News Epic Games Store

[Recrees]

If you're in the mood for some parody stuff: Epic is now pissing off anime fans as well by buying exclusivity for popular series

'OreGairu' Season 3 to be Streamed Exclusively on the Epic Games Store - Anime Maru

Epic Games has recently acquired exclusive streaming rights to the highly anticipated third season of My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, also known as OreGairu. The anime series will be distributed...

www.animemaru.com

Don't give Tim any ideas, he's actually gonna do it. I've been waiting way too long for a third season of OreGairu...don't even think about making your own Epic Anime Store, Tim.

 

[Tizoc]

I meant more in the general sense; consider the recently defunct Razer Game Store. It offered some nice discounts and offers to attract consumers. EGS could've been another driving force in the PC gaming scene, instead its become a gross stain in the history of PC gaming.

 

[undu]

Epic Games Store Update

We want to thank gamers, developers, and publishers for making April the biggest month so far for the Epic Games store!

www.epicgames.com

Interesting news, the only new sales number is for wwz (has sold 320k in EGS total) The rest is PR fluff and excuses to say the user-facing features in their roadmap have been delayed 1 or 2 months.

 

[gabbo]

I meant more in the general sense; consider the recently defunct Razer Game Store. It offered some nice discounts and offers to attract consumers. EGS could've been another driving force in the PC gaming scene, instead its become a gross stain in the history of PC gaming.

Somehow I doubt one of the leading voices behind "PC is nothing but pirates" is really looking to find their niche in the PC market that passed them by over a decade ago. They want to bend PC to their will and reshape it as they see fit.

 

[Tizoc]

Somehow I doubt one of the leading voices behind "PC is nothing but pirates" is really looking to find their niche in the PC market that passed them by over a decade ago. They want to bend PC to their will and reshape it as they see fit.

Eh Ubi said something similar, but look at them recently. During the Steam Winter Seal, 3 of their games were top sellers on Steam and they've been getting a good deal on PC gaming lately. Steam paved the way and other store fronts for PC gaming are benefitting from it.
yOU ARE right with what Epic are attempting to do though.

 

[Ge0force]

Epic Games Store Update

We want to thank gamers, developers, and publishers for making April the biggest month so far for the Epic Games store!

www.epicgames.com

Interesting news, the only new sales number is for wwz (has sold 320k in EGS total)

Disgusting. F*ck those people supporting Epic's exclusivity deals on pc.

 

[NarohDethan]

Uh oh.

 

[Nabs]

 

[Recrees]

Why

 

[gabbo]

Eh Ubi said something similar, but look at them recently. During the Steam Winter Seal, 3 of their games were top sellers on Steam and they've been getting a good deal on PC gaming lately. Steam paved the way and other store fronts for PC gaming are benefitting from it.
yOU ARE right with what Epic are attempting to do though.

Ubi definitely called us pirates and went all in on crazy DRM schemes, but they still released their games on the platform (often late, and occasionally busted). Epic just straight up left after Unreal Tournament 3 and sailed the console seas on the SSMicrosoft (SSMS?)

Uh oh.

That's one way to put Epic IP's on the EGS without having to do any actual work.

 

[lashman]

it gets better:

 

[undu]

The deal is getting worse all the time

 

[NarohDethan]

Can you feel the competition now brehs?

 

[lashman]

Can you feel the competition now brehs?

i just looooove all this competition

 

[Rosenkrantz]

Uh, well, at least they actually bought devs this time, I guess it makes it a tiny bit better, maybe.

It's still sucks that they're stop selling it on Steam, but I didn't expect anything less from Tim.

 

[Tizoc]

Ms allow their studios to release their games on other consoles btw

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

I haven't played much of Rocket League in a few years, but yikes at that buyout.

I hope there is huge backlash if they decide to stop supporting the Steam version after they pull it from sale.

Edit: Rocket League will be the first and last game that I purchase from Psyonix.

 

[Hektor]

Another struggling indiedev saved by EpicGames!

Rocket League literally has 60K players on steam today.
4 years after its release.

Tho, i don't really blame the devs, if i were the companies owner i'd sell the studio too and then retire lol. The leadership probably got enough money for a few lifetimes.

 

[lashman]

if i were the companies owner i'd sell the studio too and then retire lol. The leadership probably got enough money for a few lifetimes.

i wonder if they asked any of their workers about this

lmao, of course not

 

[FreakOrama]

sniff sniff
Smell that? sniff
Competition? sniff sniff
hm.. no. sniff
Burning garbage? sniff
Oh boy! Yup!

