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- Thread starter Blizniak
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We need an equivalent Timmy gif of the Gaben 'These things, they take time' gif.
I wasn't aware he's a developer. Makes his posts even more interesting. I wonder how many other devs are thinking this way.
probably quite a few ... but i imagine most of them don't want to speak up - to not burn any bridges ... Rob doesn't really give a fuck anymore
also - buy DRM, it's really good (and no, that title isn't a coincidence, lol)
His statements were more along the lines of: gamers should be able to do whatever they want, so long as its not against terms of service/illegal while in game. If they want to tell China to fuck off, they can, and he'd support their right to do it [in Fortnite]. However, he doesn't think devs should be making outwardly politic moves either by banning players or openly supporting political statements/ideology/etc openly in public because it will hurt their brand/ip/amount of money they make, but he means this from a PR perspective and wouldn't try to censor a dev trying to use their game to make a statement one way or another.
As EGS is a store, it won't be taking stances on things it hasn't already (or already gone back from earlier stances). unless it won't hurt their bottom line.
New egscxlusive:
www.epicgames.com
Huntdown
In the mayhem-filled streets of the future where gangs rule and cops fear to tread, only the bounty hunters can free the city from corruption. Lay waste to the criminal underworld and make a killing in this hard boiled action comedy arcade shooter.
www.epicgames.com
For a second, I thought it was Hunt: Showdown lol. Not quite Outer Worlds/Wilds but it's up there with confusing titles.
Rob Fearon is a well known, in the UK at least, indie developer who has been making indie games for decades. He was busy on sites like RetroRemakes and has often commented on the indie dev industry and "Meta" commentary. He's one of those people I don't always agree with but always have time to read his comments.
Deleted member 113
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New egscxlusive:
Huntdown
In the mayhem-filled streets of the future where gangs rule and cops fear to tread, only the bounty hunters can free the city from corruption. Lay waste to the criminal underworld and make a killing in this hard boiled action comedy arcade shooter.
Fun game. I would know.
Like Operencia, I beta tested the game. On Steam.
How great of these guys to leave people in the dark for month and months, without news of some sort about the status of the game, and then launch elsewhere.
You know, some of these indie developers are so disconnected with the people they are supposed to sell games to.
It's incredible how they continue to pull crap like this, and still think it's a good thing to do.
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Fun game. I would now.
Like Operencia, I beta tested the game. On Steam.
How great of these guys to leave people in the dark for month and months, without news of some sort, about the status of the game, and then launch elsewhere.
You know, some of these indie developers are so disconnected with the people they are supposed to sell games to.
It's incredible how they continue to pull crap like this, and still think it's a good thing to do.
published by Coffee Stain
Fun game. I would now.
Like Operencia, I beta tested the game. On Steam.
How great of these guys to leave people in the dark for month and months, without news of some sort, about the status of the game, and then launch elsewhere.
You know, some of these indie developers are so disconnected with the people they are supposed to sell games to.
It's incredible how they continue to pull crap like this, and still think it's a good thing to do.
The problem with your reasoning is that you think they see any of us as people.
You're a wallet. You're a consumer. You're nothing more than an obstacle between them and your money. So shut up, sit down, be a good consumer, don't think and just send them your hard-earned money, no questions asked.
And then they come crying about indiepocalypse or why their games don't sell...
Deleted member 113
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Nah, I know I'm a "walking wallet" to them.
My point is that, they risk upsetting that walking wallet, from something that was a sure thing (me buying the game), because of the crap they pulled.
Coffee Stain's "we like money" schtick gets a lot less respectable when they start publishing and throwing other devs under the bus for money.
Random thoughts here. Why doesn't Epic just do this:
1. use vast company resources to make a reasonably competent store that isn't great, but doesn't totally suck either.
2. (optional) buy some other pre-existing launcher developer (ie. Launchbox or the like) and make a product that works like GOG Galaxy 2.0.
