Or "I'm a games journalist but..."
News Epic Games Store
- Thread starter Blizniak
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The thing I noticed the most with the advent of EGS exclusivity is the resurgence, at least that I'm able to notice, of game piracy or the implicit intent of pirate a game. Before when a game was announced it was common place to say "Day 1" or "I'm wishlisting it" or "I'll buy it at X % off", now it's extremely common to see people referencing something like "EGS exclusive? Guess I'll torrent it" or "Pirate Bay exclusive".
What took Steam, GOG and, to an extent, Origin and Uplay years to change (the habits of the typical PC user in regards to how they acquire their games), Epic is reverting their mindset again, to the point they are openly talking about piracy again.
This might be only my perception of things, although I don't believe I'm alone in thinking it.
You're not wrong. Piracy does seem to be on the rise again. Although some idiot fanboys on another forum disagree because a certain someone said it, but piracy is a service issue. These devs/publishers are cutting off their noses to spite their face.
I'm not saying I've never done it, but I do prefer owning what I enjoy.
Epic Exclusive? I wait for Steam or skip it completely.
Epic Exclusive? I wait for Steam or skip it completely.
He also added some reddit insult or something to his Twitter description. To me it seems all the criticism is getting to him, but he's trying hard to pretend he's laughing along with it.
for something like Shenmue 3 pulling a bait and switch with backers as to the product they paid for versus the product they are being told they are allowed to have, I can see how easily someone can justify 'piracy' to get the product they have already paid for in the format that they want it.
I can understand the excuse of pirating an EGS exclusive but i can not condone or encourage it, i do not agree with it.
Just ignore them and wait until they will be available to storefronts owned by people that do not offend their customers.
This alone is a more powerful message than piracy.
Just ignore them and wait until they will be available to storefronts owned by people that do not offend their customers.
This alone is a more powerful message than piracy.
I just don’t see why it’s considered childish to be willing to wait for the exclusivity period to end when the reason why I feel that way is because I’m not a bored teenager anymore and I don’t have the time or money to buy and play everything that looks interesting to me. I have to pick and choose what I spend my game budget on, and when someone says they’re gonna be on an objectively inferior platform for a year that’s an excuse for me not to spend that money for a while. Awesome!
Going to bat for Epic and their devs and acting like they’re your close friends is significantly more childish than waiting a year to play a game the way you want.
Same here. I've thought about pirating Control because I'm so f*cking tired of Remedy screwing the pc community every time again and again. But looking at my huge backlog and wishlist on Steam, I've decided it's just not worth it. I won't ever play Control and I'm fine with that. Plenty of other great games to play.
Yeah I think a lot of media companies are going to discovery it's not cheap to run a streaming service and provide high quality content, and they're not going to get the subscriber counts they're hoping for. Some will succeed (Disney+ will probably do pretty well) but I think in a few years we're going to see some of these companies go back to just creating and licensing out content to other streaming services.
Obviously PC gaming isn't quite the same as Steaming but it wouldn't surprise me if the Epic store drives some people to piracy, especially if they're in countries that Steam provides better payment options for.
I'm curious how what you propose is more powerful than piracy.
Not defending piracy. Genuinely curious concerning the logic.
Yeah I said before that I would pirate Shenmue 3 if it went exclusive, but I'm fine never playing it and instead play the games I have.
Disney+ is a license to print money. I live in Tampa and have 2 little girls. They are Disney fanatics (we're annual passholders of course). The amount of people that will subscribe to that service will be astounding. With that said, my wife and I were just talking about why we shouldn't cut cable. Between Hulu, Netfix, Disney+, CBS and all the others, it's cheaper to just keep cable. Most of these companies and going to see a rise in piracy because the content is spread out too much. They got greedy and didn't want a slice, the wanted the whole thing. People won't pay for 10+ services.
Apologies for the delayed reply, i was commuting.
Now, i think that most of the games imprisoned in EGS will do much better when they are released and that will make the low-mid indie publishers and devs think that they could make it just fine without exclusivity deals.
It will possibly ridicule devs like Gollop that traded his reputation for cash and it will show that what Epic is doing is not as a good idea as it seems.
Having those exclusives pirated will only signal to the devs that took the money they did the right thing protecting their interests since "gamers" pirated their games anyway. They wiil at least use it as an excuse for their contract with Sweeney.
Or so, i think.
which is, like, the entirety of Asia
Ayyyyyy high five, so did I. I’ve been very lucky with the Kickstarters I’ve backed so far. Only reason I didn’t plunk money down on Mighty No. 9 and Barkley 2 is because I was unemployed when they were up, and the ones I have backed have been successful with no bait and switch bullshit.
This is actually a very logical way of looking at devs reaction to piracy vs just waiting. Epic is no stranger to piracy debates on pc, and they'll take any arguments now straight to devs and publishers and say "look. Youre games are going to be pirated. At least with us youre going to make some money anyway."
To add to m_dorian's reply, if you pirate the game then you've played it. It becomes part of your gaming culture and the game has a slightly larger mindshare in the gaming population.
