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[Alextended]

Got baited into EGS discussion on gaf again (I post to promote VR stuff or other lesser known games like Decay of Logos and such but sometimes I'm baited into more). Some guy gifted me gold over it, lol (should give my paypal instead ) . Seems to me it's the same handful of pro-EGS posters getting trashed with solid arguments they cannot counter every so often, proceeding to ignore it ever happened only to return in full force the next page with the same tired old recycled bullshit that have already been refuted a million times in the past like how this or that customer feature is not important/is actually bad, this or that developer feature is not important either or its existence isn't acknowledged when discussed, it's just another launcher, exclusives are no different if they're paid for or because they went to the better service for the developer and the user (the latter of which benefits the dev too as a service's user is the dev's customer) and so on and so forth. I guess the hope is everybody else gets tired of dealing with it and gives up leaving Tim level crap as the only side of the story told.

 

[lashman]

On resetera
The steam sale OT is at 33 pages after 2 and a half days

The epic sale OT at 51 after its full two week cour

clearly epic are winning ... 51 > 33 ... can't argue with facts!

 

[Dandy]

Steam:

 

[ISee]

nope, not even once ... the closest they ever got was "other stores", i believe

 

[sk2k]

When next Epic sale?

 

[m_dorian]

Don't fall on Sweeney's teasing.
Ignore makes attention whores mad.

 

[Ge0force]

Seems to me it's the same handful of pro-EGS posters getting trashed with solid arguments they cannot counter every so often, proceeding to ignore it ever happened only to return in full force the next page with the same tired old recycled bullshit that have already been refuted a million times in the past like how this or that customer feature is not important/is actually bad, this or that developer feature is not important either or its existence isn't acknowledged when discussed, it's just another launcher, exclusives are no different if they're paid for or because they went to the better service for the developer and the user (the latter of which benefits the dev too as a service's user is the dev's customer) and so on and so forth. I guess the hope is everybody else gets tired of dealing with it and gives up leaving Tim level crap as the only side of the story told.

I'm curious how many of these pro-EGS posters are actually paid shills or EGS employees. I mean, doesn't every big company have "astroturfers" to change the course of certain discussion on the internet?

This said, I'm a bit surprised by the overwhelming negative response to Sweeney's Tweets. While Epic is probably hoping that the negativity around their moneyhatting strategy would could down after a few months, I rather feel like it's increasing. I'm really curious how Epic thinks to recover from such a negative reputation among the pc gaming community. At this moment, that only seems possible with a huge pro-consumer turnaround, compared to what Microsoft has been doing lately.

 

[Yoshi]

Never seen someone so desperate to get Valve's attention.

 

[C-Dub]

I'm curious how many of these pro-EGS posters are actually paid shills or EGS employees. I mean, doesn't every big company have "astroturfers" to change the course of certain discussion on the internet?

This said, I'm a bit surprised by the overwhelming negative response to Sweeney's Tweets. While Epic is probably hoping that the negativity around their moneyhatting strategy would could down after a few months, I rather feel like it's increasing. I'm really curious how Epic thinks to recover from such a negative reputation among the pc gaming community. At this moment, that only seems possible with a huge pro-consumer turnaround, compared to what Microsoft has been doing lately.

Epic doesn't want to put the work in for that. EGS was supposed to be easy money for Epic (provide practically nothing for developers nor customers and take 12% for the privilege), and it's backfiring in a monumental way.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

I don't think EGS needs to play shills to populate other sites at all. There's enough blind anti-pc & anti-steam venom and just plain trolls out there that people will do the shit-posting for free.

Steam ain't perfect but i'll take a Steam/GOG world over EGS every day.

 

[RionaaM]

Seems that Tim went from annoying to annoying and sad. I mean, EGS hasn't been directly mentioned by Valve once, has it? I can't help but think that those kinda of tweets is him trying to get some form of attention, even if just a 'yeah tim, we know you have a store now' from Gabe. Can't imagine what Tim will be doing in about two, three months if he doesn't get it by then.

As someone who's currently playing Yakuza Kiwami, I picture Sweeney like Majima trying to get Kiryu's (Gabe's) attention and fight him by whatever means necessary, no matter how ridiculous or stupid they are.

