I don't hate the EGS, but I don't want to use it.
I won't tell anyone to avoid it, but I can't recommend it to any friends either.
I won't tell anyone to avoid it, but I can't recommend it to any friends either.
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I actually don't hate Epic Game Store
- Thread starter Bufbaf
- Start date
I guess it just makes zero difference to me. I'm after the game itself - whatever trappings in the store that's around it doesn't really matter to me. It also took Steam a lot of time to get all the features it had. At the start Steam was really just a storefront that had only about eight or nine games on it. Epic started in the same position. But I can see the argument that they don't bring anything new to the table - since Valve has already trodden the ground.
User Banned (3 days): Inflammatory accusation
It's wild how many people here show their asses as being racist against the Chinese just because Epic is owned by Tencent.
I am just gonna post this again. https://twitter.com/direGoldfish/status/1128986329788964869
To say they don't give a fuck is not right.
I mean they are a business, of course they will be interested if a game piques their interest.
Not saying that it is easy though.
On steam, you're selling directly to the market, with little help but very few barriers for entry. And if you make a lot of sales, you can get enough to pay your salary on the game you made.
On epic, you're selling to epic, and if you make the sale, you get a lot of guaranteed money, which will almost certainly set you up for the future.
Neither of these are particularly pro or anti indie compared to eachother -- they both benefit certain kinds of developers, in certain circumstances.
But as a gamedev and also somebody who like, knows absolutely anything about business, i'm really glad more big players are taking the second route. I hope a lot more follow epics path, including, ideally, steam. Ultimately, consumers' concerns (which regard whether they can play a fun game in their preferred way) are trivial compared to the concerns of workers and developers (which regard to whether they can survive and pay rent).
But if that makes zero difference to you, it's still a key difference between Steams launch and the current EGS relaunch.
And it's one of the key factors to take in consideration when anyone ask themselves why people are making such a fuzz about the EGS store now.
When the best thing you can say about something is "it doesn't bother me" or "I don't care", then you can be pretty sure that there are issues there, that people have valid concerns about.
I wouldn't have hated it if not for the exclusivity. I was already using it for... things which shall not be named. But now... I'll only touch it if they're giving me something for free.
The only thing they're "changing" is adding "exclusives" to the PC platform... removing the freedom of choice PC Gamers have always been afforded. At least when it comes to games that don't release on their own publisher's store (which I'm fine with... it's their store, their game).
Can't say I agree with the store's design being good at all. It's literally just a list of all the games on the store, which means that as the store's library gets bigger and bigger the harder it becomes for a game to get the spotlight too. What games they put on top of that list feels weirdly random too.
And while it isn't totally true that Epic only goes for AAA and indie devs who are already successful, them limiting what goes onto their store so much is by no means a good thing.
And while it isn't totally true that Epic only goes for AAA and indie devs who are already successful, them limiting what goes onto their store so much is by no means a good thing.
My beef is against Tim et. al. really, but I have this allergic reaction to people with Messiah complexes. If he wasn't so arrogant and less of a whiny lying ass I would have considered supporting EGS. It's not a big deal, but since I already have tons of other games to play it is no big loss if devs wants to sell themselves out, I'll just not pick their games up day one and get it much cheaper later on.
Your post is all about devs, which is fine but for a store to work it needs to cater to costumers too.
I'm primary a costumer and EGS doesn't offer me anything worthwhile. In fact if i want to play a game from EGS i either have to add it to steam or install a bunch of programs to do what steam already does. Alongside all of that games from EGS are more expensive. With due respect EGS feels like an online store from the 2000s
IMO your post is toxic in the sense that EGS hurts me as a consumer yet you still give it a pass just because it is better for the devs visibilty. The thing is as a costumer i'd like to be treated with "respect"; by this i mean why as a costumer do i have to accept higher priced games AND lower quality features just so that devs can earn more money?
You realise that Epic are picking winners, right? And in doing so are creating losers.
This isn't an opportunity for ALL, this is an opportunity for a select FEW. This is the walled-garden approach Steam used to be criticised for, before it threw open it's gates to the masses (a move that causes it to now be criticised for a lack of curation).
I'm sure the devs Epic chooses to shower with money are fucking loving it, but that ignores all the devs who aren't getting a slice of that pie.
OP
OP
Wait, why? I honestly don't understand this part. Would you say the same thing about GOG?
Gwen Frey is a supremely talented artist with 10 years experience on games like Bioshock Infinite. She also co-founded the studio that shipped The Flame and the Flood. Not exactly a brand new indie dev. How does someone working on their first title ever get on EGS?
I suppose that's true enough. I can't argue that people don't have issues with it. I suppose the issues just don't impact me at all.
Cloud saves for instance - I never utilize cloud saves so that is of zero importance to me personally. However that's not to say it's not important at all. I don't mean to speak for everyone.
