As opposed to people in Brazil's and Argentinian which make around 500 US dollars a month on average and a game is still 60 US dollars?
Is a video game the same price as rent for you?
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Satisfactory removed from Steam to be announced as Epic Store game
- Thread starter dex3108
- Start date
As opposed to people in Brazil's and Argentinian which make around 500 US dollars a month on average and a game is still 60 US dollars?
Is a video game the same price as rent for you?
I did, there is no reason to think they represent more than people that wouldn't buy the game on Epic store when it's the only option. "I'm ok with you going exclusive to a store, but not ok that you have two different prices on two stores" yeah no.
So at worst ? it would sell 0 copy on steam.
Alright i don't play on PC anymore and i only played WoW when i did.
What's so bad about launcher exclusivity? I mean, console exclusivity is stupid, if you only have 1 console you're shit out of luck. But you have a PC, you can install whatever launcher and play whatever you want. Soooo... Whats up?
What's so bad about launcher exclusivity? I mean, console exclusivity is stupid, if you only have 1 console you're shit out of luck. But you have a PC, you can install whatever launcher and play whatever you want. Soooo... Whats up?
Basically confirms Epic paid them to get on there. This is not at all how a dev should respond to their consumers the ones you know who are buying your damn game.
Steam added support for my currency (and a bunch of others) and spent enough time to create a suggested price chart for devs to use so they don't do a 1:1 dollar conversion. I see that as thinking about me (or rather, people from my region and others in a similar economic situation). It's far more than what Epic's doing.
But I guess I and thousands of other customers don't matter, because Valve charges a 30% cut (the same other big players charge) and Epic charges 12%...
I live in Brazil and most games here release for the equivalent of 60USD in BRL (so most high profile releases are about 239BRL, 199BRL and, rarely, 149BRL). Regional pricing has done very little to alter that (I remember getting Sunset Overdrive on release because it was only 40BRL). For instance, the Croft Edition of Shadow of the Tomb Raider has a base price of 330BRL, which is the equivalent of 85USD. Not sure what the MSRP is on this edition though.
I'll keep my eggs in the current mix of Steam, GoG, Origin, and Uplay. Uplay being the outcast since more games launch through steam and the interface comes up.
I only have the Epic launcher for Fortnite as it is and don't get me started on the constant multi GB patches most every time I boot up the game for the boys.
I don't necessarily have anything against this, I just don't want to have to spread my eggs like consoles and like how Valve has iterated their service over the years. You can't please everyone but they certainly have a lot of equity with me.
I only have the Epic launcher for Fortnite as it is and don't get me started on the constant multi GB patches most every time I boot up the game for the boys.
I don't necessarily have anything against this, I just don't want to have to spread my eggs like consoles and like how Valve has iterated their service over the years. You can't please everyone but they certainly have a lot of equity with me.
I don't follow. What's the big deal? Why's everyone so up in arms?
What's wrong with releasing a game on your own platform? No royalties to pay to another company for hosting is a pretty natural goal to reach to for a big company. The market will decide whether or not this can fly.
And if this works... shouldn't we be happy? People have been complaining for ages about some of the shit Valve has let fly on the Steam platform. And Blizzard has their own release platform too but at least on the first page I don't see any "and Blizzard pulls this crap too" posts which would usually be par for the course.
The only problem for consumers is if the Epic platform is shit, but, well, we can just hope it fails (or improves) then.
What's wrong with releasing a game on your own platform? No royalties to pay to another company for hosting is a pretty natural goal to reach to for a big company. The market will decide whether or not this can fly.
And if this works... shouldn't we be happy? People have been complaining for ages about some of the shit Valve has let fly on the Steam platform. And Blizzard has their own release platform too but at least on the first page I don't see any "and Blizzard pulls this crap too" posts which would usually be par for the course.
The only problem for consumers is if the Epic platform is shit, but, well, we can just hope it fails (or improves) then.
There are plenty of features which come from the client and are not inherently there just because you are gaming on PC. Things like achievements and community forums, for example. Epic's launcher is incredibly lacking in features.
Steam has nearly automatic Linux support for the majority of games. Epic's launcher does not. Linux users are suffering because of this, and they cannot "just install whatever launcher" like you claim.
People from poorer countries often rely on good regional pricing in order to make games affordable. Imagine you live in a country where the standard AAA game costs nearly as much as a months rent. Would you prefer it to be cheaper so you can actually afford it? Steam allows for this. Epic's launcher does not support regional pricing. It allows for local currencies, but the conversions do not account for buyer power.
That should explain the basic problems people have with this, outside of it just being a scummy move to begin with.
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I'm too spoiled by Steam - sorry, not sorry - if a PC game isn't on Steam or Battle.net, I ain't buying.
