News Epic Games Store

C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
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I think this approch don't work on pc, piracy exist, and pre-steam as valuable platform for costumers there was a serius piracy problem.

Right now, EGS isn't competing with steam, is competing with torrent, people which can wait and wanto to buy the game wait steam release, otherwise if they can't wait pirate the game, and there is like a minority (from apple case was 5%-7% of user wichi bought something on the store in years and probably with the coupons)

At this pace EGS are going to become an epic first part platform, and i think we are alredy there, take a look on epicgamespc, even the zealots of egs are not satisfied with the experience
You are of course 100% correct, which is why I said their strategy is not rational.

Exclusivity on PC doesn't work, plain and simple.

I think Epic have blown their chance to compete with Steam. Most people just wait for games that are EGS exclusive and don't see it as a valid platform for buying games on. I'm sure deep down they know this, but Epic will still try other things to help them realise their initial monopolistic ambition.

When the next chancer comes along to try and dethrone Steam, they will need to make a product that adds value to the PC platform, not removes value from Steam. In my mind, the key to beating Steam is to defeat it in user experience and ubiquity of experience. You need to accept that people will buy games from Steam, but aim to have your product be the first thing customers see when they go to launch a game, regardless of the store it came from.

I know GOG tried that, but Galaxy 2.0 is shit. The fact that users would prefer to use hacky workarounds to add their non-Steam games to Steam's UI or use open source alternatives to launch their games vs a ready made all singing and dancing client shows how bad GOG fucked it up.

That said, I think EGS was the last chance saloon for disrupting Steam. Anyone who wanted to "break the Steam monopoly" has pretty much lost that chance, especially since Valve now has distinct hardware ambitions. Anyone who can read the room can see that console makers are going to cloud services and anyone who wants to play on local hardware will do so on affordable PC hardware.
 

fantomena

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Dec 17, 2018
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The train to tackle Steam left long time ago and it's all other companie's fault because they didn't care

Amazon releasing their games on Steam should say it all. Amazon is an enormous big and rich company that could have released New World and Lost Ark on their own thing, because well, at least Lost Ark is really big, but they chose Steam, not even EGS or Luna.
 

meschio94

Junior Member
Aug 21, 2021
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That said, I think EGS was the last chance saloon for disrupting Steam. Anyone who wanted to "break the Steam monopoly" has pretty much lost that chance, especially since Valve now has distinct hardware ambitions. Anyone who can read the room can see that console makers are going to cloud services and anyone who wants to play on local hardware will do so on affordable PC hardware.
I even think egs fortified steam position.

Before egs, people blame valve because """they do nothing to deserve their position""" , majority of people with the eyes closed, and the valve non existant PR.

Now valve increased their PR system (look steam deck, the updates video etc..), people learned why other launchers are shit and steam is in the dominant position without anti-consumer practice.

Some other ex-competitor accepted the reality and learned a lesson from epic, MS (GFWL, and MS store), EA (Origin) and now even Activision (COd MW2 remasteredis on steam) too much money on the table, sony did'nt even attempted a launcher (for now), ubisoft probably will return.

This lessons about detroning steam was not learned from anyone, and epic is the last one
 

C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
3,992
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The train to tackle Steam left long time ago and it's all other companie's fault because they didn't care

Amazon releasing their games on Steam should say it all. Amazon is an enormous big and rich company that could have released New World and Lost Ark on their own thing, because well, at least Lost Ark is really big, but they chose Steam, not even EGS or Luna.
I think Epic had a chance. Valve have been licking their wounds on the failure of the Steam Box, Steam Controller and Steam Link for years. Their user experience has felt like it was lacking for a long time, they made a big bet on PC VR and it's looking like a busted flush right now (I say right now because I think Valve will turn it around), and there was growing disquiet in the developer community about the way Valve was running its store. There were people saying Valve needed a kick up the arse or someone else would take their place for some time.

Epic clearly saw an opportunity to disrupt, but they made dumb decisions from day 1 and while Epic fannied about with keeping games off Steam (and spending exorbitant amounts of money to do so) Valve was working on streamlining their UI, developing the Steam Deck and really creating a clarity of vision about what the company's destiny would be.

As a result, Valve is once again reshaping the PC gaming platform and Epic feels like they're competing with the version of Steam that existed 15 years ago.
 

