News Epic Games Store
- Thread starter Blizniak
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That part about Apple forbidding from displaying COVID-related info in Apps before releasing its own COVID-screening app the following day is golden.
Gods, this is schadenfreude but how I love seeing those companies show their ass.
MetaVerse is what I imagine the title of our poetry thread to be, if we had one.
Poor Tim can't spout his transparent lies with the threat of perjury hanging over his head.
Aw man this is beautiful. 
Only found out about this by a strange conincidence, btw. I watched a Lets Game It Out video at random and it was that game:
Well at least we know there is an unannounced Paradox exclusive or something like that?
I was wrong, Paradox did make an exclusive deal with Epic, for "Surviving the Aftermath". So it could've been about that.
Only found out about this by a strange conincidence, btw. I watched a Lets Game It Out video at random and it was that game:
That is a large number of accounts exposed.
Good. I mean, this sucks for the people involved, but it may result in more people staying away from EGS.
Maybe it'll hurt Epic if the breach is bad, but if it's bad enough to hurt Epic then the breach probably wasn't worth it. I'm hoping this is a nothingburger.
A lot of kids have Epic accounts, and if their emails are exposed, not to mention any other account links and potentially passwords, you could see a lot of bullying and targeted harassment directed at vulnerable young people. People's data can be weaponised in pretty horrific ways, and there are plenty of tech-savy shitstains out there.
And let's not get started on the paedophiles.
A lot of harm can come from these breaches.
The password change page is bugged i think lol
Also I think this might be fake, the post was deleted.
You're absolutely right. My apologies for my inappropriate comment.
So the madlads are making less money per sale on console ? (I mean they would still make more money than on mobile but that's another story).
Good Guy Epic.
Yeah, eating the cost on consoles to make Apple/Google look bad.
Someone on Era made a thread asking who would we prefer to win between Apple and Epic and I had to really think about it. Thi[UWSL]s is what I replied:[/UWSL]
[UWSL]Very tough choice. Ideally I would like Epic to lose and one of the other companies that sued Apple to win. But since I have to only choose between the two, ultimately, the possibility of putting an end to the walled garden model makes Epic winning the lesser evil, even though I am positive that Epic is well on the path of becoming a horrible evil itself. Well, more so than it already is.[/UWSL]
[UWSL]My line of thinking is that a decision that potentially forbids platform holders from locking down their platforms will end up protecting our interests from both Apple and Epic. [/UWSL]
[UWSL]Very tough choice. Ideally I would like Epic to lose and one of the other companies that sued Apple to win. But since I have to only choose between the two, ultimately, the possibility of putting an end to the walled garden model makes Epic winning the lesser evil, even though I am positive that Epic is well on the path of becoming a horrible evil itself. Well, more so than it already is.[/UWSL]
[UWSL]My line of thinking is that a decision that potentially forbids platform holders from locking down their platforms will end up protecting our interests from both Apple and Epic. [/UWSL]
Yeah as much as I dislike Epic exclusivities, and as much as I am pro-free market, I do think Apple being forced to abandon its walled garden "taking a 30% cut from everything" approach would result in net benefit for everyone..except Apple. And considering that Apple is already a trillion dollar company that makes shit ton of money even from its hardware, they can take it.
The thing is I don’t think it will be the end of walled gardens, instead we get a lot of them. The goal of epic is to have its own walled garden with exclusives, if they win then it’s open to everyone to do the same and that’s the absolute nightmare scenario.
It would be the end of that magnitude of walled gardens, we would have instead a lot of mini walled gardens instead, how cute!
At least Apple isn't actively working on making PC gaming worse AND I don't have to use their products ever. Only if somehow both could lose
Is it? On PC nothing will change. On mobile and possibly console, things will become more like PC, with multiple services. You'll probably get Battlenet, uplay, Steam, Game Pass etc on every platform, at least for a while, until the dust settles. Is that a bad scenario?
