News Epic Games Store

www.pcgamesn.com

Destiny 2 went to Steam instead of Epic “for all the obvious reasons”

"We figured it would be a good way to welcome a lot of new players into our community"
www.pcgamesn.com www.pcgamesn.com


We consider just about everything, but we made the decision to go with Steam for all the obvious reasons. Steam has a large and faithful install base. We have great access to some of the people at Valve, because we’re right there in the same industry community in Bellevue, WA. And we just figured it would be a good way to welcome a lot of new players into our community
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If your product is in trouble, you need a big a reliable partner and not something that further troubles the waters.
 
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TABS tomorrow.

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Swenhir said:
You act as if this is a gotcha and we are evil doubters. All I care about is the data being reliable and I'm still skeptical. The problem I see is the same as with steamspy : inaccuracy, and this is no dig on his work. It's simply that as far as I understand, the source for EGS data works as follows :



First - and this is not on LittleDinamit of course - this seems a little invasive to me. If I was running 10, would vehemently argue that nobody has any business knowing what is installed on my machine. Maybe I'm just tired but am I the only one shocked that this information is available in this way at all? I understand this works through voluntary installation of the PlayTracker software in which case, well I guess the users know what they are signing up for, but then how large is the userbase?

I don't know, it still seems iffy to me, but you are all free to think what you will!
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We do not have installable software. The windows data is something Microsoft collects and we simply get it via API. Precisely because I had concerns with privacy, we only collect the Windows data of users that have a public XBOX profile, since that is at least some form of consent over just collecting any Windows data available where some people may not be aware that their data is public.
 
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LittleDinamit said:
We do not have installable software. The windows data is something Microsoft collects and we simply get it via API. Precisely because I had concerns with privacy, we only collect the Windows data of users that have a public XBOX profile, since that is at least some form of consent over just collecting any Windows data available where some people may not be aware that their data is public.
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That makes excellent sense, thank you. While I abhor Microsoft for collecting the data in the first place, you can't be blamed for analyzing it in a public and free way. Has Microsoft commented on the longevity of that data collection? As in, is this going to remain the way they collect it, and how they make it available for the foreseeable future?

Either way, I appreciate what you are doing a lot more. I'm just not sure how large or biased the data set is, therefore how representative of the market it is. I don't want to draw excessive conclusions from it, even if, let's be honest, it tells us what we pretty much imagined.

In any case, thanks for clarifying things and have a merry Christmas :).
 
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Chudah said:
I'm already seeing people complaining about repeat and old games being given away. Epic is conditioning their users to expect free and newer stuff. How do they expect people to buy games on their store when free is the order of the day over there?
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They don't. For now.
They want to kill Steam, they want to kill or buy out rest of PC stores. Then they can dictate what the people do.
AKA the Uber model
 
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Knurek said:
They don't. For now.
They want to kill Steam, they want to kill or buy out rest of PC stores. Then they can dictate what the people do.
AKA the Uber model
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In a way, it's working.

In several occasions, I had Celeste as a possible purchase option.
But then, when I remind myself that the game was given away for free (now twice), I struggle a bit to put myself up to pay for it at 50% off (9,99€), and I go and buy another game. Celeste is now probably eternally in my "I'll play it when it's included in a bundle" game.
 
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Knurek said:
They don't. For now.
They want to kill Steam, they want to kill or buy out rest of PC stores. Then they can dictate what the people do.
AKA the Uber model
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Since there are other markets for games (consoles, mobile, etc) I don't think that will work long term. In the end the ones that are really going to get screwed are the indies (or medium size projects) that think Epic is saving them with the moneyhats, because those are the ones being given away for free, or sold with epic taking a hit in this sale.

I still see people complaining to this day because of those "80%" off discounts of the first Steam sales, so I don't want to think how long it will take this time for the perceived value of these games to recover, and that's if they do... since Microsoft is also not helping with all those Gamepass promos. I barely use the Window Store, don't have a Xbox, but I do have god knows how many months of Gamepass ultimate for "free".

The end result for me: I usually buy some cheap games on the Steam sale, but also some a bit pricier that I'm more interested in. Now.... I still haven't decided to press the "Purchase" button. I probably will in the end, but even as someone who isn't using EGS at all, and very little of the Window Store, I'm also thinking in the back of my head: I will probably wait for a steeper discount or maybe see if it's on Gamepass later... specially if the regional price is crap.
 
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FunktionJCB said:
In a way, it's working.

