-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Umm, so I guess it's time to talk about fragmentation of PC gaming storefronts. Maybe.
- Thread starter M1chl
- Start date
Than why have a launcher in the first place. Back in the day, all I needed was a cd
Yeah, same here.
(Except I have no interest in playing RAGE 2 anywhere :P)
Ashen isn't every future exclusive to come, so thats a moot point.
I'm all for having multiple storefronts, what I'm not cool with is each dev/pub not putting their software on the competing storefronts. That isn't promoting competition at all, it is just fragmenting the market and I won't participate. Have your own front, just make sure it is on Origin and Steam too.
Steam takes a 30 percent cut, just like Sony, MS and Nintendo do. It make no sense to pull their games from Steam while still releasing them on consoles.
I do agree that indies can use every extra cent, but they shouldn't forget the wishes of their fans. If the majority of gamers want their games on Steam - no matter for what reason - devs should bear the consequences if they ignore this.
Personally I don't need al my games on Steam, I own games on every store/launcher (except the windows store because of uwp). But I do value being able to choose where I buy my games. Paid store exclusivity goes straight against this, and also hurts healthy competition.
No, I just cba with games being kept away exclusively on different stores, especially when those stores are worse than what I primarily use.
I don't think it's that big of a deal but I'm going to just continue using Steam for the time being. The vast majority of games are still coming to Steam and I'm not going to use Epic's launcher just to play the Meatboy sequel I was planning on getting for the Switch anyway.
If you're a fan, you'll still buy and play the game in the end.
If you have to download a specific launcher in order to play RDR2 or the next Elder Scrolls in the future, you'll do just that.
Nope. I actually rather ignore a good game than supporting anti-consumer practices like paid store exclusivity. I really don't want to see pc gaming going in that direction. I have plenty of other great games to play.
So you're telling me you'll never buy RDR2 and TES6 on PC if both need a specific launcher ?
Are you a fan of both series ?
I won't either. There would be a time when I would, not any more.
given bethesdas recent track record of FO76, I wouldn't trust them within an inch of my computer with TES6, let alone their own launcher
TES6 won't happen anytime soon though, their launcher (if there's one) won't be as bad as what they did with 76... Or so I hope (for them) ! :P
You're misunderstanding me. I don't mind different stores/launchers, I'm using most of them already.
But I don't like store owners moneyhatting 3rd party devs to keep their games away from competing storefronts. In my opinion, healthy competition can only exist if as much games as possible are available in as much stores as possible. I will not support any initiatives going straight against this.
First party games being exclusive to the publishers own store is fine by me. 3rd party moneyhat exclusive is not.
So you'll buy RDR2 if it has its own launcher. But if RDR2 is only available via the Epic Games Launcher, you won't support it. Is that it ?
Correct. Store owners shouldn't moneyhat 3rd party devs to keep their games away from competing storefronts.
If only that was true... You should read this thread from the beginning.
Basically what MS did with Rise of the Tomb Raider a few years ago.
If the game is available one year later on steam, will you buy it or you're 100% done with it ?
In that case I'll do what I did. Buy the game years later on steam when it's so cheap that it's literally throwaway money.
I can get by for a year or even more to play a dark souls clone (which is seemingly good), or Hades (which is in early access and comes out on steam when it comes out of early access). And in case of Rebel Galaxy well I wasn't really interested in it despite liking the first one since this one flying a small ship from the cockpit rather than controlling a battleship like previous one.
In short there are so many good games out there that I'll just choose to wait until the moneyhat games are on steam and super cheap. Rather than buy now for full price.
Exactly, I didn't like the RotTR moneyhat either. I ended up buying it for 2 dollars from a bundle leftover in the buy&sell thread.
But that was a result of the console war. Epic bringing simular practices to pc is even worse for me, so no, I probably won't ever buy these games if they arrive on Steam next year.
As long as the Epic store has an equivalent user experience and features, I don't really mind.
I'd rather have more options for where I can buy games, but I'm not gonna lose sleep as long as their store is good.
I'd rather have more options for where I can buy games, but I'm not gonna lose sleep as long as their store is good.
Any initiative that puts more money into the wallets of the devs is a huge positive. The Epic Store has only just launched so I'm not expecting it to be as fully fledged as Steam's offerings. I think the focus should be on Valve's 70/30 (from day 1?) split of revenue and whether or not that's warranted (cost of infrastructure and bandwidth / network traffic, personnel / administration costs, etc. which Epic will also have to contend with) rather than on devs trying to make ends meet or making decisions that best suits them and the viability of their business.
Well Steam has had a fifteen year head start so maybe cut the Epic Store some slack in that regard.
Well Steam has had a fifteen year head start so maybe cut the Epic Store some slack in that regard.
It's competing with the Steam store now not in 2008
The Epic store is over 3 years old too, more than enough time for them to incorporate a least a few of these basic features.
And I think the influence of the "competition" on Valve's behaviour is minimal at best, especially considering these "competitors" do nothing to actually meaningfully compete. Valve has always marched to the beat of its own drum - at most you'll see stuff like Valve going big on Linux support in order to undercut Microsoft's influence in the PC space to prevent PC gaming from being locked into a walled garden, or working independently from Oculus to keep VR open after Oculus' acquisition by Facebook. Both of these are reactions to attempts by larger companies to make PC gaming decidedly less open.