I fear that it will actually change on pc too. When app/game stores can be universal and crossplatform it will lead to more exclusives locked to walled gardens.
Or people will reject it, as is the case with EA and Microsoft. Why not roll the dice?
Alright if I can install steam on my phone and console to get access to proper versions of games I own, then that would be lovely.
But how would your phone be able to run those games?
How can devs control how/where the game is played and program the damn thing accordingly?
It would be lovely to be able to load steam and any game I own on my tablet and just kill 15min when I'm away from home but I don't see how it will be techcnially viable... Only possible solution is cloud gaming but that's not what we're talking about here (although Valve should really get working on it!)
At least the platform as a whole would open but yeah, we'd end up in the situation I feared for the PC with Epic's exclusivity deals. A balkanization where no incentive to compete in quality of service exists, where instead only the depth of your pockets to moneyhat games matters. You can easily imagine which companies would stand on top. The gaming market already has a Winner takes all problem, this would multiply it tenfold. The successful appropriating all the great games with walled garden-like control. You can see what that looks like by comparing Consoles with the PC.
I'm with Alexandros in hoping that people will reject it, and that to me involves speaking against it vocally.
It really is hard to choose a side here (at least as some that dislike both Epic and Apple practices).
Apple winning it to maintain the status quo. Which as a PC gamer and Android user is fine for now. But things are changing. Digital-only is old news for us, but cloud-gaming is threatening to "take away" the things I really like about PC gaming, including modding and Cheat Engine/etc, and since I live in Brazil, giving me a really crappy experience in it's place.
Epic winning puts us in a "what the hell is going to happen" slippery slope scenario. Maybe it really is better for us customers in the long term.... but just imagine Sweeney gloating.... oh god. On the "positive" side, it could lead to console gamers dealing "just another launcher" without the much loved achievements and so on, and after two years of readings trolls, it would put a smile in my face
But it is really scary what Epic would do with such a victory, and we would have to hope that the ruling is broad enough to bite them in the ass in the end, so I don't know.
The devil we know and hope someone else makes (and wins) a better case before its too late, or to enter "what the hell it's going to happen" scenario hoping that Epic doesn't come out on top. If I'm forced to choose, I think I would go with Epic winning.... if just because between the chaos and Epic's incompetence, we may have a slightly bigger chance of getting out in a better position.
It doesn't have to be all the games, such a service can start with just the ones with Android or iOS versions and build from there. Having, say, 10% of my library available on my phone without having to rebuy them would already be fantastic.
I strongly dislike Apple and their business practices. But one of the major advantages of their closed ecosystem is that that every payment goes through Apple, which is a huge protection against fraud and phishing. If Epic wins this case, many apps will switch to cheaper and possibly insecure or scummy payment providers. I don't think this should happen.
So akin to crossbuy with ps4 and psvita? Sounds good to me.
Crossbuy would happen only if publishers/devs supported it, and most of them hate it because they wanna sell the game twice.
Steam stuff on android or iOS would still require ports, you aren't gonna shove Nier Automata on your ipad unless it's ported, unless it's streaming, which again would require publishers approval even if Steam had its own service.
Publishers/devs will just start making deals for those versions of games, and that's assuming they even port those games.
Bonus: Valve is slow af, by the time they have a working client Epic/everyone else would have already jumped on that stuff with their own clients and deals.
Basically things wouldn't happen even if for whatever reason Epic got permission to put their store on Xbox and iOS, and they did I doubt they'd happen in such a nice way.
and all this is just random stuff on a forum and will be for years until anything actually happens
Steam stuff on android or iOS would still require ports, you aren't gonna shove Nier Automata on your ipad unless it's ported, unless it's streaming, which again would require publishers approval even if Steam had its own service.
Publishers/devs will just start making deals for those versions of games, and that's assuming they even port those games.
Bonus: Valve is slow af, by the time they have a working client Epic/everyone else would have already jumped on that stuff with their own clients and deals.
