Epic launches digital games store with 88% revenue going to developers

[eonden]

Wow, so I posted that they're going to give away a game for free every 2 weeks in 2019. There have been 4 responses to that so far, all of them complaining. That's 24 games for $0.00, that you don't have to download or play, and still every response is complaining. Amazing.

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They arent complaining. They are wondering about the quality of them, as was the case when EA did that and when Twitch did them. PC gamers are used to free promotion games, heck steam has one every month or so.

Again, they are a promotion which is nice but maybe something similar to Humble Bundle game valt or Discords one with Nitro+ would be a better thing tbh (as you dont need to have to go there all the time to be dissapointed).

Those kind of promotions have been done a ton of times. They dont have that much succes.

 

[abracadaver]

Just another store I won't use

 

[Aeferis]

Wow, so I posted that they're going to give away a game for free every 2 weeks in 2019. There have been 4 responses to that so far, all of them complaining. That's 24 games for $0.00, that you don't have to download or play, and still every response is complaining. Amazing.

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I honestly don't understand how you expect free stuff to be exciting when we're talking about what a client will offer. Free games don't represent what Epic Client will offer in terms of features for both the users and the developers. Yeah, alright, I'll grab those free games like I grabbed those on Twitch and those on Humble and GOG and Steam and wherever. That's not something pro-consumer, it's a marketing choice that says absolutely nothing on the service as a whole. So, what were you expecting?

 

[ISOM]

Epic just needs Epic sales to rival Steam sales and I'm in.

 

[NeroPaige]

Okay, now this is epic.

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dat first post.

 

[Chairmanchuck (另一个我)]

When did gamers get so greedy? Literally complaining about free games. And this is quite clearly a benefit. It may or may not be time limited, doesn't matter, it's still a benefit.

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No one complained about free games. Maybe read the posts. Its not a big benefit for most PC gamers, if they already have them or the games might be of questionable quality.

Its not something new, like I said. Origin had it. GOG has it. Steam has it. HB has it. Twitch Prime has it.

Thats not the benefit of the plattform, but a limited time promotion.

Can't it be both for many users, depending on how much you value those 'freebies'? Not that I think it's a particularly unique benefit but I can see how someone would see that it's a benefit to their using this particular store.

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Of course it can be. If the client itself is not good though, people wont come back. Look at Twitch Prime. They gave away really great and new games but people still bought them later on Steam, because they expect more from a client than the twitch Prime one.

 

[ISOM]

Just another store I won't use

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lol. If developers start going to Epic en masse we'll see how much your opinion changes.

 

[Deleted member 15497]

STEAM is finished /s

 

[GaimeGuy]

All of the features mentioned in the OP are directed towards developers. As a consumer, none of that benefits me. I see no reason to start using this instead of Steam, when it doesn't have 1/10 of what the latter offers me.

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The goal is to bribe developers for exclusivity and force consumers to come over for the games they want.

The reason why steam took off in the first place was because it offered a one stop shop and launcher. All these other launchers and storefronts miss that point. PC gaming was seen as inconvenient and fragmented, and steam helped fix a lot of that.

Now the same companies that said the fragmentation and rampant piracy of PC gaming were driving them away... are taking steps to fragment PC gaming themselves.

 

[Kuosi]

Good thing for publishers, less good for consumers, this wont make games cheaper and just makes you use a less feature rich platform

 

[funky]

Oh my.

What if games start having Fortnite preorder skins like during the peak of TF2

 

[VerySerious]

The Unreal Store sounds like a pretty good deal for the devs/publishers, but I imagine most users would want to stick with their libraries and friends on Steam. It has far too much inertia due to its featureset, library and general popularity for Unreal Store to make much of a dent with just a little bit of curation. Epic are going to need more than that in order to actually compete as a store. It'll be nice to see how it turns out, though.

 

[abracadaver]

lol. If developers start going to Epic en masse we'll see how much your opinion changes.

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I don't see why they should. And if a game comes exclusively to the Epic store I will simply ignore it just like I do it with every game that isn't on Steam

 

[BernardoOne]

Wow, so I posted that they're going to give away a game for free every 2 weeks in 2019. There have been 5 responses to that so far, all of them complaining. That's 24 games for $0.00, that you don't have to download or play, and still every response is complaining. Amazing.

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But no one is complaining. People are pointing out that it isnt a store benefit, because it literally isnt. Its a promotion. A time limited one.

 

[Ge0force]

Steam really is walking in to 2019 with a big problem

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Yeah, Epic 's launcher is so incredibly superior to Steam, that the majority of the 96 million monthly active users will leave Steam within the year. And in 2020, the few remaining Steam users will jump to the amazing windows store because of Game Pass. Poor Gabe... :(

 

[Nzyme32]

Everyone praising Epic's announcement for more competition while denouncing anything Microsoft might do to the Windows store and disliking competition there. Well, Era being Era...

