I hate having to use all these different launchers and stores :X Yes, yes i know first world problems. But i had to install Epics launcher to buy World War Z.
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Tim Sweeney confirms Epic is paying to keep games off third party sellers (Inc The Division 2)
- Thread starter BernardoOne
- Start date
I mean either way, it's a high risk game considering is a later entry in a series from a studio that tanked. I'm sure the studio had way more problems than walking dead not selling enough, but either way it didn't sell enough to float them through the end of the series.
We really need to ditch the thinking about "it's just another launcher".
Having to commit to another launcher is to agree to
*One more server/credentials depency for your singleplayer.
*One more party that wants all kinds of information about you.
*One more party that wants you to store your credit card information.
*One more account that puts you at risk for intrusion, and one more 2FA to setup.
The latter one being something that they emailed me about after two weeks of reactivating my Epic account after their relaunch, after which my account was attacked.
Having all this as a result of one more option, that's fine. That's a plus.
Being "forced" into this, with forced meaning having to accept it if you want to be able to actually play a game that you have been looking forward, really isn't something that should be trivialized. And it really bothers me when game journalists does this.
We shouldn't call this a first world problem, we should acknowledge it as a legitimate issue for us as paying customers, in a situation where the whole world wants us, our money, our following and our privacy.
to be honest though i don't think epic is doing a good job with the whole exclusivity thing. i mean the biggest game they got was metro exodus and we know that is only for a 12 month period. you can't really count the division 2. my guess is that borderlands 3 will be the last big exclusive they secured for a while (and that might also only be a timed exclusive). the other games are mostly small indie titles. i think the announcement that the whole halo series is coming to steam is a far bigger deal. epic is losing the "exclusives war" or whatever you wanna call it in my eyes.
That's very unlikely. Aiming for exclusivity is Epic's strategy going forward. I'm pretty sure they've just begun. E3 is gonna be a bloodbath for people who don't want to use Epic's store.
Every company has a price and every user has a game that will make them break, if they can keep funding it then it will 100% succeed even if it is bad for the marketplace.
The Oculus store from Facebook did this (while also funding entire games to be fair) and got some flak, but I think VR being a smaller market made the issue slip by most people. I even imagine there are plenty of people here who are against Epic but own Rifts. Epic are probably hoping the issue blows over like it did for Facebook.
Honestly, no, but it has nothing to do with you personally. Most previous Epic threads enter a tiring cycle: We debate the issue for several pages, then a poster comes and asks "what's the big deal" and we explain the same things again, after a few pages another poster does the same and we have to explain the same things over and over and over again. The difference between a game that is exclusive on a platform but can still be bought from various stores and a game that can only be bought by a single store should be obvious even without the explanation in previous pages.
That's what Epic is betting on. I think the PC community will make them lose that bet. We'll see in due time.
Steve Gaynor just said on his stream that Fullbright are working with Annapurna on their next game (as he played Ashen via an EGS key Annapurna gave him) so I'm already sadly gearing up for that to be EGS exclusive. And I'm sure if that is the case, the influx of Epic cash after Tacoma seemingly bombed is welcome. Just sucks that I'll have to skip it.
Oh you're referring to the keys not being sold through third party sellers. The topic is slightly confusing as it's conflating paying for exclusives and epics stance of being restrictive with third party sales of keys for exclusive games. A lot of the early comments (and even now) are really referring to simply epic paying for exclusives as the OP is threadbare with a confusing title.
Anyway, Yeah that's a weird restriction and I'd love to get some clarification from Epic on why they'd even think that's a thing they should be doing. I guess they want to make sure they're getting their fees on the games they paid for or something along those lines.
That sucks. Annapurna seems to be completely in bed with Epic. I guess they won't get my money anymore.
The really sad thing is that the Epic Store doesn't solve anything, it's just a some selected devs that gets a bag of money that ensures that it doesn't matter to them if their games have an audience or not.
I think Oculus and Epic are pretty different.
For starters I'm not locked into buying from the Oculus store. I've purchased all of my Oculus compatible VR games on Steam.
I'm not aware of Oculus stealing any third party games off Steam and forcing people to buy them off their store? To my knowledge they've funded their first party games, which to me is the only exclusives that are acceptable.
Most importantly I feel Oculus is trying to improve the VR experience, while Epic can't be bothered to do anything outside of unauthorized spying/money hatting.
Just to be clear, he didn't say anything about going exclusive, it's totally my speculation based on it being Annapurna. I know Fullbright have been big proponents of itch previously, so hopefully they'll continue with that at the very least.
Thanks for clearing this up. I just assumed it would be EGS exclusive, because the majority of Annapurna's recent games are.
The major thing with Oculus was their outright attempts to block the Vive (and anything else that wasn't a Rift) from working on their store front and thus exclusive first/second party games. That was unprecedented as it was a company trying to create a closed hardware ecosystem on the PC platform. They eventually rolled back on that sort of garbage, and things have been relatively peaceful on the PCVR front since.
The EGS situation is rather different from that ordeal, albeit quite shitty in its own right. On the bright side, Epic can't moneyhat VR game devs.
I think Epic is in a league of their own, but Facebook definitely bought timed exclusives to delay games for launch on the Vive so they could instead coincide with the launch of the Touch controllers and come to Vive at some layer date. Kingspray is an example of a game that was initially demoed on Vive but then went quiet for months to reemerge as a Touch exclusive launch. Giant Cop was for sale as a Vive preorder on Humble Bundle before announcing it would launch Oculus exclusive. A dev from Croteam said they were offered money to do an exclusive launch of their Serious Sam wave shooter but didn't take the offer. I think people genuinely forgot some of the business decisions near the launch of the VR headsets and Epic is banking on the same thing happening with their store eventually.
