This is not worth adding because it cannot be added. The presumption that epic has no choice is the foundation of this argument. The presumption that steam is bad would be the bedrock.
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Let's Talk About Borderlands 3, Epic Store Exclusivity, And An Uncontrolled Market [Jim Sterling]
- Thread starter lashman
- Start date
This is not worth adding because it cannot be added. The presumption that epic has no choice is the foundation of this argument. The presumption that steam is bad would be the bedrock.
Epic was the company that publicly denounced PC gaming and practically left it right before it started to boom. I don't think they're that great at those business maneuvers.
Well, looking at their success now, they've since straightened up.
Well they do have a choice, but if they want quick results and they have the capital to brute force them, it's the most effective way to gain marketshare
That is, if it works, however if they have enough money, it will work
That's kind of the problem
Steam isn't bad, and Epic are not doing this because they think Steam are bad, they just want a foothold in the market so they can make money
Have they though? Have they really? Does the sum of their business decisions support this?
I mean, clearly yes they have been successful.
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Yes, they have. However, given the fact that their current success is heavily based on a single game that was copied from something else (PUBG), the fact that their recent track record when it comes to game releases has more misses than hits and the fact that they are facing steep competition in the engine space, I'd say that there's not a lot of reason to believe that Epic has some special kind of business foresight . Epic themselves understand that, which is why they are in such a rush to establish themselves as something more than "the Fortnite and Unreal people".
Conversely, I'd say the fact that they've been able to leverage such a singular entity into the value proposition that it is, in the face of well funded competition, in addition to having received major interest from a colossal corporation - which is to say, Tencent did extensive due diligence and has a ton of confidence in their long term future - which was followed up from even *more* funding from some extremely top tier financial backers, and the fact that they're putting up what seems to be the best challenge in years to the very well established Steam suggests that yes they absolutely know what they're doing and have the capacity to execute. As a game studio? Eh. Here or there. As a corporate entity? Absolutely.
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Who said anything about want? I said that I believe in their ability to execute. It'll absolutely suck, and I would love - love! - for Epic to fail, but they definitely know what they're doing and have received significant outside attention because of that fact. That doesn't make it a done deal, but yeah, I'm not going to write off their capacity to inflict colossal amounts of harm on the PC market.
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Thank you, it's pretty frustrating reading this thread and seeing the video being misinterpreted repeatedly.
Because loot boxes are predatory towards people who have gambling addictions and potentially illegal. It's not a valid comparison.
Also being angry about lootboxes worked, and it worked specifically because they're exploitative and governments step in to protect people and put pressure on companies that do things that are exploitative
Lootboxes in 2019 are not as much of an issue as they were in 2017
The government isn't going to protect people from capitalism, because the government endorses capitalism, so while it's perfectly fine to make our voices heard about how what Epic are doing negatively impacts us, doing so isn't really going to make much difference, as it's unlikely to change Epics mind
So, by the same logic, because lootboxes are legally okay, we should not blame EA or Activision, and instead fight for better regulation... but that's really not what Jim did in the last years, he squarely (and rightfully) attackd BOTH: sure he did call for regulation as that's the right way to go for blatant abuses and exploitation of legal loopholes, but there was also a direct call to those two companies for being shite.
And again, he still spams that Bobby Kotick with horns gif, he doesn't just campaigns for developer unions and tell devs that "Activision is right to fire you, and you should fight to change rules!", he rightfully targets both the company doing a terrible thing AND the laws that allow it.
Valve indirectly fed Digital Homicide into suing Jim for millions: I can totally relate why he can't fucking stand Valve; it's the quintessential hate boner, it's as easy as that. I see this video, full of pulled punches and hypocrisy, as the begin of a slow re-align toward the right side of the issue, the same side of his audience - the consumers-. This will become even easier when, once most big indies are on EGS and the dilution will have destroyed that marketplace for indies much like steam, switch, psn and xbox marketplace were destroyed before, and there will be no one deluded enough to be on the EGS side.
And again, he still spams that Bobby Kotick with horns gif, he doesn't just campaigns for developer unions and tell devs that "Activision is right to fire you, and you should fight to change rules!", he rightfully targets both the company doing a terrible thing AND the laws that allow it.