Basically things wouldn't happen even if for whatever reason Epic got permission to put their store on Xbox and iOS, and they did I doubt they'd happen in such a nice way.
and all this is just random stuff on a forum and will be for years until anything actually happens
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I think hoping for things to change for the better, with that hope being in charge of the same corporations that are responsible for the state of the industry as it is today is way too optimistic.
The larger debate for me boils down to one thing: I don't believe that walled gardens should exist at the platform level. Platforms influence every part of our lives and such power is too much for any single gatekeeper company to have. I have accepted some amount of inconvenience in my computing life because I believe strongly in this. I have accepted some amount of responsibility in choosing the best service as a customer because the platform holder shouldn't be able to 'choose' for me.
I have heard the argument "you chose open platforms, don't I have the right to choose a walled garden if I want?". My answer to that is no, you don't. If you can't handle the tiny responsibility of doing some market research before you buy, just like any customer should, and you prefer that a giant corporation makes all the decisions for you then no, you shouldn't be the one to decide if walled gardens are ok because the consequences of you being wrong might be catastrophic. The issues being debated are way bigger than people being inconvenienced. Society will determine the outcome based on the greater good.
Having said all that, Epic is no better than Apple and the only reason Sweeney is doing this is because he wants to be the gatekeeper (with his metaverse crap) instead of Apple. So fuck them both and I am still rooting for an outcome that will give neither of those awful companies what they want.
I have heard the argument "you chose open platforms, don't I have the right to choose a walled garden if I want?". My answer to that is no, you don't. If you can't handle the tiny responsibility of doing some market research before you buy, just like any customer should, and you prefer that a giant corporation makes all the decisions for you then no, you shouldn't be the one to decide if walled gardens are ok because the consequences of you being wrong might be catastrophic. The issues being debated are way bigger than people being inconvenienced. Society will determine the outcome based on the greater good.
Having said all that, Epic is no better than Apple and the only reason Sweeney is doing this is because he wants to be the gatekeeper (with his metaverse crap) instead of Apple. So fuck them both and I am still rooting for an outcome that will give neither of those awful companies what they want.
Yeah it's the type of thing that is noble in theory but as with everything capitalism will get warped into a hellscape.
These companies are absolute cunts and the last thing the industry needs is giving the car keys to something like Activision.
As for walled gardens I'm honestly torn. I very much dislike the approach which eventually led me to PC but isn't that also competition in a way? Some people prefer curated spaces, is their existance - not dominance - 100% bad for the industry? I dunno, honestly.
Why I want a walled garden for my phone is because apple can force apps to respect its users. Take the recent thing apple added, for users to be able to block apps from tracking users outside the app itself. Hell yes I want to control that, because I do have to use Instagram for example, but if it wasn’t a walled garden I would have to get it from facebooks App Store and not have the security of being able to control what it does in secret.
Sure I can do all the market research for it, but it doesn’t change that it is also necessary to use it for me in a visual profession.
In my opinion it depends on how expansive the walled garden is. You can think of Steam as a small walled garden but its walls do not extend further than necessary. You get a smooth and secure buying and playing experience and that's it. Steam doesn't and shouldn't have any control over the hardware and OS that you bought and it can't stop you from using other services, much like Metacouncil doesn't and shouldn't have control over your internet connection (except if it was possible to ban anime that way
). I've said before that I am rooting for Steam Proton to succeed because PC gaming being viable on Linux would be an excellent way to protect it from everyone taking it over, including Valve.
(except if it was possible to ban anime that way
I understand but at the same time you may be limited by Apple in several other ways. For example, since you have an Xbox, up until recently you couldn't have Xcloud on your phone and now you have to settle for a web app. Besides, Apple is still the platform holder, it could conceivably enforce the same privacy standards platform-wide so that other stores would have to abide by them. I doubt that any ruling would turn iOS into a Windows-like free for all. There will still be limitations and provisions,
Yeah that would be good, but the one leverage Apple has is that it won’t allow an app to be sold if it breaks too many rules. But one good thing would be I guess that Apple could give even more control to the user. But then apps would just refuse to run until user allows them to do what they want.
