News Epic Games Store

beep boop

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Dec 6, 2018
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Edit: whoops, wrong thread :)

Anywho, we're nearing the one-year anniversary of the store opening. It should soon be slowly opening up to self-publishing. It'll be interesting to see how that pans out. We've seen them renege on certain positions like mass sale events, the big tile store design, etc. as well as delay major features.
 
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gabbo

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That's actually what they should be doing, but they're not. The funneling from the EGS back into Fortnite is still completely lacking.

They should be pipelining people right into Fortnite, but they still haven't really bothered other than what? That one Borderlands skin promotion?

Whether we like it or not, UT has like 1/100th the wide appeal that Fortnite has.
I wasn't trying to compare ut to fortnite that way. What I was saying was, Epic could use EGS for any other games they develop and say "From the developers of Fortnite comes <game here>" and splash it all over EGS. Even if the venn diagrams don't cross much, there'd still be getting eyeballs on their own titles bringing in more stable stream of income once Fortnite tappers off. I'm sure rocket league will eventually be this.
 

ISee

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Mar 1, 2019
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"Bestseller" is the same as "Game of the Year Edition". Meaningless box advertisement that is supposed to intrigue you to pick it up.



Lol that season pass
Wait, wasn't the game supposed to launch simultaneously on PC, Xbox and Xbox Game Pass?
Wasn't it also later announced to be available on PC game pass on day one?

After Outer Worlds, I wonder why the xbox version was delayed.
 

MJunioR

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Mar 13, 2019
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It's kinda shitty to see how well YouTube and Facebook ads works on people. Apparently mostly, if not all RDR2 PC ads only had a EGS logo and that got a number of people for sure.
 

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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Epic is doing it for the devs/pubs, so they're selling RDR2 and giving Rockstar a measly 88% instead of just linking to the Rockstar store so they get 100% and can build up their own platform without a middle man who does nothing but provide "just a launcher"/storefront involved in the process to leech off them :p
 

madjoki

👀 I see you
Sep 19, 2018
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Epic is doing it for the devs/pubs, so they're selling RDR2 and giving Rockstar a measly 88% instead of just linking to the Rockstar store so they get 100% and can build up their own platform without a middle man who does nothing but provide "just a launcher"/storefront involved in the process to leech off them :p
Epic could be giving more than 100% tho. By power of magic, friendship and Fortnite.
 

Arsene

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Apr 17, 2019
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It's kinda shitty to see how well YouTube and Facebook ads works on people. Apparently mostly, if not all RDR2 PC ads only had a EGS logo and that got a number of people for sure.
All the ads ive been getting on youtube just have a generic PC logo. But Reddit and Twitter ads all advertise R* Launcher here. Absolutely no mention of EGS anywhere.

Like everytime I go on reddit, without fail I get this ad and it links to R* social club.

 
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Stone Ocean

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Apr 17, 2019
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It's kinda shitty to see how well YouTube and Facebook ads works on people. Apparently mostly, if not all RDR2 PC ads only had a EGS logo and that got a number of people for sure.
Yeah I got a RDR2 YT AD flashing the EGS logo a couple days ago.

Epic really trying to make the most out of that one month.
 
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MJunioR

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All the ads ive been getting on youtube just have a generic PC logo. But Reddit and Twitter ads all advertise R* Launcher here. Absolutely no mention of EGS anywhere.

Like everytime I go on reddit, without fail I get this ad and it links to R* social club.

When I'm on phone most ads I get on YT have a R* logo + EGS one. Maybe it's due to regional difference as Stone Ocean also got the EGS one.

In any case, I don't see why anyone informed enough (read someone informed as someone who read R* announcement / Twitter posts) would buy it on EGS.
 
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lashman

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I think it's obviously deceptive at an inherent level since they're not given "bot" names to distinguish them. Making the username algorithm more "organic" and adding a report button to even further mask that they're not real is even worse.

On the other hand, I would say when I quit the game in Season 6, the game was basically becoming unplayable for casual players, even on console. If you weren't a sweaty tryhard building insanely fast, you were going to lose. So adding some kind of training wheel stage isn't a horrific idea, insofar as pretty much every online/service game has a "bots" mode (Rocket League, Dota, League, Battlefield, etc). The problem is that you shouldn't be seeing streamers (i.e., really good players) still play against bots.