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Where is this "everyone" you speak of, and how is it that their justifications are not warranted?

Plenty of people like me and those in this thread point this out every time - that a exclusive, publisher centric "store" that is ignorantly labelled "competition", by a bunch of console / platform warring folk that don't even play games on the platform - is NOT competition.

What Epic is doing is slightly closer to real "competition", in that they are not artificially causing scarcity via exclusive games, and not only selling their own games.

Epic Store has the same failings as every other Steam "competitor" - it is completely uncompetitive on features and benefits for customers. Steam is a ridiculously massive leap ahead in that regard and consistently get better and better.
Valve/Steam also push and invest in further development and support of the PC ecosystem as a whole as well as PC gaming itself, whether in R&D efforts, open software and agnostic platforms, tools and now even hardware.

So far Epic does not seem to have such interests, has an absolutely barebone approach to their store near identical to everything outside of Steam.
Microsoft's UWP focus and Store are even worse than this too, especially for the complete lack of care or development towards PC gaming - so its critics are absolutely justified in saying so! It offers no meaningful features or benefits, outside of existing Xbox players

 

[GameZone]

lol. If developers start going to Epic en masse we'll see how much your opinion changes.

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But they won't if people aren't buying their games, and they won't if they can't compete on features.

 

[ZKenir]

To be honest unless I'm getting better deals on games I'm intending to purchase this will be just another store/client i rarely use if ever, I prefer decent deals on games I'm looking forward to playing rather than X amount of games I'd get just to hoard and never play, guess we'll see what happens.

 

[jett]

Personally, I don't need another PC storefront. Certainly not interested in having another one of these things installed on my PC.

But the more competition the merrier I guess.

 

[Sheepinator]

No one complained about free games. Maybe read the posts.

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I did read them. Here they are again in case you didn't.

[without knowing which games] "If thats the only benefit it has over other competitors, thats not enough."

"generally they seem to be bit more of a middle of a ground indie titles with scores around 6-7... they're just gonna do that for next year and stop doing it?"

"Giving free games does nothing except make users wait and not buy."

"It's also a bit disengenious. Those free games are not benefits"

"anything free that's not on my wishlist is useless. Especially true for some people if there's no steam trading cards."

 

[DionardoLicaprio]

Competition is always good.

But Steam, Epic, Uplay, Origin, GoG, Xbox, Battle.net and Bethesda... I don't game on PC anymore, but when I did, this sure was annoying.

 

[Durante]

To be a competitor you actually have to want to compete and none of them wanted to.

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That's what it boils down to.
I'd hope this attempt by Epic is different, but their responses so far aren't 100% encouraging.
(Especially regarding gamer <-> publisher power dynamics)

But I'm not really concerned about any of this -- at least it won't be UWP.

I'm vaguely worried the increasing diffusion of the PC marketplace will make more developers (big and small) say screw it, and just not bother with a PC version. They already have to bake in additional control schemes and graphical options, now they have to repackage the application for, what, 5 different storefronts?

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Or you can just go on Steam and get 95% of the potential audience.

 

[.exe]

Everyone praising Epic's announcement for more competition while denouncing anything Microsoft might do to the Windows store and disliking competition there. Well, Era being Era...

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Have you ever used the MS store, purchased, and downloaded a game? Do you understand what UWP is and how it differs from a regular executable/installation? If so, you'd understand why people do not like using the MS store.

 

[Skux]

After all the hate Fortnite gets here, it turns out to be the saviour of gaming.

 

[Grouch Douglass]

My only complaint about Steam is that their sales don't seem so awesome anymore.

 

[Ge0force]

Everyone praising Epic's announcement for more competition while denouncing anything Microsoft might do to the Windows store and disliking competition there. Well, Era being Era...

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Microsoft is "competing" with a broken store that sells pc games as locked down encrypted uwp apps at higher prices than any other games store on pc. Perhaps that's why so many people dislike it?

 

[asd202]

Heh this kind explains as to why Steam lowered their share recently.

 

[RionaaM]

The goal is to bribe developers for exclusivity and force consumers to come over for the games they want.

The reason why steam took off in the first place was because it offered a one stop shop and launcher. All these other launchers and storefronts miss that point. PC gaming was seen as inconvenient and fragmented, and steam helped fix a lot of that.

Now the same companies that said the fragmentation and rampant piracy of PC gaming were driving them away... are taking steps to fragment PC gaming themselves.

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Yep. Funnily enough, for all the talk about competition it's clear none of those companies want to compete in terms of functionality or catalog. They are all busy making barebones clients and moneyhatting devs instead.

