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Epic Store's way of "competing" is one that actively hurt the market

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spman2099

spman2099

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,893
2n2 said:
I can't speak for everyone, but the number of PC games I buy at launch is directly related to the prices I can get on third party sellers. (GMG, Fanatical, Voidu, etc). I only buy older games on Steam when they have dropped in price low enough by comparison.

How does removing the ability to shop around for the best price for the platform which has the most beneficial features to me not hurt me as a consumer?
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I have no doubt that this is inconvenient for consumers. However, I don't think the market as a whole has been effected. Ultimately, Epic isn't going to be able to purchase exclusivity rights for every other game. That wouldn't likely be profitable. This is a method for securing initial interest. This is all a move to help their platform be competitive. If they can secure a foothold then pricing will improve for the average consumer, as there will be another big player directly challenging Steam and they will be vying for the consumer's attention.

So, yeah, it may not be ideal that for one game, at this moment; your options have indeed been limited. You could say that this exclusivity deal is bad for the consumer in the immediate, but ultimately it seems like it will probably be a good thing for the market as a whole. That is what I meant when I said that it seems healthy.
 
Josecitox

Josecitox

Member
Oct 25, 2017
390
Argentina
What's exactly wrong about this? It's a disruptive move developers mostly needed, not a single one wants to give Steam more money and this is a clear message for them rather the consumer.
Consumers ranting about the lack of choice now are the same that buy games only on Steam, the ones that riot when it's not on Steam, the ones that trashed EA for creating Origin or Ubisoft for Uplay, etc, it's neverending nonsense.

If devs see the oportunity to publish the game and get more money they'll do it, Steam's reached at the expense of earning way less it's enough anymore because just as the consumer, they also have the power of choice now.

Also, those mentioning that Epic's platform is worse due not having enough features, do you really think Steam launched with everything it has now? for years it was shit so in a couple of years it will surely improve.
 
Tetrinski

Tetrinski

Banned
May 17, 2018
2,915
Maybe Epic are just trying to force Valve to make Half-Life 3?

Also, I couldn´t care less about Valve. As a consumer, I will adapt. Epic pays small developers a better cut? Good, that´s all I care about. The people who are afraid of this competition and want Valve to keep their monopoly are the same ones who, 15 years ago, would have cried over the disappearance of big box PC games due to Valve itself. There is a huge part of our community who seem afraid of any change. At the pace at which Steam is updating (it needs an urgent overhaul), in less than one year the Epic store will be a better place to play.
 
Tygre

Tygre

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,177
Chesire, UK
Josecitox said:
What's exactly wrong about this?
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It's creating a monopoly.

That's generally understood to be a bad thing for everyone other than the one with the monopoly, and as a society we generally try to prevent monopolies forming.

Tetrinski said:
Also, I couldn´t care less about Valve. As a consumer, I will adapt. Epic pays small developers a better cut? Good, that´s all I care about. The people who are afraid of this competition and want Valve to keep their monopoly are the same ones who, 15 years ago, would have cried over the disappearance of big box PC games due to Valve itself.
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Valve do not hold a monopoly over anything*. Valve are not the sole supplier of anything they sell. Any game on Steam can be bought from 3rd party sellers.

*The closest they come to monopoly power is the Marketplace for Artifact cards and cosmetic goods in DotA/Counter Strike.
 

Deleted member 6730

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
11,526
tuxfool said:
The issue here isn't even the exclusive nature, but the fact that they're effectively pulling the rug out under potential consumers, at the last minute.

They're actively antagonizing customers, that might otherwise be willing to try out a new service provided there was some value. These deals just harden people's stances against them.
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On an open platform like the PC where gaming is mostly done through your free app of choice, exclusives mean jack shit. If you've been using Steam and don't see something on Steam chances are you're not going play it. Having to go through the process of downloading, creating an account, putting your payment information is just too much of a hassle especially for a platform that offers very few exclusive deals besides a free game every two weeks, is terribly laid out, doesn't even have a search bar, and doesn't even have that many compelling exclusives besides maybe Fortnite. Even if Metro and The Division are your most anticipated games of all time is that really enough to get the average consumer to switch to the Epic Store?
 
Bede-x

Bede-x

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,568
Yep, this could end up hurting the PC market. From my personal perspective, not only is the exclusivity forcing me to buy the games at a higher price, since Steam keys are cheaper than Epic's store, it's also forcing me to use a client with no big picture mode, as well as spread my friends and games amongst clients. And if Epic ends up winning, games could possibly go up in price, since Steam keys already allow developers to sell their games without paying Valve, so Epic only taking a 12% cut, isn't doing much for me as a consumer.
 
