I'm not sure that's gonna happen. Epic is developing a cross-platform online/multiplayer platform - similar to what MS is doing with Xbox Live - and they are integrating this in the Unreal engine. Don't be surprised if you need an Epic account to play BL3 online on Steam.
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- Thread starter Blizniak
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And people will defend it. Even the ones being angry about needing a Bethesda account on switch.
I keep thinking how nice it'd be to have an AssCreed in Ancient Babylon, and then I remember Ubisoft won't be selling new games on Steam anymore. 
Honestly though, I'm still interested in the AC series, and future Rainbow Six titles... I guess I'll be forced to hand over payment info to uplay? This Ubisoft deal still has to be the most damaging thing EGS has done against Steam right? Like despite the constant bitching about Ubi, their titles are still million sellers on Steam... That's a lot of lost money for Valve...
Honestly though, I'm still interested in the AC series, and future Rainbow Six titles... I guess I'll be forced to hand over payment info to uplay? This Ubisoft deal still has to be the most damaging thing EGS has done against Steam right? Like despite the constant bitching about Ubi, their titles are still million sellers on Steam... That's a lot of lost money for Valve...
I'd be surprised, considering 2K has its own account system that they'd much rather use.
EGS is going to eventually get whatever online / messaging features will be beneficial for a game exactly like fortnite would need; grouping, group chat, group persistence across servers, group matchmaking, yada yada yada
Things like steam workshop support to offer easy sharing of mods (if they're even on the trello todo board) are so far down the list of priorities they're definitely not going to be available by the time the first wave of moneyhatted titles are landing on steam, and are going to offer an objective 'why you should buy this on steam rather than egs' bulletpoint.
So the question still remains, are smaller devs going to run concurrent builds for EGS and Steam versions of titles, or do EGS versions get a final v1.1(FINAL) EOL patch, with future patches for the steam version alone
It depends on how difficult it is to strip out stuff like Steam Workshop in the EGS version.
I don't see why they won't continue to update the EGS version of the game, but it's only going to highlight how Epic customers are second class citizens when Steam customers have things like Steam Input, achievements, Workshop and so on.
I think Epic were hoping to gain traction before these differences became starkly apparent, but it looks like the first wave of titles will be open to comparison as of December. The big one will be January/February when Metro Exodus and Borderlands 3 are both released on Steam and new customers get a vastly superior experience to any other store.
Maybe I'm overly cynical, but I don't see devs who will happily cancel all their preorders at one store in exchange for a timed exclusivity moneyhat from another store giving enough of a fuck about the customers they already have the money from to continue maintenance for the much smaller userbase that is no longer growing and they're no longer getting paid to support
¯\(ツ)/¯
Split versioning is what killed Direct2Drive
Eh, while I want EGS to crash and burn, I don't want its customers to have a worse experience with an inferior or incomplete version. That's something I hate no matter the platform.
I honestly think this is what Valve is banking on. There's nothing they can do right now to prove that Steam is better because there will always be people spewing BS without anything to compare it to (even though there are thousands of games on Steam that are good examples). But once the communities for these games move over to Steam, there will be actual, verifiable evidence that things are better there. They just need to keep on trucking while the media eats itself up over things.
These customers still have the option to wait a year and buy the games on a storefront with more features if they care about that.
As somebody who bought no man's sky on day one, on GoG.com to support DRM free systems I strongly disagree.
I was left behind with worse and sometimes even feature incomplete patches. GoG was nice enough to refund the purchase after a year or so.
Still, a bad experience.
Sure, but that doesn't mean I take joy in seeing them dealing with an outdated version of the game. It's just that, to me, it's crappy to know that people are being screwed over no matter how much I disagree with their purchase decisions myself. Sure, sometimes schadenfreude can make me smile a little bit, but given that this is one of my main hobbies, I'd rather see it the healthiest it can be. Plus I really hate seeing people being burned by corporations and whatever.
In principle, I agree, but on the other hand it would be a valuable lesson learned for people too young to remember the strokes other companies have pulled pushing a corporate agenda that they will continue to remember in the future.
I've been burnt by D2D, Stardock, Desura, EA Download Manager AND GFWL. JUST on PC gaming.
I use those examples to evaluate how much trust I have in a company for longterm support in the digital space, when the digital space basically only leaves you with trust that a company is in it for the long haul and won't bail if they don't achieve their corporate goals in the timeframe / expenditure bracket they have allocated to do so.
Epic can't even be bothered to keep UT4 / Paragon running on Fortnite moneys for the playerbases those titles had, or keep Infinity Blade patched to work on modern devices.
