News Epic Games Store

sk2k

Steam New Releases Warrior
Dec 8, 2018
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Somewhere else
I like how Igg games is turning into my actual Epic Store.

Just downloaded Falcon Age from there. Works great with my Rift.
Do you pirate "only" games available from the Epic store? In my opinon this is not ok. You could just wait for the Steam release of Falcon Age or any other exclusive from the Epic store.

EDIT: There are also myriads other and better games on Steam, GOG, etc.
 
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BernardoOne

MetaMember
Oct 19, 2018
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That's a wonderful change. No more Epic trying to snipe the most wishlisted games and devs trying to abuse Steam for EGS marketing. Now they'll need to either commit to a Steam release, or be lucky enough for Epic to notice them before they get all the marketing and wishlists done on Steam.
 

lashman

Dead & Forgotten
Sep 5, 2018
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That's a wonderful change. No more Epic trying to snipe the most wishlisted games and devs trying to abuse Steam for EGS marketing. Now they'll need to either commit to a Steam release, or be lucky enough for Epic to notice them before they get all the marketing and wishlists done on Steam.
i'm sure that's how they'll present it in the upcoming articles
 
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Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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Does anyone have the previous wording?

This does make it sound like you can no longer use Steam for marketing and then going epic cash. And if you were previously exclusive, you can only put a store page up a month before release at the earliest, do I read this correctly?
Is this also the same for previous console games or does it apply only to PC competitors? (I guess it applies to all platforms).
 
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Cordelia

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Jun 10, 2019
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I think on their roadmap they planned to open their store at the end of this year. But we know what happened with the roadmap.
 
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lashman

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This does make it sound like you can no longer use Steam for marketing and then going epic cash. And if you were previously exclusive, you can only put a store page up a month before release at the earliest, do I read this correctly?
that is correct, yes

Is this also the same for previous console games or does it apply only to PC competitors? (I guess it applies to all platforms).
yeah, i imagine it applies to everything that's going to be on steam ... basically - if you're already out somewhere else and put up a page on steam, you have 30 days to release it

The question is, will Valve really terminate contracts with devs/pubs when they breach the agreement?
well it's not retroactive ... so it's probably going to take a while before it happens

Another question is, will Epic now open it store sooner for all devs/pubs or will they just throw more money at more devs/pubs?
almost definitely the latter
 
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Swenhir

Spaceships!
Apr 18, 2019
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I rehosted the image for ease of viewing
It's a good change that addresses the bullshit game Epic has been playing at. I wouldn't play ourselves or Valve as a martyr before the articles come out though.

All in all, very good news for anyone who cares about putting a dent into exclusivity tactics on PC or at least the dishonest practices of the people who seek them.
 

Tizoc

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Oct 11, 2018
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Hopefully this will light a fire under egs ass and force then to improve by adding a forum and annoucement page.
 

bobnowhere

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Sep 20, 2018
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Steam Begins Unfairly Limiting the Ability of Indie Devs to Advertise on the Platform While Negotiating Exclusivity Deals Elsewhere

by A. Hack (PCGamer)

In a sign that Epic has further shook up people at Steam HQ, Valve will no longer allow developers to advertise on the platform with no intention to release there. One indie developer was quoted as saying, "How else will Tim notice me unless I get my wishlists up?"...
 

fantomena

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Dec 17, 2018
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Do you pirate "only" games available from the Epic store? In my opinon this is not ok. You could just wait for the Steam release of Falcon Age or any other exclusive from the Epic store.

EDIT: There are also myriads other and better games on Steam, GOG, etc.
No.

I pirate games to check if they are worthy to either be on or still be on my wishlist. I never play a game for more than a few min to know.

Last pirated game to check if it was goodf was Warhammer Mechanicus. Which I bought.
 

Deleted member 113

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Which sucks.
It totally does.

Like I keep saying, I really don't understand Valve's passivity in all of this.
They quickly, and "merciless" banned games and developers from the Store, because, for example, a developer posted a review for his own game. A single review. That, for Valve, was reason for termination, no matter if the developer deleted that review, and assumed his error. They would be gone from the store, and banned from submitting new games. With no appeal.

Now, you have developers creating game pages, with no intention of launching (at least for a year) on Steam, that just use the pages to promote the game (some using release dates to "spam" the upcoming releases tab), and directly/indirectly a competing store, and even have the nerve to use the forums for support/bug reporting. Not to mention, some even use Steam for beta testing.

I would say this later situation is much more annoying for Steam users than a single "fake" review.
Yet, Valve is happy to continue moving along, and ignoring this problem.
 

C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
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They should probably start enforcing this rule. Maybe they are just giving a one year grace period of sorts before the hammer starts coming down on this sort of thing.