 

[MJunioR]

i wonder if they asked any of their workers about this

lmao, of course not

What you mean? Psyonix workers are probably very excited to work close to Epic. After all, giving away your freedom as a self-publisher to go work with a company where 100 h / weeks are common clearly demonstrate their passion. By the way, I bet that Epic will push Psyonix to release updates more frequently to boost their esports scene by the way - it's growing but its pretty slowly - and what way to do that other than adapting Fortnite crunch culture?

Devs and players of Rocket League, rejoice!

 

[lashman]

What you mean? Psyonix workers are probably very excited to work close to Epic. After all, giving away your freedom as a self-publisher to go work with a company where 100 h / weeks are common clearly demonstrate their passion. By the way, I bet that Epic will push Psyonix to release updates more frequently to boost their esports scene by the way - it's growing but its pretty slowly - and what way to do that other than adapting Fortnite crunch culture?

Devs and players of Rocket League, rejoice!

makes you wonder why People Can Fly were so desperate to buy themselves out from under Epic ....

 

[Ge0force]

it gets better:

Epic buying popular developers is even worse than buying a year of exclusivity for their games. What a sad, sad way to bully pc gamers into using their store...

 

[Panda Pedinte]

Epic helping these strugling devs

 

[Le Pertti]

They probably just want the steam sales that will come now in a rush before it disappears. It's called, eating the fans and having them too.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

I hope there is huge backlash if they decide to stop supporting the Steam version after they pull it from sale.

Today: "Why are you so mad? Its just another storefront and they already said they're gonna keep supporting it"

6 months time: "Hey, they just announced they're revamping their anti-cheat to one based on Unreal, obviously they can't port that over to the steam version, but at least they're still gonna keep updating it with content, why are you so mad?"

12 months time: "Well of course they're going to stop supporting that version, all thats left on that platform are cheaters that dont get matchmade with other platforms, why are you so mad?"

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

 

[Alextended]

Yeah, "announced" plans, yeah. Cos they've so far been so against cutting games they don't even own from being sold on Steam, yeah? >_>

 

[「Echo」]

but if you look at the actual article it doesn't actually line up with the tweet. Epic does not "clarify" anything. In-fact the article says the opposite that "Epic and Psyonix haven't announced what the "long-term" plans are for Rocket League following its release on the Epic Games Store. "

So I mean, what kinda pony show is this???

[Cross-post from Steam thread incase people don't wanna discuss this matter there anymore (and I can understand that sentiment.)]

 

[teezzy]

I think the real victims in this dumb ol' platform war are the consumers suckered into believing any company really cares whatsoever about them.

Valve doesn't actually care, and Epic certainly doesn't care. Neither do Ubi, EA, Discord, etc.

A business is in business to stay in business. Nothing more. Nothing less.

With that said, Sweeney can go fuck himself.

 

[Arsene]

The weirdest thing to think about. Rocket League is almost always in the Steam Top 10 players. After they pull it, Steam Top 10 will literally be advertising a EGS exclusive.

 

[Ex-User (307)]

I think the real victims in this dumb ol' platform war are the consumers suckered into believing any company really cares whatsoever about them.

Valve doesn't actually care, and Epic certainly doesn't care. Neither do Ubi, EA, Discord, etc.

A business is in business to stay in business. Nothing more. Nothing less.

With that said, Sweeney can go fuck himself.

It is important that some companies do care less though.

Like who would have thought that in 2019, we'd have Microsoft championing multisystem/multiplatform/multistore releases, while other companies go off the deep end into convoluted exclusivity deals?

I'm not going to fawn over them, but I will at least give them a mildly-appreciative thumbs up for not being total losers like some. Sure, in the end it benefits MS to have their games everywhere so they're obviously doing this for business purposes. But at least they're smart enough to know that (for now).

 

[lashman]

I think the real victims in this dumb ol' platform war are the consumers suckered into believing any company really cares whatsoever about them.

Valve doesn't actually care, and Epic certainly doesn't care. Neither do Ubi, EA, Discord, etc.

A business is in business to stay in business. Nothing more. Nothing less.

With that said, Sweeney can go fuck himself.

pretty much exactly 100% this ... couldn't agree more

It is important that some companies do care less though.

honestly - i don't think volvo care either ... "trying to be beneficial for developers AND our customers" is their business model .. nothing more, nothing less

it's of course nice it happens to align with what consumers want ... but thinking that volvo ACTUALLY care about any of that stuff, or that they're The Good Guys™ is just wrong

this doesn't of course mean they'll turn evil tomorrow or anything like that ... i'm fairly certain they won't

but the moral here is: corporations aren't your friends ... regardless if they do stuff that's beneficial to you or not

 

[Nyarlathotep]

The way Valve originally up the steam store was to mimic the established setup for physical retail as much as possible, because at the time thats what the competition was, and you needed a decent enough carrot to outweigh the stick of losing all the benefits of a physical product.

