Indie scene will change. Instead of making good games for players to get a lot of money, they'll make game good enough to get Epic's eye on them to get financial stability.
News Epic Games Store
- Thread starter Blizniak
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This is honestly why im very against Valve buying off exclusives. The last thing we need is a bidding war where indie devs start pandering to popular genre’s in hopes that big billion dollar corporations Valve or Epic will give them a easy payday.
People being so down for this happening is extremely gross.
There are other pressures on indies other than EGS. Stadia, for one, Game Pass another. All will affect how indies make games, and who they make them for.
Quite frankly, it just clears the way for indies doing good stuff to thrive on Steam. That’s the best way look at it.
The press drooling over EGS and games on it just means even less coverage left for other worthwhile indies though. Which sucks as mere word of mouth isn't enough for all and shows once more these people just care for ad money and freebies, not discovering and informing the enthusiast audience of great games.
Let's put it this way, Stadia, Game Pass, EGS and heck, even things like the Nintendo Switch and other new and novel ways of doing things just look like the latest in a long line of gold rushes that the games industry follows. There's money there, so everyone ploughs in until the money dries up.
We've seen this happen before with new growth areas like mobile, and ultimately some guys will do well out of it and stay there. That's fine, I wish them well. And while they're gone others will rise up. Just think of all the new indie games from previously unknowns that came out over the last five years, and then in the five years before that. It's pretty cyclical if you ask me. Developers make games that are successful, then their next game maybe doesn't have as much growth as they'd like (thus hobbling their ambition), so they go chasing deals and platforms that let them to grow as a business, allowing others to fill the void they left behind. I don't really see EGS as any different from mobile inasmuch as there's money there, so people are trying to get some of it.
It's as depressing as it is exciting, really. We have to remember that a lot of these people are entrepreneurs as much as they are creatives, and they buy into the bullshit of infinite growth and how hard work pays off, so of course we're gonna see behaviour like this.
They're not the first, and they won't be the last.
This is indeed a concern, however. But when has the enthusiast press ever been any different? Yet somehow good things have thrived in a sea of shit.
I don't think we can expect much from the enthusiast press to do a proper journalistic job. Aside from a few real professionals the rest of them are just marketing tools even if the people there really have good intentions which i think most of them do.
I think the best way to deal with the game press is to think them as another gear of the industry's communication mechanism and as such we need to learn how to tell when an article/opinion piece/report is product of journalistic work or just an echo from a marketing department.
Keep cool and be civil, i guess.
I think the best way to deal with the game press is to think them as another gear of the industry's communication mechanism and as such we need to learn how to tell when an article/opinion piece/report is product of journalistic work or just an echo from a marketing department.
Keep cool and be civil, i guess.
The thing is even if they are good people, the minimum baseline of being a professional in a journalistic position requires to maintain a distance and ask questions that may make them dislike you. This is seemingly impossible today and a thing TB was excellent at.
This industry loves to blackmail itself, keep its secrets little lists and play the "small world" card. No wonder the journalism sucks.
yeah, pretty much this ... say something bad about a game/publisher and you can get not only yourself blacklisted, but your entire publication as well (like bethesda did with kotaku) ... no one wants to risk that kind of shit
This journalist has finally discovered Steams major flaw: it lacks indie games. 
The same article also lists G2A as one of the best alternatives for Steam.
The same article also lists G2A as one of the best alternatives for Steam.
4/10 of these give Steam keys for 99% of their games. Has this dude touched PC gaming before?This journalist has finally discovered Steams major flaw: it lacks indie games.
The same article also lists G2A as one of the best alternatives for Steam.
That's very unlikely.
Articles like that are just SEO junk designed to claw in ad revenue and possibly referral revenue from sites that offer it. Best to just ignore it.
Some devs are really naive or blind or both.
"Memari adds: "Yeah, I think Epic is not really a big fan of exclusivity. They have Fortnite on all platforms; they're the ones who started that. They'd love to have games on all platforms so everyone can play them, and even when you say an exclusive on the Epic store, it's just the store, not the platform. In the end, I don't think their approach will damage the [PC] platform. I hope this competition can be good for the platform so we can have two really good stores in competition."
Interview with Shifting Tides about their game The Sojourn
www.gamesindustry.biz
"Memari adds: "Yeah, I think Epic is not really a big fan of exclusivity. They have Fortnite on all platforms; they're the ones who started that. They'd love to have games on all platforms so everyone can play them, and even when you say an exclusive on the Epic store, it's just the store, not the platform. In the end, I don't think their approach will damage the [PC] platform. I hope this competition can be good for the platform so we can have two really good stores in competition."