That's where it becomes an insane farce to mask engagement levels with the game.
no, of course ... bots as a concept are great ... it becomes shitty when you disguise them as real people AND give them all the premium gear

if there was like a separate "botmatch" mode ... or even if the bots were clearly marked (and all had basic cosmetics) ... then it would be perfectly fine
 

Copons

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Wow, I had no idea some devs used bots disguised as real players. 😕
I sure hope Valve doesn't do it, at least not in Dota Underlords, because damn, that would mean my ass gets brutally kicked by humans and bots alike. 😭
TBF I'm a very gullible person.
It took me a couple of hours to realize that Goat Simulator's fake MMO dlc was not a real MMO with other Goat Sim players called like xXxXcloudstrife1998xXx, glitching and lagging all the time. 😞
 
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Kyougar

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no, of course ... bots as a concept are great ... it becomes shitty when you disguise them as real people AND give them all the premium gear

if there was like a separate "botmatch" mode ... or even if the bots were clearly marked (and all had basic cosmetics) ... then it would be perfectly fine
The real fucked up thing is the premium MTX gear. It becomes borderline advertising for the MTX and uses predatory psychology to sell those. ("all those people use/have MTX and I am running along with my basic gear here. MOM! I want the cool skins, all the other players also have them!"
 
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lashman

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The real fucked up thing is the premium MTX gear. It becomes borderline advertising for the MTX and uses predatory psychology to sell those. ("all those people use/have MTX and I am running along with my basic gear here. MOM! I want the cool skins, all the other players also have them!"
it's not borderline advertising ... it's LITERALLY advertising ... those bots running around are literally ads for all the cosmetics

i refuse to believe they weren't specifically doing all of it this way

everyone can win easily -> they play more (engagement) -> they see all those nice cosmetics all the goddamn time -> they buy cosmetics

and it's even worse with the bots because with real people you probably have a MUCH higher chance of running into people who don't have any fancy cosmetics (or are even using the default skin) ... so ... you know ...
 

PC-Patriot

Press Any key, where the hell is it ?
Aug 5, 2019
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This is the thing. To me a Digital store is about trust. It took me a long time to trust Valve as the custodian of my gaming library. Now here we have Epic wanting to take valves place and pretty much everything they have done in the past and are currently doing tells me "do not trust these fuckers one lil bit". In many ways yes EGS is "just another launcher" but what matters to me is what is behind that launcher. Now I know valve have had their fuckups and are not vestal virgins but by and large Valve has stood shoulder to shoulder with the PC gamer whilst over companies were insulting PC gamers and calling them all two bit pirates.

The exclusive bullshit where they are paying over the odds to keep games like RDR 2 off steam for a SINGLE SOLITARY MONTH. The blatant use of bots to sell and advertise shit. I mean can anyone honestly say they want a company like Epic to be the custodian of their games ? Me personally I would rather give up gaming than have EGS anywhere near my PC because I do not trust Tim "Tencent" Sweeney or Epic.
 

lashman

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This is the thing. To me a Digital store is about trust. It took me a long time to trust Valve as the custodian of my gaming library. Now here we have Epic wanting to take valves place and pretty much everything they have done in the past and are currently doing tells me "do not trust these fuckers one lil bit". In many ways yes EGS is "just another launcher" but what matters to me is what is behind that launcher. Now I know valve have had their fuckups and are not vestal virgins but by and large Valve has stood shoulder to shoulder with the PC gamer whilst over companies were insulting PC gamers and calling them all two bit pirates.

The exclusive bullshit where they are paying over the odds to keep games like RDR 2 off steam for a SINGLE SOLITARY MONTH. The blatant use of bots to sell and advertise shit. I mean can anyone honestly say they want a company like Epic to be the custodian of their games ? Me personally I would rather give up gaming than have EGS anywhere near my PC because I do not trust Tim Sweeney or Epic.
yup, pretty much this ... i don't trust them AT ALL ... whatever chance they might've had of getting me to even begin trusting them were thrown out the window pretty much when they announced the fucking thing ... with exclusives right out of the gate

fuck 'em
 

C-Dub

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Dec 23, 2018
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I won't give them money or buy keys for their store for this very reason. I'll still claim the free games because whatever, but there's no trust there for me to part with my cash and until they act in a way that doesn't make me think the store will go down in flames a year or two from now I'm not going to invest in that platform. At the very least it's going to take a few years of good behaviour before I'd even consider buying from them, so they've got a long way to go.

I buy games on Steam and GOG because those platform holders have shown they're trustworthy. I have significant libraries on both and plan to grow them because they work hard for my trust and are both very interopable with each other when it comes to deciding which launcher I use as my main one.
 

Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
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On r/fuckepic, people are already celebrating the defeat of EGS moneyhatting. I'm afraid this is a little premature. I fully expect Epic to double down on exclusives even harder in the next few months, snatching AAA games like Dying Light 2 and Dead Stranding.
 

lashman

Dead & Forgotten
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On r/fuckepic, people are already celebrating the defeat of EGS moneyhatting. I'm afraid this is a little premature. I fully expect Epic to double down on exclusives even harder in the next few months, snatching AAA games like Dying Light 2 and Dead Stranding.
oh, you can count on it ... if anything - they'll just ignore the indies from now on ... and focus purely on the big stuff
 

m_dorian

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May 22, 2019
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On r/fuckepic, people are already celebrating the defeat of EGS moneyhatting. I'm afraid this is a little premature. I fully expect Epic to double down on exclusives even harder in the next few months, snatching AAA games like Dying Light 2 and Dead Stranding.
Yeah, i do not think it will end soon.

I am glad for the setbacks they have and i really trust greed will condemn them but, as much as i hope for, i don't think this war is over yet.
 

gabbo

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oh, you can count on it ... if anything - they'll just ignore the indies from now on ... and focus purely on the big stuff
Kojima is a struggling indie developer and that 88/12 split is the ONLY THING keeping him afloat. I mean, how does the man who has Norman Reedus starring in their most recent small bedroom production afford to feed themselves?... Ugh.... They might as well drop that part of their act completely.
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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Won't somebody think of the poor multi-million dollar international publishers?!
EGS are the true philanthropists for the 21st Century. By going after the AAA games they ensure that prosperity will trickle-down to those devs in need. A Capitalist Dream made true.

I wonder how long it will take for them to quietly drop the "For the Devs!" act?
 

Joe Spangle

Playing....
Apr 17, 2019
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When and what is the first eggs game to release back on Steam? is it Metro? Will be very interesting to see how they are priced and how they sell.
 
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Rosenkrantz

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I wonder if Annapurna will use Ashen’s poor performance on Steam (and we know it’ll be poor unless they’ll release it with 75% discount right out of the gate) as a justification for taking Tim’s money?
 
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Joe Spangle

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I wonder if Annapurna will use Ashen poor performance on Steam (and we know it’ll be poor unless they’ll release it with 75% discount right out of the gate) as a justification for taking Tim’s money?
I dont know, i think some of these games will sell well once on Steam just because of the shear numbers of people that use Steam. Im going to bet that the Steam sales will be larger than what they have sold on eggs. That will give those devs/publishers the justification that they made the 'right' decision.

Im not buying them though.
 

Rosenkrantz

Once Punched Man
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I dont know, i think some of these games will sell well once on Steam just because of the shear numbers of people that use Steam. Im going to bet that the Steam sales will be larger than what they have sold on eggs. That will give those devs/publishers the justification that they made the 'right' decision.

Im not buying them though.
Some will, but from what I heard Ashen is pretty much dead as far as online goes, they will also have to compete with the entire Steam library that’s not hurting for Souls clones with another big one (Fallen Order) on horizon.

Honestly, I expect most indies and AAs to underperform, the platform is simply too crowded to give any attention to a year old game at full price.
 

Jav

Question everything, learn nothing
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I don't know about Ashen since It kinda faded into oblivion but probably games like Hades and Metro will do well on Steam eventually.

I'm still not buying any of those games when they come to Steam but I expect them to perform well.
 

Amzin

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Dec 5, 2018
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Hades and Satisfactory (if it comes to Steam) will be the hardest for me to not give in to. But so far I'm resisting CoD despite really wanting to play it so hopefully I can keep the energy going. Or the pressure of so many things I want to play being ethically questionable overrides me and I just collapse and buy them all :anguished-face:
 
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uraizen

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On r/fuckepic, people are already celebrating the defeat of EGS moneyhatting. I'm afraid this is a little premature. I fully expect Epic to double down on exclusives even harder in the next few months, snatching AAA games like Dying Light 2 and Dead Stranding.
Did something happen that I'm not aware of to "prove" their defeat? Or is it just speculation because of the radio silence from Tim in general about the actual sale numbers?
 