3. loosen waaaay up on curation, like to where you have the top 5000 games on steam allowed on EGS.
4. invite publishers to sell on your store alongside any other platform they want at EGS' better profit share. No restrictions.
5. run seasonal sales, help out with promotions and visibility, and let publishers do discounts however they choose.
Basically stop trying so hard to piss people off for attention and start running a useful business instead. Then I could use EGS like I do Humble and GOG.
1. use vast company resources to make a reasonably competent store that isn't great, but doesn't totally suck either.
2. (optional) buy some other pre-existing launcher developer (ie. Launchbox or the like) and make a product that works like GOG Galaxy 2.0.
3. loosen waaaay up on curation, like to where you have the top 5000 games on steam allowed on EGS.
4. invite publishers to sell on your store alongside any other platform they want at EGS' better profit share. No restrictions.
5. run seasonal sales, help out with promotions and visibility, and let publishers do discounts however they choose.
Basically stop trying so hard to piss people off for attention and start running a useful business instead. Then I could use EGS like I do Humble and GOG.
Because Epic has never intended to compete, they just want to buy their way into replacing Steam. They don't want to share the market.
Really though, they can't be that dense. Steam exists. Buying a few mediocre exclusives isn't going to topple Valve probably. So why don't they quit with the twitter antics and spend a hundred million dollars being a serious competitor? For real, why don't they do that? A company as large, talented and connected as they are should be able to pull it off. So why aren't they?
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I do wonder if by choosing to pursue developers instead of customers (thinking the customer would follow, etc), that they have completely shot themselves in the foot. It's like there's two major paths open here.
Path A: throw money at rapidly build out an ok store that people don't hate AND that developers prefer to sell on that will get better over time and people will increasingly not laugh at or be pissed about.
Path B: throw money into the black hole of angry and/or struggling developers thinking that will somehow drag everyone away from Steam, then shitpost about it on twitter.
And somehow this multi-billion dollar company is choosing Path B like it has any future. So I'm like ... what am I missing? Either I'm confused (very likely) about how this works, or Sweeney needs a grownup in the room to push him off of twitter and onto Path A.
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At least publicly, they did state they thought people would follow the devs/games to whatever storefront they were sold from, because the store/launcher/ecosystem didn't matter as much as the games themselves.
And I mean to a degree, sure. I've used itch.io's launcher and store and I feel both are pretty terrible from a customer\QOL feature-set standpoint (unless that launcher has vastly improved since I last used it), but I don't let that prevent me from getting games there. Itch never claims itself the messiah of gaming storefronts, whereas EGS is touted as basically that, but offers about the same experience.
The idea of leading with games isn't bad, but you can't treat your customers like an afterthought in the equation or you effectively don't have a store, you have a fancy shelf. It blows my mind that the Unreal Market place is everything EGS needs to be and wasn't used as a starting point. Left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing situation I guess.
It's a reflection of the CEOs thinking, understanding and self-view:
There are brilliant developers and business people setting the rules and "cleverly" influencing the public opinion through tweets and news headlines. Opposite to that there are gullible gamers who are depended on developers to get their "fix".
Add a bit of kindergarten business wisdom 101 to it: "If I buy all the product, than people will need to buy all the product from me!" and you got the EGS.
In truth, it's way more complicated and nuanced.
In my opinion Tim's biggest fault was opening his mouth publicly. Nothing he said was conclusive and was understood in an arrogant and determining manner. It smelled fishy from the first second. People like underdogs, but the EGS was portrait as the second coming and the only possible future. A future that will be enforced and not reached or earned.
And so he burned a good portion of his gullible costumers before he even noticed it. Encountering resistance, Tim resulted into more nonsense and passive aggressiveness, further building resistance. Always believing that costumers will follow, if he controls the "product".
The EGS is Tim Sweeney's Selfportrait. One would say it's missing an ear.