STHX

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Sep 20, 2021
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As a result, Valve is once again reshaping the PC gaming platform and Epic feels like they're competing with the version of Steam that existed 15 years ago.
Sounds about right if you look at most of their exclusives. The majority were sequels to popular indie games of the past 5-10 years (look no further than the recently announced Goat Simulator 3) or made by developers of popular indie games of the same time frame. It feels like most EGS decisions were made starting from 2017/2019 and they never looked beyond those years completely ignoring how much the Steam market changed in the last years
 

Arc

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Sep 19, 2020
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The genesis for EGS wasn't terrible. Epic was flush with cash from Fortnite's explosion in popularity and in 2017-18 there was a lot of bad press against Steam. But the market has changed so much that it looks silly in hindsight. If anything, I think Game Pass is a larger existential threat to Steam today since it fundamentally changes the business model as to how games are consumed.

In other news, the top 240 best sellers list has been pared down to the top 50.
 

Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
Sep 7, 2018
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The genesis for EGS wasn't terrible. Epic was flush with cash from Fortnite's explosion in popularity and in 2017-18 there was a lot of bad press against Steam. But the market has changed so much that it looks silly in hindsight. If anything, I think Game Pass is a larger existential threat to Steam today since it fundamentally changes the business model as to how games are consumed.

In other news, the top 240 best sellers list has been pared down to the top 50.
Ok, few points here.
1 - That bad press magically started appearing when certain actor started its own campaign, not going to say something I'm thinking but you know how media plays a certain role when it comes to start the foundation of new projects for companies, I do not think it's coincidence that a year prior EGS announcement that kind of content started popping up more frequently, it was part of the foundation of what would be "the pro-developers store"

2 - as eonden said in the past (and I agree with) Epic didn't understood the market as well as they thought, literally the moment they popped up, a new trend born and wiped out most of their chances, I'm talking about sub services aka GamePass. Steam saw this in a better way and adapted much quicker than EGS so at the end of the day Steam had more chances than EGS just because they enabled connecting bridges through services. For what is worth, I don't think GamePass is a threat for Steam in the short-mid term. A lot of data has proven that both types of consumers are compatible and both systems do work well at the same time.

3 - top 50 is better than arbitrary 240, to be honest xD
 

prudis

anime occult member
Sep 19, 2018
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The Kingdom of Beer and Porn
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Ok, few points here.
1 - That bad press magically started appearing when certain actor started its own campaign, not going to say something I'm thinking but you know how media plays a certain role when it comes to start the foundation of new projects for companies, I do not think it's coincidence that a year prior EGS announcement that kind of content started popping up more frequently, it was part of the foundation of what would be "the pro-developers store"
remember cerain russian steam store dataminer who was at the start of lot of that bad press by doing analysis from his own site and even selling the "better nonpublic data" till this day on patreon ... who was later revealed to bey an emloyee of epic?
 

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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It's possible that Epic's generous terms convince devs to sign such a clause anyway. Also, Remedy has been signing deals that disadvantage PC gamers for their last few games.

It doesn't make sense for me that Epic spends a billion dollars to keep 3rd party games away from Steam, pulls Fall Guys and Rocket League from Steam, but would release their own published games on Steam anyway. Crippling Steam is more important for them than making profit I guess. Fortnite makes them billions a year anyway.
You are looking at it from Epic's perspective, sure.

What about the individual devs? Unless they are just showing up for the paycheck, one or two forgotten games could be the end of their career. And how long will Epic fund that dev studio with two forgotten games anyway? They will drop them and sweep up another new dev that had a successful game on Steam.

They could only hope that their game is good enough for a console maker to release it on their platform. But the thing about Console partnerships or even just letting the game on it: They only look for the superstars of indie releases on PC and if you are forgotten on EGS, the chances are high you won't get a console release.
 

Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
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You are looking at it from Epic's perspective, sure.

What about the individual devs? Unless they are just showing up for the paycheck, one or two forgotten games could be the end of their career. And how long will Epic fund that dev studio with two forgotten games anyway? They will drop them and sweep up another new dev that had a successful game on Steam.

They could only hope that their game is good enough for a console maker to release it on their platform. But the thing about Console partnerships or even just letting the game on it: They only look for the superstars of indie releases on PC and if you are forgotten on EGS, the chances are high you won't get a console release.
I'm pretty sure all of Epic's published games will get a day one console release. Also, devs may assume that Epic's generous terms and marketing machine will compensate the loss of PC sales.