Alexandros

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Nov 4, 2018
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Did something happen that I'm not aware of to "prove" their defeat? Or is it just speculation because of the radio silence from Tim in general about the actual sale numbers?
Probably a combination of the lack of recent exclusive announcements, the reduced duration of their big-name exclusives, EA returning to Steam and the almost complete lack of sales figures. If Epic doesn't do a blow out at the Keighlies then it will definitely be a sign that they're done.
 

uraizen

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Probably a combination of the lack of recent exclusive announcements, the reduced duration of their big-name exclusives, EA returning to Steam and the almost complete lack of sales figures. If Epic doesn't do a blow out at the Keighlies then it will definitely be a sign that they're done.
When you put it that way ... god damn, lol.
 

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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even if you were under a gag-order for specific sales data, no way in hell would a publisher, developer or even EGS miss the opportunity to shout about sales milestones. 250k, or 500k for indies, 1 or 2 million for AA games, if those milestones were achieved, we would hear about it from them. Nothing beats positive sales-milestone marketing/PR.
Especially for indies who have industry-wide median sales of 500 to 2000 copies. You know why my game stands out from the thousand other indie games on the marketplace? My game sold 500,000 copies instead of 500! So many copies sold, the customers can't be wrong!
 

Phoenix RISING

A phoenix always RISES!
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The mental gymnastics to talk about discoverability when developers are literally abstracting their games from the number one location of eyeballs to a store no one wants to use, then telling users they're wrong for not wanting a fragmented ecosystem on their PC "because marketing" is so fucking dumb. So stupid. It's the "gorilla in a suit" Steve Ballmer school of business where they think their super smart business acumen and marketing departments can make sheep consumers go anywhere they want and eat any shit they tell them to. And we all saw what happened during Ballmer's tenure of Microsoft: everyone, most notably Apple and Google, ate their lunch and post-Ballmer caused the company to have to undergo a major pivot in order to stay relevant.

Why have Apple been so successful? It's the ecosystem, stupid. That ubiquity of service (Apple pretty much provides end-to-end service for everything you'd want to use their devices for) and continuity across devices drives their platform. Valve brought similar, though more open, qualities of that ecosystem to the PC and became the center of gravity because they provided a level of ubiquity of service and portability across hardware that no one else has come anywhere near accomplishing.

The way I see it is if a money grubbing operation like EA - who are traditionally more craven and stubborn than literally every other AAA publisher in gaming history - has given up its war of attrition with Valve, and if Microsoft - who own the fucking Windows platform - can't win with a home side advantage and has given up its war of attrition with Valve, then why is anyone who shows no interest in developing an ecosystem like Valve's even bothering at this point?

If you want to topple Valve, throwing money at it is only going to solve half the issue. And regarding Epic, they threw their money around in all the wrong places. Trying to scoop up 75-85 Metascore 1-12 month exclusives is dumb - they might as well have set their cash on fire. There are plenty of ways they could've more wisely spent that cash, including developing their own games, buying studios to make more games, hiring and developing their client, building that irresistible ecosystem and so on.

The other half is actually having the sense to innovate. Finding potential users who aren't currently buying games and finding ways to make them buy games. And even here Epic got it all wrong: why try and lure people who are already happily buying PC games on established stores when they could be building bridges with underserved audiences? The first sign I've seen of Epic doing this is via the Android client, but their PC side is so toxic now that I can't see the cross-platform benefits really being a selling point anymore.

If they'd come out with an Android client, promising "buy once, play on mobile and PC" they'd have actually served an audience who want that functionality and may then think about which store they buy their games on.
It really is bonkers that random people on the internet have conceived of better, sustainable business plans than what Epic has executed.

To your point: Stadia releases this month. We'll see how that goes.
 

Phoenix RISING

A phoenix always RISES!
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This is the thing. To me a Digital store is about trust. It took me a long time to trust Valve as the custodian of my gaming library. Now here we have Epic wanting to take valves place and pretty much everything they have done in the past and are currently doing tells me "do not trust these fuckers one lil bit". In many ways yes EGS is "just another launcher" but what matters to me is what is behind that launcher. Now I know valve have had their fuckups and are not vestal virgins but by and large Valve has stood shoulder to shoulder with the PC gamer whilst over companies were insulting PC gamers and calling them all two bit pirates.

The exclusive bullshit where they are paying over the odds to keep games like RDR 2 off steam for a SINGLE SOLITARY MONTH. The blatant use of bots to sell and advertise shit. I mean can anyone honestly say they want a company like Epic to be the custodian of their games ? Me personally I would rather give up gaming than have EGS anywhere near my PC because I do not trust Tim "Tencent" Sweeney or Epic.
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
 

Phoenix RISING

A phoenix always RISES!
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