Nowadays where digital purchases are routine, and nobody cares about all the things they've lost moving to digital only ownership, companies aren't even pretending to offset those lost benefits because they feel they don't have to.

All companies literal reason to exist is to make money, but you don't throw away millions of dollars to muscle your way into a market without having an expectation that you are going to earn vastly more in the long term than what you are spending in the short term.
And Epic really are spending a lot of money right now in the very very short term.

 

[teezzy]

It is important that some companies do care less though.

Like who would have thought that in 2019, we'd have Microsoft championing multisystem/multiplatform/multistore releases, while other companies go off the deep end into convoluted exclusivity deals?

I'm not going to fawn over them, but I will at least give them a mildly-appreciative thumbs up for not being total losers like some. Sure, in the end it benefits MS to have their games everywhere so they're obviously doing this for business purposes. But at least they're smart enough to know that (for now).

Unfortunately, Microsoft only seem to care about this because they want you to buy their hardware and games. It's amazing how "generous" being in last place out of three will make a company seem. It's a PR stunt which benefits the consumer, you're correct in that case.

Sorta like how Dove dish soap washes the oil off those ducklings, and they still put that image on every bottle so you never forget their sense of goodwill. Marketing is wild.

 

[Myradeer]

Yes, the corporation doesn`t care about you... but consumers should always show care towards policies that benefit them the most, otherwise what would encourage companies to pursue them at the detriment of themselves?

I don`t care about the reason behind Valve being more "positive" for me - they can do so because it`s best business decision for them (likely), or as a part of secret masterplan to take over Earth through creation of mindless fanboys (less likely). As long as Epic is more anti-consumer, I will express support of Steam`s current policies regardless of how some might perceive this as naive trust... while complaining about some things about Steam I dislike. To just throw blank statement that both companies don`t care, when there isn`t actual real-life situation where people are supporting poor Steam policies just to spite Epic, seem overly fatalistic position that underestimate dissidents of exclusives. I mean, if Steam suddenly decide to introduce exclusives policies to counteract Epic, do you really expect people will cheer such a choice? I mean, some will, but not majority of us, because we support Steam because it benefits us not Gabe.

 

[lashman]

I mean, if Steam suddenly decide to introduce exclusives policies to counteract Epic, do you really expect people will cheer such a choice?

i would hope not .... and yeah, like you said, i'm pretty sure the vast majority of heavier steam users wouldn't

 

[Ex-User (307)]

but the moral here is: corporations aren't your friends ... regardless if they do stuff that's beneficial to you or not

Ultimately, I agree. All I'm really saying is if there's a hypothetical baseline for greed, immorality and disinformation in the corporate world, there are still differing levels to how far some corporations go.

I've used this example before, so I'll return to it: is Apple fundamentally just another Silicon Valley tech company that exists to profit off the backs of the masses with overpriced and sometimes morally dubious tech? 100%. Do I still retain some level of respect for them because of their stance on encryption and digital security? Also 100%.

And in that case, maybe it's possible that it's actually a company-level stance that they take because they think it's a moral issue. Or more likely their stance on encryption is probably simply self-serving. Maybe it's CYA type stuff. Who knows. But I can retain at least some level of respect for them because they're not Google or AT&T pouring out the content of their users' digital lives onto the desks of every national government that asks for it.

In the same vein, I retain some level of respect for Valve for continuing to operate as though generally customer-oriented policies are the way to increase their bottom line. They "care" about me insofar as we currently provide each other a mutually beneficial relationship.

And let's be real and suuuuuuuper cynical here for a second: that's true of most human relationships. Most people only care about other people as long as there is some perceived benefit (whether tangible or not) in "caring" about the other person.

Yes, the corporation doesn`t care about you... but consumers should always show care towards policies that benefit them the most, otherwise what would encourage companies to pursue them at the detriment of themselves?

Yep. Companies are customer-oriented insofar as it serves their bottom-line.

The important thing is to always make it evident that serving the customer does in fact benefit their bottom line through higher revenue and increased customer loyalty, and that customer-unfriendly policies will invoke the reverse.

 

[lashman]

Most people only care about other people as long as there is some perceived benefit (whether tangible or not) in "caring" about the other person.