My level of trust that they are going to continue operating the EGS if it does not in fact gain any significant marketshare against Steam when the moneyhats dry up is almost nil.
This is unacceptable of course. I was only talking about the lack of store features, not delayed/worse patches etc...
I take no joy in people having issues with games. But I don't feel sorry for people supporting Epic either. It is well known that Epic's store has been released without basic features, that they are in no hurry to improve it, and that they are paying devs and publishers to keep games away from other (and much better) storefronts for 12 months.
If people decide to buy games on Epic's store anyway, they KNOW they won't have the same experience than they would have on feature-complete storefronts. If they don't care about these features, there is no problem at all. But if they DO care, they shouldn't have supported Epic in the first place. Because by doing so, they are actually motivating Epic to continue their current strategy, leading to even more exclusivity deals - and to more people being burned.
I also believe that what Epic is doing isn't healthy for our main hobby at all.
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I have sympathy for people being burned for the first time by this, especially if they believed Epic's roadmap.
But if they continue to buy games from EGS, expecting Epic to do anything worthwhile with their store, and then moaning when a superior version is released down the line then my sympathy evaporates.
Burn me once, shame on you and all that.
But if they continue to buy games from EGS, expecting Epic to do anything worthwhile with their store, and then moaning when a superior version is released down the line then my sympathy evaporates.
Burn me once, shame on you and all that.
I mean sure. If EGS keeps on having worse features and people keep on buying from them.
You know what you were getting into...
I just don't want developers to differentiate between game stores when it comes to game features and patches.
A game bought on uplay in 2019 should be a feature complete and stable as the same game bought in 2020 on Steam.
If a future patch mandates certain store features that aren't available (like online systems) people should be able to get a refund.
You can count on this: when the exclusivity time is up, many of these games will be offered for free on EGS to try to kneecap Steam sales and claim there are "more users with the game on EGS than on Steam"
I don't know if they're going to do that, not unless they're footing the bill to the devs. That would be undercutting and taking actual sales away from the devs themselves, and I don't think there's any way their loyal defenders would be able to justify that in any way without it stinking of bad faith.
It's more likely they won't support workshop and such things to have parity with the egs essentially funded version than to have the versions differ in that manner, suddenly workshop will not be important and devs will tell you meh, just use the mod nexus, everyone does it anyway, and shit like that. Just as all the steam developer and user and market services have suddenly become a non factor in all the pro-egs/fee talk. I don't see why this would be different.
Games are coming to subscription services way before the one year time frame has passed. It's not an unlikely scenario that certain games will be free on EGS just when their Steam period starts. Epic will, of course, pay the Devs for that, just as Microsoft or EA do when something becomes available on game or EA pass.
True, but the devs will still have to sign off on that, which could thus cripple future profit. For older games (most of the free games on the EGS up to this point are at least 2-3 years old, if not several years older - i.e. Alan Wake), sure, that's fine. Future sales are likely minimal. But for a game that's 12 months old that has the potential for very long legs on the PC market, that'd be a ridiculously dumb thing to do unless you have little faith in your product.
And what happens if Epic hasn't made back the money they spent pre-purchasing units for their exclusivity that first year? Do they just wipe the slate clean at that point and pay these devs ON TOP of that amount? Wouldn't that just be spending good money after bad? I mean, I guess it might be a good deal to keep having a company pay you for games people may or may not ever play (and how many people are actually playing these free games and not just collecting them just to have?). At some point you're going to need people to actually play your game to build an audience for the future.
I'm also not altogether convinced that subscription services decrease game sales. If someone absolutely loves a game they've played, they're more than likely going to purchase a copy of it elsewhere so that they have future access to it, especially with how games in these sub libraries tend to be rotated out after a period of time.
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Yes they will be compensated. Basically a second moneyhat. Don't be surprised if Ashen is given as a "Christmas gift" come December. And games that failed horribly at getting any kind of visibility on EGS like Operencia and Close the Sun will take that deal in a heartbeat.
The one year exclusives are merely step one of the plan.
I think it's pretty safe to assume that the EGS isn't paying for itself. Not with the massive amount of bribes, "free" games, "development" costs and small earnings of way under 12% after you substract all costs.
I don't know how long or how much more money they are going to spend, but one thing seems to be clear: they are willing to loose big amount of cash just to establish themselves AND to hurt Steam.
So to answer your questions: they'd only take games that sold well on their store in the first place. Despite the propaganda, epic dient care about developers. The state on this games is already clean there and it makes sense because those are the games that would probably also sell a nice margin on Steam, even a year later.