Of course, Majima is a great character who really cared about his employees in Yakuza 0, while Sweeney is a piece of garbage who'd sell his dog to a drug cartel for $5, but I laughed when I imagined Sweeney hiding under a giant traffic cone waiting for Gabe to notice him.

 

[C-Dub]

I don't think EGS needs to play shills to populate other sites at all. There's enough blind anti-pc & anti-steam venom and just plain trolls out there that people will do the shit-posting for free.

Steam ain't perfect but i'll take a Steam/GOG world over EGS every day.

While there are plenty of bad faith actors out there, never put it past a company to partake in the dirty art of astroturfing.

I remember when the Xbox One was ratcheting up into full PR mode MS basically had a bunch of "reputation management" trolls all over the web, including GAF, trying to play down the specs, Kinect and DRM controversies.

 

[Flips]

[Hidden content]

lmao

 

[lashman]

lmao

 

[Copons]

RionaaM I'm all for going full offensive and inappropriate when it comes to having a good laugh, but I draw the line at comparing Majima with Sweeney.
That's just going too far, mate!

 

[Ge0force]

 

[RionaaM]

RionaaM I'm all for going full offensive and inappropriate when it comes to having a good laugh, but I draw the line at comparing Majima with Sweeney.
That's just going too far, mate!

You're right. I forgot about Majima's catchphrase: "The customer is king". You'll never find Sweeney saying anything remotely close to that.

 

[Hektor]

Posting this here because i worry it will be considered doxxing on Era

A couple EGS stans here and there but most everyone is mercilessly dragging him.

Let's play a fun game about this, shall we.
Let me look at one of the most vocal EGS supporter in that thread.

[...] €: Removed to avoid drama

and what dou you found?
An indiedeveloper studio. From Germany. Working in Unreal Engine 4. Who began development in 2018.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

 

[Arsene]

Let's play a fun game about this, shall we.
Let me look at one of the most vocal EGS supporter in that thread.


and what dou you found?
An indiedeveloper studio. From Germany. Working in Unreal Engine 4. Who began development in 2018.

If you want an even bigger laugh search “Creator Code” on twitter and filter by people with it in their names. 90% of them have tweets jacking off Epic and (literally) shilling for them.

Completely shameless

 

[Flips]

It might shock people how easy it is to sell things like Reddit accounts to companies to astroturf. If your account is a few years old and has say 30k+ karma (which is fairly easy to get), you used to be able to sell that kind of account for $50-100. Go to any large subreddit like /r/movies, and there are hundreds of obvious shill posts. Bland cast announcements getting upvoted (by bots presumably) to the front of the page, low-res first set pictures, terrible posters, etc.

Anyways, I doubt every pro-EGS poster is a paid shill, but I would be shocked if there wasn't a significant contingent of the pro-EGS Twitter users who were bought accounts run by some kind of marketing farm overseas.

So you're telling me I should have sold my 8-year-old reddit account with ~50k karma instead of deleting it?

 

[Tizoc]

Tim Sweeny right now

See more

I'll reveal Gaben's ascended form next week

 

[Nabs]

I was scrolling down hoping I could use this gif again. I'm gonna anyway

 

[Swenhir]

Guys, I'm starting to get a little uneasy reading this thread. The personal attacks on Sweeney in the form of crappy photoshops and stalking of the people astroturfing for Epic goes a little far for me. I think all this looks a bit chidlish and distracts from the real problems with EGS.

 

[Alextended]

Come on man, lol. Personal attack photoshops. Don't worry about Tim, he's all:

 

[Swenhir]

The man is literally going on Twitter to troll his corporate competitors and look for people attacking his store.

There is really zero inclination in my body to feel any sympathy for his shit-stirring ass because he's getting memed on now.

That's not what I was saying.

Memes and personal attacks look really petty and distract from the problems with EGS. I'm saying that this weakens the sensible and reasonable arguments being made because it looks as if it comes from a place of chidlish hatred.

 

[Alexandros]

It's all in good fun, people. Gamers have been photoshopping industry figures since forever. They're rich corporate executives, I'm sure they'll be ok.

 

[Exzyleph]

Posting this here because i worry it will be considered doxxing on Era

That's a lot of digging, but uh so what?
It looks like you've just found some developer's alt/shit-posting account.
That's a pretty natural thing to have, in order to avoid having personal/unprofessional talk associated with your brand.

