News Epic Games Store

Ex-User (307)

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I can't really call anyone who supports companies buying their way into the market, and making shady exclusivity deals, left wing. That's the opposite, in fact, because they are saying companies are free to do whatever they want against the consumers' benefit.
I’m not saying they’re genuine portrayals of coherent left-wing thought.

That’s why I called them milquetoast leftists! Their arguments about Steam are often couched in vaguely left-wing concerns about diversity, the “little-guy” getting shut out, and technolibertarianism run rampant.

But when the cards are down...they’re just modern neoliberals, using those arguments out of convenience because it makes them seem more legitimate.

It sounds a lot better to say “Diverse and vulnerable game creators are getting squeezed out of the market” than to say “Fuck y’all, I want my game to be the only one on the market.”

I guess what I’m saying is that a lot of these people are functionally concern-trolls, masquerading as leftists to further their own bottom line. Somewhat akin to the “woke brands” on social media trying to seem like they’re hip and with the latest social movements.
 

gabbo

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gotta love how Tim is just making up shit as he goes along now

"co-exclusives" ... what the fuck does that even mean? it either IS exclusive or ISN'T ... there is no middle-ground here
'Exclusive' has lost its meaning at this point in the EGS situation. And not by accident. Way more wiggle room if you can literally control the language of your discussion.
 

beep boop

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Tim's really knocking it out of the park on Twitter lately. Let's see how long this hot streak continues.
 

tmarg

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The legal distinction is probably what matters at this point. Paying to specifically keep people from doing business with a competitor is illegal, so they're getting as close to it as they can. From a PR standpoint I can't imagine anyone is really being fooled.
 
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lashman

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Tim's really knocking it out of the park on Twitter lately. Let's see how long this hot streak continues.
yeah, the more he talks, the more bullshit everyone can see coming from him

I think they just mean "exclusive" as just not being on Steam.
"exclusively not on steam" ;)

From a PR standpoint I can't imagine anyone is really being fooled.
let's hope not
 

lashman

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I think most people have known what they're up to from the start. They've just been willing to accept it because they've bought into the "Valve is bad and lazy" narrative.
i really hope so ... because seeing some people talking about that stuff and pretty much repeating whatever bullshit Tim is spewing this week on twitter and reddit - i'm almost fooled into believing they actually think it's true
 

Ex-User (307)

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gotta love how Tim is just making up shit as he goes along now

"co-exclusives" ... what the fuck does that even mean? it either IS exclusive or ISN'T ... there is no middle-ground here
I guess hypothetically, “co-exclusives” already exist like how we have games that are “console exclusive” to one of the three consoles, but openly on multiple PC launchers.

But it’s a really stupid distinction, since we know that this is about specifically excluding Steam. As far as I know, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft have all had console exclusivity agreements (whether time limited or not), but I can’t think of them excluding a specific platform.

Getting more Byzantine than console exclusivity is quite the (negative) accomplishment.
 

gabbo

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i really hope so ... because seeing some people talking about that stuff and pretty much repeating whatever bullshit Tim is spewing this week on twitter and reddit - i'm almost fooled into believing they actually think it's true
I'm sure they do on some level. Not the saviour of PC gaming aspects, but the better deal for devs, angry fans, crunch being worth it. those, yeah.
 

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It could be worse.
You could have people pretty much attributing the 35th anniversary celebrations of the Ghostbusters franchise, including the upcoming movie sequel, the remastering of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, and the inclusion of the Ghostbusters car in Rocket League, to... Epic.



There's not many things that make me lose my cool, but the stupidity of this one was too much for the "Ghosthead" in me. :grinning-face-with-smiling-eyes:
 
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Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
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Sweeney insults our intelligence with his bad takes, whether he's commenting about Epic crunch or defending his crappy EGS deals he proves to be a huge a-hole.
And yet hundreds of thousands of people decided to support Sweeney, his store and his sh*tty moneyhatting strategy. It's sad, but not unexpected really. Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon were very successful on the Windows Store as well, despite uwp and shitloads of technical issues. But despite the success of these games, Microsoft did another U-turn in our favor. So I'm still not convinced that Epic will gain the loyalty of the pc community with their current strategy.
 

gabbo

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disgusting
I mean, that's just my opinion, but Tim's communication doesn't read like carefully chosen PR statements. It reads like someone fully invested getting defensive, but inadvertently leaving in ambiguity because they don't know the best way to communicate their strategy - he is the tech and business lead after all, his areas of expertise aren't in marketing.
 

ISee

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Microsoft is going to offer Metro Exodus for 1€ to the pc community today. They will talk about win32 games coming to the win store, they will talk about their first party games being available on Steam, in addition to game pass.

Maybe it's me being drunk from "schadenfreude", but metro exodus on PC, for 1€, not on the EGS is the biggest middle finger Microsoft can throw at epic. It's kind of beautiful.
 

lashman

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Microsoft is going to offer Metro Exodus for 1€ to the pc community today. They will talk about win32 games coming to the win store, they will talk about their first party games being available on Steam, in addition to game pass.

Maybe it's me being drunk from "schadenfreude", but metro exodus on PC, for 1€, not on the EGS is the biggest middle finger Microsoft can throw at epic. It's kind of beautiful.
it really is, lol
 

teezzy

formerly 'deftones r cool'
Apr 19, 2019
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How long can I be expected to wait for The Outer Worlds to pop up on Steam?

Not necessarily interested in any monthly service (including GamePass), and obvs. fuck EGS.

I like having all my games on Steam, tbh. Nothing personal, Xbox.
 

teezzy

formerly 'deftones r cool'
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12 months, as with pretty much everything else (except Blands 3)
Thanks!