Yep. The same thing happened with the Switch. The first indies to release on the system did really well. Now with thousands of games already on the system new indies have a harder time.
...what?
Controls launch date didn't change afaik.
So unless you mean the cheaper regional pricing I'm not sure what you mean.
I posted about this above -- here. This way of looking at things is really arbitrary.
Markets pick winners and losers. The two primary markets game developers can sell to are the platform holders for exclusivity deals, and the wider consumer market.
Adding one more (supposedly, very well paying, low-ish barrier for entry) platform holder out there giving people another place to sell to doesn't create any new losers.
And having a large clearinghouse storefront anyone can get on doesn't create winners, on its own.
I'll let you figure out that mystery for yourself. But you're on the right track.
In an era where games perpetually increase the amount of gambling mechanics in products targeted toward children, I'm really not surprised that some developers don't care about the concerns of consumers.
Sell on Steam? Build a good game? I am also building my first game, but I am not expecting anything. Just gonna bust my ass to work on it, and I already have venue to grow.
My original post was just about EGS not giving a shit, which I disagree.
You know people HATED steam when CS 1.6 came out. It was the first and only platform to give PC games a real structure. Also, competition is good!
Can you imagine consoles without competition? Do you think any of the big three would ever upgrade their services if there wasn't any one to compete with them?
Can you imagine consoles without competition? Do you think any of the big three would ever upgrade their services if there wasn't any one to compete with them?
I think the store is fine. It lacks a lot of super basic features, but it's fine. It does most of what it should be expected to do, the free games are great.
The thing I don't like is how Tim Sweeney is acting like he's saving the industry from Steam. Meanwhile they are taking a bit less than half of what Steam's cut is, they are offering like 1/10th of the features that Steam offers.
The thing I don't like is how Tim Sweeney is acting like he's saving the industry from Steam. Meanwhile they are taking a bit less than half of what Steam's cut is, they are offering like 1/10th of the features that Steam offers.
There's 3 consoles competitors. They seemed to agree on online paywall. So much for competition.
Yeah, so, this is what's at the heart of it.
If you view the world as an us vs them where you, a noble consumer, are the enemy of people working 40-60 hour weeks to bring you entertainment, who are implied to be sinister and greedy, why would you support a store that provides additional opportunities to developers?
But the reality is most people who sell games on either store are just trying to make enough money to not get laid off next year (or in the case of indies, get a retroactive salary for the x years they worked for free) because the economy (and whole world economic system) is fucked.
It just got cloud saves, and it still doesn't show install sizes without workarounds.
A large player like Epic doesn't deserve the slack of us saying that a client in that state is fine.
It's a small annoyance to me to have an extra store; I really couldn't care less about a shopping cart and find that sort of hilarious as a complaint since it's not like there are a ton of products on there, am happy they have cloud saves now but really haven't bought anything that required them yet so didn't bother me. It's really just that I prefer everything be done through Steam; the steam install/update process always works well and it's a one stop shop for that.
Those days have been gone for a while though with EA and now Ubisoft ditching Steam so one more store for those exclusives isn't some huge issue to me. But once they stop money-hatting exclusives the only thing I'll buy from EGS are Epic's games and maybe buy games during sales. I see no reason I'd abandon Steam as my main.
Those days have been gone for a while though with EA and now Ubisoft ditching Steam so one more store for those exclusives isn't some huge issue to me. But once they stop money-hatting exclusives the only thing I'll buy from EGS are Epic's games and maybe buy games during sales. I see no reason I'd abandon Steam as my main.
Epic buying exclusives in anti-competitive.
Many folk (including myself) would be far more positive about EGS were they upgrading their service to attract customers over the competition. They are not doing that, they are throwing money around to remove options.
People didn't hate Steam specifically, they hated digital distribution. Then Steam spent over 15 years earning people's trust by (aside from a few minor stumbles) always putting their customers first.
So, tim sweeny, like every other billionaire, is a slimy creep who sucks.
But, (and this is related to my posts above,) you should remember that Tim isn't selling to you. Just like there are two main markets for developers, storefronts need to sell to two markets too.
On the one hand, they need to court developers to use their platform, by providing good financial deals, marketing, storefront curation, etc.
On the other hand, they need to sell to consumers, by providing useful featuresets, broad access, lock-in features to create loyalty, and alternate revenue streams like storefront giftcards and grifty marketplaces.
Tim sweeny is positioning himself as saving the industry from steam to sell to developers, not to you. Valve has the opposite focus.
I work my ass off to pay for the games that I play. And I've got libraries of thousands spread across Steam, Origin, Uplay, GOG, Playstation Store, Xbox, and many more physical. I even buy games from developer websites when I have the chance.
I *do* care about developers, but you know what I've noticed? Developers love to tell us how important our support is. They love to ask for our money for kickstarting projects. But when they do something that we really, really hate, as consumers? They say "your concerns mean nothing." I don't mind if a developer needs to take Epic's money to keep the lights on, but I do mind the "BE EXCITED FOR EGS" and the "fuck you, you mean nothing."