I may be wrong, but I doubt any developer who actually cares about building a loyal fanbase on PC, will sign a deal with Epic in the first place. I can't imagine that nowadays devs still believe that their game will probably sell well on EGS.
 

eonden

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
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I think Epic had a chance. Valve have been licking their wounds on the failure of the Steam Box, Steam Controller and Steam Link for years. Their user experience has felt like it was lacking for a long time, they made a big bet on PC VR and it's looking like a busted flush right now (I say right now because I think Valve will turn it around), and there was growing disquiet in the developer community about the way Valve was running its store. There were people saying Valve needed a kick up the arse or someone else would take their place for some time.

Epic clearly saw an opportunity to disrupt, but they made dumb decisions from day 1 and while Epic fannied about with keeping games off Steam (and spending exorbitant amounts of money to do so) Valve was working on streamlining their UI, developing the Steam Deck and really creating a clarity of vision about what the company's destiny would be.

As a result, Valve is once again reshaping the PC gaming platform and Epic feels like they're competing with the version of Steam that existed 15 years ago.
Epic clarely was workign on whatever EGS became since well before EGS announcement (as Sergei was working with "other company" already by like 2017), so a lot of the media and indie build up around was clearly influenced by them to make it easier to make inroads. The Valve UI change thing is a bit weird to point out because Chat (the first part of it) launched way before EGS), and Library a bit afterwards. I would say that EGS did make them be more vocal about the upgrades tho.

Epic strategy in general was have a blitz in 2019-2020 that shattered the idea that "non F2P PC Gaming is Steam" hence why they paid a fuck ton of money to remove Metro Exodus out of Steam weeks before launch, the Ubisoft deal, and the RDR2 1 month exclusivity. All of those dont really make that much sense (the Exodus one even less) if we do not consider that Epic wanted to disrupt Steam image to allow a competitor. You remove all those games (and EA and MS) and suddenly none of the big AAA games of those years would have "come to Steam" really.
Once you disrupt the idea of Steam being "the place to be for PC gaming" a ton of the first mover advantage would be gone, and Epic could poach a ton of the big guys which are the ones that bring the most of the "base growth", which is what most people work around. Epic would then use that platform to upsell their games and make more money that way. Indies would then have to choose between easily getting on a Steam that lacks some of the big hitters that would impact Steam's growth or visibility, or ride the Epic wave. If fully succesful, Steam growth would have stopped (and maybe reversed) and Epci could have gotten the 30-50% of the market if everything went well. (I doubt it would have happened, Steam still had a ton of momentum and strength even without AAA games).

The problem was that Epic completely misread the timing of the situation, they kinda came just as there was a giant sea change already happening in how big gaming companies saw platforms. Preivously, big companies tried to maximize profit by maximizing the cut htey perceive, so from the same amount of money, they make more. As service started to become more prominent (and through that lenses it is not that rare that EA and MS, the ones with subs came back first bakc to Steam), the way to maximize profit is to increase revenue by being everywhere, as that brings more eyes into your product and more people to play them, increasing chances to get whales.

If Epic had come one year earlier, their strategy would have been more succesful (as the service sea change was moving slowly still, consider EA didnt really have Apex), but Epic also didnt have as much money and were unsure how to fight the mobile markets (which were the big end goal). Epic aggressivity, whose main goal was shaterring the perception of Steam as PC Gaming ended up backfiring when they couldn't shatter that perception, so in the ned they looked like they were doing it out of spite. Pure "if you come to the king, you better not miss" (they missed)

What makes it more funny is that you can see Epic is still focused on the "maximize profit by not giving any money" by how they treat mobile. Mobile is a huge market but Epic refused to put their game in Google Play (only doing it to sue Google later on), making them lose a ton of Android money in general (and making PUBG Mobile even more of a strangehold in mobile than it should be). So it is not just something they missed in PC. Like they could still be their own platform without needing to keep the 100%.

Personally I would say I also didnt expect MS and EA to come back to Steam, both because I also didnt see hte change to service focus (until it happened lol) and because of "sunken cost fallacy". So I cannot really blame Epic for missing it. I can blame them for keeping up some of the strategy even once it was clear it was bust when MS came back to Steam (asking MS to become Epic co-exclusive was idiotic and a way they gave free exclusives to Steam because it was clear MS cared less about the money and more about intangibles with that move.).
 
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Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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I'm pretty sure all of Epic's published games will get a day one console release. Also, devs may assume that Epic's generous terms and marketing machine will compensate the loss of PC sales.

