How many is many? These people would be fragmenting their own library between two launchers and, as other people have pointed out through the thread, that's an inconvenience that can make people not want to play their games, apparently.
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"No Steam No Buy" an explanation about competition, launchers, storefronts and monopolies on PC.
- Thread starter GhostTrick
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That is very weak reasoning to defend the state of the Epic store. There are normally two reasons games launch needing Day 1 patches or Early Access. Time and money. Normally the Day 1 patches are an issue of deadlines that need to be met and normally Early Access is an issue of money. Epic doesn't seem to have an issue on any of those fronts and could have simply took the time to release a better product. There really is no excuse for companies that release poor launchers, when they can look at basic functionality of other launchers and attempt to match them.
They don't have a store-wide policy on DRM, and will allow developers to use DRM if they wish.
That makes them almost identical to Steam, which has thousands of DRM free games available. GOG are the only storefront which have a strict "no DRM, ever" policy.
OP
OP
Legit competition already exists with storefronts.
Launchers though ? Nah. In fact, I see nothing legit in Epic's attempt, apart from disrupting a marketing that was recovering well from near death for small profits.
Do you think Epic would have made a storefront if Fortnite was a flop and they didn't have the (insane) money that it brings in for them?
Everything in the OP might well be true, but I still think all the "concern" is completely ridiculous. This whole situation will resolve itself naturally. If Epic can't compete because of missing features, they will try to add them, or else nobody will use them. Or maybe enough people don't care about those features and it will still be a success. If people can't live without Steam's features, they will be able to survive without the handful of exclusive games. If indie games will sell much less on the Epic store, they'll stop agreeing to exclusivity. Whatever happens, we will be fine.
OP
OP
It's also funny how 3 competitors in the console space managed to reach an agreement on anti-consumer stuff such as online paywall.
People for some reason like to act as if these launchers are not being released by some of the biggest names in the industry.
If people like something enough, they'll make an exception to whatever rules they say they have.
The number of people who have completely forgotten all the crazy and frankly messed up stuff Steam has done over the years is absolutely astounding.
Also: tiny monopoly is an oxymoron.
Also: tiny monopoly is an oxymoron.
If any digital store front wants to overtake steam, they'll have to match and exceed Steams features. It's just that simple. Until someone is willing to do that and then give the devs a larger cut, Steam will reign supreme.
Are you trying to reinforce my point? Thanks. Epic made a ton of money and they could have taken the time to get this functionality working better before they released the store.
I know, it is strange isn't it?
Presumably because Battle.net is just as old as Steam and he's been using it for that time, so it's natural. League is also several years old and has no launcher in this sense. You just play the game.
Which means for them, it's not about the store or the features, it's about the games. If your argument is "I use steam because the store/client have these features, but I play these games that have none of that" then your argument doesn't hold water
Epic's attempt is basically what Microsoft's company philosophy is right now when it comes to their software, which is
cross-everything, as long as you buy it from us
Yep. If people are going to boycott Epic over the "crime" of having exclusive games, isn't the much bigger "crime" here the way Valve has allowed their community forums to become cesspools of hate because they're unwilling to pay for moderation.
It seems the issue is that Steam is far and away the best storefront and launcher for the consumer, but they're not best storefront for developers, which is why developers are going to Epic's storefront.
Moreover, seems like developer don't want a monopoly since they lose bargaining power. Developers/publishers seem to want to rein in Steam's dominance.
This reminds me a lot of iTunes in the mp3 days. The RIAA was very hesitant to go with the iTunes Store model until it was too late. They later provided better terms to competing stores such as the Zune Store, with Zune Pass, DRM free songs, and the like to prevent Apple from dictating the terms industry wide. That failed eventually as well and Apple was given DRM free songs and beat the RIAA on pricing.
Moreover, seems like developer don't want a monopoly since they lose bargaining power. Developers/publishers seem to want to rein in Steam's dominance.
This reminds me a lot of iTunes in the mp3 days. The RIAA was very hesitant to go with the iTunes Store model until it was too late. They later provided better terms to competing stores such as the Zune Store, with Zune Pass, DRM free songs, and the like to prevent Apple from dictating the terms industry wide. That failed eventually as well and Apple was given DRM free songs and beat the RIAA on pricing.
I wouldn't "welcome the launcher with open arms", but I'd use it without a second thought if it had the features described in their "coming Q2/Q3" article, plus good regional pricing for my region.
Ultimately, I buy my games wherever I get stuff I want. Social features are "stuff I want", same goes for cloud saves, achievements, etc. Prices that I can actually afford here in Argentina are also "stuff I want".
Library fragmentation isn't something I care that much about (I've bought games on Uplay because they have a ton of great features and good regional pricing for most of their back catalog, for instance).
Yeah, and all these features are launching Q2/Q3 next year. Not today, not tomorrow, not even in a month...
The number of people who cant seem to make a proper argument and resort to single line declarations without any substances behind them is absolutely astounding.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but there's probably a good reason other marketplaces don't want to incorporate forums and other features that require extensive moderation.