 

[Hektor]

That's a lot of digging, but uh so what?
It looks like you've just found some developer's alt/shit-posting account.
That's a pretty natural thing to have, in order to avoid having personal/unprofessional talk associated with your brand.

As an indidedev working in unreal engine he's got pretty ulterior motives to stan in favor of EGS imo

 

[ISee]

Guys, I'm starting to get a little uneasy reading this thread. The personal attacks on Sweeney in the form of crappy photoshops and stalking of the people astroturfing for Epic goes a little far for me. I think all this looks a bit chidlish and distracts from the real problems with EGS.

As somebody who posted a "crappy photoshop" I feel obligated to response.

Those photoshops and memes you see on forums are satire. Maybe bad executed and not well crafted satire, but nothing to worry about. It's not promoting violence and not calling people to arms to hurt other individuals or groups.
Satire can be humor, irony, exaggeration, even ridicule. It exist to criticize and even expose the stupidity, bad intend, wrong doing, character and lies of prominent figures. It's part of our western societies since forever and the equivalent of a newspapper posting something like this:

Or something like this during the german carneval
(Spider Merkel dancing on bones of her political enemies that she got rid of)

Or a saturday night live sketch



Again: I'm not nearly as clever or talented as those professional people working on satire. But my intend was satirical: I wanted to show off Tim's exaggerated self importance, his wish to become the PC market leader while being rather irrelevant and his way of "shit-posting" on twitter.
We can talk about the quality of the execution and the "amount" humor, if you don't think it's funny. Okay. But don't paint this as a personal attack, because it's not. It's badly executed satire on a forum and critique in the form of satire is something public figures have to deal with.

For the second part: It's borderline. No harm done, but it shouldn't go further. It also shouldn't become the norm and something that is being done regularly. I agree on that.

 

[Exzyleph]

As an indidedev working in unreal engine he's got pretty ulterior motives to stan in favor of EGS imo

And as customers with substantial buy-in on the platform, we've got pretty ulterior motives to stan in favor of Steam, IMO.

Trying to discredit people like this is silly and only serves to undermine the credibility of your complaints against Epic and the EGS.
You don't have to ascribe ulterior motives to everyone that disagrees with you.

 

[Swenhir]

It's all in good fun, people. Gamers have been photoshopping industry figures since forever. They're rich corporate executives, I'm sure they'll be ok.

-snip-

It's not about the harm done, I'm not sure I have that level of empathy for him given his actions. It's about how it makes us look.

ISee, you make a good point about Satire and really, you're right. I'm also sorry if I was hurtful to you. But again, there is Satire and there is hate. I'd rather we didn't loose ourselves here and I had the impression we were starting to go down this path. Maybe I'm overreacting but I had to say something.

 

[Hektor]

And as customers with substantial buy-in on the platform, we've got pretty ulterior motives to stan in favor of Steam, IMO.

Trying to discredit people like this is silly and only serves to undermine the credibility of your complaints against Epic and the EGS.
You don't have to ascribe ulterior motives to everyone that disagrees with you.

Our motives as a customer is to simply prefer the better product of the ones that are available, that's not the same as being directly paid, or striving for a direct payout of the product owner that exists outside the qualities of the product itself, which is what most developers in this EGS conversation tend to be.

It's the same reason you don't take the arguments of a marketing department seriously.

 

[ISee]

I'm also sorry if I was hurtful to you.

Oh no, not at all. I can handle critique, It's all good.

I don't hate Tim, he didn't personally hurt me or my loved ones (or other people afaik). I dislike him and think he is dishonest, self loving and bad for the industry. But so far I've not seen anything that would qualify as hateful in this forum. Anger about games being taken away and the whole situation, satire, comedy, critique but no direct and personal attacks or hate. But maybe I've overlooked something?

The thing with Tim is: There is sometimes nothing to say. He trolls, lies, spins and posts in bad faith. Take his newest Twitter tirade as an example:


" WTF, PC gamers love “surprise mechanics” now? "

Epic was also represented during that hearing. They also lied and claimed that Fortnite is an altruistic product that doesn't exist to make money. Epic also sells loot boxed. One could even say that the EGS exclusivity (my biggest problem) is funded by loot boxes aka surprise mechanics.
Who are the gamers that he is "quoting" or is he making fun of the defense forces that seem to exist for everything this days? Like for the EGS?