I may be wrong, but I doubt any developer who actually cares about building a loyal fanbase on PC, will sign a deal with Epic in the first place. I can't imagine that nowadays devs still believe that their game will probably sell well on EGS.
For Epic Publishing on Consoles: A game still needs to be exceptional to be an indie success on Consoles. A game that doesn't light the EGS base on fire, will not be selling hundreds of thousands on console.

And for the second point, you are right, there are probably 4 or more types of devs who still take these deals:

1. the grifter/con artist/self-doubter who know their game is either shit, will not sell, or their vision is not feasible (in skill or timeframe), and just want the money.
2. the early access test-bed, because why not (still a dangerous bet)
3. the devs/pubs who got suckered in early with multi-game, or multi-year contracts
4. the idiots who either believe the nonsense Timmy spouts or who have a hateboner for Steam

Epic clarely was workign on whatever EGS became since well before EGS announcement (as Sergei was working with "other company" already by like 2017), so a lot of the media and indie build up around was clearly influenced by them to make it easier to make inroads. The Valve UI change thing is a bit weird to point out because Chat (the first part of it) launched way before EGS), and Library a bit afterwards. I would say that EGS did make them be more vocal about the upgrades tho.

Epic strategy in general was have a blitz in 2019-2020 that shattered the idea that "non F2P PC Gaming is Steam" hence why they paid a fuck ton of money to remove Metro Exodus out of Steam weeks before launch, the Ubisoft deal, and the RDR2 1 month exclusivity. All of those dont really make that much sense (the Exodus one even less) if we do not consider that Epic wanted to disrupt Steam image to allow a competitor. You remove all those games (and EA and MS) and suddenly none of the big AAA games of those years would have "come to Steam" really.
Once you disrupt the idea of Steam being "the place to be for PC gaming" a ton of the first mover advantage would be gone, and Epic could poach a ton of the big guys which are the ones that bring the most of the "base growth", which is what most people work around. Epic would then use that platform to upsell their games and make more money that way. Indies would then have to choose between easily getting on a Steam that lacks some of the big hitters that would impact Steam's growth or visibility, or ride the Epic wave. If fully succesful, Steam growth would have stopped (and maybe reversed) and Epci could have gotten the 30-50% of the market if everything went well. (I doubt it would have happened, Steam still had a ton of momentum and strength even without AAA games).

The problem was that Epic completely misread the timing of the situation, they kinda came just as there was a giant sea change already happening in how big gaming companies saw platforms. Preivously, big companies tried to maximize profit by maximizing the cut htey perceive, so from the same amount of money, they make more. As service started to become more prominent (and through that lenses it is not that rare that EA and MS, the ones with subs came back first bakc to Steam), the way to maximize profit is to increase revenue by being everywhere, as that brings more eyes into your product and more people to play them, increasing chances to get whales.

If Epic had come one year earlier, their strategy would have been more succesful (as the service sea change was moving slowly still, consider EA didnt really have Apex), but Epic also didnt have as much money and were unsure how to fight the mobile markets (which were the big end goal). Epic aggressivity, whose main goal was shaterring the perception of Steam as PC Gaming ended up backfiring when they couldn't shatter that perception, so in the ned they looked like they were doing it out of spite. Pure "if you come to the king, you better not miss" (they missed)

What makes it more funny is that you can see Epic is still focused on the "maximize profit by not giving any money" by how they treat mobile. Mobile is a huge market but Epic refused to put their game in Google Play (only doing it to sue Google later on), making them lose a ton of Android money in general (and making PUBG Mobile even more of a strangehold in mobile than it should be). So it is not just something they missed in PC. Like they could still be their own platform without needing to keep the 100%.

Personally I would say I also didnt expect MS and EA to come back to Steam, both because I also didnt see hte change to service focus (until it happened lol) and because of "sunken cost fallacy". So I cannot really blame Epic for missing it. I can blame them for keeping up some of the strategy even once it was clear it was bust when MS came back to Steam (asking MS to become Epic co-exclusive was idiotic and a way they gave free exclusives to Steam because it was clear MS cared less about the money and more about intangibles with that move.).

I think Epic is "trapped" in a time capsule of their own making. The Spy gave them a massive treasure trove of data that they still try to exploit 5 years after the data was worthless or not relevant anymore because the Industry shifted so much in the last few years. But they don't have the expertise, skill or mindset to shift with the industry.
 

eonden

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
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For Epic Publishing on Consoles: A game still needs to be exceptional to be an indie success on Consoles. A game that doesn't light the EGS base on fire, will not be selling hundreds of thousands on console.