But the principle is sound: a game absolutely must not be advertised on Steam if it's going to release somewhere else sooner as part of an exclusivity deal. Why should Valve give these guys airtime and free promotion and let them use Steam to peacock themselves to another store?
 

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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Maybe we are all misinterpreting the paragraph. I would need to know what a "commercial release" is and what an "Effective Date" is.

The paragraph could just mean that:
  1. you are not supposed to sell games with empty content in their depot, if they are marked as released (on Steam),
  2. thereafter, updates should be delivered to Steam, no later than on other stores.
If these points are correct, then the rule is enforced: I have never seen an "empty" game being sold on Steam. Imagine a game which is marked as "released", but what you actually purchase is... an entry in your Steam library, which acts as a pre-order. It would lead to abuses.
 

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
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It is just speculation!
It sounds reasonable though.

It just wanted to quote you to show that it probably doesn't mean what we think it does,
especially since it's not new.

Or it means what we think it means and Valve really just doesn't care.
 
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Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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I rehosted the image for ease of viewing
I think the way it's worded it's like, regardless of having a Steam page and release date or not, they need to get on Steam day and date as elsewhere.

But they probably don't mean exactly this. A dev could join Steam after he has his game on any other platform, like itch.io, I doubt Valve would even care to go back to check when the game was released elsewhere to tell this dev, oh man, it wasn't day and date as on itch.io so you can't publish it here at all! Bye!

Lol.

So they probably just mean a game has to release day and date as elsewhere after it has actually been submitted to Steam with page and release date.

And if it's already elsewhere by the time it does get a page, then it has to release on Steam within 30 days.

No 2022 Steam release date game pages when the game's coming out this year on another platform.

So games will either release day and date everywhere they want plus Steam as was usual pre-Epic, or they will release elsewhere first, but only get allowed to have a Steam page and release date 30 days before being able to go live on Steam.

And past that content and patches need to be day and date. That probably excludes DLC with its own page as for that the same rules would apply again.

Something like that.

We don't know the penalty for failing this either. Maybe it's as simple as getting the store page hidden/deleted until the 30 days from Steam release are on. Or how they'll enforce it. I do hope they do something for all the games that show as released but have neither content nor a price or anything. They clutter up the new releases page and it's annoying when I want to browse actually released stuff. Though not having a price is common for them so you can scroll past easily enough, it definitely hurts visibility of the actually released stuff, not everyone's as dedicated in checking the pages as me.
 
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Wok

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Oct 30, 2018
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so whether or not this is new (apparently it's not?), what's the actual enforcement mechanism or penalty for breaking the agreement? Does the agreement stipulate one?
Apparently, none, but I am not a lawyer.

Valve could terminate the agreement "for Cause", and the store page would be offline.

However, It is not a big deal, because:
  • the "Company" could submit a new page for another $100,
  • the agreement could be terminated "for Convenience" anyway after 1 year. So, it is not like breaching the contract gives any super-power to Valve.
Basically, if Valve wants to be petty, they can try to force the dev to pay $100 for a new page and reset their wishlist.
The risk for Valve is that the dev might take offence and not create another page. This would result in a larger loss for Valve, because 30% cut of 0 is 0.
 
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Myradeer

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Apr 17, 2019
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Yeah. Not many Epic exclusives are actually permanent, so I guess Valve expects benefit from eventual Steam launch sales are going to be greater than losses caused by their unjust promotion - which in turn suggests how little Gabe thinks of "threat" caused by EGS.
 
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ISee

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Mar 1, 2019
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Sorry, was pretty busy the last days and not very active but I wanted to report on something.
Borderlands 3 had a "2 for 1" promotion in Germany. Needles to say it is sold out now.



Not just PC btw, but also PS4 and Xbox.
Gearbox is pushing the game hard to build a large community for micro-transactions, or pre-orders were very bad.

Still, PC numbers were also pushed by this. Prepare yourself for "BL 3 is a huge success on EGS" headlines. I assume other countries had similar promotions.
 

Kuro

"Oh yeah? Aren't you gonna punish me?"
Dec 22, 2018
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Sorry, was pretty busy the last days and not very active but I wanted to report on something.
Borderlands 3 had a "2 for 1" promotion in Germany. Needles to say it is sold out now.



Not just PC btw, but also PS4 and Xbox.
Gearbox is pushing the game hard to build a large community for micro-transactions, or pre-orders were very bad.

Still, PC numbers were also pushed by this. Prepare yourself for "BL 3 is a huge success on EGS" headlines. I assume other countries had similar promotions.
Let's be honest, was there any chance BL3 wouldn't be success? They could release it on Games for Windows Live and we'd still get those headlines.
I really doubt many people will stick with EGS after BL3.
 

Samson

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Aug 2, 2019
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