Those developers might not even care, one year later. Their game is probably not even selling on the EGS at this point in time. A second, guaranteed pay check from epic might be more interesting than a further chance to compete on the free market.
I agree, I think taking epics money is a short term win. No matter the time frame. Especially for big titles.
But this whole EGS operation isn't the best thought out thing ever. It's rushed, not thought through, badly executed etc.
As you said, at one point in the future you will need loyal costumers, both as epic and the Dev studio.
But you're thinking to much like a rational person from a costumer pov.
Just think: I have money, costumers are sheeps and forget easily, I hate Steam.
I still don't believe every dev is going to want their game given away for free after such a short period of time. There's a reason a LOT of them were up in arms over the EGS Sale. And if Epic keeps this up, people are just going to wait until the games released there are eventually free. I mean, if you can just wait a year to get it free and fully bug free instead of paying for it on release, a lot of people will wait. I truly do believe the devs buying into Epic's agenda are only going to hurt their games and brands in the long run.
sadly
and i'm sure publishers don't really give a fuck ... they have the marketing money to still make people buy their games anyway
but it will be really bad for all the indies in the long run
Not that I want people who bought BL3 on the EGS to have a horrible experience, but I'm just waiting for it to release and there to be some huge ass bug or flaw or cloud saves fucking up bigtime, and Randy Pitchford going ballistic over it on social media. Can you just imagine Sweeny and Pitchford duking it out on Twitter? I don't think there'd be enough popcorn in the world for that.
It's clear to me that indies are only a stepping stone for Epic to snag the the motherlode of Triple A titles. Once Triple A publishers start releasing there consistently (assuming the EGS doesn't majorly fuck up the BL3 release), the indies they've screwed over will just be collateral damage. And don't expect any more moneyhats for them either.sadly
and i'm sure publishers don't really give a fuck ... they have the marketing money to still make people buy their games anyway
but it will be really bad for all the indies in the long run
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I am not even convinced that the devs get 88% on their guaranteed sales. Industry-standard is, that you get significantly less for guaranteed sales. Could even be below 50%.
Why? Because you have no risk. It would be stupid of Epic to pay the same amount for guaranteed sales.
Well they mitigate risks by getting games that look promising/hyped rather than funding studios to make new games they haven't seen, they're not dumb.
Plus it's already a good deal that they buy exclusivity with the devs own money if they do sell well enough in the end, if they sell then exclusivity was free.
I'm sure they have more misses than the handful or less of hits they hype to hell and back to boast about performance but hey, fortnite makes gangbusters.
Plus it's already a good deal that they buy exclusivity with the devs own money if they do sell well enough in the end, if they sell then exclusivity was free.
I'm sure they have more misses than the handful or less of hits they hype to hell and back to boast about performance but hey, fortnite makes gangbusters.
You totally should have a weekly podcast where you'd lay those truthbombs, because damn...
Call it, dunno, Chudah's Corner.
LOL, holy crap! Does someone actually remember me? But yeah, I'm a much better writer than talker. I need time to formulate my thoughts otherwise I end up stumbling all over the place.You totally should have a weekly podcast where you'd lay those truthbombs, because damn...
Call it, dunno, Chudah's Corner.
Epic has plenty of money, so they'll keep buying indies as well. After all, they have to keep acting like they are doing this for the developers. And for the price of moneyhatting a single AAA game, Epic can snag dozens of indie games.
Once they have their foot in the door, they'd be stupid to continue wasting money on indie devs like this. The public perception of them being pro-indie is a facade they're wearing until they can drop it because it doesn't matter anymore.
The latter is probably true. But don't forget what Epic actually wants:
- bleeding competing stores dry of interesting games
- convincing devs to use the Unreal engine and Epic's upcoming cross-platform features
I expect them to keep moneyhatting indies as well.
More will bubble up. I see many indies doing EGS deals as them trying to pull the ladder up for future developers. When the new great stuff comes out these guys won't be missed at all. And when new developers make new hits at the expense of these guys, they will be ceding space on the console storefronts to these guys too.sadly
and i'm sure publishers don't really give a fuck ... they have the marketing money to still make people buy their games anyway
but it will be really bad for all the indies in the long run
And frankly, tough titties. That's just how it works.
Of course it is. Being "pro indie" (whatever that means) is just a marketing tactic. Sony has done it at the start of the PS4's life, MS is currently doing it with Game Pass, Nintendo is doing the Nindies or Indie World or whatever they're calling it now. Epic too are getting positive PR on the backs of independent developers, and once they're of no use to Epic, or Epic can hold them over a barrel in a way that they can't right now, they will change their tune.