And for the second point, you are right, there are probably 4 or more types of devs who still take these deals:

1. the grifter/con artist/self-doubter who know their game is either shit, will not sell, or their vision is not feasible (in skill or timeframe), and just want the money.
2. the early access test-bed, because why not (still a dangerous bet)
3. the devs/pubs who got suckered in early with multi-game, or multi-year contracts
4. the idiots who either believe the nonsense Timmy spouts or who have a hateboner for Steam

I think Epic is "trapped" in a time capsule of their own making. The Spy gave them a massive treasure trove of data that they still try to exploit 5 years after the data was worthless or not relevant anymore because the Industry shifted so much in the last few years. But they don't have the expertise, skill or mindset to shift with the industry.
I think a ton of the "SteamSpy" comments we normally make are a bit flawed. Like I dont think Sergei really had that much control over what EGS started as and ended up outside of acting as an indie outreach person and telling them. You have to remember that EGS core points were very much against most of the comments Sergei had been making (sale events are good, regional pricing is important, you cannot bank on just your GAAS because GAAS people dont normally buy other games, etc.). I also doubt Sergei would approve the launch of EGS as it did, in a hilariously bad way that poisoned the well.
They still are trying to use Sergei data (and well their own data from Unreal games lol) to pick "winners" but the market in general has shifted and most of the genres are already flooded and SteamSpy is not as able to pick outlier winners or new genre momentum easily (because nobody really can).

Regarding Epic shifting, we lready see that with their Publishing and I think its going to be a big winner, the main problem they have is that they will be competing with a ton of other indie and AAA publishers to get new games, and their focus on more stablished names as a "safety net" is not as effective in gaming than in films for instance. It does work well to give their service a more "high end" feeling, suc has Sony was doing with their SP AAAA experinced.
Their main idea is still too centered on the metaverse and "have many GAAS in our service to keep people in" but I am unsure what they will do to crosspollinate between their GAAS services. I am surprised they havent merged all the V-Bucks for instance between Fortnite and Rocket League for instance, or time seasons in a way that encourages people to play both somewhat.
 

STHX

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Sep 20, 2021
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I think Epic is "trapped" in a time capsule of their own making. The Spy gave them a massive treasure trove of data that they still try to exploit 5 years after the data was worthless or not relevant anymore because the Industry shifted so much in the last few years. But they don't have the expertise, skill or mindset to shift with the industry.
Looking at the EGS, I feel the one part they completely failed to predict was the sudden growth of japanese games/series on Steam. It would be easy to point at Elden Ring so instead let's look at Resident Evil:


Each one of these releases was 2 year apart. Let's also post the total reviews: 16345 for REmake, 59949 for REVII, 107749 for RE2make and 74772 for REVIII. From these 2 data we can easily see how more and more people started to buy RE games on Steam and more and more people started to play them at launch. It's obvious RE build a strong fanbase on pc over a long period of time yet the RE completely skip the EGS even today

And make no mistake this isn't a RE only thing. If I were to post a similar comparison for Tales the results would b the same for example. And yet is Arise on the EGS? Is Persona 4 on the EGS? DMC? Warriors/Musou? Bamco Licensed Anime Games? Even most games from Square Enix despide having a good number of EGS exclusives only have a Steam release on pc
Even if we move to smaller releases/publishers the situation doesn't change. Disgaea 6 is the first time the series will release on the EGS and nothing else from NISA released there currently. No Rune Factory or Senran Kagura for Xseed while games like Daemon X Machina and Story of Seasons only came out much later on the EGS (and where given for free). No Idea Factory at all. No Spike Chunsoft at all. No D3 Publisher at all. Blaster Masdter Zero 3 is still the only Inti game on EGS
Like, I could continue for hours but the point is obvious and I didn't even touch on the massive growth of japanese, chinese and korean indie games on Steam which are nowhere to be seen on the EGS. How can Epic think they can compete with steam if so many games skip the EGS. It's not like they need to buy the exclusivity for all these game,s but the bare minimum is make sure they actually come out on the EGS together with their Steam release
 
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Arc

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Redfall is coming to EGS. What's funny is that the stream only showed the Steam logo, but the YouTube video includes the EGS logo. I skimmed the other MS games on their YouTube channel and that's the only one I noticed. I know Epic and Bethesda have had a relationship even before the buyout, but MS not putting their games on EGS (other than State of Decay 2) confuses me, especially since Phil and Tim are pretty close and MS has done a ton with Fortnite (the Ukraine donations, Master Chief and Marcus Fenix skins, and Xcloud).
 