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GhostTrick

GhostTrick

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,402
Josecitox said:
What's exactly wrong about this? It's a disruptive move developers mostly needed, not a single one wants to give Steam more money and this is a clear message for them rather the consumer.
Consumers ranting about the lack of choice now are the same that buy games only on Steam, the ones that riot when it's not on Steam, the ones that trashed EA for creating Origin or Ubisoft for Uplay, etc, it's neverending nonsense.

If devs see the oportunity to publish the game and get more money they'll do it, Steam's reached at the expense of earning way less it's enough anymore because just as the consumer, they also have the power of choice now.

Also, those mentioning that Epic's platform is worse due not having enough features, do you really think Steam launched with everything it has now? for years it was shit so in a couple of years it will surely improve.
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It's amazing. It's like you didn't read the first post and procedeed to post some mantra.
 

FlyStarJay

Member
Jan 7, 2018
429
it should not have been removed from other storefronts and its £4.40 more expensive in UK (yes tax for UK was factored in at 20%)
 

Deleted member 15395

Unshakable Resolve
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
3,145
GhostTrick said:
It is explained in the first post:
Before the game was sold on multiple places at different prices.
Now it'll be sold in one place at one price.
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I understand, but that's no indication that it's immediately bad for the market. Best case scenario, you end up with a competitive storefront / altnerative to steam (features will come in time but to me it makes no sense to compete with steam on features alone, they are too big and already very well established on the community) worst case scenario the storefront goes down / becomes irrelevant.

I'm not saying gamers need to feel good about this, but from a business standpoint it makes sense.
 
Prototype Viktor

Prototype Viktor

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
11,953
Houston
Dakkon said:
How is Steam's way of competing harmful to the market? Valve doesn't force anyone to release on Steam and only Steam, anyone who releases to Steam is free to release their games anywhere they want with no penalty. Steam tries to compete by providing features consumers & developers can take advantage of - Steam's controller API, refunds, reviews, forums, Steam Workshop, Steam Guides, etc.

Epic's method of competing is just buying people off for exclusivity to force the consumer onto their platform even if their platform has worse features.

The physical version of this is if Metro Exodus was only buyable at Wal-mart because Wal-mart wanted to compete with Gamestop and rather than compete on pricing/warranty/refunds/features they were just like "lol no product 4 u".

Making a platform compelling enough for consumers & developers to want to put their games on their is good business and competition. Paying people off because you know your platform is so inadequate people wouldn't use it otherwise is just lazy.
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How is facbook way of competing harmful to the market? facbook doesn't force anyone to release on facbook and only facbook , anyone who releases to facbook is free to post anywhere they want with no penalty. facbook tries to compete by providing features consumers & developers can take advantage of - facbook messenger API, refunds, reviews, forums, instagram, whatsapp, etc.
 
Techno

Techno

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The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
6,447
This is a real monopoly. Now people are calling it "competition", fuck outta here.
 
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GhostTrick

GhostTrick

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,402
Innolis said:
I understand, but that's no indication that it's immediately bad for the market. Best case scenario, you end up with a competitive storefront / altnerative to steam (features will come in time but to me it makes no sense to compete with a storefront on features alone) worst case scenario the storefront goes down / becomes irrelevant.

I'm not saying gamers need to feel good about this, but from a business standpoint it makes sense.
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"that it's immediately bad for the market".
Eh, it literally is immediate:
There was competition. There's no more competition.
The game price was between 45 to 60 bucks. It's now 50 to 60 bucks.


DaveLong said:
So Valve is going to start selling Portal, Portal 2, Half-Life and its sequel and offer all their free games product on other game services then, right?
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They did. All these games were on Uplay. Same for CSGO. Origin never wanted to sell them. Uplay stopped selling 3rd party titles.
 
Shelbyville Milhouse

Shelbyville Milhouse

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,397
Prototype Viktor said:
How is facbook way of competing harmful to the market? facbook doesn't force anyone to release on facbook and only facbook , anyone who releases to facbook is free to post anywhere they want with no penalty. facbook tries to compete by providing features consumers & developers can take advantage of - facbook messenger API, refunds, reviews, forums, instagram, whatsapp, etc.
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Facebook? What are you talking about?
 
