News Epic Games Store

[Deleted member 113]

because fuck developers ... they only care about getting people to use their shitty store

I know many people disagree with me, but you know what: I'm perfectly fine with these free games policy.

Naturally, this is done to get people to use the store.
But, the developers/publishers are getting paid (and agreed to it), and people are getting free games, I really see nothing wrong with that.

Why worry about the developers/publishers, when they agreed to do it in the first place?
In fact, if there's anyone to be upset with, it should be the developers and publishers who agree to do this.
I mean, I was looking to buy the Samurai Shodown from SNK on Steam. With the game being available a week early, for free, elsewhere, I naturally hesitate to spend that money on a purchase, when SNK seems really uninterested in getting my money.

I'll complain about Epic for plenty of shitty practices (going after crowdfunding games, exclusivity deals, having a shitty store that's barely functional, having shitty people doing the PR, and plenty more).
But, Epic spending money to give games freely to people, naturally to entice them to use the store? I really see nothing wrong with that.

Plenty of other stores, and not only videogames platforms/retailers, do similar promotions (coupons, loyalty points, free items, ...).
You have to spend money, to make money.

I really wouldn't mind if Valve started doing something similar (like discount vouchers for those that spend above "X" amount), instead of being of an extreme passivity as they are.
I like Steam, and all that it offers. It's easily the most complete client available, with plenty of useful functionalities, and a huge library of games.
But you know what: I'll never understand the way Valve goes around doing business. Even before all this crap about Epic, I never understood why they don't spend some of their money captivating and doing actual PR among Japanese developers, so that PC started getting games day and date with consoles.
Some Japanese games launch earlier on a certain console, because Sony, or Microsoft, or Nintendo, for example, foot some of the bill with advertising for the game. I'll never understand why Valve doesn't do something similar. Especially because, if these titles launch on Steam, Valve would naturally get whatever investment they made back in the form of added sales.
Again, you have to spend money, to make money.
Why not take some of the money they make with marketplace transactions, selling virtual cards and cosmetics, and apply it in building the PC (and Steam) as an actual platform? I don't mean exclusivity deals, I mean getting games day and date with consoles, for example.
As it stands, with no one doing so, PC gamers are left with being happy with, say, SEGA releasing ports of 8 year old games (like Bayonetta), or being happy that we are getting games 1, 2 or 3 years after everyone on consoles (and even mobile) already played them.
I know people are fine with this, but you know what, I'll never be happy with being treated as a "second-rate" customer, especially when it comes to Japanese games.
Valve could have, and should have done much better, than what they did.

 

[lashman]

I know many people disagree with me, but you know what: I'm perfectly fine with these free games policy.

Naturally, this is done to get people to use the store.
But, the developers are getting paid (and agreed to it), and people are getting free games, I really see nothing wrong with that.

Why worry about the developers/publishers, when they agreed to do it in the first place?
In fact, if there's anyone to be upset with, it should be the developers and publishers who agree to do this.
I mean, I was looking to buy the Samurai Shodown from SNK on Steam. With the game being available a week early, for free, elsewhere, I naturally hesitate to spend that money on a purchase, when SNK seems really uninterested in getting my money.

it's not really about that ... it's more about the fact that all those devs/publishers that ARE getting paid for doing this are essentially fucking it up for all those that aren't (which is, like, the vast majority)

 

[fantomena]

Im not gonna get mad at free games, but Epic should also not get mad at me for not spending money in their store. Everything will be free apparently.

 

[liezryou]

Im not gonna get mad at free games, but Epic should also not get mad at me for not spending money in their store. Everything will be free apparently.

Yeah cause they just can't pull steam users, they throwing all the $$$ they can rofl.

 

[Deleted member 113]

it's not really about that ... it's more about the fact that all those devs/publishers that ARE getting paid for doing this are essentially fucking it up for all those that aren't (which is, like, the vast majority)

I understand, lashman, but businesses are about making money.
You can't seriously expect these developers and publishers to be thinking if they are screwing other developers in the process.
It's shitty, but it's what it is. You see it everyday, in all sectors of society. Whenever you get a client, someone else isn't getting it instead.

But, my point is that people are not getting upset with the developer/publishers, they are getting upset at Epic for this.
And, to me that feels like people are looking at anything to attack Epic. Which is silly, since there's plenty of valid reasons to do so, we don't need to make something like this a negative, just to find something to "attack" them.

I'll repeat the example of Samurai Shodown. I'm perfectly fine with giving 39,99€ to SNK for a collection of older games.
In fact, I bought all their games at launch.
But, when they come out and announce they are releasing this a week early on Epic, and for free, this really feels like they don't want my money, and are treating me as a second-rate customer.
I understand why Epic did this. I don't understand why SNK did this.
If I'm getting upset at anyone, it's SNK.