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Yoshi

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Chivalry 2 is one of those games that could have really benefited from a Day 1 Steam release.

Take a look at Chivalry 1 & MORDHAU's all-time peaks:



As you can see, there is a huge market for these type of games on Steam.

...and here's Chivalry 2's all-time peak at the moment:


I believe this is one of the clearest examples to how launching exclusively on Epic can effectively kill a game's hype. This game should be way more popular than it actually is. If you remember, Chivalry 2 was getting great reviews and word-of-mouth around the time of its original launch. It's still a very good game, which is why it didn't flop in its Steam release... But if it came out Day 1 on Steam, I honestly believe it would have sold like gangbusters and surpassed MORDHAU's peak by a considerable amount.

By launching exclusively on Epic, the game's population took a huge nosedive after only a month. The majority of servers were empty and only a couple were filled during peak time. The game was borderline dead. Of course, this has all changed thanks to its Steam release... But by taking the Epic deal, I truly believe the developers missed out on having a massive playerbase for their game.
 
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Nabs

Hyper˗Toxic Pro˗Consumer
Oct 23, 2018
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I bet there are some great/terrible stories to be told about Chivalry. From the quick success of their first game, to the failure of their second game. All the stories of mismanagement. Then having to partner with a publisher like Tripwire. Tripwire making that Epic deal to make up for their investment, probably ruining the future of the game in the process.

I'd love to see how much Tripwire made in the Chiv deal.
 

TioChuck

More Yellow 🤷‍♂️
Dec 31, 2018
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Oh boy, just what I wanted. I guess this is a new version of EOS? I know it's been stinking up Steam for years.
This is bad all around, and this is the jist of it:

  • Account linking.
    Onboarding without emails or password prompts. With just a few clicks, Steam players can jump into a game while an Epic Games account is created under the hood for their Steam account.
boosting the amount of Epic Accounts by symbiosis, this thing is just a parasite.
 

ExistentialThought

Coffee Lover ♥☕
Feb 29, 2020
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boosting the amount of Epic Accounts by symbiosis, this thing is just a parasite.
Yeah, this is alarming. Devs need to start being extremely mindful of this when they are shipping this SDK with their game and have it be completely optional for folks who do not want to be another +1 to Epic's ambitions. I am just so tired of companies interjecting themselves into everything and there being so many enablers who then act surprised when the "friendly" company of today becomes the Facebook/Amazon/Google/etc. of tomorrow.

I know most places will spin this as a value-add in the same way all things are until they aren't, but then it is too late. I think a good practice is to ask yourself, if Facebook/Amazon/[insert other company here] created accounts for your customers without being explicitly clear to the customer, would you be okay with that? If the answer is no for even one of these, then why is okay for anyone else? If Google was doing this as a requirement to sell on their Play store, for games sold outside of their Play store, I can bet dollars to doughnuts that everyone, but Google, would dislike that. I could guarantee Tim Sweeney would be against that, but for some reason some devs are going to turn a blind eye to this and I just hope it does not come back to haunt folks.

Edit: I wanted to close my little rant by saying that I know at the end of the day it is just video games and there are 1000s of other things more important, but I also know that Amazon was just an online bookstore, Google was just another search engine in a sea of search engines, etc. Companies can be seemingly unimportant, low stakes today, and yet still have profound impacts once they get a foothold in their respective industries.
 

Amzin

No one beats me 17 times in a row!
Dec 5, 2018
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Cross-platform is Steam's biggest infrastructure failing right now. Steam multiplayer and Workshop are amazing, but in the new age of cross-platform gaming they are worthless to many people, and I'm not surprised more devs are running EOS for that 1-click multiplayer across all stores thing. mod.io and Nexus are already big and exist for mods off Steam, and depending how the tides go Workshop could see less community modding due to modders focusing on the multi-platform sites instead.
 

madjoki

👀 I see you
Sep 19, 2018
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Steam has full crossplay multiplayer, but Valve doesn't really advertise it, so nobody uses it.