This is such a terrible shit-post. He isn't even trying to be smart here, he is just trolling. Satire is a good response to that, imo.

 

[Exzyleph]

Our motives as a customer is to simply prefer the better product of the ones that are available, that's not the same as being directly paid, or striving for a direct payout of the product owner that exists outside the qualities of the product itself, which is what most developers in this EGS conversation tend to be.

It's the same reason you don't take the arguments of a marketing department seriously.

We have absolutely no evidence that this developer is on Epic's payroll and the only connection between their professional account and EGS is them responding to a joke tweet by Tim Sweeney. You had to go digging through old forum posts to connect their alt account to their professional profile, but I doubt that the developer expected Tim to do the same. What is the payoff, exactly? And while it is certainly possible that this developer (indeed any developer) hopes for a cash injection from Epic, it is simply intellectually bankrupt to write off people on the mere possibility that it might be the case.

As for our motives simply being a preference for the better product, you have to look no further than this thread, indeed any thread on Epic/EGS, to see that people are far more emotionally invested than can be explained by mere pragmatic consumerism (and here I am not counting backers who got bait-and-switched). That should not come as a surprise, considering that people have years of their gaming history, their communities, and many thousands of dollars tied up in the Steam ecosystem.

But it would be no more intellectually honest to write off Steam users because of their emotional investment, and that is why I am trying to discourage you from doing the same with people defending EGS. Consider the arguments and opinions on their own merit, on both sides, and don't just attack the persons.

If our motivation is indeed just a matter of preferring the better product, then we certainly don't need to stoop so low and undermine our own credibility in the process.

 

[Hektor]

We have absolutely no evidence that this developer is on Epic's payroll and the only connection between their professional account and EGS is them responding to a joke tweet by Tim Sweeney. You had to go digging through old forum posts to connect their alt account to their professional profile, but I doubt that the developer expected Tim to do the same.

It wouldn't be nessecary for Tim to do that if the dev indeed reached out in an attempt to obtain an exclusive deal.
I, had to do that, because i'm obviously not part of any private conversations they might have had via twitter DM's or another platform entirely.

What is the payoff, exactly? And while it is certainly possible that this developer (indeed any developer) hopes for a cash injection from Epic, it is simply intellectually bankrupt to write off people on the mere possibility that it might be the case.

But it would be no more intellectually honest to write off Steam users because of their emotional investment, and that is why I am trying to discourage you from doing the same with people defending EGS. Consider the arguments and opinions on their own merit, on both sides, and don't just attack the persons.[/QUOTE]

There is nothing bankrupt about it if there's plenty of individual, confirmed cases building a larger, systematical pattern of it.
When plenty of developers have been posting bullshit and flat-out lies to improve the image of their business partner, such as the way Epic themselfs, SuperGiant or that fighting game dev have been doing, there is no intellectually honest conversation to be had with these people to begin with, because they are not interested in having one.

The entire conversation is filled to the brim with the modern alt-right playbook of rethoric, discrediting actual arguments and making up half- and untruths, and we've seen of how it worked, demanding to debate people fair-and-square when they themselfs do not do so and get away with it is demanding to play at a disadvantage.

Regardless, i honestly would not have thought that pointing out the connection would be controversial.

 

[SRossi]

Guys, I'm starting to get a little uneasy reading this thread. The personal attacks on Sweeney in the form of crappy photoshops and stalking of the people astroturfing for Epic goes a little far for me. I think all this looks a bit chidlish and distracts from the real problems with EGS.

lol

We have absolutely no evidence that this developer is on Epic's payroll and the only connection between their professional account and EGS is them responding to a joke tweet by Tim Sweeney. You had to go digging through old forum posts to connect their alt account to their professional profile, but I doubt that the developer expected Tim to do the same. What is the payoff, exactly? And while it is certainly possible that this developer (indeed any developer) hopes for a cash injection from Epic, it is simply intellectually bankrupt to write off people on the mere possibility that it might be the case.

As for our motives simply being a preference for the better product, you have to look no further than this thread, indeed any thread on Epic/EGS, to see that people are far more emotionally invested than can be explained by mere pragmatic consumerism (and here I am not counting backers who got bait-and-switched). That should not come as a surprise, considering that people have years of their gaming history, their communities, and many thousands of dollars tied up in the Steam ecosystem.