As I said plenty of times in the past, thanks to what Epic did with games that I helped crowdfund, they ensured I'll never use their store, period.
They can keep giving away all games they want, I'll not even waste the time claiming them.
When I feel "disrespected", that what I do. If they wanted to captivate me as a potential customer to use their store, they couldn't have done things any worse.

But, despite my dislike of Epic, I'll not "attack" them for every and all reasons.
And this one seems silly. We are all happy when Humble gives out a free game. Or when it was Twitch giving a few games. Or, when whatever cheap game on Steam is made temporarily free by a developer. Why think otherwise, just because it's Epic footing the bill?
You know what: I would be more than happy if Valve took a look at my account, and said "you own 10k games, you spend a few thousand dollars each year on Steam, here, take a free game".

Free games are something great.
Let's not think otherwise, just because it's a shitty company footing the bill.

 

[Swenhir]

Free games are something great.
Let's not think otherwise, just because it's a shitty company footing the bill.

I disagree. If you aren't paying, then in all likelihood you are the product and in the case of Epic, it furthers the goals of a company engaging in and directly supports the practices of exclusivity.

It's not about hating on Epic dumbly - I wholeheartedly support their developments with UE and their megagrants. This, however, is transparently in line with their strategy to hurt the PC by trying to appropriate market shares without offering anything to the ecosystem in return. These free games are sure nice - if you didn't already have half of them - but taking them isn't free of bad consequences.

 

[Wok]

To be fair, every base game which is not on Steam is free these days.
You get free games on EGS, and if you want to, then you "double-dip" for cheap (50% discount) when it comes to Steam a year later.
Or you can play on day-one the sequel of Ori, Gears, etc. with PC Game Pass for $1, and double-dip for $70 on Steam if you want to.

Other than that, some base games are extremely cheap thanks to Humble Choice, etc., because they want you to purchase the DLC.

Basically:

• either you pay to have the base game on your Steam account, but you could play for close to nothing elsewhere,
• or you get the base game on Steam for close to nothing, but you are pushed to pay for DLC/Season Pass/cosmetics.

Actually, it is not really a new situation: it only comes to light because there are other stores than Steam. Remember the old times: only Steam keys were worth something, I would not buy a game on itch.io if I did not get a Steam key. Same with Humble. DRM-free? Nope, I want a Steam key, otherwise, no purchase from me. The value lay in the Steam key, and it still does.

And if the Steam key is cheap (extreme case with F2P games), that is because there is a ton of DLC.

 

[madjoki]

Quality software.

 

[Joe Spangle]

Just
another
Launcher

 

[nofuckinidea]

So uhm the newly released Sludge Life is free until 28/05/2021? Is this an error?

SLUDGE LIFE | Heute herunterladen und kaufen – Epic Games Store

Lade dir SLUDGE LIFE im Epic Games Store herunter und spiele es. Schaue nach, für welche Plattform es verfügbar ist und was es kostet!

www.epicgames.com

 

[Deleted member 113]

So uhm the newly released Sludge Life is free until 28/05/2021? Is this an error?

SLUDGE LIFE | Heute herunterladen und kaufen – Epic Games Store

Lade dir SLUDGE LIFE im Epic Games Store herunter und spiele es. Schaue nach, für welche Plattform es verfügbar ist und was es kostet!

www.epicgames.com

No, it's another Epic freebie:

 

[bobnowhere]

So uhm the newly released Sludge Life is free until 28/05/2021? Is this an error?

SLUDGE LIFE | Heute herunterladen und kaufen – Epic Games Store

Lade dir SLUDGE LIFE im Epic Games Store herunter und spiele es. Schaue nach, für welche Plattform es verfügbar ist und was es kostet!

www.epicgames.com

In a sense that Epic was an error from the get go then yes. I imagine sales and interest projections were so low, Devolver and even Epic just wrote the game off and accepted a low deal just to keep the lights on at Doseone.

 

[nofuckinidea]

yeah well, not really interested in the game but I was suprised that it is free for a whole year instead of just one week as usual

 

[liezryou]

Soo the "handsome collection" that is free includes none of the dlc that the steam version does?!?! What a rip-off.

 

[inky]

Soo the "handsome collection" that is free includes none of the dlc that the steam version does?!?! What a rip-off.

Are you serious? LOL

 

[prudis]

it says
All bonus add-on content, adding hundreds of hours of gameplay at an incredible value*

but no further explanation what the * means

 

[Stone Ocean]

I'm sure Randy thinks the value he can get out of this shit is incredible.

