News Epic Games Store

Derrick01

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Oct 6, 2018
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The best thing about that reddit post is that term has apparently been there since 2017 yet if you read twitter a bunch of indie devs are losing their shit (granted many are the same opportunistic bunch crying about indie apocalypse constantly).

This means that all of these devs never read the deals they signed. They treat their contracts that are so important to them like most of us treat ios updates :face-with-tears-of-joy:
 

Samson

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Aug 2, 2019
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The best thing about that reddit post is that term has apparently been there since 2017 yet if you read twitter a bunch of indie devs are losing their shit (granted many are the same opportunistic bunch crying about indie apocalypse constantly).

This means that all of these devs never read the deals they signed. They treat their contracts that are so important to them like most of us treat ios updates :face-with-tears-of-joy:
On the one hand, life would be better without having to read legalese to protect yourself from horrendous terms of service from companies you use and work for.

On the other hand, if you're running a goddamn business, there's no excuse not to fully read the legalese.

And the fact that these terms are a surprise are confirming my long-standing opinion that most of these indie devs aren't actually businesspeople, which is why they feel so entitled to shit from Valve.
 
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Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
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This means that all of these devs never read the deals they signed. They treat their contracts that are so important to them like most of us treat ios updates :face-with-tears-of-joy:
After the old article about regional pricing and the developers saying they didn't know Valve was selling their games for for less in other places, that really isn't far fetched. After all, they are also not looking carefully at even the "price" section of their games before clicking things.

Not that will matter because these developers just want to make Valve the bad guy, but even if you read that clause in the worst possible way and Valve actually enforced it, it just basically boils down to "you can't have a store page and use the steam community/features without also selling the game there", which isn't all that unreasonable to begin with.
 

xinek

日本語が苦手
Apr 17, 2019
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lmao at these dipshit devs and their echo chamber. I've always been an "individual contributor" in my career, but even I know enough about business to know that 1. You're not getting jack shit for free from a company (such as free advertising) unless you're in a position where them giving you free shit massively promotes their business, and 2. Read your fucking contracts and understand them fully. This has gone to the point of parody. If I ever felt bad about shunning indie devs because they felt they had to take an exclusivity deal, I don't anymore. They have to be taking the piss at this point. Are these the same people calling game consumers entitled? Lordy.
 

morningbus

taskmaster
Dec 8, 2018
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Just want to make sure... that section of the TOS refers to software already released on the store needing to match the versions release elsewhere right?

I was able to correctly parse that the first time and my livelihood doesn't depend on it, right?
 

Matimeo

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Oct 21, 2018
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to be fair when was the last time anyone really read any agreements, including your current employment one lol.

indie devs are not a real business in the sense that most do not have money for a lawyer up front, and just because it's in the contract doesn't mean its really enforced or legally enforceable. Many employment agreements contain non competes, and as a buddy of mine says , we would love to see them try to enforce it. of course most people don't even realize that its in their employment agreement and most of the time companies don't bother to try to enforce it.

did you read your agreement to use all the gaming platforms you use?
do you think you own the digital content you purchased?
do you know what you agreed to , in terms of your personal data being used? (big reason why the GDPR exists, which technically only covers EU citizens)
wonder what it says?

do you think a corp is going to restructure their agreement for you?
do you know how much it would cost to have a lawyer look over things?
want to risk burning a bridge with one of the major platform holders?

this is why companies want to own the platform, it puts them in a hugely unfair position and they know it.
very similar to the power they wield with employment agreements.

the only ones you see negotiating for the most part are the other big corps because they have teams of lawyers
who can spend time going back and forth and reading agreements.

Its the same reason why so few people actually negotiate offers from companies for employment
how many of you actually read thru your employment agreement and negotiated terms before starting work?

Ill go first, never read it, but did negotiate on stock and salary. so i guess i read that part lol.
 

Samson

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If you're not reading the agreements and contracts you're signing for employment, you're a bona fide moron, full stop.

Look, you want to access a gaming service so you can play online with your friends? Yeah, I can see skipping past the text in a rush. I've done it too, even though it's probably stupid to not fully understand all the ways that a service like PSN or XBL could screw me.

Skipping past the terms of service for a service for my business? No, that's idiotic. I don't read every minor revision to the terms that Amazon or Shopify or my freight distributor partners put out, but assuming I'm not a failure of a businessman, I'd want to read those terms at least once and check on any major revisions that get announced. Or at least have someone at work read them once to make sure there's nothing horrific in them.
 

Alexandros

Every game should be turn based
Nov 4, 2018
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ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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Let's be honest, was there any chance BL3 wouldn't be success?
I really don't know and I'm especially not sure how to interpret a "50% price cut" before launch.
Is it to build a substantial player-base to be able to push down hard on micro-transactions, or is it because the game is already behind expectations?
For the rest: Sure, why buy a product on EGS over other Stores if it's not exclusive.
All I wanted to say: The game is being pushed hard and it will be used to fuel the pro EGS propaganda. Victory will be proclaimed, excellent preorder numbers will be presented without taking a preemptive 50% cut into account.
 