But it would be no more intellectually honest to write off Steam users because of their emotional investment, and that is why I am trying to discourage you from doing the same with people defending EGS. Consider the arguments and opinions on their own merit, on both sides, and don't just attack the persons.

If our motivation is indeed just a matter of preferring the better product, then we certainly don't need to stoop so low and undermine our own credibility in the process.

Really?

 

[m_dorian]

Don't bite.
Sweeney had only one job this week, and that job was to inform Shenmue 3 backers about their steam copies as promised.
Yet the only thing he did was to tweet old and new bs as a way to deflect and derail.
Do not fall for his tricks.

 

[Swenhir]

Oh no, not at all. I can handle critique, It's all good.

I don't hate Tim, he didn't personally hurt me or my loved ones (or other people afaik). I dislike him and think he is dishonest, self loving and bad for the industry. But so far I've not seen anything that would qualify as hateful in this forum. Anger about games being taken away and the whole situation, satire, comedy, critique but no direct and personal attacks or hate. But maybe I've overlooked something?

Sweeney is making a fool of himself and he will bear the consequences. He went from being one of the most respected engineers in the industry, standing shoulder to shoulder with Carmack, Anderson and Sousa to a glorified twitter troll. He will never regain that stature and that is good enough for me. Yes, his bullshit is irritating but then I'd rather break it down methodically rather than call him names. As Exzyleph said, attack the argument and not the person.

I guess it's just that I have this ideal of how critical discourse happens and it made me cringe seeing things stray from what Sweeney is saying to mocking him directly. It's not that he doesn't deserve it and it's not for me to decide. It's about the level of the discussion.

Anyway, enough about that! I've said my piece, no hard feelings .

Edit : Also, your point about satire and humor being an appropriate response to a conversation that no longer recognizes logic is well taken.

 

[SRossi]

But I like to attack the person while I attack the argument because that works good together. There would be no stupid argument to attack if there would be no idiot behind spewing it.

 

[BernardoOne]

That's not what I was saying.

Memes and personal attacks look really petty and distract from the problems with EGS. I'm saying that this weakens the sensible and reasonable arguments being made because it looks as if it comes from a place of chidlish hatred.

The Epic Games Store business strategy is based entirely on nothing else than Tim's ego. Criticism of the store will always inherently criticise the man, too.

In addition to that, humour has been proven to be a legitimate and effective avenue of voicing criticisms for quite a few centuries now. Nothing wrong with it.

 

[Alexandros]

It's not about the harm done, I'm not sure I have that level of empathy for him given his actions. It's about how it makes us look.

Not making funny photoshops of Sweeney isn't going to change anyone's mind about the community. From the first day the reactions against Epic started we've been called every derogatory name in the book. Satire is a great weapon against those with wealth and power.

 

[unknownhero]

Thing is, the media would paint us as man babies no matter what. Case in point, the DmC shitshow. Remember how the media would go after fans and claim that we were crybabies because of donte's hair change when that was far from the point DMC fans were making? Also, bonus points for the journalists for ignoring the blatant homophobia from ninja theory when NT implied that dante shouldn't be a gay cowboy. The journalists aren't on our side unless it benefits them, the sooner people realize that the better.

 

[Swenhir]

But I like to attack the person while I attack the argument because that works good together. There would be no stupid argument to attack if there would be no idiot behind spewing it.

I feel shocked by what you are saying. Would you behave this way with a stranger? I'm sorry, the rest of you guys have a point with humor as I said but this is scaring me.

I mean, for fuck's sake the first thing you learn as an engineer or anyone related to a scientific field is not to attack the person but the argument. It's basic decency, don't be an asshole or nobody will respect or argue with you. While I will admit Sweeney is a special case, if you are applying what you are saying to everyday life, I can't help but hope I'm not the only one not okay with this..

 

[Deleted member 113]

I feel shocked by what you are saying. Would you behave this way with a stranger? I'm sorry, the rest of you guys have a point with humor as I said but this is scaring me.

I mean, for fuck's sake the first thing you learn as an engineer or anyone related to a scientific field is not to attack the person but the argument. It's basic decency, don't be an asshole or nobody will respect or argue with you. While I will admit Sweeney is a special case, if you are applying what you are saying to everyday life, I can't help but hope I'm not the only one not okay with this..