Valve indirectly fed Digital Homicide into suing Jim for millions: I can totally relate why he can't fucking stand Valve; it's the quintessential hate boner, it's as easy as that. I see this video, full of pulled punches and hypocrisy, as the begin of a slow re-align toward the right side of the issue, the same side of his audience - the consumers-. This will become even easier when, once most big indies are on EGS and the dilution will have destroyed that marketplace for indies much like steam, switch, psn and xbox marketplace were destroyed before, and there will be no one deluded enough to be on the EGS side.
They're the world leaders in 3rd party game engines. Their only major competition in this space is Unity. That advantage, along with all of the developer connections that come along with it, puts them in a good place. I don't understand why you're downplaying UE4 very hard for absolutely no reason. It's like downplaying Steam and saying "Valve is just that Artifact/lootcrate company and the Steam people, nbd."
The market for 3rd party engines is never going to go down, and it's not looking like any competitor is going to even come close any time soon. Being "The Engine People" is a really good place to be.
Sorry for the delay in my response here....life takes over after the work day ends.
We agree, it's just the semantics of the thing for me. "Right" = "Most effective/efficient" in the pure business sense. I feel like it's a way, but not the only way that things could, or should, work. If the people at the top put forth effort versus taking the path of least effort, the customer would benefit and the business would see the profit.
Jim was right...they see us as consumers, not customers. They want the money, not the loyalty, per se. I don't see that as a necessary component of capitalism, but I definitely do acknowledge that it's a result of unchecked capitalism, fueled by good old fashioned greed.
i mean, they're attempting to have complete vertical integration, from thegame engine, development, middlewares and server hosting to digital storefront distribution, while attempting to eliminate their competitors (Unity and Steam). It's very easy to see a timeline where they are the only real marketable option for a dev. I can imagine Sweeney frothing at the mouth at cementing his company as a cornerstone of the PC market.
Competition leads to monopoly. Even the most basic brainwashed Econ 101 class will tell you this. It ironically takes tremendous state interference to ensure "the market" operates properly for the mass of people.
We are all extremely lucky to have Valves benign monopoly right now, because Epic's will fucking suck for the reasons you hint at.
Lootboxes are not illegal even if you feel it should be. It's not apples to apples but it's still anti consumer.
I don't think Jim is saying anything controversial or new in here and people have misunderstood his view greatly. He's just stating that, while what Epic is doing is morally wrong, they are in all they right to do it, because that's how capitalism works. He's not defending the big corporation, just pointing out the flaws of the capitalist system that allow this to happen. Should be done that way? Of course not. But they can do it that way, and they'll use all the tools available to do so. Because the system allows it so.
Also, the big "defending corporations" talk should not have a place in this topic when you are making a battle between two megacorporations who need no backup or defense.
Thank you, this is exactly the point. Gamers get mad and waste energy on a subproduct of the actual real issue. Go vote, kids.
Also, the big "defending corporations" talk should not have a place in this topic when you are making a battle between two megacorporations who need no backup or defense.
Thank you, this is exactly the point. Gamers get mad and waste energy on a subproduct of the actual real issue. Go vote, kids.
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See, this would be a reasonable stance to take, if normally this didn't stop Jim from continuing to rip into someone/something anyway. Epic for some reason is the exception. This is the time where we need to get mad at the system, not the bad actor within it.
Capitalism IS an anti-consumer practice.
Jim is still right about your statement. The status quo wasn't working. This is the shakeup everyone needs.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Epic's moneyhats are what Epic needs. Not anyone else.
Uh, the fact everyone is talking about Steam and Epic, may lead to some actual change. Without that kick from Epic, who would be talking about this.
Like I've always said, money talks, everything else just kicks rocks.
I think your argument is different from mine, in the sense that it is based on different factors, but I do think it has validity. I guess we'll see in the long run.
I am not downplaying Unreal Engine at all, in fact I think it's by far the best thing that Epic has produced. The amount of creative power it gives to even small developers is great. What I am saying is that Unreal Engine was not the thing that gave Epic its vast wealth. Fortnite was. The reason why Epic can spend that much money on moneyhats is Fortnite. Isn't it?
I can too, but unless Epic decides to adopt a more customer-friendly approach, it is in the customers' interest that they fail.
I mean, I kinda doubt they'd be getting the lions share of the revenue there... surely the games will sell a ton more once they hit Steam simply based off of the massive userbase. Epic knows that, Ubisoft knows that and I'm sure Valve does as well.