My guess is that trying to compete with Steam directly (in terms of quality of service) would take hundreds of millions of dollars and many years of effort with uncertain results. I think Epic believed that they had found a shortcut to success through moneyhatting and Galyonkin's dumb theories. At times it seems like they created their store as the antiSteam based on what people who don't buy PC games complain about on forums. It really is a mystery that it didn't work.
Hello, I know you don't see me that often in this thread cause' while I check the status of games I don't usually care about the talking around them but recently I have contacted 2 studios to check their status as they have been pretty silent in their social media, those studios are Saber Interactive (WWZ, Snowrunner, Ghostbusters remaster...) and Vblank Entertainment (Shakedown: Hawaii) and surprisingly both answered my mails.
In both cases confirmed their timed exclusivity but at the same time were very moderate when talking about timing. In Saber's case they confirmed that indeed the game are timed and they are looking for releasing those game on other storefronts however no ETA was given.
And in case of Vblank Entertainment, they confirmed that one the game gets a new update that makes it "the best version of the game possible" they will indeed release it elsewhere.
In both cases the answer was real quick and I appreciate their answers, thought you would like to know and I'm planning to contact more pubs/devs in the future if there's no public comment of their status.
Yes, I know EVERYTHING is timed but as my objective is to provide as many official sources as I can, I want to look at their social media instead of contacting via private mail, anyway, the spreadsheet work is going well and the patterns are very clear.
Hope you like this information, enjoy.
In both cases confirmed their timed exclusivity but at the same time were very moderate when talking about timing. In Saber's case they confirmed that indeed the game are timed and they are looking for releasing those game on other storefronts however no ETA was given.
And in case of Vblank Entertainment, they confirmed that one the game gets a new update that makes it "the best version of the game possible" they will indeed release it elsewhere.
In both cases the answer was real quick and I appreciate their answers, thought you would like to know and I'm planning to contact more pubs/devs in the future if there's no public comment of their status.
Yes, I know EVERYTHING is timed but as my objective is to provide as many official sources as I can, I want to look at their social media instead of contacting via private mail, anyway, the spreadsheet work is going well and the patterns are very clear.
Hope you like this information, enjoy.
Hello, I know you don't see me that often in this thread cause' while I check the status of games I don't usually care about the talking around them but recently I have contacted 2 studios to check their status as they have been pretty silent in their social media, those studios are Saber Interactive (WWZ, Snowrunner, Ghostbusters remaster...) and Vblank Entertainment (Shakedown: Hawaii) and surprisingly both answered my mails.
In both cases confirmed their timed exclusivity but at the same time were very moderate when talking about timing. In Saber's case they confirmed that indeed the game are timed and they are looking for releasing those game on other storefronts however no ETA was given.
And in case of Vblank Entertainment, they confirmed that one the game gets a new update that makes it "the best version of the game possible" they will indeed release it elsewhere.
In both cases the answer was real quick and I appreciate their answers, thought you would like to know and I'm planning to contact more pubs/devs in the future if there's no public comment of their status.
Yes, I know EVERYTHING is timed but as my objective is to provide as many official sources as I can, I want to look at their social media instead of contacting via private mail, anyway, the spreadsheet work is going well and the patterns are very clear.
Hope you like this information, enjoy.
Very interesting plan, I'll sure follow your findings on this topic
Ah that's why Shakedown haven't seen a Steam release date yet, there's a big update coming to the game and I assume they wanna have that update ready for the Steam release.
Yeah, I mean, Im very interested in Industries of Titan, but reading what's actually in the game right now, it's like 10-20% of the finished content. Someone on Reddit posted a screenshot somewhere that they took 3.5 hours to finish the game, as in, do everything they possibly can do, which is insane for a city builder.
City builders are suppose to last 100s of hours.
Can't make an omelette and all that.Early EGSess you mean
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Thanks for the info, Mor.
I completely forgot about Shakedown: Hawaii!
And it was a game I was looking forward to.
Yeah, going with Epic surely is doing well, in terms of brand awareness, for these developers.