Swenhir, I get what you're saying, but you should consider that this thread is basically one that was created so that people could "vent" a bit regarding Epic.
People are a bit upset with what Epic has been doing, and this is basically the equivalent of a group of friends getting together, and talking trash about some other guy. Is it always respectful? Not even close. But I really have no doubts that this does not reflect the level of respect and empathy fellow MC members have in their daily lives.
You aren't very likely to find proper information, or level-headed discussion in this topic, because it's not really the point of it.

Personally, and despite having plenty of reasons to be upset with their practices (I was a backer of both Phoenix Point and Shenmue III, I was a beta tester on Steam for Operencia, and I had pre-ordered directly from the developers Rune: Ragnarok), I still think wasting our time getting upset, and insulting Epic and Tim is pointless. It's only giving them free publicity, and I have better things to do than to waste time talking about a company I don't wish to support.
I much rather reward and support companies whose practices and products I see as positive, and I choose to treat with complete irrelevance companies like Epic, and some of the developers that have been doing things that, at least, are rather disrespectful to their customers, or crowdfunding supporters.


So please, don't get upset with one another over Epic, or over an obnoxious billionaire CEO.
Neither are worth it.

 

[Swenhir]

Swenhir, I get what you're saying, but you should consider that this thread is basically one that was created so that people could "vent" a bit regarding Epic.
People are a bit upset with what Epic has been doing, and this is basically the equivalent of a group of friends getting together, and talking trash about some other guy. Is it always respectful? Not even close. But I really have no doubts that this does not reflect the level of respect and empathy fellow MC members have in their daily lives.
You aren't very likely to find proper information, or level-headed discussion in this topic, because it's not really the point of it.

Personally, and despite having plenty of reasons to be upset with their practices (I was a backer of both Phoenix Point and Shenmue III, I was a beta tester on Steam for Operencia, and I had pre-ordered directly from the developers Rune: Ragnarok), I still think wasting our time getting upset, and insulting Epic and Tim is pointless. It's only giving them free publicity, and I have better things to do than to waste time talking about a company I don't wish to support.
I much rather reward and support companies whose practices and products I see as positive, and I choose to treat with complete irrelevance companies like Epic, and some of the developers that have been doing things that, at least, are rather disrespectful to their customers, or crowdfunding supporters.


So please, don't get upset with one another over Epic, or over an obnoxious billionaire CEO.
Neither are worth it.

I understand what you are saying and I do enjoy venting over Epic as much as anyone else here. It's just that I got uneasy reading some posts and thought I'd speak up. So far, all of you have been civil and I really have appreciated that. I still don't agree but there's not much more I can say. However don't take that as me become suddenly mortally crossed with anyone here. I can't speak for those that spoke to me but I'm fine .

So, TL;DR : I'm dropping it. Feel free to resume your normal, meta-exclusive conversation .

 

[ISee]

Discussions with certain people can get pretty frustrating. Some people are unable to accept logic. Arguing with them is like playing chess against a pigeon. No matter how good you're, in the end the pigeon will destroy the board, defecate on it and declare itself the winner.
This is pretty much Tim, he is certainly able to understand, just not willing to have a faithful or good conversation.

Still I agree with Swenhir , attacking somebody on a personal level, like name calling, making fun of his age, appearance or anything else is too much and a clear line that should not be broken, even in private. Don't attack another persons dignity is a good guideline imo.
As said by FunktionJCB, your professional life is not your private life though and this isn't a professional place. Jokes, a bit of anger and fun is natural and I'm pretty confident the community will punish on going, and hard "overreactions" accordingly.

For the rest: Speak out whenever you want. I don't think anybody has hard feelings against you now.
It's all good man.

 

[SRossi]

I feel shocked by what you are saying. Would you behave this way with a stranger? I'm sorry, the rest of you guys have a point with humor as I said but this is scaring me.

I mean, for fuck's sake the first thing you learn as an engineer or anyone related to a scientific field is not to attack the person but the argument. It's basic decency, don't be an asshole or nobody will respect or argue with you. While I will admit Sweeney is a special case, if you are applying what you are saying to everyday life, I can't help but hope I'm not the only one not okay with this..

I do. It's my life philosophy. If you make a stupid argument you are an idiot. Simple.