 

[Nzyme32]

Wow, so I posted that they're going to give away a game for free every 2 weeks in 2019. There have been 5 responses to that so far, all of them complaining. That's 24 games for $0.00, that you don't have to download or play, and still every response is complaining. Amazing.

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Guess what - it doesn't necessarily make a difference.
Twitch / Amazon, have been doing this via the Prime membership for over a year I think.
Yes - it's great to have a bunch of great games for free* (*for Prime sub cost). I still haven't played all but 1 game for 10 minutes to test the store / platform.
Why? Most are games I don't intend to play right now, and my time is taken up with all the other games I have, on a service so rich in useful features that is actually for easier and more enjoyable to play there.

Steam works a lot better for me since I just pick up and play via Link / Link App in which ever room make sense, do so with a controller if I want via BPM, or even play RTS with a Controller that actually works well with it.
Quick access to friends, integration with other services / workshop, and easier ways to use my PC in the lounge as well.
And all that is just what works for me preferred and my setup.

 

[BernardoOne]

I did read them. Here they are again in case you didn't.

[without knowing which games] "If thats the only benefit it has over other competitors, thats not enough."

"generally they seem to be bit more of a middle of a ground indie titles with scores around 6-7... they're just gonna do that for next year and stop doing it?"

"Giving free games does nothing except make users wait and not buy."

"It's also a bit disengenious. Those free games are not benefits"

"anything free that's not on my wishlist is useless. Especially true for some people if there's no steam trading cards."

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They are not benefits. They are not reasons why I should buy games there. Why would a time limited promo that doesn't apply through the life of the platform on the actual purchases i make be a benefit?

 

[Durante]

My only complaint about Steam is that their sales don't seem so awesome anymore.

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Note that publishers/developers set sales prices, not Valve.

 

[razakin]

My only complaint about Steam is that their sales don't seem so awesome anymore.

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Well, blame publishers for that, it's not like Steam handles how big of a sale game gets.

And honestly, I think the whole "Steam Sales suck" mentality is bit odd, at least for me. I mean, I do have bit over 800 games on Steam, so of course most sales do not interest me because A) I own the game or B) I'm not interested in the game. Or the game is still so new that there won't be 50%+ higher discount. Hard to say how those sales are for a new PC gamer.

 

[sanstesy]

Nice.

 

[Nzyme32]

Competition is always good.

But Steam, Epic, Uplay, Origin, GoG, Xbox, Battle.net and Bethesda... I don't game on PC anymore, but when I did, this sure was annoying.

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Barely any of these are "competition" especially when they are publisher-centric stores with barely any functionality, usability or features to make them worth my time or money.
If you don't like some of them - don't use them, skip the games rather than plop money on something that may not even function or be accessible as you expect.

 

[StereoVSN]

This is quite interesting development. However, is Epic going to do more than offer a marketplace?

- Are games going to be cheaper due to lower fees?
- How about mod support?
- What about Big Picture Mode
- Is Controller support going to be there?
- VR game support?
- Controvuting both to VR and Linux endeavors like Steam?
- Discussion boards/guides/etc?
- Allowing devs to sell keys for Epic store on Humble/GmG/etc?

Steam isnt just a storefront.

 

[OneBadMutha]

Some people here seem pretty upset that another company had the nerve to compete.

On the surface it's good for the developers that sell through the store. Consumers aren't going to quit PC gaming out of confusion. It doesn't mean PC gamers lose platform features of Steam. It doesn't even segment the base as PC gamers use Discord to communicate and there's no reason to expect walls between gamers who bought games on different platforms.

 

[GaimeGuy]

Personally, I don't need another PC storefront. Certainly not interested in having another one of these things installed on my PC.

But the more competition the merrier I guess.

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What have any of the pc marketplaces done to actually compete with Valve on features? As clunky as steam can be, it still offers the best refund policies, the best tools and backend features, hardware abstraction layers, cross os support, and the convenience of libraries from the largest variety of companies, both big and small.

GOG offers the "No DRM!" thing, which they can only enjoy because of the health of the pc marketplace thanks to valve'a ecosystem. But in terms of actual "competition?" All I see is $$$ incentives and fragmentation. Hardly a benefit to the actual products being put out.

 

[Durante]

"It's also a bit disengenious. Those free games are not benefits"

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Free games aren't platform benefits in the context of that discussion.
Having a free game I might or might not enjoy does not make forcing me to buy another game I want on an inferior platform better, or improve the feature set of that inferior platform.

As a PC gamer and an enthusiast, I have a long-term perspective on games, and that affects my platform decisions (and is one of the reasons I e.g. appreciate Valve's Linux and open source support efforts so much). Getting some freebies is potentially nice, but not something which changes the inherent desirability of a platform or my decision making regarding where I buy.