-_-
They're a multi billion dollar corporation with the backing of fucking Tencent and they can't compete with features that are more than a decade old and have to rely on moneyhatting exclusives despite having millions of Fortnite players?
You and I had that discussion in another thread. The examples you gave were Rise of the Tomb Raider and Ninja Theory. With RotTR, MS paid some money for a temporary exclusive of that game. That was more of an inconvenience than using a different launcher on PC, but still ultimately just an inconvenience. I got the game a year later on PS4. That's called "moneyhatting" around here and is apparently very bad. MS paid more money to acquire Ninja Theory than it would take to buy temporary exclusivity of a game from them, and I'll never get to play any of their games on Playstation in future. Somehow, that is not "moneyhatting" and it's OK, even though it costs more money to buy that permanent exclusivity and it's worse for me as a consumer.
Back when Origin came out I was really pissed about it and was only buying physical copies of EA pc games I wanted in case their survice died off or something.
But these days I've mellowed on the idea of having multiple marketplaces. Origin has been inoffensive and doesn't get in the way of playing the few EA games i get these days.
I had issues with Uplay's launcher early on (and I accidentally have two accounts so not all my games are on the same account, and there's apparently no way to merge accounts), but haven't had issues since Assassin's Creed 2 I think.
I still don't like having a ton of services with my credit card info, but I never have marketplaces keep my CC data stored.
I also only play single player games, so not having friend fragmentation isn't an issue for me either.
But these days I've mellowed on the idea of having multiple marketplaces. Origin has been inoffensive and doesn't get in the way of playing the few EA games i get these days.
I had issues with Uplay's launcher early on (and I accidentally have two accounts so not all my games are on the same account, and there's apparently no way to merge accounts), but haven't had issues since Assassin's Creed 2 I think.
I still don't like having a ton of services with my credit card info, but I never have marketplaces keep my CC data stored.
I also only play single player games, so not having friend fragmentation isn't an issue for me either.
Steam came out with more pro-developer royalty rates 4 days before Epic's announcements, which obviously they knew about ahead of time. I think that was their first cut in 15 years. There's no chance that was a coincidence. That was a direct result of competition.
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/1697191267930157838
It gets in the way if you want to use in-home streaming, or dualshock4 input mapping, or using Steam Play compatibility, or if you happen to have an established list of friends on a different PC portal.
I personally find Nvidia's streaming a little better at handling non-Steam games (I use Moonlight on my windows Tablet to stream my pc games). Only problem I had with that was trying to play modded Mass Effect Andromeda and that was mainly because it requires using a frostbite mod launcher that was a bit finicky to get streaming.
But that does require an Nvidia graphics card, so if you don't have that options are a little more limited for sure.
I've pretty much 100% switched to XB1 controller on PC, but I used DS4Windows which seemed to work across at least Steam and Origin (been years though, so not sure if the program has gotten better or gone to shit by now). It is cool that Steam has that functionality built in for so many controllers though.
But yeah, friends lists are definitely one of the biggest issues with multiple marketplaces.
And I'll just say what I said there in detail.
In one case you have a publisher funding the development and hiring the developers as their employees to create an IP that the publisher will own. The Obsidian game will be an IP with rights owned by MS and be developed specifically for the Xbox platform. They are paying money to create something they own for their own system.
In the other case the game got funded by some other publisher. The game was already made and ready to be launched on all platforms until Epic/MS bought exclusivity rights specifically to prevent the game from appearing on other platforms when it was originally planned to be on those platforms at launch. If MS had bought Ninja Theory just before the release of Hellblade and prevented the game from launching then that'd be moneyhatting. If MS had paid off 2K to break contract and let Outer Worlds be exclusive to them then that'd be money hatting. But Outer Worlds is coming out multiplayer even though MS now owns Obsidian. If MS behaved like Epic or the way they did with RoTR they'd have found some way to get around 2K's contract and bought Outer Worlds to make it exclusive to their platform.
Can you honestly tell me that you do not see the difference between the two?
And as for inconvenience, if you are still involved in this discussion and think this is nothing more than an inconvenience on the customer side and it's just a different launcher then I don't know what tot elk you other than that there have been multiple posts explaining why it isn't just a mere inconvenience. Maybe tell those people from third world regions who now have to pay 3 times as much for a $30 game (US price) than they did for another $30 game (US price again) on steam from the same exact publisher...that it's just an inconvenience.
Last edited:
I see that difference and it's irrelevant. Look at it from the perspective of the consumer. A game that goes temporary exclusive is said here to be "moneyhatting" and bad, but a company spending more money to acquire a developer and make all their future games permanently exclusive is apparently not "moneyhatting" and is OK. Can you explain that? I waited a year to get RotTR on PS4. I'll never get to enjoy future Ninja Theory games on Playstation. Supposedly, the former is evil, the latter is good. Can you explain that?