The way I see it is that Epic Games Store is using these timed exclusives simply for the limited promotional headlines and attention to establish relevance while they continue to hammer away at their feature set. I don't think so much for AAA but for the indie games that join in, that type of focal point is a priceless opportunity that you'd have to be a fool to pass up on if given the option. I don't know about Ubisoft but like Gearbox have been Unreal for a while now, I'd imagine a partnership like that was more based off of helping out a longtime partner and at the end of the day, six months ain't that big of a deal.
the stupid thing is Epic could instead have dumped loads of money into funding exclusives that can only ever be played on their store, and then grab loads of big budget games and sell them for cheaper than Steam does
That way they'll legitimately steal sales from Steam as they offer the better price, and people would naturally come to their store anyway because of all the exclusives they have funded
If they give a big indie dev money to make a game for them, then it can only be sold on their store (and maybe consoles if they allow that) and it won't ever come to Steam
People wouldn't hate Epic and over time they'd developer a USP of exclusive PC games that can't be played anywhere else
That way they'll legitimately steal sales from Steam as they offer the better price, and people would naturally come to their store anyway because of all the exclusives they have funded
If they give a big indie dev money to make a game for them, then it can only be sold on their store (and maybe consoles if they allow that) and it won't ever come to Steam
People wouldn't hate Epic and over time they'd developer a USP of exclusive PC games that can't be played anywhere else
I don't think they're interested in forcing developers to permanently do anything; they aren't publishing the games.
Are you an addict? Are you in recovery because it really sounds like you have no understanding what the heck you are talking about and are just using addicts to forward an agenda.
Yeah, I agree with this. I think what Epic is doing is dumb. PC gamers are used to waiting for games that have hit other platforms first. If they had real exclusives, I think far fewer people would have a problem with their store, and they would have a better shot at establishing a much more permanent userbase.
Well if they want to be a permanent part of the PC gaming scene they need to do more than money hat
Short term that's going to work well enough, but long term it's probably not viable
Hopefully while they are making shit tons of cash they'll set a bit aside and get back into making single player games that are exclusive. I'd kill for a fully realized Infiltrator game.
But yeah I agree, they have to do something down the line to differentiate; I have no clue how long 'the place where you play Fortnite' will be answer, probably longer than I'd guess but still..
A bit offtopic I guess, but wtf is wrong with epic store atm?
It doesnt send me my 2fa code to email so I can login.
This have happened before too, sometimes there is huge delay before they send it or you have to try multiple times before they send it.
Now I have tried for 15min, 5 times but the code never comes.
Just a good reminder to think twice before I want to buy some Epic exclusive game.
Edit: finally got it, just 20min delay, competition is good!
It doesnt send me my 2fa code to email so I can login.
This have happened before too, sometimes there is huge delay before they send it or you have to try multiple times before they send it.
Now I have tried for 15min, 5 times but the code never comes.
Just a good reminder to think twice before I want to buy some Epic exclusive game.
Edit: finally got it, just 20min delay, competition is good!
Back when I installed Fortnite this happened to me as well, always had to try several times before getting a code.
Yep, companies are bad at the 'waiting game'.
I don't have any problems with this since I don't have to pay extra.
Steam and Epic games both work on the same hardware and neither require a toll-booth fee to play games online, or to simply access the store itself.
Unless THAT changes, this is fine with me.
Valve will punch back eventually. Maybe we'll even see some pricing competition too. $5 cheaper on one store over the other, etc... Who knows.
Let's see how it plays out.
Steam and Epic games both work on the same hardware and neither require a toll-booth fee to play games online, or to simply access the store itself.
Unless THAT changes, this is fine with me.
Valve will punch back eventually. Maybe we'll even see some pricing competition too. $5 cheaper on one store over the other, etc... Who knows.
Let's see how it plays out.
They don't even need to make the games
In theory, they could give Team Cherry a ton of money and get them to make their next game just for Epic
As they would have funded the game, people can't be mad at them for skipping Steam, and it means the game would only ever be able to be played on Epics store
It would also stop Team Cherry from hypothetically making a 3rd game that does appear on Steam, so it would get them a better result than their current moneyhats do
Their current tactic would mean they wait for Team Cherry to make a 3rd game, and then late in the day give them money to only sell it on the EGS for a year
Long term it makes more sense to allocate their moneyhat funds to developers to fund new exclusive Epic games
Oh but that's already a fact. Because Epic boycotts competing 3rd party keystores, games can be found significantly cheaper when they are released on Steam compared to Epic Store exclusive.