You know, as some of the games I was interested in are coming to Steam, it made me think about about what I'll do about them? Will I buy them? Will I continue to skip them? And, regarding this whole exclusivity thing, I admit I have been mellowing out a bit.
At first, I marked all the developers, publishers and games as "ignored" on Steam. Which, as more and more publishers took deals, made my Steam browsing a bit annoying (I was seeing white banners everywhere).
And things remained that way until very recently. But then, there's a couple of games like Telling Lies, and Outward, where the games launched on Steam on day one, the developers were transparent about their plans, and about how they had nothing to do with these other deals the publisher made for games they had nothing to do with, and I honestly didn't find it fair to "punish" these guys, because of deals their publishers did, for other games, that they had no control over, and no previous awareness.
Those were the two games I bought, since the EGS launched, from a publisher that took an exclusivity deal with EPIC.
Recently, I decided to removed most publishers (not all) from the ignore list, and instead ignoring only games.
Like I mentioned, I mellowed out a bit about the whole thing, and skipping say, Donut County, a game that launched before the EGS was even a thing, because their publisher released a few games on the EGS, started to make less sense to me. Or, while I don't own it yet, skipping Sayonara Wild Hearts, a game by a developer who released on day one on Steam, and didn't directly profit in any way from these other deals their publisher did, also started feeling like a bit too much.
Don't get me wrong: all games that were released on the EGS continue to be on my ignore list.
I haven't purchased a single one of them.
I just don't feel any more that. the right thing for me to do, is to "punish" people, developers, who had nothing to do with these other dealing their publisher did for other games, especially since many of them signed their publishing agreements before the EGS was a thing.
Yeah, it sucks that this rewards the publishers as well, but I prefer to think of the developers instead.
Again, don't get me wrong. I'm saying I've mellowed out, but the truth is, I see a game by, say, Annapurna Interactive, or Devolver, and something instinctively makes me hesitate to purchase one of their games, even if they launch day and date on Steam.
Which means, I continue to skip most of them, and wait for deep sales. But, they are back on my purchase consideration again, and after close to two years skipping Annapurna Interactive titles, I actually bought a couple of their games in last week's sale. On a deep discount.
But what about the previously EGS exclusives, what will I be doing?
I'm yet to buy any of them. My original idea was, at best, to give them a look when they are bundled.
But, like I mentioned I mellowed out a bit, and for some of these games, if the price is right (we're talking about 1 year old games after all), I will consider buying some of them. I think I'll take the decision on a title to title basis.
Will I buy Shakedown: Hawaii? You know what, if the price is right, or the discount high enough, I might consider it.
Will I buy The Outer Worlds? You know what, again, if the price is right, I will do so, since it's a team I like, and the developers had nothing to do with the deal.
Will I buy Operencia in the future? I might. Certainly not at the current asking price (they had a lot of nerve to release a game at the exact same price it launched on the EGS a year ago). But with a 60%/70%+ discount? I'll surely consider it.
Will I buy Phoenix Point? HELL NO! They can suck it!
Yeah, I've mellowed out a bit, but there's two things I'll still take into considering: one, how the developers acted about the exclusivity deal; second: it's a year old game, it should be priced as such, so the price has to reflect the fact that you are selling "old goods". After the crap Julian Gollop pulled, by telling backers "even if we refund everyone, we would still make more money with this deal", he can suck it. Yeah, maybe I'm not totally mellowed out about this whole EGS thing.
But yeah, the main change of heart I had was that I probably won't "punish" developers who launch a game on Steam (day and date with other platforms), just because they are published by a company who signed an exclusivity deal for other games. Even, if I'm less likely to buy them.
And second of all, for previous exclusives, I'll take into consideration buying them, if the developers weren't dicks about the whole thing, and if the price reflects the fact that these are 1 year old games. But, I'll still be more likely to just buy something else instead.
I completely forgot about Shakedown: Hawaii!
And it was a game I was looking forward to.