But AAAs aren't going to go for EGS exclusivity for 88% when they can throw together their own half assed platform for 100%, and can literally just recycle "BUT STEAM WASN'T AMAZING IN 2002!" talking points to justify half assing it.
Take 2 are the only AAA without their own platform on standby, and thats only because - for whatever reason - they don't want RockStar Social Club to be the T2 branded storefront
I don't even think Epic is expecting the Triple A's to be exclusive to them entirely (or permanently). I think they just want the games released there as well so that they can get sales on them off the back of their shrinking Fortnite playerbase (and poached Steam users). Once Fortnite is done, they need something to keep the player base on their launcher, and indie games alone won't do it.
Reads like:
"We ran out of space in our (one) cloud storage bucket, and we don't want to pay for a larger one or multiple buckets."
Just kidding of course, who knows how they have solved this, but it's fun to think about...
Probably really damn hard you know.. All these platforms made by monster coroporates have it but this poor little guy with literallybiggest game on the planet and billionare CEO fighting the evil Steam has so muchvproblems
I'm truly curious how their cloud save system is set up. Messages like these are baffling.
I know that Steam has 2 options: a proper API that allows more control and flexibility and a general "point to the save directory and we just sync the files in there" option.
Considering that epic has said that cloud saves need to be set up by the store team, I doubt they have a proper API that would require developer action and should just have to point towards a save folder that gets synced.
So what the hell can go wrong there!?
I know that Steam has 2 options: a proper API that allows more control and flexibility and a general "point to the save directory and we just sync the files in there" option.
Considering that epic has said that cloud saves need to be set up by the store team, I doubt they have a proper API that would require developer action and should just have to point towards a save folder that gets synced.
So what the hell can go wrong there!?
... just like sony did (and they'll conveniently "forget" about them just as quick)
"Wait, people install games in places other than C:\Program Files?"
Hm, actually it looks like Hyper Light Drifter might actually be a super special kind of weird coding.
It apparently has no cloud saves on Steam either, and you can't even copy a save from one PC to another. Looks like there's a website that "converts" a save to be useable on another PC (read Wok taking a look into that).
I have no idea how one would manage to create such a completely fucked up save system, but it appears that this time the Hyper Light Drifter devs are responsible and not epic.
(It's still kinda their fault that they have such a shitty backend that they have to set this up on their own and not the devs. Because if that were the case, the HLD devs probably would have already known about the cloud save issues and not even tried to set it up, and epic could have just pointed to them).
Just an (un)fortunate(?) coincidence.
It apparently has no cloud saves on Steam either, and you can't even copy a save from one PC to another. Looks like there's a website that "converts" a save to be useable on another PC (read Wok taking a look into that).
I have no idea how one would manage to create such a completely fucked up save system, but it appears that this time the Hyper Light Drifter devs are responsible and not epic.
(It's still kinda their fault that they have such a shitty backend that they have to set this up on their own and not the devs. Because if that were the case, the HLD devs probably would have already known about the cloud save issues and not even tried to set it up, and epic could have just pointed to them).
Just an (un)fortunate(?) coincidence.
The only thing that the Hyper Light Drifter situation shows me, is that Epic enabled Cloud Saves on the game without the developers input.
they seem to like to do that a lot ... not asking developers about anything, i mean
They are willing to break the integrity of the platform just to show people that they have Cloud Saves now, I just don't know anymore if it's pettiness or desperation.
I just want to comment on something that's been bugging me for a while in this back and forth we have with EGS defenders (whether it's on twitter or era or anywhere really). Usually they'll ask why EGS buying exclusives is bad and we'll respond with a list of ways EGS sucks as a platform.
But...that kind of misses the point to me. The simple act of buying exclusives in the PC space is abhorrent and that alone should be enough reason why the platform shouldn't be supported. It could be the best client in the world and I still wouldn't give them a penny for how they're handling their business. When we lose sight of that and go into its lack of features all that does is give defenders an excuse to post lazy shifting goalposts memes when Epic eventually does add a feature (albeit in a half assed way like cloud saving).
But...that kind of misses the point to me. The simple act of buying exclusives in the PC space is abhorrent and that alone should be enough reason why the platform shouldn't be supported. It could be the best client in the world and I still wouldn't give them a penny for how they're handling their business. When we lose sight of that and go into its lack of features all that does is give defenders an excuse to post lazy shifting goalposts memes when Epic eventually does add a feature (albeit in a half assed way like cloud saving).
I'm convinced if Nintendo can do it then it's not that hard. That goes with just about anything tech related.