OniluapL

OniluapL

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,002
DaveLong said:
So Valve is going to start selling Portal, Portal 2, Half-Life and its sequel and offer all their free games product on other game services then, right?
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They did for a while, and even then, that's not the point, Valve didn't buy exclusivity of Portal, they made Portal. No one is really complaining Fortnite or EA games are exclusive to Epic or Origin. It's also annoying, sure, but it's a different problem.
 
spman2099

spman2099

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,893
Tygre said:
It's creating a monopoly.

That's generally understood to be a bad thing for everyone other than the one with the monopoly, and as a society we generally try to prevent monopolies forming.
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They have a monopoly on one game...

It isn't like they have a monopoly on all games being sold. That is when a monopoly becomes a genuine problem. The monopoly example is really not a great one, guys.
 
Avitus

Avitus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,938
DaveLong said:
So Valve is going to start selling Portal, Portal 2, Half-Life and its sequel and offer all their free games product on other game services then, right?
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Everyone understands a developer having their own launcher for products they actively developed. It's no different than MS and Sony denying each other games they made with their own studios.

What does any of that have to do with moneyhatting 3rd party games like Metro on a platform where that previously wasn't a thing?
 
cmagus

cmagus

Member
Oct 27, 2017
674
Honestly if you wanna be competitive there is no reason you couldn't sign deals offering the game at a lower price to give incentive to use their store but this buying up exclusives is dumb and taking player choice away isn't gonna help. I'm not buying stuff on Epics store since all my friends are on Steam and that won't change so I just won't be buying games I guess.

I have a few odd games on other platforms like Origin and Blizzard and tbh it sucks, it's not that the launcher itself is bad there is just a real lack of community feeling to them and most people I know just don't bother buying games on those platforms and are ok not doing so.
 
AHA-Lambda

AHA-Lambda

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,826
spman2099 said:
They have a monopoly on one game...

It isn't like they have a monopoly on all games being sold. That is when a monopoly becomes a genuine problem. The monopoly example is really not a great one, guys.
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This forum really does love to scream the sky is falling on things like mtx all the time "look at horse armour! slippery slope! soon we'll be buying ammo!"

But when we see actual bad business practices, some even defend it. I am convinced it's people who don't play on PC largely.
So now when we see an actual monopoly on a number of products, not just one!!, people hand wave this away.

Metro Exodus
Super Meat Boy Forever
Hello Neighbour Hide and Seek
Hades
Ashen
Journey

That's just the top of my head, there are more on the store that are exclusive.
That is a monopoly, and it is certainly bloody not competition.

For christ sake, it wouldn't be as bad at least if they sold the products elsewhere.
I can buy Ubisoft games outside of UPlay.
I can buy EA games outside of Origin.
I can buy Activision games outside of Battlenet.
I can buy Bethesda games outside of the Bethesda Launcher.
This isn't hard.
 
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Tygre

Tygre

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,177
Chesire, UK
DaveLong said:
So Valve is going to start selling Portal, Portal 2, Half-Life and its sequel and offer all their free games product on other game services then, right?
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Disregarding that these are first party games, and nobody is complaining about Fortnite and Unreal Tournament not being available elsewhere...

You can buy Portal 2 from every CD key re-seller on the planet. You can buy Portal 2 on Amazon.

Epic is removing that choice.

spman2099 said:
They have a monopoly on one game...

It isn't like they have a monopoly on all games being sold. That is when a monopoly becomes a genuine problem. The monopoly example is really not a great one, guys.
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No, they have a monopoly on ~7 games at this point, and show no signs of slowing down.

Monopoly is about supply. If there is only one place I can buy a product, that gives undue power to the supplier of that product.
 
Bjones

Bjones

Member
Oct 30, 2017
5,622
Fragmentation isn't a good thing. What if your ps4 had a app for each publisher that you had to use for each publishers games that needed a separate account for each that had thier own stores and features that didn't cross over to any other apps.

You it would be ridiculous.
 
Dakkon

Dakkon

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,227
Prototype Viktor said:
How is facbook way of competing harmful to the market? facbook doesn't force anyone to release on facbook and only facbook , anyone who releases to facbook is free to post anywhere they want with no penalty. facbook tries to compete by providing features consumers & developers can take advantage of - facbook messenger API, refunds, reviews, forums, instagram, whatsapp, etc.
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TBH, I would have agreed with your analogy on this a few years ago, the only problem with Facebook is they decided to use their large sum of cash to buy out their competitors (e.g. the aforementioned Instagram) wholesale, and got lazy on improving their platform on their own because of it, so the comparison isn't really valid here. Valve hasn't bought out their competitors, they just invest tons of money into R&D on Linux support/VR and their VR games in progress/controllers/machine learning Anti-Cheat in VACnet that is a WIP/their Trust Factor system they're working on providing devs this year. They've stayed the course on focusing on improving their own ecosystem for their consumers & developers only.

