"It's just another launcher you need to install and open."
No, it's not. Let me explain.
I personally don't care if I have to install and launch another launcher, what I care the most is whether I can afford the games or not. I actually have other launcher installed, such as B.Net, Uplay, and Origin. And it's perfectly fair if they want to lock their first party games into their store, as you can see from Blizzard and EA doing with their launcher. I can also buy them from 3rd party key sellers which will make them cheaper than buying directly from the store. But what Epic doing is not exactly that, they're taking away 3rd party games that were meant to be released in other stores and make them their store exclusive, with no way to buy them other than from their store as there's no feature to register a game key.
Now to the matter at hand. We live in a global world, there are many other countries and regions outside of US and EU, including my country Indonesia. In the past several years, Steam has been positively supporting these countries with local currency support, Steam wallet cards, and regional pricing. This has been a blessing especially for my country. Buying games are easier and cheaper than ever. I can actually go to a minimarket to buy Steam games with cash, or buy them via local 3rd party sellers, and so on. Steam has successfully convince many of us to buy games instead of pirating them nowadays. Legit video game market here is actually a thing now.
Tbf, Epic does support local payment for my country. However, there's a huge problem. As it's in USD, I'll have to pay for this amount for Shadow Complex Remastered:
Now, let's take a look at how much does it cost on Steam:
"But that's an already released game, how do I know that it'll be the same for other games?"
Here's why. This game is already out on Steam:
The publisher switched to Epic store to release their next game exclusively, and here's what it cost:
Essentially more than 3x times than on Steam.
Now you probably see my point here. This is only the start. There are still more games with "Coming Soon" status on Epic store. Some of them are already released on Steam with pretty reasonable regional pricing, including Darksiders III and Subnautica, among others. Darksiders is $60 but actually cheaper than Hello Neighbor on Epic store, it's only $30 (converted from IDR) on Steam. Imagine how would it cost on Epic Store, yes it's gonna be Rp 872.000.
Another thing about currency support and regional pricing, Steam is not the only one that's reinforcing it. Some other stores on PC have it, even though none of them as robust as Steam. As of now, Steam supports almost 40 currencies around the world, and some of them can be applied to multiple countries. And it's not only a thing in PC gaming. In console space Sony also have a robust regional pricing support. I believe that's one of the main reason why the Playstation 4 got a huge success worldwide, unlike the other consoles. Tbf, Microsoft also offer regional pricing and currency, even though not as good as Sony. As you can see below, $60 cost roughly $50 if converted to IDR.
"Cool, so it does affect consumers positively, but what can regional pricing offer to publishers?"
Let's hear it from Sergey Galyonkin the SteamSpy guy who's hired by Epic himself:
So that's that. By moneyhatting the games to Epic store, they don't only take them away from consumers from many regions in the world, but also might negatively impact the devs/publishers. I hope people can understand the frustration some of us are having with the recent move by Epic. I'm all for competition, but not like this. We're all consumers here, so let's take this issue from consumers perspective.
No, it's not. Let me explain.
I personally don't care if I have to install and launch another launcher, what I care the most is whether I can afford the games or not. I actually have other launcher installed, such as B.Net, Uplay, and Origin. And it's perfectly fair if they want to lock their first party games into their store, as you can see from Blizzard and EA doing with their launcher. I can also buy them from 3rd party key sellers which will make them cheaper than buying directly from the store. But what Epic doing is not exactly that, they're taking away 3rd party games that were meant to be released in other stores and make them their store exclusive, with no way to buy them other than from their store as there's no feature to register a game key.
Now to the matter at hand. We live in a global world, there are many other countries and regions outside of US and EU, including my country Indonesia. In the past several years, Steam has been positively supporting these countries with local currency support, Steam wallet cards, and regional pricing. This has been a blessing especially for my country. Buying games are easier and cheaper than ever. I can actually go to a minimarket to buy Steam games with cash, or buy them via local 3rd party sellers, and so on. Steam has successfully convince many of us to buy games instead of pirating them nowadays. Legit video game market here is actually a thing now.
Tbf, Epic does support local payment for my country. However, there's a huge problem. As it's in USD, I'll have to pay for this amount for Shadow Complex Remastered:
Now, let's take a look at how much does it cost on Steam:
"But that's an already released game, how do I know that it'll be the same for other games?"
Here's why. This game is already out on Steam:
The publisher switched to Epic store to release their next game exclusively, and here's what it cost:
Essentially more than 3x times than on Steam.
Now you probably see my point here. This is only the start. There are still more games with "Coming Soon" status on Epic store. Some of them are already released on Steam with pretty reasonable regional pricing, including Darksiders III and Subnautica, among others. Darksiders is $60 but actually cheaper than Hello Neighbor on Epic store, it's only $30 (converted from IDR) on Steam. Imagine how would it cost on Epic Store, yes it's gonna be Rp 872.000.
Another thing about currency support and regional pricing, Steam is not the only one that's reinforcing it. Some other stores on PC have it, even though none of them as robust as Steam. As of now, Steam supports almost 40 currencies around the world, and some of them can be applied to multiple countries. And it's not only a thing in PC gaming. In console space Sony also have a robust regional pricing support. I believe that's one of the main reason why the Playstation 4 got a huge success worldwide, unlike the other consoles. Tbf, Microsoft also offer regional pricing and currency, even though not as good as Sony. As you can see below, $60 cost roughly $50 if converted to IDR.
"Cool, so it does affect consumers positively, but what can regional pricing offer to publishers?"
Let's hear it from Sergey Galyonkin the SteamSpy guy who's hired by Epic himself:
So that's that. By moneyhatting the games to Epic store, they don't only take them away from consumers from many regions in the world, but also might negatively impact the devs/publishers. I hope people can understand the frustration some of us are having with the recent move by Epic. I'm all for competition, but not like this. We're all consumers here, so let's take this issue from consumers perspective.