 

[liezryou]

it says
All bonus add-on content, adding hundreds of hours of gameplay at an incredible value*

but no further explanation what the * means

They literally copy pasted the steam description without pasting the asterisk explanation.

I don't think it includes all the DLC on EGS, as they are individual packages on steam.

 

[prudis]

so they just forgot to copypaste the asterisk part

 

[madjoki]

It's probably generic description used for all stores, I assume they'd store those internally somewhere with all languages.

 

[lashman]

EDIT: wrong thread

you can delete your posts, you know lol

 

[Joe Spangle]

you can delete your posts, you know lol

I only just worked that out yesterday

 

[xxr]

you can delete your posts, you know lol

Can I delete your posts and replace them with waifus?

 

[lashman]

I only just worked that out yesterday

better late than never

Can I delete your posts and replace them with waifus?

over my dead body

 

[Copons]

I understand, lashman, but businesses are about making money.
You can't seriously expect these developers and publishers to be thinking if they are screwing other developers in the process.

By and large they are also screwing themselves in the future, aren't they?

The developers of the poopy butthole game that's free for a year at launch is likely enjoying a fat paycheck right now, but eventually, in a few years, they'll have to do a new game to make a living.
And they'll do it in a world where everybody is trained to expect (or wait) games for free.

Just to expand: the "race to the bottom" is not today's news, but I believe EGS is something slightly different.
But before EGS, developers were pretty much all competing on the same level (with obvious differences, AAA vs AAA, indies vs indies, etc.), and the occasional sale or giveaway was simply a nice thing, that everybody could do.
Now, EGS is skewing things in favour of a selected group of devs, and fucking up the rest.
Plus, Epic has serious marketing firepower: every time they fart out a free game every single media outlet really can't avoid publishing a post about it, which means that pretty much all gamers will know about it, and eventually will do the math and just stop (or heavily reduce) buying.

Am I too pessimistic? Most definitely, but I blame COVID!

 

[Deleted member 113]

By and large they are also screwing themselves in the future, aren't they?

That's what I think so too.
I do believe most of these companies only care about the short term, when the reality on the PC is that games keep selling, even if it's just a few copies throughout the year (with peaks on the sales), and they aren't taking into consideration the lost revenue from sales lost, or from people who will wait for a heavy sale or a bundle, as a result of being a freebie on Epic.

I'll give you a concrete example. I buy loads of indie games. I still haven't purchased Celeste.
Whenever there's a sale on Steam, and I see the game at around €9, I remember the game was already free on Epic, and I just skip it.

But, going back to my original posts, what I meant was that when there's these freebies, the reactions here are usually "screw Epic", and strangely, "poor developers/publishers", or "think of the developers/publishers".
And, personally, regarding Epic I see this as naturally a way to entice people to use their store, and I can't in good conscience complain about Epic giving games for free (it's great for users), and as for the "developers/publishers", I honestly don't understand why people are so worried about them when there's a freebie, when this is something they agreed to do it. It's on them. Is it worth it? They appear to believe it is. Personally, I'm not so sure. But again, it's their call, and if it backfires, it's a risk they took, and it's on them. They only have themselves to blame (if the results are poor).

People read a few of my posts, and it may seem like I'm defending Epic.
I'll say it again, what I say over and over again: I don't have an account on the EGS, never bought anything there (or claimed free games), and I refuse to use it. In fact, I refunded my backing of Phoenix Point, and Shenmue III (and I was always crazy about the series).
So, again, I'll not use Epic's store, period.

But, I feel like any piece of news that comes out about them is naturally turned into a negative. And personally, I can't say I think it's a negative that people are getting free games out of their desire to get people to use their store. They do plenty of shitty things. I just don't think this is one of them.
I'm happy whenever Humble gives away a game I don't own. I'm happy whenever a game is made temporarily free by a developer on Steam. Why should I treat Epic's generous giveaways as a negative, just because it's Epic doing the giveaways?
Personally, I won't even claim them, but people (some with low income) are getting some awesome games from this, so good on them.

If Epic had spend their money giving games away to gamers, and working on their own IPs (and improving their store), instead of going after crowdfunding games, and signing these appalling exclusivity deals (coupled with lousy PR), I would have no problem using their store.

 

[liezryou]

you can delete your posts, you know lol

I do now xD

 

[Kyougar]

What the free games look like to me, regardless if it is true or not:

If you are an Epic exclusive and you go free on epic in the exclusive window, you are a shit game that no-one buys. I will not look twice at you. If you were a good game you would survive without going free after an exclusive deal.