Example: https://www.resetera.com/threads/pc...ye-uzzy-is-your-new-king.108742/post-19562713
This post made me snort at work and now my coworkers think I'm weird. It seriously may be the most uninformed take I've ever read in an Epic thread.
Say what you will about EGS, about Epic's ethics, about anything else... but to say that they don't have business sense is absurd and really belies how little you understand the space they're competing in. This is a company that...
- Has demonstrated that they're able to cut underperforming products and properly prioritize their resourcing
- Is one of the few AAA developers to successfully integrate mobile industry methodologies in running their live ops campaigns
- Refined and popularized the battle pass, a monetization method so successful it's now considered a standard feature for similar games
- Continues to grow the biggest goddamn game in the world
Developers making more money due to less of a cut being paid to Steam/Epic/etc
There is one, GOG Galaxy, but it's similar to Steamworks in that it won't help you with crossplay. And of course implementing it appeals to a much smaller customer base than using Steamworks.
At this point comments like these should be treated as parroting Epic's own line on the topic. We don't talk this way about other practices that put more money in publisher's pockets at our expense. Nobody defends loot boxes like "well, whatever gets more money in the studio's pocket!"
Some grunt artist at Ubisoft isn't getting a bigger check because The Division 2 is an Epic/Uplay exclusive without any reseller market. A few big boy indie devs that mostly already make millions are getting an extra check out of Epic and that's about as far as any of this goes in terms of "being good for developers".
If you wanted to put more money in some starving artist's pocket you could've been buying from itch.io this entire time. And a bunch of those releases also get you a *drumroll* Steam key in addition to your DRM-free copy, that Valve doesn't see a penny from!
And because this has to be repeated over and over again in these threads, no, Valve does not encourage key generation out of the goodness of their hearts. They're trying to get you invested in their platform. But it's a far better deal for everyone involved than what Epic's doing.
Steam is also run by an independent company, while Epic has to please stakeholders.
Make no mistake, Valve is at its core very much about the idea of using a handful of workers to create things that generate massive ongoing revenue. While they compensate their employees very well by industry standards, they also fire them in waves with next to no notice to preserve the very lopsided salary costs/gross profit ratio.
But they aren't obligated to make huge moves in the way Epic and companies like it are.
They can make longer term goals their focus, and do things like solve problems through building new services that will hopefully prove lucrative in the long run rather than simply paying outright for exclusives; Epic currently has Tencent breathing down their neck to make big splashes that pay off quickly.
And it goes further back than this. It's why Valve reacted to the piracy epidemic of the 00's by building and improving Steam, while Epic simply fled to consoles, cut a huge deal with MS to make some exclusives for them, and didn't come back to PC until other companies stabilized the space.
This just happens to be better for consumers in a lot of ways. It's also bad in the sense that Valve's increasing service focus led to one of the most important franchises in existence simply ending mid-stream. I don't think Valve is some perfectly altruistic company. They're just far more well suited to running a service like Steam than a company like Epic is.
I doubt you'll see Steam pay for exclusives without there being some kind of service catch to it. To this point, they're more interested in putting that money towards building things, because quite often that new service/infrastructure/API will pay off far better over time than giving Ubisoft or Obsidian a pile of cash outright.
They didn't pay a cent for any of their de facto exclusives, and they have Halo coming in the midst of all this Epic money being tossed around. I just don't see them joining in on what Epic's doing.
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Good post overall so I'm taking a small snippet here because this is a pretty common misconception.
Epic is privately owned. The fact that Tencent has investment into the company doesn't mean that Tencent exerts control over the company. I've worked at multiple studios now with Tencent investment ranging from <10% to 100% wholly owned, and Tencent never attempted to influence how we ran our business outside of China. The big benefit of working with Tencent is that once they've invested in you, they recognize the talent it took for you to get to that point, and then just let you do your thing.
Epic is not obligated to any external factors to make big moves. They make big moves because they want to.
They straight up hacked PUBG into their game that was meant to ride the Minecraft wave. On one hand you cannot begrudge that decision, because it was obviously the right one. On the other hand, it's not exactly the sort of thing that comes off as being great creative and business work so much as they struck gold and dodged becoming another Heroes of Newerth or Homefront or one of the dozens of post-Battle Royale attempts that went nowhere.
The idea that they would buy into a company and not even set growth targets is kind of hard to believe. Maybe they don't interfere creatively or strategically at all, but not even any expectations?
Any publicly traded company responds to the growth demands of their shareholders to some extent.
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