Yeah, going with Epic surely is doing well, in terms of brand awareness, for these developers.
You know, as some of the games I was interested in are coming to Steam, it made me think about about what I'll do about them? Will I buy them? Will I continue to skip them? And, regarding this whole exclusivity thing, I admit I have been mellowing out a bit.
At first, I marked all the developers, publishers and games as "ignored" on Steam. Which, as more and more publishers took deals, made my Steam browsing a bit annoying (I was seeing white banners everywhere).
And things remained that way until very recently. But then, there's a couple of games like Telling Lies, and Outward, where the games launched on Steam on day one, the developers were transparent about their plans, and about how they had nothing to do with these other deals the publisher made for games they had nothing to do with, and I honestly didn't find it fair to "punish" these guys, because of deals their publishers did, for other games, that they had no control over, and no previous awareness.
Those were the two games I bought, since the EGS launched, from a publisher that took an exclusivity deal with EPIC.
Recently, I decided to removed most publishers (not all) from the ignore list, and instead ignoring only games.
Like I mentioned, I mellowed out a bit about the whole thing, and skipping say, Donut County, a game that launched before the EGS was even a thing, because their publisher released a few games on the EGS, started to make less sense to me. Or, while I don't own it yet, skipping Sayonara Wild Hearts, a game by a developer who released on day one on Steam, and didn't directly profit in any way from these other deals their publisher did, also started feeling like a bit too much.
Don't get me wrong: all games that were released on the EGS continue to be on my ignore list.
I haven't purchased a single one of them.
I just don't feel any more that. the right thing for me to do, is to "punish" people, developers, who had nothing to do with these other dealing their publisher did for other games, especially since many of them signed their publishing agreements before the EGS was a thing.
Yeah, it sucks that this rewards the publishers as well, but I prefer to think of the developers instead.
Again, don't get me wrong. I'm saying I've mellowed out, but the truth is, I see a game by, say, Annapurna Interactive, or Devolver, and something instinctively makes me hesitate to purchase one of their games, even if they launch day and date on Steam.
Which means, I continue to skip most of them, and wait for deep sales. But, they are back on my purchase consideration again, and after close to two years skipping Annapurna Interactive titles, I actually bought a couple of their games in last week's sale. On a deep discount.
But what about the previously EGS exclusives, what will I be doing?
I'm yet to buy any of them. My original idea was, at best, to give them a look when they are bundled.
But, like I mentioned I mellowed out a bit, and for some of these games, if the price is right (we're talking about 1 year old games after all), I will consider buying some of them. I think I'll take the decision on a title to title basis.
Will I buy Shakedown: Hawaii? You know what, if the price is right, or the discount high enough, I might consider it.
Will I buy The Outer Worlds? You know what, again, if the price is right, I will do so, since it's a team I like, and the developers had nothing to do with the deal.
Will I buy Operencia in the future? I might. Certainly not at the current asking price (they had a lot of nerve to release a game at the exact same price it launched on the EGS a year ago). But with a 60%/70%+ discount? I'll surely consider it.
Will I buy Phoenix Point? HELL NO! They can suck it!
Yeah, I've mellowed out a bit, but there's two things I'll still take into considering: one, how the developers acted about the exclusivity deal; second: it's a year old game, it should be priced as such, so the price has to reflect the fact that you are selling "old goods". After the crap Julian Gollop pulled, by telling backers "even if we refund everyone, we would still make more money with this deal", he can suck it. Yeah, maybe I'm not totally mellowed out about this whole EGS thing. But yeah, the main change of heart I had was that I probably won't "punish" developers who launch a game on Steam (day and date with other platforms), just because they are published by a company who signed an exclusivity deal for other games. Even, if I'm less likely to buy them.
And second of all, for previous exclusives, I'll take into consideration buying them, if the developers weren't dicks about the whole thing, and if the price reflects the fact that these are 1 year old games. But, I'll still be more likely to just buy something else instead.