Being ignored in deafening silence is the most feared fate for a game.
The worst part of his Twitter account is his fucking low res avatar. Like, you’re a fucking billionaire that works at a video game company, and you can’t even post a high res photo of yourself. That pisses me off way more than it should, but what the fuck, man? I expect that shit from some low paid secretary working for a small business, not the CEO of Epic.
Does that number factor into total sales numbers? So like with Satisfactory selling 500K units, if Epic let’s say bought the first 100K, then they really only sold 400K. Obviously I’m just throwing numbers out there, but that would also explain the inflated numbers with Metro, even though it was vague as fuck.
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I'm sure Tim has some excuse as to why what he's doing isn't the same thing.i'll just leave this here ...
With the small amount of time I have for gaming, I don’t even have time to pirate something.
that's a good point earlier about a game being forgotten if no one plays it in any shape or form. I encourage any of you thinking of pirating this game not to do so for that reason alone. May shenmue 3 only be remembered as a betrayal of trust and may no one remember anything about it's story or gameplay.
Piracy is way too much of a hassle compared to playing your endless Steam library and its not like anyone of us doesn't have an infinite ever-growing library. 
An argument against the egs is always that they have none of Steam's feature-set. Well, that holds true for piracy as well.
An argument against the egs is always that they have none of Steam's feature-set. Well, that holds true for piracy as well.
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Namco has announced the Japanese release of Twin Mirror is cancelled. I wonder if Dontnod buying back the IP has anything to do with this.
Namco has announced the Japanese release of Twin Mirror is cancelled. I wonder if Dontnod buying back the IP has anything to do with this.
A tweet for everything!i'll just leave this here ...
Agreed. If I'm being honest, even with all the current crap EGS is pulling, so far I didn't have to even think about the "ethics" of myself pirating these games or not, because it simply isn't worth the time requried to find a trustworthy source for the game, and then updates (and cracks for these updates), and so on.Piracy is way too much of a hassle compared to playing your endless Steam library and its not like anyone of us doesn't have an infinite ever-growing library.
An argument against the egs is always that they have none of Steam's feature-set. Well, that holds true for piracy as well.
That being said, I also have been seeing a lot of more talk about piracy over here (don't know if it just talk or not). But to be... "fair"... there are several factors for that: The inconvenience of multiple stores (just like streaming services for movies/shows), end of decent regional pricing and then the EGS drama have create a "perfect storm" for people getting very annoyed with legit distribution channels.
I've always supported the existence of piracy in the gaming industry, even if I don't use it myself, because I see it as the always-present guardian between paying customers and corporations that dream to do whatever they please, however they please. With piracy as the ultimate mean to get a game if things get really bad for consumers, they'll always have a line they can't cross. And the numbers of Metro Exodus on piracy sites are an indication: for a group of usually-paying customers, that line was crossed.
I don't use it myself not really for ethical reasons but simply because I can't be bothered and I have heaps of legitimately purchased games to play.
I don't use it myself not really for ethical reasons but simply because I can't be bothered and I have heaps of legitimately purchased games to play.
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there sure is
yeah, pretty much exactly this ... i'd even argue that "safety net" is the reason why the PC market is the way it is ... and why people seem not too keen on papa Tim trying to bring this exclusivity bullshit into it
Seems many critical comments on Shenmue 3 kickstarter page have been deleted. That's also a way to deal with unsatisfied customers I guess.
Also, look at this lovely nonsense on screenrant:
"The idea behind the Epic Games Store is to offer an alternative to the Valve-owned Steam which had a monopoly on digital PC game sales. Steam has spent the past few years under fire by the industry, thanks to questionable policies and business practices. Steam has also faced criticism over how little the site compensates game developers. Even former Valve employee Richard Geldreich stated that Steam was killing PC gaming recently."
"Epic Games has proven itself a capable competitor to Steam by offering a series of timed exclusives,"
Note: the same site also published an article called "Valve Keeps Getting It Wrong, And It Doesn't Care" a few months ago.
Also, look at this lovely nonsense on screenrant:
"The idea behind the Epic Games Store is to offer an alternative to the Valve-owned Steam which had a monopoly on digital PC game sales. Steam has spent the past few years under fire by the industry, thanks to questionable policies and business practices. Steam has also faced criticism over how little the site compensates game developers. Even former Valve employee Richard Geldreich stated that Steam was killing PC gaming recently."
"Epic Games has proven itself a capable competitor to Steam by offering a series of timed exclusives,"
Note: the same site also published an article called "Valve Keeps Getting It Wrong, And It Doesn't Care" a few months ago.
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No complaints to address if there's no complaints at all.Seems many critical comments on Shenmue 3 kickstarter page have been deleted. That's also a way to deal with unsatisfied customers I guess.
If this is true, then surely it will not make people angrier and shout louder. Surely not.Seems many critical comments on Shenmue 3 kickstarter page have been deleted. That's also a way to deal with unsatisfied customers I guess.
