive marketing — sales and exclusives and such. But they haven’t even done that.

It’s like all these “live services” trying to launch in a market already dominated by games like Destiny 2, Warframe, and whatever Battle Royale game is the flavour of the week (dons asbestos suit).

BioWare and EA want to launch the next Destiny, but they didn’t even have a minimally viable game (Anthem) for players to feel good about supporting, let alone the basic necessary development resources in place to support Anthem after launch.

It’s the same thing with other “live service” failure-to-launch stories and, right now, it’s the same thing with Epic’s launcher.

You don’t compete with over a decade’s organic development by coming to market with a Trello full of promises, and practises that your potential customers will regard as anti-consumer.

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#31

Indeed. I was thinking of Borderlands 2 and BL:TPS, but should have been more specific.

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#32

refinement takes time, rome wasnt built in one day and without the epic store we most likely wouldnt have gotten a title like journey or any of Quantic dreams ps titles on pc.

when steam launched it also sucked A$$ way more than epic store

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#33

Man, I hated Steam.

And I still hate what it represents — the centralised control of your entire game library.

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#34

Just cause steam wasn’t well developed at its launch doesn’t excuse epic. There was nothing in comparison with steam when it first launched.

Epic launched when there were already loads of launchers available. Excusing them for not having even basic features simply not on. Gog galaxy launched with most basic features available. What is epics excuse for not even having a cart…

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#35

Wait, what?

Then how am I collecting all those free games?

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#36

Except, you know, the entire Debian and Gentoo package repositories.

(I’m being facetious. This is what it looks like when I troll.)

*EDIT: That said, @DohcWP’s point regarding bringing Quantic Dreams’ PlayStation titles to PC is worthwhile. Kinda like how GOG helped bring back Planescape: Torment and System Shock 2 and they were exclusive to GOG for awhile.

One by one, bro. One by one.

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#37

The one by one backfires when you buy a whopping 5 games.

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#38

Come on, Epic! Don’t give people more reason to hate you :angry:

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#39

Except that gog actually did the work to insure planescape torment and system shock 2 would run on modern systems, the same with all the other great series they brought back. Also was the only store willing to offer technical support for that.

Massive difference between epic throwing fortnite money at quantic dreams to convince them that its financially rewarding to come to the epic store.

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#40
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