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The Epic Games Store in two sentences
You're welcome ^^
Will try to keep up with the updates as much as I can, even if I don't visit this thread that much.
Exactly, I don't understand why with all they have to work with and have already done, can't just complete the loop. They should have everything they need and more to become a real competitor, but that disrespect of the customers seems to sabotage them. The whole exclusives strategy seems ego driven or incredibly misguided. I'm just completely baffled that they're still doing it, when they could have exactly what they want very quickly if they stop basing their identity on Bizarro Steam.
Ha! Yeah that's a very good summary of the situation right there. I do wonder if this is too much the Sweeney show, and not enough that of other people who can moderate him. And I wonder if a large part of valve's success is that Gaben took himself out of the equation enough, with their supposedly flat structure. Of course I have no idea how Epic operates, but I do see which of the two doesn't know when to keep quiet. Something tells me that applies to the workplace as much as the internet.
Yep, that's an interesting approach too. There's a probably unfair part of me that wants to think that the negativity of the internet designed EGS by committee, patterned after that recent swath of console warring and monopoly nonsense, and well, here we are. Not exactly a lofty inspiration. But who else do they cater to? Also after hundreds of millions of dollars and years of effort, uncertainty is now what they've got anyway. In all honesty, I wonder if they could have been a real, major competitor to Steam right this very day, if not for their CEO's obsession with twitter ego battles.
I find the whole thing kind of fascinating. It's like they'd rather double down on stubborn than success. Maybe they're too big to truly care like a little startup would? Maybe not enough people own enough of a stake in Epic to reign in stupidity and be like, hey Sweeney, shut up and run your race? Dunno. One perspective does always seem to make sense. It only takes one captain to sink the whole ship.
Regardless, looking forward to the next season of the EGS show.
I've been thinking about this as well. I still don't know if buying a former EGS exclusive game on Steam is the best thing to do. It may convince devs that we don't want to support EGS, but it also may reassure devs that we'll buy moneyhatted games anyway.
At this moment I think it's the latter, but I'm not sure this has much impact on the decision to go EGS exclusive or not. As Alexandros has said before, Epic's cheques are way too high for devs to ignore. If the moneyhatting stops, it will be Epic's decision, not the devs and publishers.
This said: as long as there are plenty of other great games to play, I'll keep ignoring EGS exclusives completely. I will only fully boycott a dev or publisher when they are being jerks, or when they are kissing Epic's ass too much. Coffee Stain is the latest addition on my blacklist for example.
I wouldn't be worried about that considering not every former EGS game will be a success on Steam.
Press F for Ashen.
I'm not really worried about it. I'm just curious what impact this has on the future of timed exclusivity deals on pc.
No doubt this is not a good sign for Epic. The fact that they are giving away several times exclusives right before the 12 months exclusivity ends may have something to do with this.
I was keen on Satisfactory when i saw it at an E3 show back whenever it was but ive kind of lost interest in it now. That seems to happen to a lot of eggs games for me. I think a lot of these devs are underestimating how strong that initial hype is for a game and that impulse buy phase from people like me.
Oh no, what will we do without another multiplayer game on steam? Does anyone have numbers on its current player base as is?
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No, but it's the 2nd best selling game on EGS so far and is still in the top selling list each week. It would make sense for Epic to keep it exclusive to link their store on the franchise.
Or not
tbh i eather believe an email Mor got from thier support over randomass YT video on cirklejerking hatemob subreddit about facebook reply ... that doesnt really say what the pseudoyoutuber implies
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Uummmh I can't confirm or deny if those games are going to comes to any other platforms, however, that's the answer I got so yeah, who knows.
I mean, it's a yes, I got a different answer via mail and crimsonheadGCN was just confirming that indeed I got a different one xdOr not
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that was well very "egs launch argumenty" and quite an arrogant take
Yeah. I thought neither of them had a decent argument. Might as well of stuck a 'Its just a launcher' in there too.
Thank you both for saving me a few minutes of my limited time in this universe.