It's even open source unlike epics and doesn't need steam account


(I think Destiny 2 uses it for crossplay PC/consoles)
 

Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
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Belgium
Cross-platform is Steam's biggest infrastructure failing right now. Steam multiplayer and Workshop are amazing, but in the new age of cross-platform gaming they are worthless to many people, and I'm not surprised more devs are running EOS for that 1-click multiplayer across all stores thing. mod.io and Nexus are already big and exist for mods off Steam, and depending how the tides go Workshop could see less community modding due to modders focusing on the multi-platform sites instead.
There's something fishy about the huge amount of devs suddenly switching to EOS. Definitely more than cross-play alone, since even games without multiplayer suddenly get EOS integration.

The Epic vs Apple docs revealed that EOS was meant to cripple Steamworks. It's not unlikely that Epic somehow pays devs or gives them some kind of financial advantage if they switch to EOS. Many games that were freebies on EGS switched to EOS on Steam for example.
 

Amzin

No one beats me 17 times in a row!
Dec 5, 2018
1,001
2,110
113
Steam has full crossplay multiplayer, but Valve doesn't really advertise it, so nobody uses it.

It's even open source unlike epics and doesn't need steam account


(I think Destiny 2 uses it for crossplay PC/consoles)
See, I always assumed those games I did see on Steam with crossplay were using some proprietary thing - so yea Steam could do better about that. Of course, devs are still going to go with whatever works easiest / best for them at the end of the day 99% of the time, and if they are planning to release on EGS I'm sure Epic gives very detailed instructions on how to implement EOS.
 

FunnyJay

Powered by the Cloud
Apr 6, 2019
1,458
3,801
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Sweden
Is it even legal from a GDPR standpoint to create an account for a user (with potential personal details) without even informing the user? Or will they bury it in the EULA and pretend it is compliant with GDPR?
 
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ExistentialThought

Coffee Lover ♥☕
Feb 29, 2020
1,560
4,834
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The fact that you have to play for over 2 hours in order to review a game is absolutely garbage. People act like Steam reviews are like Metacritic reviews even though you have to had purchased the game and played for at least a half an hour.

With Epic's approach that means you cannot review a game if you refunded it or want to refund it. This means reviews are always going to skew more positive. Especially since two hours of playtime is already a "high" amount of play time for figuring out if a game has an issue or is good.

What is more is making it so you are "randomly" polled questions is silly. The lack of transparency is always going to be suspect. You can give assurances it is totally random, but why not just make it something everyone is polled on after X hours played?
 

madjoki

👀 I see you
Sep 19, 2018
3,009
11,158
113
Having to choose over refund and maybe getting random chance to leave review, means it's useless.

Same for not seeing how many reviews,

Actual scale for scores seems to be 4.4 - 5.0, but I certainly didn't look at all games.

4.4 is Watch Dogs Legion. In Xbox store it's 2.8 (en-US, cuz for some reason xbox region locks reviews).
I think it was widely disliked. 4.4 seems to be way too much.

Polls are cool feature tho, maybe valve should add similar feature.
 

C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
3,992
11,886
113
As always, there's a glimmer of a good idea in some of the things Epic is doing, but because they don't have a customer-centric approach it winds up being shite.

It's like some dickhead in a suit who is constantly paranoid about what their customers might do if they're given too much leeway is calling all the shots.
 

Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
3,982
13,792
113
Belgium
I can't understand how people on other sites keep claiming that Steam reviews are useless and provoke review bombing. Valve made review bombing clearly visible with their graphs, you can see for each review how long that person has played, and the recommendation voting results in the most useful reviews being shown on top.

User reviews have been incredibly useful for me the past few years, both on Steam and here on MC. The difference in solving abuse of user reviews between Steam and EGS once again shows why so many people like Steam, and why EGS should NEVER become the norm for PC games distribution.
 

Yoshi

o_O
Jan 5, 2019
700
3,958
93
Review bombing is extremely beneficial to customers and serves to keep developers in check. What Epic is basically trying to do is suppress as much negative feedback as possible to appeal to developers & publishers. Why even have a review system at all if not everyone gets a voice?

And why is there a campaign against review bombing in the first place? Do people just want to hear positive things about the games they like? There are legitimate reasons to review bomb a game, whether it's technical issues that break the game, developers trying to pull shady shit, broken promises, etc... People have a right to complain. After all, they did spend money on the game. Potential buyers can read the reviews and make their own decisions. They're entitled to know what's wrong with the game. That's why it's important to have an open review system like Steam's. You're getting EVERYONE'S feedback as opposed to a select few.
 