Alexandros

Every game should be turn based
Nov 4, 2018
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They won't, because the exclusivity deal is guaranteed sales.
Their next game's sales though, if they ever get around to making one, might be a real shock.
First-year sales are indeed guaranteed but word of mouth is a very strong factor in pushing indie game sales and for that to happen you need actual humans playing your game. By the time SMBF launches on Steam it may very well get swept up by more recent releases.
 
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Rosenkrantz

Once Punched Man
Apr 22, 2019
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First-year sales are indeed guaranteed but word of mouth is a very strong factor in pushing indie game sales and for that to happen you need actual humans playing your game. By the time SMBF launches on Steam it may very well get swept up by more recent releases.
First-year sales is the time games sell the most though, while post-launch sales is a nice bonus, company's bottom line is usually more dependent on how well the game performs during the launch window.
 
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Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
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First-year sales are indeed guaranteed but word of mouth is a very strong factor in pushing indie game sales and for that to happen you need actual humans playing your game. By the time SMBF launches on Steam it may very well get swept up by more recent releases.
Timmy gives them enough money not to care about the rest of game sales though.
I mean, of course, more sales is always a good thing. But, as is extremely noticeable, looking at devs behaviour, the amount they get from EGS is more than enough.
Thing is, this won't last.
 

xinek

日本語が苦手
Apr 17, 2019
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to be fair when was the last time anyone really read any agreements, including your current employment one lol.

indie devs are not a real business in the sense that most do not have money for a lawyer up front, and just because it's in the contract doesn't mean its really enforced or legally enforceable. Many employment agreements contain non competes, and as a buddy of mine says , we would love to see them try to enforce it. of course most people don't even realize that its in their employment agreement and most of the time companies don't bother to try to enforce it.
I absolutely read every contract I personally sign and where my income or large payments are involved, yes (not stuff like eulas). Story time: I have an LLC for contracting work, and I received my first contract, with a gigantic multinational company for a project that would be maybe 16 weeks. The contract they sent me was LONG. I understood most of it, but I hired an attorney to look it over just in case. Turns out the contract was massively one sided, all hidden in the squishy legal language. My attorney advised not signing it. We sent revisions.

The negotiating over these revisions took weeks, and the company accepted most revisions but refused to budge on the most egregiously unfair clauses. In the end, I ended up turning it down, and they were SO ANGRY. Their project leader was beside himself, yelling at me over the phone that his project's schedule was blown up. He didn't like hearing that the problem could be solved today with a fair contract. But, the lawyers have all the power in these situations, even when it's screwing over their own company.

It ended up costing me thousands on attorney fees, but it was a valuable lesson about running a small business. I could turn down the contract, because I didn't need the work -- most companies do sign this stuff, because as you said, they're not in a position where they have any negotiating power. The pressures that a small game dev company (a real business, btw) is under are probably crushing, a real matter of survival. So I get why they may not scrutinize Steam's legalese -- they may not have the option to turn it down anyway.

I think you're definitely right about whether Valve will enforce this clause. It would be a PR nightmare if they sued small devs -- it would make everyone mad, including me, who is currently mad in general about the anti consumer state of the game industry. The clause is probably one of those just-in-case things, where if someone egregiously tries to screw them over, they have recourse. It wouldn't be responsible for a company to not include a clause like that. It's also not unfair at all, and for devs complain about it is a massive eye-roller.
 

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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lmfao, so that clause has been in the agreement since 2017 at least, and these devs didn't even know what they signed?

classic


Lol.

Other than that, why do they want to be on Steam when they don't care to release on Steam as soon as elsewhere? Could it be because that is actually part of their marketing/advertising/promotion/visibility so that's another thing that Steam offers alongside, I dunno, being a whole distribution channel that you want to utilize if your game releases on it alongside all their other online and offline support services, market reach, emerging market support, and so on? What bs. If that agreement is a "tax" and "taking" then don't agree to it and don't release on Steam (or only put it up when it's 30 days to the intended Steam launch, duh).
 
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Samson

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I don't want to shit up the Steam thread with too much BL3 talk, but holy shit some of these reviews!

A 63 from PC Gamer (Guess I can't call them Epic Gamer anymore lmfao)

And Polygon:

The franchise used to feel adventurous. Now, without any fresh ideas or concepts, it’s little more than a holdover from a different time. Borderlands 3 feels safe, oddly careful (especially for a game about anarchy), and, worst of all, corporate.
EDIT: Also from the Polygon review, excuse me?

2K Games and Gearbox didn’t send out review codes for Borderlands 3. Instead, they set reviewers up with new Epic Games Store accounts with the game unlocked, and gave us a few warnings about the game being a work in progress. They asked us to stay away from the DirectX 12 implementation, for example, and told us that our progress in these builds may or may not carry over to the final game.
 

Cordelia

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Jun 10, 2019
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Or, walk with me a bit, the rest of us didn't have the same issues. To answer the question, yes, they sent out Epic Store accounts, so there are probably no console reviews out in the wild.
Not even console keys? Randy really shill Epic HARD.
 