Y'know, at the risk of sounding like a sycophant, that wait won't be so bad. It usually takes me about a year or (in most cases) years to get around to playing any new games to begin with. It's the principle though, y'know. Hopefully Outer Worlds (or any game, really) doesn't hit Steam at a full $60 after the dumb exclusive deal.

I play 'em like I play my women: old and cheap.

gets banned from Era
 

Alexandros

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And yet hundreds of thousands of people decided to support Sweeney, his store and his sh*tty moneyhatting strategy. It's sad, but not unexpected really. Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon were very successful on the Windows Store as well, despite uwp and shitloads of technical issues. But despite the success of these games, Microsoft did another U-turn in our favor. So I'm still not convinced that Epic will gain the loyalty of the pc community with their current strategy.
They won't, I'm confident of that. As long as the core community opposes Epic they will not be able to gain a foothold until they start providing customers with actual incentives.
 

JMTHEFOX

Planning to Be a Game Designer
Oct 4, 2018
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Anybody else going to watch the


PCGAMER financed by Epic presents: PCGAMING SHOWpowered by Epic Game Store ?

I'm not sure I have enough alcohol at home to sit through it.
I'm watching it on Twitch. I'm praying for some multi-store launches for the games announced there.
 
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ISee

Oh_no!
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I'm watching it on Twitch. I'm praying for some multi-store launches for the games announced there.
Im praying for the audience to be as negative as possible.
But I also expect fanboys and payed chills to sit there, so...
Why would anyone sit through this willingly?
Seriously, I don't even know.
To make fun of it, while drinking whiskey I suppose.
 

Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
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Still deciding if I should suffer through the "EGS Show" or not (I already have a nasty cold so a little more physical pain isn't going to make a difference).

On the "bright" side, with the awful regional prices games like KH3 have these days I would have to way to get it anyway.

So, are they going to simply play dumb or will Day9 make some stupid comment about being about the games and not the stores? Also, I'm really curious if they are going screen who gets in the audience :p
 
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Phoenix RISING

A phoenix always RISES!
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www.geeksundergrace.com
You know you're on an awesome message board when you go away for a few days and then want to quote EVERYONE while you were gone.

Most of these people complaining aren’t libertarian techbros. I don’t think you’d accuse the people writing op-eds at The Verge, Kotaku, Polygon or Ars Technica of being techbros. And I don’t think most people would categorize Tim or Sergey themselves as fitting in the techbro culture. Nor are many of the game developers who we see writing 400 tweet “Tweet threads” against Steam.

In fact, I might go so far as to say that the common theme with many of Steam’s current detractors is a kind of milquetoast, convenient Anglophone leftism. One of their regular accusations against Steam is in fact saying that they’re a fake libertarian meritocracy.

These people don’t actually want a free market, they want a market that’s open to them.
I honestly believe that such behaviour is caused by the fact that the game industry is relatively young and grew up in a relatively awkward way.

Back before the 200x indie boom, the barrier to entry was very high, and in some cases close to insurmountable.
Gaming was a niche, and by and large gamers were "hardcore" gamers, somehow expressing their (our) appreciation by considering the famous names (Miyamoto, Garriot, etc.) as actual idols, basically rockstars that the outer world had never even hear of.

That (my) generation grew up dreaming of becoming game devs, only few got to, and some of them became entitled.
Suddenly they only knew what was going on behind the scene, and everybody else had to STFU.

These people now are completely convinced they know better, even if their (legitimate) point of view is often more narrow (or biased, or oriented to something else) than ours.

So on one hand they managed to get where most of us couldn't, and therefore they think we don't know shit and we need to just buy whatever crap they tell us.
On the other, they never had any manager handling them. There's a reason why most old-school devs are generally nice persons compared to new ones: it's their social media manager talking. 😁
I’m not saying they’re genuine portrayals of coherent left-wing thought.

That’s why I called them milquetoast leftists! Their arguments about Steam are often couched in vaguely left-wing concerns about diversity, the “little-guy” getting shut out, and technolibertarianism run rampant.

But when the cards are down...they’re just modern neoliberals, using those arguments out of convenience because it makes them seem more legitimate.

It sounds a lot better to say “Diverse and vulnerable game creators are getting squeezed out of the market” than to say “Fuck y’all, I want my game to be the only one on the market.”

I guess what I’m saying is that a lot of these people are functionally concern-trolls, masquerading as leftists to further their own bottom line. Somewhat akin to the “woke brands” on social media trying to seem like they’re hip and with the latest social movements.
Yeah, Epic isnt run by libertarian techbros. Tim and co. are the human personification of the Monopoly guy, with the twist of also being massive hypocrites.
I can agree to all of this. Thanks for the input.

I'll try to get my terminology right, but yeah, neoliberal is more accurate than libertarian techbro.

I said the same thing a week ago but I don't have a blue checkmark, so shrug
That's pretty much a yes to lashman's post without realizing it.
gotta love how Tim is just making up shit as he goes along now

"co-exclusives" ... what the fuck does that even mean? it either IS exclusive or ISN'T ... there is no middle-ground here
The legal distinction is probably what matters at this point. Paying to specifically keep people from doing business with a competitor is illegal, so they're getting as close to it as they can. From a PR standpoint I can't imagine anyone is really being fooled.
George Orwell warned us against doublespeak and fakenews propaganda, yet here we are being inundated by it.

Anybody else going to watch the


PCGAMER financed by Epic presents: PCGAMING SHOWpowered by Epic Game Store ?

I'm not sure I have enough alcohol at home to sit through it.

Speaking of people being fooled bought off from a PR standpoint....