In several occasions, I had Celeste as a possible purchase option.
But then, when I remind myself that the game was given away for free (now twice), I struggle a bit to put myself up to pay for it at 50% off (9,99€), and I go and buy another game. Celeste is now probably eternally in my "I'll play it when it's included in a bundle" game.
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Same. There are now plenty of games in my wishlist that are discounted to ~5£, which is my personal price point for indies that I'm randomly interested, that were given away for free on EGS and so I'm like eh, I can wait for them to go to 3£ or in the humble monthly or whatever.
Good job Epic for nurturing indies, I guess?
 
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Knurek said:
They don't. For now.
They want to kill Steam, they want to kill or buy out rest of PC stores. Then they can dictate what the people do.
AKA the Uber model
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Except there are thousands of other options on Steam for me to spend my money on. It'd be one thing if Epic had ALL of the games, but they don't. And they don't even have most of the best ones, or even certain niche genres that I enjoy. They can try and strangle the market for the games that they moneyhat or whatever, but there are tons of other games that I'll spend my money on anyway.

I'm also noticing that it's the same handful of devs that are signing up over there, and with GamePass, and Humble Bundles. The same types of games being given away and passed around over and over again. Eventually, everyone is going to own those, so either they start attracting other devs with their moneyhats, or they find some other way to strangle the market. Can't say I feel bad for the devs who have had their games devalued to the point of being worthless, though.
 
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Chudah said:
Except there are thousands of other options on Steam for me to spend my money on. It'd be one thing if Epic had ALL of the games, but they don't. And they don't even have most of the best ones, or even certain niche genres that I enjoy. They can try and strangle the market for the games that they moneyhat or whatever, but there are tons of other games that I'll spend my money on anyway.
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Hey, I'm not saying it's a good plan.
FWIW, it's the go-to plan for all companies. Not all of them have the money chest/skill/luck to execute it
 
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Knurek said:
Hey, I'm not saying it's a good plan.
FWIW, it's the go-to plan for all companies. Not all of them have the money chest/skill/luck to execute it
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Well, they've got a limited time table there with Fortnite revenue dropping off as much as it has. I can't imagine investors wanting to finance the store indefinitely if their returns start slipping.
 
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inky said:
Wasn't there a rumor they'd move to a humble like model? Or that might just have been some reddit nonsense.
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Something like that, yeah. The Reddit post said that before rolling in a subscription service they would keep giving away games (repeats) early next year, but I feel that if they planned to do so they would've announced at least the freebie repeat season already.
 
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FunktionJCB said:
In a way, it's working.

In several occasions, I had Celeste as a possible purchase option.
But then, when I remind myself that the game was given away for free (now twice), I struggle a bit to put myself up to pay for it at 50% off (9,99€), and I go and buy another game. Celeste is now probably eternally in my "I'll play it when it's included in a bundle" game.
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Bruv this has been the mentality with bundles and has bern been around long before egs was a thing.
 
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Tizoc said:
Bruv this has been the mentality with bundles and has bern been around long before egs was a thing.
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It's similar but not the same.
You still pay a bundle, and in most cases you don't just assign to the bundled games a value equals to ( bundle price / number of games ).
Most likely, there are a couple of meaningful games and a load of trash.
For me the value of a bundled game of my interest is more around ( bundle price / 2 or 3 ), which is closer to my lowest price point to buy the same game on sale on Steam.

EGS being free, there are no more reasonings to do: the game has been free once, its value has irredeemably been zeroed.
 
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To be fair, games which are free on EGS are usually games which you can play on Game Pass. That is $1 for 3 months. And some of these games have appeared in a Monthly bundle a long time ago. These are all the same games which get offered good deals.

For instance, I have tried playing The Messenger on PC Game Pass, and the launcher is so bugged that I could not get past the start screen of the game. Then the game was given away on Epic Games store, and I could play it just fine. The next step for the game is to appear in a Humble Choice offer in Q1 2020.

My purchasing habits do not change. I ask myself whether the game would appear on Game Pass/Humble Choice/Epic Games, and if the answer is yes to any of them, then it is yes to all of them.
 
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I used to laugh at EA complaining about devaluing games, but now I see how that could be a thing. I bought Celeste twice, on Switch and Steam. It's a fantastic game, and totally worth it to me. Personally it doesn't change how I feel, since there's no chance I'm ever grabbing an EGS freebie (and thus I don't hold it against their regular price), but others do grab them, and for them the game may in fact be worth $0. As of today it has been given away twice within the last 5 months, so it wasn't a lone occurrence; there's a pattern of the game having no monetary value.

So yeah, while these deals may be benefitial to the devs in the short term, I don't think training people to wait for a $0 price is really a good idea . I bet devs can't survive eternally on handouts from platform holders, and at some point they will need customers to actually pay for their games..
 