Interview with Shifting Tides about their game The Sojourn
Shifting Tides' sojourn to a non-boring puzzle game
Aria Esrafilian thinks that "puzzle games are boring by nature," but he and fellow Shifting Tides co-founder Nima Memar…
www.gamesindustry.biz
Some devs are really naive or blind or both.
"Memari adds: "Yeah, I think Epic is not really a big fan of exclusivity. They have Fortnite on all platforms; they're the ones who started that. They'd love to have games on all platforms so everyone can play them, and even when you say an exclusive on the Epic store, it's just the store, not the platform. In the end, I don't think their approach will damage the [PC] platform. I hope this competition can be good for the platform so we can have two really good stores in competition."
Interview with Shifting Tides about their game The Sojourn
Shifting Tides' sojourn to a non-boring puzzle game
Aria Esrafilian thinks that "puzzle games are boring by nature," but he and fellow Shifting Tides co-founder Nima Memar…
breaking news: developer that makes dumb shortsighted decision doesn't understand the problem behind said dumb shortsighted decisionSome devs are really naive or blind or both.
"Memari adds: "Yeah, I think Epic is not really a big fan of exclusivity. They have Fortnite on all platforms; they're the ones who started that. They'd love to have games on all platforms so everyone can play them, and even when you say an exclusive on the Epic store, it's just the store, not the platform. In the end, I don't think their approach will damage the [PC] platform. I hope this competition can be good for the platform so we can have two really good stores in competition."
Interview with Shifting Tides about their game The Sojourn
Shifting Tides' sojourn to a non-boring puzzle game
Aria Esrafilian thinks that "puzzle games are boring by nature," but he and fellow Shifting Tides co-founder Nima Memar…
I've got a bridge to sell you...Some devs are really naive or blind or both.
"Memari adds: "Yeah, I think Epic is not really a big fan of exclusivity. They have Fortnite on all platforms; they're the ones who started that. They'd love to have games on all platforms so everyone can play them, and even when you say an exclusive on the Epic store, it's just the store, not the platform. In the end, I don't think their approach will damage the [PC] platform. I hope this competition can be good for the platform so we can have two really good stores in competition."
Interview with Shifting Tides about their game The Sojourn
Shifting Tides' sojourn to a non-boring puzzle game
Aria Esrafilian thinks that "puzzle games are boring by nature," but he and fellow Shifting Tides co-founder Nima Memar…
I swear every gaming "journalist" and PC dev should be forced to sit in a workshop about the differences between Steam the store and Steam the platform.
Yes, Steam is a platform (within the PC platform if you want) and offers a shitton of services for both players and devs (did we forget that one racing game that released on the egs without leaderbords despite having them on consoles, because that garbage doesn't have a fucking leaderboard API?).
And Steam, the store, is wholly different and in most cases optional, for me as a customer. I checked my purchase history and I bought 2 things between now and February on Steam directly, but you can be sure I bought dozens of games total in that same timeframe.
Yes, Steam is a platform (within the PC platform if you want) and offers a shitton of services for both players and devs (did we forget that one racing game that released on the egs without leaderbords despite having them on consoles, because that garbage doesn't have a fucking leaderboard API?).
And Steam, the store, is wholly different and in most cases optional, for me as a customer. I checked my purchase history and I bought 2 things between now and February on Steam directly, but you can be sure I bought dozens of games total in that same timeframe.
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Interesting fact:
6 months in, Ashen's multiplayer is still broken.
Lack of forums and reviews really doing wonders.
6 months in, Ashen's multiplayer is still broken.
Lack of forums and reviews really doing wonders.
Is Journey’s online still broken? Or was it just dead and everyone just assumed it was broken.
that's the future the publishers want ... shit's broken and there's nowhere (nowhere visible, at least) to complain about it
oh, don't worry, they have a channel in their discord for it!
(which is basically hundreds upon hundreds of people complaining about the online being broken, and no response from the devs
)
but it's not really visible ... like, on the store pageoh, don't worry, they have a channel in their discord for it!
(which is basically hundreds upon hundreds of people complaining about the online being broken, and no response from the devs
you have to specifically go looking for it somewhere
that's what i meant
I dont believe they are that ignorant. I think theyre just several drinks into the EGS koolaid, as if EGS somehow goes back to the days before launchers and digital distribution.
Theyre ignoring whats rigjt in front of them because Epic can make more noise and Fortnite and the unreal engine cant be wrong, correct?
well if you have money - you're always right ... them's the rules
I actually think it's a lot simpler than that. I think Epic is paying a majority of the ad revenue on those sites (or at least a good chunk of it), And when your livelihood is directly tied to propping up the company that is ensuring your employer makes payroll, then yeah, you're going to have a vested interest over whether they succeed or not. Even if that means turning a blind eye to their shadier practices.