I KNOW that it is not the case for a few games, but I don't care! I am not motivated enough to check if there is a swan among the ducklings. Free game on EGS (that was an exclusive): shit game.

 

[ISee]

Most of you probably already know this, but it was new to me: The story of small independent development team that is self publishing since 1994 (so to speak). With many anecdotes about game visibility (now and than), about shareware (now called demos), about running your own small "store", the value of owning your IPs, fan-dev relationships and niche games etc.

It's an entertaining and interesting watch. Maybe give it a go.

 

[uraizen]

Reminder that the first Samsho season pass was free on console launch. PC gets to pay 50 usd for a year old game with unplayably bad online and has to buy all the DLC.

SNK made the right move in whoring this game out to every deal that showed up. This is beyond sending it to die, this is choking the game with a pillow and then collecting life insurance money afterwards.

Oh, I remember all of it and I'll remember it when they announce KoFXV. Going to be assuming the worst for that immediately.

 

[ISee]

Came back from a friend. I helped him to buy and build his first gaming PC two weeks ago.
He bought Control on EGS as his first RTX game and complained about constant stuttering. So I visited him today to see if it is something I'm able to fix.
As a matter of fact I was by uninstalling EGS. Game still doesn't need the launcher and runs smoothly now.

Told him to only get free games on there, as the launcher is not good enough to spend money on it imo.
He agreed.


I'm a bad person.

 

[Tizoc]

So EGS is getting Visual Novels now? And I thought they were desperate as is already :V

Came back from a friend. I helped him to buy and build his first gaming PC two weeks ago.
He bought Control on EGS as his first RTX game and complained about constant stuttering. So I visited him today to see if it is something I'm able to fix.
As a matter of fact I was by uninstalling EGS. Game still doesn't need the launcher and runs smoothly now.

Told him to only get free games on there, as the launcher is not good enough to spend money on it imo.
He agreed.


I'm a bad person.

EGS gives games away for free. Why even spend a cent on there?

 

[ISee]

EGS gives games away for free. Why even spend a cent on there?

I'm not telling people how to spend their money. They are working for it, not me.
All I can do is to recommend to not use that thing. If he still wants to buy from there, there is nothing I'm willing to do about it.
Just thought that it was interesting how uninstalling the EGS client fixed his (rather prominent) stuttering issues.

 

[Swenhir]

I'm not telling people how to spend their money. They are working for it, not me.
All I can do is to recommend to not use that thing. If he still wants to buy from there, there is nothing I'm willing to do about it.
Just thought that it was interesting how uninstalling the EGS client fixed his (rather prominent) stuttering issues.

That's interesting, can you elaborate about the kind of stuttering we are talking about? Was it about running any game while the launcher was active in the background?

 

[ISee]

That's interesting, can you elaborate about the kind of stuttering we are talking about? Was it about running any game while the launcher was active in the background?

He only complained about Control, so it was the only thing that I checked.
I'd describe it as typical micro stutters while moving around. It was pretty noticeable, obvious and rather annoying. So I checked the frametime graph in MSI Afterburner and there were indeed sudden spikes, in an otherwise flat graph. After a couple of troubleshoot steps like removing the GPU oc, checking if GeForce Experience is recording & uninstalling GeForce Experience for good, checking if Windows Game DVR is recording, checking if all memory is there etc. I finally remembered that Control is supposed to run without the EGS Client. Uninstalling the launcher fixed the stuttering for good.

 

[Swenhir]

He only complained about Control, so it was the only thing that I checked.
I'd describe it as typical micro stutters while moving around. It was pretty noticeable, obvious and rather annoying. So I checked the frametime graph in MSI Afterburner and there were indeed sudden spikes, in an otherwise flat graph. After a couple of troubleshoot steps like removing the GPU oc, checking if GeForce Experience is recording & uninstalling GeForce Experience for good, checking if Windows Game DVR is recording, checking if all memory is there etc. I finally remembered that Control is supposed to run without the EGS Client. Uninstalling the launcher fixed the stuttering for good.

That's mind-boggling. Thanks for sharing. I'm really curious what about this caused such a dire performance drop. I don't want to speculate too much but this is a pretty huge red flag in itself.

 

[CommodoreKong]

Didn't some one post that the EGS uses Unreal Engine and a good amount of system resources because of that? Maybe I'm mis-remembering.

 

[Arsene]

Didn't some one post that the EGS uses Unreal Engine and a good amount of system resources because of that? Maybe I'm mis-remembering.

EGS does run on Unreal yes.

 

[Futaleufu]

It runs on Unreal? WTF.

 

[Swenhir]

It runs on Unreal? WTF.