Lol. Unbelievable!
Epic:
'Good news! We are launching a new store where you get 88% cut. Bad news: to get on it, you have to agree to only sell it through our store and oblige to a gag-order'.
And the best part to me is that this 12% margin? It's quite likely to be only temporary to build numbers. The first devs to get there get all the benefits. A year from now, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they switch it to 20% or 25%.
The first devs are likely getting a sizeable upfront payment.
Yeah, considering Tim Sweeney's previous approach of shitting on MS because they were doing something similar to what Epic planned to do in the future, I can see them changing their tune if their store takes off.
He says he didn't think it had to do with the revenue change, but not being able to tell that your game is on a yet to be announced platform... makes sense so what you're saying makes no sense in the context of that video.
Wasn't the criticism that MS was trying to close off windows to prevent competition? Here Epic is doing the opposite, creating competition.
I feel all we are missing is for him to come out and say some bullshit slogan akin "it's for the gamers!"
No, buddy. Valve's work over the past few years, especially with Proton, have been the competition MS needed to stop that Windows 10S UWP only bullshit.
All Epic is doing is money hatting exclusives. That's not competition, unless you expect Valve and GOG to have to do that from now on as well.
Paying developers off to prevent them launching their games on multiple storefronts is not creating competition, it's eliminating competition.
Creating competition? They are buying exclusives so they aren't available anywhere else. That's not competition.
This is a new store front that competes with Steam, windows store, origins etc., it is competition, period.
Of course it's competition.
Because is not their own platform? Is a third party game, which got removed from a store to be put in another.
They are specifically avoiding competing with Steam by paying developers to not release their games on Steam.
It creates competition by making the Epic platform more attractive against their competitors.
It's almost the same thing as Sony paying Insomniac to make a Spider-Man game on PS4 only. The only difference is the timing.
That is one way to compete and isn't even new so I don't understand the confusion, or rejection of this method. This is PC. Getting people attracted to epic games store is a big deal. This is one way to do that, by releasing games there that aren't anywhere else. I also saw they're giving away games and have games that are also on steam. Having exclusives is a huge way to create a user base to attract more and more titles. They'd be ludicrous to not pursue this avenue.
Basically seems this way.
It's almost like this isn't true. Marvel came up to Insomniac, and told them to choose any character in their universe and they chose Spiderman.
When was Spider-man announced as a multiplatform game, only to locked to PS4 on the day of release.
It's entirely reasonable for Epic to finance the creation of exclusive games. It's far less reasonable for them to pay off developers of games that already exist and are already announced for Steam and other places to then cancel other releases.
Yes they should attract people to their store by making their store better not by paying to remove games from competitors.
You say it's nothing new, but the closest similar scenario is nuTomb Raider 2 on Xbox, and that didn't go down well at all.
If you decide to sign an NDA requiring you to mislead your customers, that's on you.
Sure it's honest also it's turning a middle finger to your audience.
Because it's simply another piece of DRM I have to manage just to be able to play games.
It's almost like you got it wrong. Marvel gave it to Sony who gave it to Insomniac.
It's almost like Sony is the reason it only came to one platform.
Unless I am mistaken, the game was only listed to be released on steam, not actually released.
I still don't find your argument all that compelling. Exclusivity has been paid for one way or another for years. And this does not support your "argument" that it's not competition. It definitely is. You argued it's not competition and now you're saying something entirely different without skipping a beat.
And you can still buy it easily if you want to. Plus you'll have the satisfaction of knowing more of the revenue is going to the developer instead of an over-paid storefront.
It's their game. It's their business. They can do what they want with it. If they want to make it exclusive for Jeff Bezos only, who pays them $50M so only he can play it, that's their choice to make. The developer doesn't owe you their game on the platform of your choice.
Well, first of all there are no costumers, afaik this game didn't go up for pre-order did it?
And lets be real here, no actual reasonable barrier to their "costumers" has been raised. If you don't want to get the game because of the launcher it's in that's just on you.
I don't like the Epic Launcher at all, but it's not DRM. There are already people who have grabbed Hades and deleted the launcher and it works fine.
Yes, it was listed as coming soon, but now it's been removed.
They used to take 30% on their asset store (for the Unreal Engine stuff), that got dropped to 12% (with backpay!).
That is exactly my point. The game was not actually released on steam, it was only listed to become released.
Exclusivity is nothing new. It's a way to attract people to your platform. Attracting people to your platform is a way to compete with a giant like Steam.
I understand where you're coming from, but if you're gonna use an example like Jeff Bezos then we might as well not even release the game.
Are we really now all of a sudden using pre-order's as the only metric to if people want to play a game?