Since you might have missed it, can I ask you again to tell me how "competing" by buying exclusivity and forcing me to use an inferior platform is a form of competition that helps me as a customer?

It doesn't mean PC gamers lose platform features of Steam.

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This would be true if Epic hadn't stated their intention of buying exclusivity.
That is not competition, and that will cause me to lose Steam features for those games. (Probably not nearly as completely as UWP would, but really nothing compares to that on a shit scale)

 

[AmFreak]

That's what it boils down to.
I'd hope this attempt by Epic is different, but their responses so far aren't 100% encouraging.
(Especially regarding gamer <-> publisher power dynamics)

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They just announced that they will only take 40% of everyone else cut and thus giving up a huge chunk of their profits on top of giving games away and buying exclusives.
If this is good or bad is another question, but i think it's pretty clear this is different.

 

[Lashley]

It'll last longer than Twitch's game store did, but not by much.

 

[Sheepinator]

They are not benefits. They are not reasons why I should buy games there. Why would a time limited promo that doesn't apply through the life of the platform on the actual purchases i make be a benefit?

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Why are yourself and another poster so hung up on the semantics of benefit vs promotion? Especially when neither word were used by Epic? And yes, having free games would still be a benefit to you.

 

[StereoVSN]

Wait, Epic is going for exusitivity BS? I guess more games to scratch off the list when it comes around. Bleah.

What's interesting also is that none of their benefits are consumer related. One would lose all the features of Steam for what exactly?

 

[Braaier]

If there are good deals I'll use it. Sorry steam

 

[BernardoOne]

Why are yourself and another poster so hung up on the semantics of benefit vs promotion? Especially when neither word were used by Epic? And yes, having free games would still be a benefit to you.

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I'd like to know what they actually offer to the consumers that buy games there. Yeah free games is cool and all, but that doesn't make me buy games there. I'd like to know what features they will have that would make me buy something from them.

 

[Ge0force]

One would lose all the features of Steam for what exactly?

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"Competition"

 

[Hektor]

Wait, Epic is going for exusitivity BS? I guess more games to scratch off the list when it comes around. Bleah.

What's interesting also is that none of their benefits are consumer related. One would lose all the features of Steam for what exactly?

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According to some people itt, the knowledge that more of your hard earned money goes to one company over another should be enough for you.

Definitely worth the tradeoff. I'll be able to sleep much better knowing this.

 

[Sheepinator]

Free games aren't platform benefits in the context of that discussion.
Having a free game I might or might not enjoy does not make forcing me to buy another game I want on an inferior platform better, or improve the feature set of that inferior platform.

As a PC gamer and an enthusiast, I have a long-term perspective on games, and that affects my platform decisions (and is one of the reasons I e.g. appreciate Valve's Linux and open source support efforts so much). Getting some freebies is potentially nice, but not something which changes the inherent desirability of a platform or my decision making regarding where I buy.

Since you might have missed it, can I ask you again to tell me how "competing" by buying exclusivity and forcing me to use an inferior platform is a form of competition that helps me as a customer?

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You aren't "forced" to buy a game there, or to use an inferior platform.

You're picking an argument with me that I have no interest in. I'll just repost what I said here hours ago, since it applies to your attempt to argue with me:

"Consumers will download the store client for exclusive content or exclusive features. If there aren't either of those, then they won't."

"That's up to each consumer [re buying something on Epic vs Steam]. I don't mean that to sound dismissive, I'm just saying that's how a free market is supposed to work. The customers will be there, or they won't. Makes no difference to me, and I have zero interest in Fortnite."

 

[Sheepinator]

I'd like to know what they actually offer to the consumers that buy games there. Yeah free games is cool and all, but that doesn't make me buy games there. I'd like to know what features they will have that would make me buy something from them.

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You have access to the same information I do, and you know far more about your own situation and preferences than I do.

 

[Durante]

You aren't "forced" to buy a game there, or to use an inferior platform.

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I am if they buy exclusivity for a game. Well that, or not play it of course, which is a choice I might make.

But that doesn't really change my argument at all -- the question just becomes
How does "competing" by buying exclusivity and forcing me to use an inferior platform or not play the game at all help me as a consumer?

I believe the answer is "It does not", but I'm more than willing to hear specific arguments against that view.

 

[Sheepinator]

I am if they buy exclusivity for a game. Well that, or not play it of course, which is a choice I might make.

But that doesn't really change my argument at all -- the question just becomes
How does "competing" by buying exclusivity and forcing me to use an inferior platform or not play the game at all help me as a consumer?

I believe the answer is "It does not", but I'm more than willing to hear specific arguments against that view.

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Are you?