That in itself isn't abnormal. An engine is a lot of stuff, including UI and front end components. That shouldn't be an issue in theory.

 

[gabbo]

That in itself isn't abnormal. An engine is a lot of stuff, including UI and front end components. That shouldn't be an issue in theory.

Even as wide reaching the unreal engine is, low foot print web apps is not something it was designed for, so you get issues like that

 

[Swenhir]

Even as wide reaching the unreal engine is, low foot print web apps is not something it was designed for, so you get issues like that

I honestly would like to know what the precise cause was because this isn't the first time I've heard of the EGS launcher hurting performance. This is a bit too broad a statement and I don't think that thing's memory footprint is that enormous.

Unlike its list of missing features compared to Steam.

 

[gabbo]

I honestly would like to know what the precise cause was because this isn't the first time I've heard of the EGS launcher hurting performance. This is a bit too broad a statement and I don't think that thing's memory footprint is that enormous.

Unlike its list of missing features compared to Steam.

 

[Futaleufu]

That in itself isn't abnormal. An engine is a lot of stuff, including UI and front end components. That shouldn't be an issue in theory.

Does unreal engine support Ruby/Python/CSS/Javascript? It actually may explain why they've been so slow adding features.

 

[Swenhir]

Does unreal engine support Ruby/Python/CSS/Javascript? It actually may explain why they've been so slow adding features.

I think they do to some extent but I couldn't give you the particulars. Python is almost certainly supported as a scripting language but that's all I know.

 

[gabbo]

Does unreal engine support Ruby/Python/CSS/Javascript? It actually may explain why they've been so slow adding features.

A lot of them have plugins built for the engine, but arent enabled by default

Scripting the Unreal Editor Using Python | Unreal Engine 5.3 Documentation

docs.unrealengine.com

with ue4 they switched to a C++ variant of UScript instead of the old one that was closed to javascript

 

[fantomena]

What Tim says here is true.

Tim Sweeney says Epic Games Store giveaways help boost sales on other platforms

The Epic founder also acknowledged that the store's bold approach has made him an 'arch-nemesis' of some PC gamers.

www.pcgamer.com

I tried Horace and Impossible Lair that EGS gave away and then bought them on Steam sale because I liked them. I will also get TABS and Farming Simulator 19 on Steam sale which was given away on EGS.

 

[Tizoc]

He is just twisting a negative into a positive

The negative being is the egs not bringing in any cash worth speaking of with the only major activity going on there is high user count to get free games. Ao twist that latter part into a positive and get attention

 

[ISee]

Out of curiosity, how is this 15% market share calculated?

-Summ of all accounts across all platforms and EGS has 15% of that?
-Total number of accounts on Steam vs. number of accounts on EGS?
-Unique logins per month on EGS vs. unique logins per month on Steam ?
-Total amount of digital PC sales/month in comparison to the amount of sales on EGS/month?

I assume they are comparing unique logins per month with Steam, but that's not saying anything at all about people actually buying from EGS. Not with games like GTA V being given away for free last month.

 

[Ruvon]

What Tim says here is true.

Tim Sweeney says Epic Games Store giveaways help boost sales on other platforms

The Epic founder also acknowledged that the store's bold approach has made him an 'arch-nemesis' of some PC gamers.

www.pcgamer.com

I tried Horace and Impossible Lair that EGS gave away and then bought them on Steam sale because I liked them. I will also get TABS and Farming Simulator 19 on Steam sale which was given away on EGS.

Looks like same thing happened for Civ6, newly released DLC is on top of sales on Steam right after main game was given for free on EGS.

Out of curiosity, how is this 15% market share calculated?

-Summ of all accounts across all platforms and EGS has 15% of that?
-Total number of accounts on Steam vs. number of accounts on EGS?
-Unique logins per month on EGS vs. unique logins per month on Steam ?
-Total amount of digital PC sales/month in comparison to the amount of sales on EGS/month?

I assume they are comparing unique logins per month with Steam, but that's not saying anything at all about people actually buying from EGS. Not with games like GTA V being given away for free last month.

I don't trust this number at all.

But apart from that, I think you're right about monthly logins. Although as you say it very well, it doesn't mean anything. It will just be fuel for lazy journalists to say "EGS get 15% of the market what a success !".

Even if, everything considered, 18 months after launch, with so much money invested, 15% doesn't look like a success to me. Especially if it only mean active accounts with free games, not active users buying stuff.

And after re-reading the article, without mentioning any source (and unless I missed that information elsewhere, in that case please correct me), that 15% market share comes right out of his ass as far as I'm concerned. When you pretend something like that, back it up with facts.