 

[TioChuck]

news about the shenmue 3 situation

 

[Aelphaeis Mangarae]

Sweeney is making a fool of himself and he will bear the consequences. He went from being one of the most respected engineers in the industry, standing shoulder to shoulder with Carmack, Anderson and Sousa to a glorified twitter troll. He will never regain that stature and that is good enough for me.

Sweeney is in charge of one of the most trusted companies in gaming. Leaving aside that the Epic Games Store is an inexplicably poorly designed piece of software which inexplicably keeps failing to follow its own development roadmap, as far as the average games developer is concerned, Unreal 4 is a cornerstone of the games industry. (As is Fortnite in a different way.)

What consequences do you think Sweeney will bear? His game is an industry titan beyond anyone's wildest dreams. His engine is the bedrock of the games industry now, and in an interesting twist has played a key role in revitalizing the flagging Japanese games industry. I feel like there's a stark disconnect here between creators and consumers. Gabe Newell and Valve have a very passionate and protective gamer fanbase. The reason people take this Epic business so personally is that Epic are transparently attacking Valve. Their exclusivity deals are very explicitly about keeping games off Steam.

Tim Sweeney and Epic Games are trusted by game developers around the globe. And this trust is only deepening with time. This has its origins in Epic's approach to engine licensing in the late 90s where they provided extensive support for the engine instead of blandly emailing people a link to the source code like id Software did. If you made a game using Unreal, you were guaranteed world class development tools and Epic's support. The licensing fees were steep, but it was value for money.

Compare that to Valve. People who licensed Source in the early days discovered it to be half baked with critical features missing, and discovered that Valve were really bad at providing development assistance. In fact, Valve are historically really bad at third party collaboration of any sort. They were the exact opposite of Epic. There's a reason VTMB 2 is using Unreal 4 instead of Source. There's the extremely promising fan-made Half-Life 2: Episode 3 project is using Unreal 4 instead of Source.

In the current games industry, Valve are viewed as a kinda cool company with a laid back, breath of fresh air culture who do cool stuff with their work on stuff like audio APIs and now VR, but they squandered their position. Once upon a time, Source was a serious competitor to id tech, to Unreal, to CryEngine. Aside from some oddball legacy stuff like Apex Legends, nobody is using Source anymore. Source's tools are really bad in terms of bugs and support from Valve's side. Despite Crytek almost going bankrupt, firing literally hundreds of employees; despite allegations of incompetent (and racist) management, despite all their dropped balls and faceplants, Crytek's CryEngine is more popular than Source if you look at recently released and upcoming titles. That is a damning indication of Valve's status within the games industry. Gabe Newell's own son wanted to use Source 2 for his game, and he hit a brick wall because nobody within Valve could articulate what Source 2 was and where he could obtain it.

What I'm getting at is that the "gamers rise up"-esque anti-Epic thing is very much the domain of gamers with a loyalty to Steam who resent Epic trying to knife Steam in the ribs. They're protective and they're angry. It's classic tribalistic behavior paired with a very real paranoia that if Valve goes belly up all their economic and emotional investment in the Steam ecosystem will come crashing down. This is not shared by the game development community. As far as the game development community is concerned, Epic is a trusted partner that hasn't let them down yet, Steam fans (gamers) have this "good guy Valve" mentality but Epic's customers are not gamers. Epic's customers are game developers, and Epic provides them with the best tools, with the best support, and wants to give them a bigger cut of the profits on a storefront. Also, Epic is willing to give them significant amounts of money for timed exclusivity. This is literal and tangible "Good guy Epic" behavior from a developer perspective. What has Valve done for them lately? Think about that pragmatically. Valve do good work. Their Linux stuff is great, for instance. The Steam platform is generally well made and feature-rich. I think the only PC game platform that truly rivals truly Steam for ease of use and polish is Uplay. But for the game dev community, that stuff is less relevant to the key concerns of making a game, selling a game, and keeping the lights on. People trust Epic, trust their engine, trust their leadership enough to use their engine as the foundation of their game. They trust Epic to help them solve issues. They trust Epic to improve the engine constantly and accept their improvements in a collaborative atmosphere where the game developers come first. That level of trust doesn't exist for Valve.

So much of this Epic vs Valve stuff seems to be oriented around "pro-consumer" vs "anti-consumer" rhetoric because Epic and Valve to some degree have different audiences who want different things.