So if Epic knocks on your door and offers you more money than you had ever hoped to make as an indie developer, and the chance to be featured next to the most popular game in the world, you're supposed to say "no, I believe my game should be available on all platforms"?
So why was it listed on Steam? Listing a game a "coming soon to Steam", on a Steam store page, is a pretty clear indication that it is planned for release on Steam.
Can you name any games that Valve paid for exclusivity on Steam? If it's such a common practise, I'm sure they must have done it too.
Not to mention stuff like having all your friends grouped on Steam.
I'll bend over backwards to avoid games on Origin and Uplay. This will be no different.
But they didn't make this decision independently on their own. They were offered a monetary incentive and they agreed to the limitations that came with it.
Seems to me they planned to release on Steam. Then Epic came to them with an offer. Obviously they couldn't talk about the Epic Store until after Epic themselves announced it. If they had pulled the game from Steam in the time between accepting a deal with Epic and Epic announcing everything, it would have looked like their game and studio were in trouble, and if someone were to ask them, they still wouldn't be able to say why. It's not an ideal situation, but I'm not sure what else you expect them to do?
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That's not what I meant, what I said was if you didn't pay anything you are not a costumer. You might have been a future costumer, but they didn't turn their back on their costumers, the game wasn't for sale yet.
I'm starting to get kinda worried about this epic store thing... They're really using their status from Fortnites popularity....
I would have expected them to either honour their previously publicly stated commitments (ie release on Steam), or come up with a good explanation as to why they weren't. Rather than simply quietly pulling from Steam and announcing it as an Epic exclusive, with no decent explanation.
It is not a good idea to sign an NDA that requires you to mislead your customers.
FTFY. This has more to do with the money they have to pay devs for their games on the platform.
Exclusivity is very common in gaming and is obtained in a variety of manners. If a game developer chooses epic for the sole store because of the revenue share, has epic "moneyhatted" or in other words paid for the exclusivity? Yes. A UE4 game sold on steam nets the developer 65% of the revenue compared to 88% on epic games store. That is a huge gap. Even when no money is exchanged for exclusivity, the profit split could be considered moneyhatting.
I enjoy PC because of the openness of the platform and for me, epic games store serves to promote openness by creating competition.
So I am a big fan of steam, have been a user for years. But I also think it's amazing they got away with that distribution of profits when epic thinks they can pull it off at a fraction of the price! If that causes more money to go into the developer's pockets, that can only benefit the industry. How many studios closed in the past 2 years? What if the games they sold earned them an additional 18-23%? That's a big deal I think. And hopefully steam responds by sharing more profits with developers.
We're not in contradiction about the steam page listing. It was planned to be on steam. Plans changed before it was released. I don't see your point here any longer. Plans can change. Games can be outright cancelled before they ever hit steam. This wasn't a steam game that suddenly isn't a steam game because it was actually never sold or distributed through steam.
Can you at least acknowledge the fact that you're ditching your failed "this is not competition" argument in favor of "this is a method of competition I don't like"? <- rhetorical question btw. To your question, it doesn't matter if Valve has ever paid for exclusivity. It's still a very common practice in the gaming industry. And this form of exclusivity is not the same as on consoles, where this practice is certainly much more common and much more damaging to consumers.
I enjoy PC because of the openness of the platform and for me, epic games store serves to promote openness by creating competition.
So I am a big fan of steam, have been a user for years. But I also think it's amazing they got away with that distribution of profits when epic thinks they can pull it off at a fraction of the price! If that causes more money to go into the developer's pockets, that can only benefit the industry. How many studios closed in the past 2 years? What if the games they sold earned them an additional 18-23%? That's a big deal I think. And hopefully steam responds by sharing more profits with developers.
We're not in contradiction about the steam page listing. It was planned to be on steam. Plans changed before it was released. I don't see your point here any longer. Plans can change. Games can be outright cancelled before they ever hit steam. This wasn't a steam game that suddenly isn't a steam game because it was actually never sold or distributed through steam.
Can you at least acknowledge the fact that you're ditching your failed "this is not competition" argument in favor of "this is a method of competition I don't like"? <- rhetorical question btw. To your question, it doesn't matter if Valve has ever paid for exclusivity. It's still a very common practice in the gaming industry. And this form of exclusivity is not the same as on consoles, where this practice is certainly much more common and much more damaging to consumers.
I understand your points and they are good ones, I just wonder if developers will actually make more net profit from having a game not on steam and keeping more of the revenue vs having on steam and giving more revenue. We have no way to actually know exactly without having two timelines. I have to think for indie games putting the game on steam increases sales significantly due to the sheer number of eyes on it. Obviously in this case they were paid by Epic which is fine so even if they sell less copies they secured the profits.