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Nabs

Hyper˗Toxic Pro˗Consumer
Oct 23, 2018
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So where do PC gamers go to get help when their game breaks?
 

Ruvon

Chaotic writer
May 15, 2019
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cabinetdechaologie.wordpress.com
So I tried to answer my own question, only thing I found is this update announcement from 1st December 2018 (when they changed revenue share).


But I couldn't find other announcements for others updates, does Steam announces every update to his Steam Distribution Agreement ? Could it be possible that this is truly an update from a few days / weeks ago ?

Is there a way to check old Distribution Agreement versions to know exactly when this was added ? As long as I know, it could have been there from the beginning.
 
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Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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So I tried to answer my own question, only thing I found is this update announcement from 1st December 2018 (when they changed revenue share).


But I couldn't find other announcements for others updates, does Steam announces every update to his Steam Distribution Agreement ? Could it be possible that this is truly an update from a few days / weeks ago ?

Is there a way to check old Distribution Agreement versions to know exactly when this was added ? As long as I know, it could have been there from the beginning.
According to JaseC who is very much very knowledgeable about this topic, that 2018 update was indeed the last update to the SDA.
Apparently, Steam also sounds out a ton of emails every time such a change happens.
 
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Cordelia

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reading Shenmue thread about limited edition

If they think that the buyer is 100% Shenmue fans then they should learn about this beautiful thing called symbiosis between limited stuff and scalper.
 

Ruvon

Chaotic writer
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cabinetdechaologie.wordpress.com
According to JaseC who is very much very knowledgeable about this topic, that 2018 update was indeed the last update to the SDA.
Apparently, Steam also sounds out a ton of emails every time such a change happens.
Ok last word about this :


I guess that says a lot about people who tried to make this a new thing on social medias and about all websites that followed this without checking for one sec.

But at least we learned something about this, that Valve doesn't enforce this rule, but can and maybe will in the future.
 

Trisolarian

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Jul 12, 2019
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Lol. Idk what 2k expected, not get called out by Kotaku? Reviewers not mention this bizarre arrangement that puts their high investment new product in a poor light?

Strangely, article is written by actual journalist Jason Schrieier, I guess Grayson tried but his fingers refused to type any negative words about EGS.
 
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Phoenix RISING

A phoenix always RISES!
Apr 23, 2019
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HOLY ****!

Look if EGS sent us broken copies where we're losing 6 hours of progress, That game would get like a 3/10 at the most.

But none of the big names have the balls to do that because they're afraid of being blackballed.
 
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Trisolarian

Junior Member
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HOLY ****!

Look if EGS sent us broken copies where we're losing 6 hours of progress, That game would get like a 3/10 at the most.

But none of the big names have the balls to do that because they're afraid of being blackballed.
Idk if Polygon actually scores games as opposed to just having written reviews, like BL3.

I'm miffed that Control for wasn't dinged for its technical issues, especially because the largest console install bases got fucked performance wise and it took Digital Foundry to alert people to this fact. Performance and glitches that exist on day one fucking matter. People reading reviews day one aren't interested in you being kind and not factoring in those issues to your score of the game.
 
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lashman

Dead & Forgotten
Sep 5, 2018
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Schade admits that there were conversations with Epic about Everspace 2, but Rockfish never seriously considered pursuing exclusivity. As much as anything else, Everspace was a game built in tune with its community, and that community really took off on Early Access. Steam is very much the series' home, and the source of more than 50% of the game's revenue to date. At this point in time, Schade says, the Epic Games Store simply doesn't have the tools that Rockfish needs to build its sequel, and to build an even larger community around that sequel.

"Plus, our hardcore fans are on Steam," Schade adds. "They have already said 'Please don't do it. We just don't want it.' You don't even have to discuss whether this is reasonable or not. If they don't want it, they don't want it, and more than 100,000 people bought Everspace in Early Access. They would be mad at us.

"Without Epic, Rockfish and Everspace wouldn't exist, but it's the same with Steam. Without Steam, we wouldn't exist... In our case, it doesn't make sense. We need Early Access, the full feature set, the forums, the constant updating, the whole infrastructure. Valve has the best platform, by far, to roll out a game as an independent developer. It's by far the best tools and the best communities. This is exactly what we need."

Schade acknowledges that, for smaller developers, exclusivity can be both valuable and vital, but the decision to stick to its original plan is already paying off. After Gamescom: Opening Night Live, Valve promoted a handful of games from the line-up on Steam's homepage. Everspace 2 was among them, and at the time of writing, it had been added to more than 20,000 wishlists -- five times more than Everspace in the same time period.
 

gabbo

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Dec 22, 2018
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They clearly didn't read the SuperMeatBoy dev's comments or they'd know its way more sustainable to take 1 time money with tons of strings attached than to foster a community who will reward you with continued sales if you dont fuck them over. What are they even thinking?!

Repost?
This is so shortsighted as to be almost comical. Who knew angel investing without the ownership stake would be so good for devs? But a new model of sustainability? Refenes obviously didn't read Epic's statements about not doing this forever making it as sustainable as oil is a sustainable energy source....