What's a Streisand effect, can you eat that?
Disgusting.Seems many critical comments on Shenmue 3 kickstarter page have been deleted. That's also a way to deal with unsatisfied customers I guess.
I dunno if this has been posted here, and frankly there are way too many postings in this thread, so... a friend of mine linked me this Tweet:
its from Jeff Vogel of Spiderweb, saying they're too small to win the "EGS lottery", and that's a very interesting take. Indie devs really aren't aware of the backlash or the bad rep, money is all that counts here. EGS provides that. I mean, we all know that, but someone calling the EGS exclusivity a "lottery" is quite telling how they regard Epic. Someone who gives out free money seemingly at random and you'd be dumb to pass on that.
its from Jeff Vogel of Spiderweb, saying they're too small to win the "EGS lottery", and that's a very interesting take. Indie devs really aren't aware of the backlash or the bad rep, money is all that counts here. EGS provides that. I mean, we all know that, but someone calling the EGS exclusivity a "lottery" is quite telling how they regard Epic. Someone who gives out free money seemingly at random and you'd be dumb to pass on that.
I think it will be interesting to learn (i) how much devs get from Epic, and, perhaps most importantly, (ii) if the backlash (if any) translates to lost $$ above and beyond what Epic pays. In other words, does the moneyhat actually overcome any realized lost $$.
i really hope it doesn't .... because if it does - then PC gaming is truly fucked
Any how many lottery winners actually take that money and do something good with it? Can't tell you how many times I hear of a lottery winner being broke just a few years later. That very well may be some of these devs when they turn away their most ardent supporters.
Keep in mind that Jeff Vogel has been building an audience since almost a decade before Steam was even a thing.
He might have somewhat of a rare view of what it would cost to go (timed) exclusive on EGS.
But to be honest, I think that people are overestimating the cost of going exclusive in terms of losing part of your audience.
People who promise to boycott (and actually keep their word) are a loud minority at the best of times and utterly insignificant the rest of the time. Some portion of those people who boycott your game for being exclusive to EGS probably weren't interested in buying it in the first place, so they are hardly a loss in any case (case in point I won't buy games on EGS, but I also don't care about most of the exclusives), which further reduces the effect any boycott might have.
He might have somewhat of a rare view of what it would cost to go (timed) exclusive on EGS.
But to be honest, I think that people are overestimating the cost of going exclusive in terms of losing part of your audience.
People who promise to boycott (and actually keep their word) are a loud minority at the best of times and utterly insignificant the rest of the time. Some portion of those people who boycott your game for being exclusive to EGS probably weren't interested in buying it in the first place, so they are hardly a loss in any case (case in point I won't buy games on EGS, but I also don't care about most of the exclusives), which further reduces the effect any boycott might have.
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Yeah, this is why I'd love to know the realities of the $$ situation.
EGS had a promotional and lengthy fire sale to lure people to their exclusives-not without issues- while they have stated that sales are not Epic's thing. That could be interpreted as a result of having a lot of people avoiding their store environment on purpose.
A very loud community (probably a good number but a small one to the whole) exists that dislikes EGS and this is showed by the occassional dislike ratio on videos concerning Epic store or a good number of posts against them in various forums or comment sections.
But even if the people that boycott are just a tiny fraction, i think that the act of willingly avoiding a shop/a product/ a service is, first and foremost, a personal satisfaction than a punishing move. And it is something that stems from the beliefs, principles and the occasional stubbornness of the individual.
And, even if this does not change things at all, it is what is matters in the end for the said individual.
If this act helps things go the desired way it is a bonus, if it is not at least we have this.
Yu Suzuki was the one on that damn conference announcing the Kickstarter. I dont know why people try to protect and paint him as being misinformed by DS. If he can't handle the business side of games then he shouldnt be the one asking for money.
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And he was the one on that stage at the PC Gamer conference showing the trailer with that big Epic logo, so yeah.
Sorry, but claiming ignorance just doesn't cut it. And I really hate when people don't have the balls to admit their mistakes, and instead claim ignorance, and pass the blame to others. Ys Net directs contacts to Deep Silver. Deep Silver directs contacts to Ys Net. None of the parties is innocent in this.
Frankly, I just want my money back, quickly.
They don't want my money? Screw them, I'll spend it elsewhere.
Like Human Head Studios. The money I dropped almost a year ago wasn't good for them, so when they announced the EGS exclusivity, I requested a refund, and I happily spent it supporting several other games and developers, who don't pull crap like this.
Simple.
Absolutely this.
He's either directly or indirectly responsible either way
It will depend on the game and the studio, frankly. Some may not have positive things to say about the EGS deal 6-18 months down the line for a variety of reasons. For others, they may actually get away with it.
Plus, even if developers don’t suffer as a result of taking moneyhats, it’s still worth highlighting that this might be worthless to Epic in the long run.
If only one thing comes out of this, I hope it’s that they don’t make a return on investment on their store.
Plus I still have my principles. I won’t be buying any games that go EGS exclusive.