You're assuming everyone wants something for the reason you think of and then saying that someone else has no right because you say so.
That's honestly as good as telling people EGS is excellent because they don't use Steam features that someone else might use, and those features are useless, but whatever
The "I understand, but trust ME this is RIGHT for you, I KNOW" isn't that different than what Timmy and others have tried to enforce
Steam didn't design and build my hardware, so it's not the same thing at all. I personally see no problem with a walled garden from someone like Apple -- why shouldn't they be able to curate the user experience on their own hardware? If you don't like it, you don't have to use it. In the current world where there's a pretty close alternative in Android, that's fine. Speaking from my personal career experience working in technology at multiple Fortune 100 companies, forcing a hardware maker to be unable to control the software running on their hardware would have huge implications for decision making and innovation. I think there's a good possibility that the eventual outcomes could be as bad or even worse for "consumers" (ugh) than the current state of the world.In my opinion it depends on how expansive the walled garden is. You can think of Steam as a small walled garden but its walls do not extend further than necessary. You get a smooth and secure buying and playing experience and that's it. Steam doesn't and shouldn't have any control over the hardware and OS that you bought and it can't stop you from using other services, much like Metacouncil doesn't and shouldn't have control over your internet connection (except if it was possible to ban anime that way
But either way, none of this is about us or what's good for us, really. Which is why I really wish governments would step their asses up with regulations that address technology monopolies and protection for their citizens from these tech assholes.
Sorry for interjecting but that's actually not something that should be up to nor implemented by the platform provider. Such security features are supposed to be implemented at the OS level and controlled by the users. You should have that power, it shouldn't be wielded for you. That's the problem with walled gardens, Apple appears as if they are curating things but you could just as well do it yourself. Applications don't suddenly become free to mess with your computer when they relinquish their place at the wheel. It just means that you're the one in the driver's seat on your own hardware, and if you don't know how to proceed, there are many community-made guidelines that can work just as well. Looking at SELinux in particular.
At the worst level, you could still have an Apple-like level of regency of your OS that you opt-in, leaving others in full control of the hardware they bought without the sort of monopolistic practices Apple has been shown to employ during this trial.
But it is OS level and something the user can control, but Apple forced the app makers abide what the user choses and apple can kick out the app if it doesn’t or tries to circumvent the users wishes.
I don't know any better than anyone else, which is why I said that society itself will have to decide which way this goes based on the greater good. It might very well decide that walled gardens are just fine and pose no risk, but that decision has to be made at a higher level than the one all of us are currently operating in.You're assuming everyone wants something for the reason you think of and then saying that someone else has no right because you say so.
That's honestly as good as telling people EGS is excellent because they don't use Steam features that someone else might use, and those features are useless, but whatever
The "I understand, but trust ME this is RIGHT for you, I KNOW" isn't that different than what Timmy and others have tried to enforce
Then we weren't talking about the same thing, you were mentioning Apple enforcing policies on App makers. I was arguing that these policies could also be decided and enforced by users at their own level.
Fully agreed on that last paragraph. I don't have an issue with walled gardens existing (as I said I think Steam itself could be described as a small walled garden inside the OS). What worries me is how expansive the walled garden can get and how much power that walled garden can give to a single company over millions or even billions of people. These are issues that supercede one's personal preference.
Ah yes, the absolute best would be if users had that control other than not using the app. Apple being the only one that has even added such functionality at all to phones is why I went back to them. I wish I could just go into setting and have just one switch that blocked certain functionality. But I am good with for example today when I opened Instagram I got a window that said that Instagram wanted to track my data across other apps and surfing and gave me the ability to block it.