I'm not sure how this is "bad for the market" especially in comparison to someone just being lazy and throwing money around so they have to do the bare minimum to compete as platforms.
 
DaveLong

DaveLong

Member
Nov 2, 2017
1,199
GhostTrick said:
What ?
It's literally the opposite.
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You're the one making the distinction between a game made by a store owner and a game made by someone else, not me, and not the majority of customers. People just see these as games. They don't know who makes them most times, just where they have to buy it. Exclusives are exclusives no matter who produces them. If you want to split hairs to create threads and rage against the dying of the light, go for it, but you're fooling yourself if you think this is some massive distinction to the world outside this and other gamer specfiic forums.
 
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GhostTrick

GhostTrick

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,402
DaveLong said:
You're the one making the distinction between a game made by a store owner and a game made by someone else, not me, and not the majority of customers. People just see these as games. They don't know who makes them most times, just where they have to buy it. Exclusives are exclusives no matter who produces them. If you want to split hairs to create threads and rage against the dying of the light, go for it, but you're fooling yourself if you think this is some massive distinction to the world outside this and other gamer specfiic forums.
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You asked when Valve was going to start selling these games.
They did and they didn't decided to remove them ?
 
spman2099

spman2099

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,893
AHA-Lambda said:
This forum really does love to scream the sky is falling on mtx all the time "look at horse armour! slippery slope! soon we'll be buying ammo!"

And yet now when we see an actual monopoly on a number of products, not just one!!, people hand wave this away.

Metro Exodus
Super Meat Boy Forever
Hello Neighbour Hide and Seek
Hades
Ashen
Journey

That's just the top of my head, I'm certain there are more on the store that are exclusive.
That is a monopoly.
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Sorry, you are correct. I could have worded my post better. Still, there are only a handful of exclusives there. I feel like this is a very necessary evil and ultimately good for everyone. Epic isn't going to be able to purchase exclusivity for the majority of games coming out, and if they start to have success acquiring consumer interest Steam is going to have to improve some of their policies. I still fail to see how this isn't a good thing in the long term.
 
2shd

2shd

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,586
Tetrinski said:
Also, I couldn´t care less about Valve. As a consumer, I will adapt. Epic pays small developers a better cut? Good, that´s all I care about. The people who are afraid of this competition and want Valve to keep their monopoly are the same ones who, 15 years ago, would have cried over the disappearance of big box PC games due to Valve itself. There is a huge part of our community who seem afraid of any change. At the pace at which Steam is updating (it needs an urgent overhaul), in less than one year the Epic store will be a better place to play.
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There are plenty of people who don't want Valve to have a monopoly and would be happy for competition given the competitor has close to feature parity and does not kill the option of shopping for the best deal. There's more nuance here than just "competition is good".

The developer cut is all you care about? Would you pay more money for the same product on the same service just so the developers get a bigger cut even if you could get it from a third party authorized seller for less?

Perhaps if someone only dabbles in PC games occasionally or plays one or two games, the difference are negligible, but people have built up a massive library on Steam, in part due to the client features, so losing all of that is not trivial. It's not just fear of change.

Also, just out of curiosity, what features of Steam do you feel need an overhaul that is urgent? I'm quite satisfied with the features, and while the library and store interfaces are showing some age, I wouldn't classify the need as urgent. At least compared to the features Epic is missing.
 
Ge0force

Ge0force

Self-requested ban.
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
5,265
Belgium
Exactly. Storefronts should compete by offering the best features and policies, not by paying 3rd party devs and publishers to keep the most popular pc games away from other storefronts.
 
AHA-Lambda

AHA-Lambda

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,826
spman2099 said:
Sorry, you are correct. I could have worded my post better. Still, there are only a handful of exclusives there. I feel like this is a very necessary evil and ultimately good for everyone.
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Fucking christ I give up

The big big big thing people seem to rally against steam is the 30%. The large, large bulk of indies are not getting on Epic, so the better cut is not going to help them. And again, everyone does 30%, Valve's greedy reputation is totally unearned.

This is only good for big brand indies and AAAs. And as for AAAs? Who cares.
This forum loves to villainise big companies. So why is everyone so sympathetic to them now.
 
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