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RionaaM said:
I bet devs can't survive eternally on handouts from platform holders, and at some point they will need customers to actually pay for their games..
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Subscription services like Game Pass are causing the same "let's wait and see" behavior, and that's becoming a huge problem. Only a very small minority of games will be allowed on Game Pass, and other devs of similar games will suffer heavy because of this.
 
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Ge0force said:
Subscription services like Game Pass are causing the same "let's wait and see" behavior, and that's becoming a huge problem. Only a very small minority of games will be allowed on Game Pass, and other devs of similar games will suffer heavy because of this.
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There are ways around it.

  • Devs have to proclaim that they will never be bundled or given away for free (in a specific timeframe)
  • Devs have to honor that claim
  • and customers (in a meaningful majority) have to call out or boycott a developer if they betray that trust, regardless if it would mean that the dev would have to potentially close down. The one dev who fucks the trust would fuck the rest of the system.

There are already devs who stick to their guns of not devaluing their game and it is working for them (Factorio)
 
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Eh, EGS freebies are a temporary thing so I don’t think it’s that serious for game devaluation. Game Pass? Kinda, but a lot of the indies are there at launch and $10/month is by no means free.
 
I disagree. But I don't think devaluation is right or good word. But Epic definitely has "devalued" games by changing how they spend time, If people spend their time playing free games, that potentially time off from actually purchased game.

Of course same applies for huge amount of things, game pass, huge backlog of games and people stacking up to three years of game pass time for $0-50 from various offers. People spending shitposting about Steam and Epic instead of playing. Humble Monthly for long time has had people speculating that game they want is in next bundle. And bundles in general building up backlog...

Small things, but I'm sure these will start to add up.
 
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madjoki said:
Small things, but I'm sure these will start to add up.
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It already has. The impact of this happened long before EGS existed. Blame Epic for a lot of things, but devaluing games isn't one of them. But their answer to it - 88/12 and moneyhats - is a bandaid over a gushing wound. Plus they are hardly helping by offering games for free.

I have more games than I could ever conceiveably play. Lots of people I know do too. If I stopped buying games and just played the good-looking ones I already own, I'd be entertained for a couple of years. If I dug deep into my Hidden Games list on Steam I'd probably have several decade's worth. And that's just on Steam. I have games from other clients/services like Uplay freebies, Humble Trove, GOG, Amazon Prime, EGS and so on that it's just madness.

And then there's the consoles. There are PS3 games I would still be happy to play, not to mention all the stuff I've gathered on modern systems, and next-gen is around the corner too.

I think really what needs to happen is an attitude change from people on an individual level. I'm trying to discipline myself to not buy games all the time, especially when I have so much to play already. If it's an absolute must-have, then I can make exceptions, but on the most part I am not "waiting for sales" or buying frivolously - I will play what I have and if there's a game I want I will buy it regardless of price, instead of waiting for it to be 33% off and not playing it for two years or more.
 
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Chudah said:
I'm already seeing people complaining about repeat and old games being given away. Epic is conditioning their users to expect free and newer stuff. How do they expect people to buy games on their store when free is the order of the day over there?
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Remember when Epic said they didn’t like Steam sales because the devalue games? I know the mask is fully off about them being hypocrites and charlatans, but it’s still fun to laugh at.
Chudah said:
Except there are thousands of other options on Steam for me to spend my money on. It'd be one thing if Epic had ALL of the games, but they don't. And they don't even have most of the best ones, or even certain niche genres that I enjoy. They can try and strangle the market for the games that they moneyhat or whatever, but there are tons of other games that I'll spend my money on anyway.
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EGS exclusivity deals have historically been really bad deals on Epic’s part. The only reason these deals were attractive to devs were because Epic was massively overpaying, going so far as to cover some games’ entire development budgets, and Epic was probably intending on them being loss leaders they wouldn’t even feel thanks to Fortnite cash. But when you look at their big exclusives - Shenmue bombed HARD, Borderlands 3 isn’t having even a fraction of the staying power 2 did, and I still can’t believe how dumb it was that they dropped a fuckload of cash on a single month of not-even-exclusivity for a game that was already a year old. (Which didn’t sell well anyways! Though I loved RDR2.) The contracts will dry up FAST once Fortnite stops being a juggernaut, and it already is - all they had of note at the TGAs were Surgeon Simulator 2 and mayyyyybe Predator?
Ge0force said:
This is hilarious after alienating Steam users by going EGS exclusive...

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I choose to believe it’s subtle shade by saying that Hades is a “new release.”
 
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