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Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
3,127
11,243
113
The fact that you have to play for over 2 hours in order to review a game is absolutely garbage. People act like Steam reviews are like Metacritic reviews even though you have to had purchased the game and played for at least a half an hour.

With Epic's approach that means you cannot review a game if you refunded it or want to refund it. This means reviews are always going to skew more positive. Especially since two hours of playtime is already a "high" amount of play time for figuring out if a game has an issue or is good.

What is more is making it so you are "randomly" polled questions is silly. The lack of transparency is always going to be suspect. You can give assurances it is totally random, but why not just make it something everyone is polled on after X hours played?
Algorithm at work:

  • if User gives mostly 5 stars, send more reviews their way
  • if User gives mostly 1 stars, ban them from reviews
= "random" user selection for reviews
 

fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
9,630
25,846
113
The Top sellers are clearly bullshit, why should it be different for reviews on EGS
Wait, are you telling me that BF2042 which is on the 7th spot on the best seller list is not selling better than Evil Dead and GTA V (8th and 9th)? What. And Mechwarrior 5 is not the current 23rd best seller on the store? Shit.
 
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Alexandros

Every game should be turn based
Nov 4, 2018
2,669
11,485
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For me the most likely explanation for Epic's weird sales charts is that on any given day the store's revenue from third-party full game sales is almost zero so a handful of people buying a game makes it shoot up the charts. If I didn't mind giving money to Epic I would do an experiment: I would buy, say, 20 copies of a random older game that isn't on sale and I would see how far it would climb up the charts.
 

Arc

MetaMember
Sep 19, 2020
2,644
10,035
113
FF7 Remake dropped from 3rd place on Thursday to 24th place since its Steam release. Regardless of how you feel about Steam vs. Epic, paying an extra $20 to get it on one store is pretty silly.

For me the most likely explanation for Epic's weird sales charts is that on any given day the store's revenue from third-party full game sales is almost zero so a handful of people buying a game makes it shoot up the charts. If I didn't mind giving money to Epic I would do an experiment: I would buy, say, 20 copies of a random older game that isn't on sale and I would see how far it would climb up the charts.
I believe this is the most reasonable explanation. Anything that isn't Genshin, Rocket League or discounted probably has such low sales that it takes virtually nothing to chart.
 

Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
3,982
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FF7 Remake dropped from 3rd place on Thursday to 24th place since its Steam release. Regardless of how you feel about Steam vs. Epic, paying an extra $20 to get it on one store is pretty silly.
I don't think that's silly. In fact it's the only solution for people who don't want to support EGS.

Let me remind you that the most significant reason why 3rd party exclusives on EGS are going away, is that the absolute majority of PC gamers refused to support this practice.
 

fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
9,630
25,846
113
FF7 Remake dropped from 3rd place on Thursday to 24th place since its Steam release. Regardless of how you feel about Steam vs. Epic, paying an extra $20 to get it on one store is pretty silly.
Depends if you want to play it on a more feature rich and stable store or not.

Also, with Steam Deck ownership growing (seeing on social media), lots of people will opt to get a game on Steam instead of EGS to make playing on the Deck more convenient.

Convenience and ease of use is very important to people, if you want to play something on the Deck and PC in general, Steam is the way to go for that.
 

Arc

MetaMember
Sep 19, 2020
2,644
10,035
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I shouldn't have added that line since I wrote it off the cuff and derailed my post as a whole. Going from personal experience: I'm not made of money, but I won't use EGS. If there is a massive price discrepancy, I would either wait for the Steam version to become cheaper or find something else to play. It's not like I'm starving for entertainment options.
 

Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
3,982
13,792
113
Belgium
I shouldn't have added that line since I wrote it off the cuff and derailed my post as a whole. Going from personal experience: I'm not made of money, but I won't use EGS. If there is a massive price discrepancy, I would either wait for the Steam version to become cheaper or find something else to play. It's not like I'm starving for entertainment options.
That's what I do as well. I really don't mind using other storefronts than Steam, but competition should never turn into storefront owners paying for exclusivity instead of trying to offer the best features and policies for is as consumers. I will never support this in any way.

Epic's crappy rating system proved once again that PC gamers made the right choice by rejecting EGS and their money hatting.
 

Doctor Ironic

Junior Member
Mar 18, 2019
201
659
93
Anyone else notice that Oddworld Soulstorm - previously believed to be a lifetime exclusive - is coming to Steam and is participating in Steam Next Fest?
 
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