Origin Access and Premier Access from EA is just one example of how other storefronts have meaningfully competed. GoG and DRM free games is another example.
And let's not forget the impact that pulling a major game from Steam has on their user base. Most people will play the game regardless of the launcher you have to use, so that means less people will end up using Steam. There are people here saying they will boycott such a game, but I assure you...you are in the minority on that one. This will force Steam to offer new services, features, friendly customer service policies, etc. to better compete for your business. This is good for developers as well since they can choose the best storefront for their game according to their needs. So Valve really isn't marching to their own drum. They are feeling some impact of these competing launchers and are taking steps to future-proof their business.
They were already doing that before, and were unmatched by anybody else in that regard.
I am looking at it from the perspective of consumer. Because a consumer who was expecting that game to be priced appropriately for their region is now not getting it at an appropriate price. A consumer who only games on couch due to big picture mode and universal controller mapping (allowing for personal configuration, including configurations for people with disabilities) cannot use it anymore, a consumer that plays on Linux due to proton cannot play it anymore. A consumer that relies on cloud saves for whatever reason it may be, cannot rely on it anymore. A consumer that refunds the game if they don't like it, cannot do so anymore without limiting their future refunds (Epic apparently only allows 2 refunds account wide).
Additionally if you wanna talk about why money hatting in principal is bad. Think of it this way. A consumer who has grown to love a multiplatform franchise (and especially continuation of an ongoing franchise with the last release merely 2-3 years old), suddenly cannot play the game anymore (be it timed or forever) if it gets moneyhatted....not unless they own the platform. When it comes to original IPs there's no prior attachment or fanbase which is why buying and funding studios to develop new IP is encouraged but moneyhatting is frowned upon. It does affect the consumer in more ways than you are implying.
I don't see how this is a big deal now when we've had "launcher exclusive" games for years with Origin and uPlay. Epic paying developers for exclusivity deals isn't functionally different to Microsoft buying a studio for it to make XB1/Win10 exclusive games.
And yes the launcher is barebones but it'll be improved. If people are buying games on Steam instead of Epic because of cloud saves or controller support or screen recording or whatever, they'll address those issues because their very business relies on it.
And yes the launcher is barebones but it'll be improved. If people are buying games on Steam instead of Epic because of cloud saves or controller support or screen recording or whatever, they'll address those issues because their very business relies on it.
I think the difference is people don't mind so much when it's developers own games. They'd still rather it was on steam but at least that's a pretty good reason. Plus they know exactly what games are likely to be on which launchers.
But when it's a third party exclusive situation people get nervous because they think...what could be next? Could it be a sequel to their favourite game not on steam next?
I couldn't care less about storefronts and launchers. All of them. The thing is, Steam was my first. Most of my gaming collection is on Steam.
I have games on Steam, lesser amount on GOG, some on Uplay, a few on Origin. Didn't get any on Discord yet.
The thing is, my time is so limited now that basically everything I want to play is already out there on Steam and GOG and I wonder what other stores can even offer in terms of functionality and availability to be even remotely interesting to me as a gamer.
I have games on Steam, lesser amount on GOG, some on Uplay, a few on Origin. Didn't get any on Discord yet.
The thing is, my time is so limited now that basically everything I want to play is already out there on Steam and GOG and I wonder what other stores can even offer in terms of functionality and availability to be even remotely interesting to me as a gamer.
1st party exclusives I can stomach, but moneyhatting third party games? C'mon
I think the fragmentation of the PC market would be a more significant issue were it not for the software that supports the PC market today. The existence of Discord has effectively lessened the impact of using a different launcher as it still allows you to remain in touch with people no matter what launcher they're using. If you so choose you can also display whatever game you're currently playing to whoever you want. Without a unifying third party chat system, I think this impact of splitting storefronts would be felt much more harshly.
Market wise, the division of the storefront marketplace for PC has been coming for some time. Another similar market going through similar shifts is the online TV/movie distribution market. Previously, you had Netflix that was on top with a few smaller side competitors. Now, those side competitors have gotten bigger, and new, bigger services are entering the market to cut into Netflix's bottom line (namely Disney+).
I do not think it is a coincidence that both the PC market place for digital distribution of games and the online TV/movie digital distribution subscription service are undergoing the same shake up at the same time. It will be interesting to see what happens in both cases. If I had to guess, I think Disney+ will have a far bigger impact on the streaming market than Epic will have on the PC storefront market.
Market wise, the division of the storefront marketplace for PC has been coming for some time. Another similar market going through similar shifts is the online TV/movie distribution market. Previously, you had Netflix that was on top with a few smaller side competitors. Now, those side competitors have gotten bigger, and new, bigger services are entering the market to cut into Netflix's bottom line (namely Disney+).
I do not think it is a coincidence that both the PC market place for digital distribution of games and the online TV/movie digital distribution subscription service are undergoing the same shake up at the same time. It will be interesting to see what happens in both cases. If I had to guess, I think Disney+ will have a far bigger impact on the streaming market than Epic will have on the PC storefront market.
I mean, that's great for you... actually it doesn't sound so great.
This needs to be quoted again. This is literally all us 'Steam defenders' are trying to say.