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I'm sure they'll visit their, uh... Discord? Reddit? Hell, I dunno where I would go to let them know.
eh, it's not even about that ... and apparently epic are planning (or already are? i don't know, i don't even visit their store) on linking those discords on store pages ....
it's about all those places being JUST out-of-the-way enough for the majority of people to not even bother checking them (plus both discord AND reddit are a huge pain in the ass if you want to quickly find something)
Official video games discords are full of repeated questions and answers over and over again. Yes, they can put a sticky FAQ but not all devs/mods do that and not all users read it. On top of that, devs are barely online anyway, and they definitely can't online all day answering the questions. In the end, all these repeated questions just bury the actual conversations and/or other questions people were asking.
Good news everyone! Fortnite doesn't make any money, so it's just a matter of time that Epic runs out of spare change to buy exclusives!
www.theguardian.com
(But seriously, it would be super funny if British royalty casually saved PC gaming from Epic
)
MPs in a spin as games chief appears to deny Fortnite makes money
Epic bosses admit ignoring data protection rules and claim not to know how long users play for
www.theguardian.com
(But seriously, it would be super funny if British royalty casually saved PC gaming from Epic
)
agreed ... 100%!
all those poor multi-billion-dollar publishers ... not only doesn't fortnite make ANY money, but also lootboxes don't exist in games, and yet somehow they're also quite ethical and players love them actually (according to EA)
Come on, Lash, get your facts straight. They're not lootboxes, they're "surprise mechanics"!
Wait a minute, I was promised that the benefits from Epic's moneybags would trickle down to me in the form of better games. Was I bamboozled?oh, don't worry, they have a channel in their discord for it!
(which is basically hundreds upon hundreds of people complaining about the online being broken, and no response from the devs
quite ethicalCome on, Lash, get your facts straight. They're not lootboxes, they're "surprise mechanics"!
Epic Don’t “Make Money” from Fortnite or think it’s “Necessary to Comply with Data Regulations and Laws”
nothing shady about any of that, no sirree!
The saviors of PC gaming, ladies and gentlemen.
Haha wow when you think Epic couldn't be any worse than you already thought they come and prove you wrong.
As someone who passed several game design courses, I call it bullshit that Epic have no idea about the frequency and length of time people are playing their game. ARPU, retention and game session length are one of the most important metrics in F2P games, you absolutely need to collect all kinds of stats and data in order to track game performance (like when your players make their first purchase) and correctly adjust it. They are blatantly lying to the committee and not doing themselves any favors with that.
yup ... they ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY 1000000% know that stuff ... and much, much, MUCH more ... about every single of their players
This guy sums up the situation pretty nicely:
That makes sense. Thank you.
Shenmue III is going to be celebrated as a game that got huge sales, when we really won't know how much it sold, because the initial kickstarter asked for something like $200k, but raised a million basically overnight.
All those backers will be counted as "sales," obfuscating its actual performance on EGS.
The true litmus test will be Borderlands 3. Notice how the Borderlands franchise has been on sale on Steam lately? The new DLC? The PR engines are already revving up for the fall.
As someone who had no shame about this in the 2000s, I can verify that one of the reasons I stopped is because Steam took away all the "ethical" excuses to keep going.
Agreed, though this line of thinking and that of the deafening silence of a non-sale, are somewhat in contention.
ThE EtHiCs Of GaMiNG jOuRnAlIsM, tHeY sAiD....
It's not even a game design thing. Every software has a shitload of data tracking embedded into it (for direct experience, WordPress.com tracks basically every click, often in multiple ways, but it does it in a totally anonymous way).
The only honest thing they said is that they can't define what a frequent player is, but that's just because the very question didn't make much sense in the first place.
Thats always going to be a problem. The people crafting the questions and the regulations dont have a background in tech, so they either can't call them on the BS answers (bullshit you don't track players - the features are built into the engine. Its a selling point you use for it!) or dont have the right questions to ask, re: the early access question comparing it to pharmaceuticals creation.
Epic is ballsy to enter those statements into public record though, as clearly they can be shown false quite easily should they ever come back in front of UK parliament
I think its more than a little disingenuous to state that "every software" is full of analytics because you've used wordpress and it does.
Wordpress has all of that because thats the kind of analystics that professional web designers requested and use in order to get feedback data of visitors to their sites.
Epic undoubtedly do have information on user logins, length per session, etc if only from server access logs.
But the idea that 'all software' comes with that is completely false. You couldn't reasonably expect some gamemaker or rpgmaker game to be able to provide you with analytics on average length per session, what the most clicked on button in an interface is, the average time spent in an area, etc.
You're totally right, I was implying that at a certain level every software is loaded with trackers.
Of course I wasn't talking about small time indies, but it's a totally correct clarification!