On top of that, Valve's business practices have always fallen out of user pressure. Valve has no interest in increasing its workload or its responsibility to consumers unless consumers put their foot down.
I also think it's incredibly contradictory that some posters will say "we aren't your friends, developers! what benefits you isn't necessarily good for us!" but... they play games. I know lots and lots of developers will survive without the deal that Epic is giving people and that other, currently better options exist. But this perspective seems fundamentally contradictory to me. If you like games, you want developers to get the best financial deals they can possibly get. Even if Epic completely sucks in almost every other way, championing the 88%/12% model seems logical to some extent. We can always do what gamers have done to Steam and see what happens: put our foot down and demand better. It's no an either/or situation.
The whole thing about Steam keys being able to sold anywhere as evidence Steam doesn't try to monopolize the PC gaming space is... pretty disingenuous.
Yes, Valve doesn't necessarily make money from that sale. But it keeps you engaged in their ecosystem. You are reliant on Steam for the ability to play your game. Steam therefore has control over your digital content as per their EULA. You are exposed to Steam's marketplace, and therefore their marketing. If you want a game's DLC, your only option is to buy it through Steam. All the features that you mentioned are so great about Steam? Are at least partially reliant on Steam's continued operation and Valve's continued benevolence. You are counted among the however many millions of Steam users there are, which they can therefore use to sell Steam to investors and benefit themselves financially.
You cannot pretend this is not an effort to increase the number of Steam users and benefit themselves financially. It's not altruism, even if it does end up working out for other stores like Humble or Amazon. Even if it's "good for gamers" in the current time frame we live in.
Call it what it is. Assigning moral superiority or subjective "worth" to what is ultimately a company seizing upon a capitalistic opportunity is, ultimately, foolish. It's not good or bad, but it is definitely an effort to put more users on Steam than anywhere else.
Yes, Valve doesn't necessarily make money from that sale. But it keeps you engaged in their ecosystem. You are reliant on Steam for the ability to play your game. Steam therefore has control over your digital content as per their EULA. You are exposed to Steam's marketplace, and therefore their marketing. If you want a game's DLC, your only option is to buy it through Steam. All the features that you mentioned are so great about Steam? Are at least partially reliant on Steam's continued operation and Valve's continued benevolence. You are counted among the however many millions of Steam users there are, which they can therefore use to sell Steam to investors and benefit themselves financially.
You cannot pretend this is not an effort to increase the number of Steam users and benefit themselves financially. It's not altruism, even if it does end up working out for other stores like Humble or Amazon. Even if it's "good for gamers" in the current time frame we live in.
Call it what it is. Assigning moral superiority or subjective "worth" to what is ultimately a company seizing upon a capitalistic opportunity is, ultimately, foolish. It's not good or bad, but it is definitely an effort to put more users on Steam than anywhere else.
so they launched their store in early access? i mean lots of people don't like buying beta games, i think reluctance to buy through a beta store is understandable
Great job, OP, on listing out excellent reasons for pushback against Epic. That said, chance of people reading the whole thing (except for those of us partial to PC gaming) is very small.
I've been talking about this a lot in other threads. If you want to troll me, at least take into account context. I've made "proper" arguments (wait, what are those?), written many lines of rational counter-thoughts, and tried to understand the positions of other posters without being overly-defensive (unless, of course, I'm being treated like an idiot, which is something a lot of posters do to a lot of other posters here). If you don't take Valve's past and current behavior into account while at the same time being critical of Epic, you're missing a huge chunk of the story. I really don't understand why this is a controversial statement.
And just so you don't have to chase down context: I agree Epic's storefront is horrible, I just can't agree with the conclusion that it's an illegitimate form of competition and bad for gaming as a whole.
So you don't have issues with having another launcher, just with the state of Epic's. That I can understand, sure. And you're willing to buy stuff from other launchers, but it seems (to my surprise, honestly) that a fair number of people here are more concerned about the ecosystem than the games proper.
Steam is dominating but does not have a monopoly. I personally have 7 stores/launchers on my taskbar and I am sure even more exists. For a developer it makes sense for them to release in as many places as possible instead of ignoring the largest one out there and going exclusive to a new one. And that won't do much to stop steams dominance, they are too large. If you still consider them a monopoly with the presence of many competing stores then obviously it isn't a few "games" alone that causes it to be so successful but in fact the plethora of features described by OP.
I think people are mad about the exclusivity more than the store existing. I don't care about the exclusive nor am I fan of the increasing number of publisher storefronts BUT I would bat for Epic, if they had decent competing features. I simply understand the pushback for now and believe Epic could have done a better job.
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"No Steam no buy" is no different than port begging at this stage. And we ban port begging here.
"Shouldn't be exclusive to a client" is completely up to the developer making the game and the deals they agree to with publishers. You don't have the 'right' to demand games on the platform of your choice.
"Shouldn't be exclusive to a client" is completely up to the developer making the game and the deals they agree to with publishers. You don't have the 'right' to demand games on the platform of your choice.