So they are making the games they paid for exclusive to their store so they can get full revenue from all the sales? Oh the horror.
He wants an open platform where everyone can create a store and compete. Using money to get exclusive content in no way shape or form goes against that.
And he is right.
Those two things are not mutually exclusive.
He wants an open platform where everyone can create a store and compete. Using money to get exclusive content in no way shape or form goes against that.
It literally goes against that very concept...
If Epic have exclusives they have no competition therefore making their store a closed platform and forcing consumers to use it.
Not only that, people can't even buy third party keys to redeem on their store so they are forced to pay whatever price Epic sets.
How is that not working against an open platform?
If you end up in a situation where you need a billion dollar war chest to pay off publishers to get them to consider releasing on your store, then I'd say it absolutely goes against the idea of an open platform where everyone can open a store and compete. Unless your definition of "everyone" is "everyone with tons of money".
The last part won't happen, the devs will just pocket it. This is why EGS isn't really good for consumers, among the other shitty practices of EGS. I'm all for Valve getting competition (they need it), and I'll for lowering Valve's 30% fee, but EGS is a "cure" worse than the "disease".
Epic is doing the only thing that might actually work to lower Valve's marketshare though. Nothing else would.
Not only that but with Sweeney saying two years ago
"And ensure that no company, Microsoft or anybody else, can insert themselves by force as the universal middleman, and force developers to sell through them instead of selling directly to customers."
It makes him a hypocrite, sure he will argue that this isn't "forcing developers" as they are making a choice to take the money from Epic but what sane developer is going to turn down a huge bag of money upfront?
This is force in everything but name and action, Tim isn't stupid, he knows what he is doing here and leveraging that fortnite money to get as many exclusives as possible because he believes deep down that consumers aren't patient enough to wait for games and will end up moving to Epic Store regardless.
He is forcing consumers to come to Epic store (for the first year) and purchase these games by having these exclusives so his grandstanding really means nothing in the wider context.
Of course a lot of thing would.
I already detailed it. Instead of forcing people to come, have they released a far better client with more features and used that Fortnite money to strike deals with publishers so that customers gets their Steam library on their EGS library (like GOG Connect), it'd be easier to convince people. You're not lowering the marketshare by doing so, you're just buying time. Because it means you'"re not getting people by goodwill but merely distracting them one game at a time... if at all.
Read it again:
""The thing that I feel is incredibly important for the future of the industry is that the PC platform remains open, so that any user without any friction can install applications from any developer, and ensure that no company, Microsoft or anybody else, can insert themselves by force as the universal middleman, and force developers to sell through them instead of selling directly to customers." "
When you're working to be the only gate to sell a software, that's exactly what you're doing. Your own walled garden.
Epic moneyhatting exclusive is just bullshit
This kind of bollocks is one reason I avoid consoles.
I like choice and freedom
Epic can fuck off
This kind of bollocks is one reason I avoid consoles.
I like choice and freedom
Epic can fuck off
What a shitty post. We are talking about 3rd party exclusives, not 1st party exclusives.
Epic's approach is bullshit and you should feel ashamed for defending it.
A week ago I said that I might consider purchasing from Epic if they stopped the exclusives and improved their store to be more customer friendly.
I have to say right now, out of pure principle, I won't be buying anything from them even if they make those improvements.
The Private Data storage and the way that Tim has responded to these complaints has proven to me that he cannot be trusted, the only way I would consider using Epic in the future is if he was no longer at the helm or had anything to do with the company.
I have to say right now, out of pure principle, I won't be buying anything from them even if they make those improvements.
The Private Data storage and the way that Tim has responded to these complaints has proven to me that he cannot be trusted, the only way I would consider using Epic in the future is if he was no longer at the helm or had anything to do with the company.
Can't someone quote this to Tim Sweeney and ask him to answer his own bullshit?
They already have and his response was as follows:
Basically he thinks Epic are "pro competitive" despite doing the very thing he is complaining about.
Also conflating exclusives designed by the storefronts selling them and buying exclusives from external development teams to argue that what they are doing is justified.
Nobody would care if Epic were selling their own games exclusively, I don't remember anybody complaining about Fortnite being exclusive to EGS on PC.
That first part about being similar to GOG connect is something they should do. Making a better client on its own without the payola wouldn't work.
Thank you for contributing to the conversation with this lovely drive by post
OP
OP
This is not what's happening with Walking Dead. Skybound picked it up to complete it before they signed the deal.
Yeah, I was keeping EGS installed on my system for the free games, but after the Steam data collection scandal I've removed it from all my machines.
There is no place for this money-hatting in the PC space. Have your own store, sure, but don't lock releases behind your inferior store/launcher by paying people off. If you want to compete, compete. Give me the option between buying on Steam or EGS, and if EGS is better, I'll get it there.
No, we are all certainly not. The problem is the smaller sites, such as mine that bitch about this stuff, pales in comparison to the larger press that aren't saying jack shit. That's part of the issue.
Its only few months old right now. You are delusional if you think they aint inking exclusive deals for more games right now for the next few years
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My hope is that the backlash is driving the price up for them to secure these deals as developers don't want to deliberately antagonise their audience unless the price is right, and that they've set a budget for securing exclusives with a limit in mind unless they are seeing fruit from those deals (which the continued withholding of sales data at least suggests they might not be doing).
That's the plan as far as I'm concerned. There is absolutely no game or feature that can force me to use their service anymore.
Unfortunately, this beast has a very full belly. It is effectively subsidizing games that won't see any significant customer base in their store.
They won't ask themselves, "what are we doing? Why is it not working?"
They'll just be more aggressive.
and hilariously, MS is now putting their biggest franchise on Steam.