... because of capitalism ... it's not "human nature"

and tbh i'm not even sure that's true

but yeah, i do generally agree with what you said so there's that

 

[Ex-User (307)]

As an aside, I assume it's been said, but this whole Psyonix ordeal is pretty hilarious in light of them bitching and moaning about cross-play with Sony for months, pretending like they were the good guys and victim, when in truth (like has been said above), they're just another corporation looking out for themselves.

... because of capitalism ... it's not "human nature"

and tbh i'm not even sure that's true

but yeah, i do generally agree with what you said so there's that

Nah, now I don't agree at all.

People acted in primarily self-interested, greedy, tribal and selfish ways far before capitalism became the dominant economic force in the world. Blaming all of our woes, and all the devils of human nature on capitalism is frankly pretty stupid.

 

[Dinjoralo]

I think there needs to be a concentrated movement against things like this. Pissing away in side-forums like this isn't going to accomplish anything, nobody cares.

 

[teezzy]

What if I told you guys that capitalism is a direct result of human nature?

 

[lashman]

I think there needs to be a concentrated movement against things like this. Pissing away in side-forums like this isn't going to accomplish anything, nobody cares.

correct, yes

 

[teezzy]

To just throw blank statement that both companies don`t care, when there isn`t actual real-life situation where people are supporting poor Steam policies just to spite Epic, seem overly fatalistic position that underestimate dissidents of exclusives. I mean, if Steam suddenly decide to introduce exclusives policies to counteract Epic, do you really expect people will cheer such a choice? I mean, some will, but not majority of us, because we support Steam because it benefits us not Gabe.

Real talk, I'd be happy to see Steam fight fire with fire at this point. It makes me feel dirty things about myself.

Bless us with Half-Life 3 and bring Nintendo to PC, Gaben. Show us your hog.

 

[cluto]

Uh oh.

OMG!
Wow!
Savage!

Fuck off, Timmy Swindles.

 

[teezzy]

Just to play devil's advocate, what would be some consumer friendly tactics to take down a platform as big as Steam at this point?

A more friendly UI? Better social features? How about instead of paying for exclusives, Epic just made games slightly cheaper on their store, and ate the difference?

I'm trying to think of more, but Steam really is nearly perfect.

Maybe EGS could bring back those old-school Steam sales, idk

 

[Alextended]

Roughly feature parity with Steam as soon as possible (so, not launching so barebones) and a lower fee to attract devs organically rather than buy them out with tons of money that could have instead gone in developing said features. Strong exclusive first party games or otherwise actually funded games (not simply paying already developed games just before release to avoid their competitors). Cross-game promotions like Valve with TF2 hats. And otherwise continue the same kind of marketing of the service and games on it (like how Epic had a Metro Exodus trailer before every youtube video ever), that's fine. It would be a slow and long road but nobody would put up a fight against it if they didn't feel they were getting fucked over. Money would still be the driving force that brings people in, it's not like two guys working out of their basement can launch such a service, but money used in a more ethical and consumer friendly manner.

 

[Ex-User (307)]

Just to play devil's advocate, what would be some consumer friendly tactics to take down a platform as big as Steam at this point?

A more friendly UI? Better social features? How about instead of paying for exclusives, Epic just made games slightly cheaper on their store, and ate the difference?

I'm trying to think of more, but Steam really is nearly perfect.

Maybe EGS could bring back those old-school Steam sales, idk

Like genuinely consumer friendly?

-Mandate demos, and if a game chooses to not include a demo, add a variable amount of allowed hours into the refund period.
-Mandate full tech spec info (e.g. resolution support, frame rate caps) on every game.
-Mandate pricing parity via regional pricing, no more opt out for devs and publishers.
-Innovate a cutting edge recommendation system.
-Super ambitious: find a way to offer some kind of equivalence to physical game portability via some kind of license transfers.

I suppose yeah, there's not that much left that could be done. The least you have to do is offer feature parity, then figure out how to make one of those things your "big" selling point.

 

[Alextended]

I should clarify my post was how to make a competitor that can stand on its own two feet, not to "take Steam down" as I don't see why that should be a goal. It's also not very likely to happen regardless given Valve isn't gonna sit on its ass while they stomp all over them, they will continue to evolve and adapt.

Also, I'm fine with studio acquisitions. Valve has brought developers onboard in the past as individuals, teams, or studios. From this point on, Rocket League's developers are part of Epic so Rocket League is just the same as if it was Unreal Tournament or Fornite. They can do whatever as long as they don't fuck over existing owners (as Microsoft didn't fuck over Minecraft owners when they acquired the developer). It's everything else they do that sucks.

 

[Le Pertti]

You know what I hate the most about epic, that they've made me dislike them so much. I'm usually one that very much separates the art from the artist but epic has become so toxic for me that everything they touch is destroyed for me.