I wasn't actually being sarcastic, the laissez-faire way Valve treats basically everything, including their forums, is part of why I'm not a huge fan right now. it's yet another vector for hate speech but at the end of the day they don't give two shits.
I think you'd be surprised how many people buy betas every day.
Long story, short: Once there's something to write home about with the Epic Game Store for consumers, write home about it. If there's never anything to write home about, don't write home. Making a firm, unyielding stance in the ground on Day 5 (or 6?) seems like a silly idea.
EDIT: Out of curiosity, how many threads like this do we need daily? It feels like if we switch Steam and Epic with Microsoft and Sony, there would be way less (read: zero?) of these threads... I'm not positive what makes this a unique case to the point that we need dozens of these threads?
OP
OP
Wait for the full disclosure before jumping salty like this. It's not good for you.
I like steam and all but please. They didn't even know what to do with their system before MS basically created Steamworks as we know it. And many devs still don't even bother supporting that shit.
"No steam, no buy" is consumers indulging in anti-consumerism.
Steam needs a solid competitor.
Eventually all these prospective competitors will whittle down and the market will stabilise and be better of for it.
Steam needs a solid competitor.
Eventually all these prospective competitors will whittle down and the market will stabilise and be better of for it.
You'd be surprised (or maybe not?) how hard it is to get people to think about this and bring it under consideration. Like, I'm no fan of Epic and think they have a ton of work to do if they want to be a viable alternative for gamers and developers, but there is zero reason Epic needs to respond to Steam's every standard. A lot of standards they have set are awful. Yes they need to incorporate basic and useful features. No, they don't need to do it immediately and no they don't need to compete with Steam point by point. That'd be suicide without ramping up support via the one thing that matters most: the games.
I don't approve of this. Criticize the decision all you want but don't call people names, that's childish.
The Discord Store was heavily criticized too for its exclusives.
Great post. People don't give the credits to Valve how they saved PC ecosystem 10 years ago... And how good Steam was for PC gamers.
Even the sales we have nowadays on every network and launcher we need to thanks Steam for that.
Even the sales we have nowadays on every network and launcher we need to thanks Steam for that.
I have not seen eleventy billion threads about the Discord Store so I dunno about that one, and they literally have an exclusive right now in At Sundown
But they're specifically not trying to be a Steam competitor, meanwhile Epic is basically hitting Valve in the back with a chair
That's a disclaimer since Steam is my less use client. I place a priority on the games I partake and anything on Steam is at the bottom. Steam serves as an escape and break from LoL or WoW. There's no point in creating an account for a platform I'll never use it. If a developer wants me to buy their game, the best way for me is through Steam. Otherwise, I'll simply overlook it.
A solid competitor for Steam wouldn't be bad, no. It's just that there really isn't a solid Steam competitor on the market, just a bunch of half-assed attempts at taking a piece of the pie, with some of them eventually becoming something passable.
I just don't want to download another launcher and deal with another store front. I have enough games as it is, so locking some games in a walled garden isn't going to really change my mind. I'm already worried about everyone and their mother getting hacked, I don't want to sign up for something else even if you are giving away free games and have some interesting games there like the new Super Giant game.
Bottom line, if you produce a better system than steam then I'll come over. Hell, if you can have parity with steam, I'll come over. What I won't do is come over for a worse system that makes playing games more difficult. I already have too many games to play across my Xbone X, PS4 Pro, switch, PC, and all the shit I didn't finish the last two generations. o I can wait for either Epic to make their store front better or for the games to come to steam.
Bottom line, if you produce a better system than steam then I'll come over. Hell, if you can have parity with steam, I'll come over. What I won't do is come over for a worse system that makes playing games more difficult. I already have too many games to play across my Xbone X, PS4 Pro, switch, PC, and all the shit I didn't finish the last two generations. o I can wait for either Epic to make their store front better or for the games to come to steam.
well that's the thing, i don't see people here or elsewhere swearing blood oaths that their money will never go to the epic store, yea until the end of time. i think this thread and others have said that their launch is bad, they're missing features, and practices like buying exclusives shows they're on the wrong track. if they were to address the valid criticisms that people have i'm sure most of these people would relent.
now i'm sure that there are some steam diehards who will never ever let up and can never be satisfied but i doubt their numbers are all that large, and i don't think you can say many people criticizing epic here are part of that group given that so far they have very reasonable arguments.
and just for the sake of transparency i'll say that i bought ashen over the weekend from epic. i did make sure to use my paypal since i don't want an unproven store getting my credit card info but the experience was good and the game is great. i do worry about not having cloud saves and will need to make sure i make manual backups to google drive or something, but since it's a single player game with native support for the game controller i happen to use i don't miss the plethora of steam features.
OP
OP
Oh look, it's already starting:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/ep...originally-built-for-fortnite-for-free.86720/
https://www.resetera.com/threads/ep...originally-built-for-fortnite-for-free.86720/
You haven't seen eleventy billion threads because Discord didn't engage in such a massive push as Epic. Had Discord promoted its exclusives so aggressively during an event sufh as the Game Awards, there would be eleventy billion threads about them too. Epic's campaign is much more high profile.
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