Hate is always a strong word. I don't hate something just because i dislike it. I have no business in being extremely angry at the Epic Store to the point i would feel something as intense as hate towards it.
Never saw anything like this on era. Would be cool if you linked some posts that did this.
Never saw anything like this on era. Would be cool if you linked some posts that did this.
That's a fair point. My perspective is, whether a developer is saying something you want to hear, or something that you don't, the economic reality of your relationship means that they're saying whatever they need to in order to try and sell their product, not be your friend or tell the truth or whatever.
It's all marketing, and can all be ignored or indulged in at your preference.
I can give you a few dozen features that are cool that EGS could do show its better then steam.
For example
- selling games from your library
- Loaning games
- renting games
- allowing co-op throught streaming
- Allowing the client to install drivers
- allowing the client to resolve most troubleshoot issues games have
First your post is a bit of "whataboutism". GoG to my knowledge never removed games from steam and tried to "force" me to use the store. The thing is GoG offers cheaper games then steam (by this i mean that if a game is available in both steam and GOG it is generaly cheaper on GOG). Also do note that GOG has always been looking for interwining with steam more. The closer it comes to steam the higher the ammount of games i will buy in GOG. Do note taht GOG at least offers DRM free which is a great feature when you don't ahve acces to the world wide web. So comparing GOG to EGS is bit weird.
I prefer steam feature set so I buy most games on steam.
And by "whataboutism" is that it doesn't matter how bad or good GOG is because this thread is about EGS. Just like saying you can't criticize EGS because "X has the same problem". It matters not, i buy where i prefer and EGS is doing everything it can to make my PC experience worse.
First things first, I appreciate that the OP took the time to present an argument and support it with specific reasoning. There are three things that are being presented as the store's main advantages: good curation, the main page that puts games front and center and the fact that some studios are making a lot of money because of Epic's exclusivity incentives. I won't argue about whether these things are good or not in my opinion, as that would be as subjective as the OP's opinion. Instead I would like to point out that all three of these things share a common characteristic: they won't last.
All of these features are a result of the EGS being new in the market, with a small library. If Epic stays in the digital distribution business and the store's catalog grows, their curation efforts will either start excluding really good games for basically no reason (some might argue that this has already begun) or letting in games of subpar quality since they have already announced plans for self publishing. Furthermore, as soon as the store's catalog starts growing at a faster pace, a main page that contains just a big list of games will become completely unusable for customers.
Lastly, Epic's monetary incentives will also stop if and when the store becomes big enough to draw in developers by itself. The things that you like about the EGS aren't core features of the platform that will always be there, they are already on borrowed time and will fade away as the store establishes its presence.
All of these features are a result of the EGS being new in the market, with a small library. If Epic stays in the digital distribution business and the store's catalog grows, their curation efforts will either start excluding really good games for basically no reason (some might argue that this has already begun) or letting in games of subpar quality since they have already announced plans for self publishing. Furthermore, as soon as the store's catalog starts growing at a faster pace, a main page that contains just a big list of games will become completely unusable for customers.
Lastly, Epic's monetary incentives will also stop if and when the store becomes big enough to draw in developers by itself. The things that you like about the EGS aren't core features of the platform that will always be there, they are already on borrowed time and will fade away as the store establishes its presence.
Calling out a company that uses predatory business practices for MTX, is known for taking far more information from your system/you than is needed for their product and calling them out for their abundant purchases of companies in attempts to gain massive amounts of market share isn't racist.
last time I payed 60 dollars for a PC game was Skyrim on Steam. Haven't since then and have no plans to do it ever again. Not on EGS not on Steam.
But if EGS really does somehow crowd out Steam, Origin, and Uplay and force all PC games to cost AAA console prices and never drop price or go on sale I'll cross that bridge when it comes. Might just drop traditional PC gaming completely and stick with emulation on it.
Epic's offering is a pile of cash that's it, We will see the effects long term but I could see it ending up fairly negatively long term.
That's fine, you and anyone else pretending it's because it's a launcher are and continue to be wrong and out of touch with reality.
Heads-up that this honeymoon phase of both carefully chosen releases ripped from Steam and free games only lasts until EGS has its legs beneath it and it's a self-sufficient competitor for Steam. It's a signing bonus, or a free sample to get you hooked if you'd rather put it that way. Some businesses do it through features and improvements, Epic did it through bribery and the removal of alternatives. By all means, take advantage of it, but understand that this isn't the future of the store.
For what it's worth, I don't use EGS currently (but have in the past) because it doesn't have anything I want and because I find it slightly distasteful, but I'm not mad about it either. I'd be more inclined to use it if they stopped pretending that they were trying to save gaming and help developers though. They would earn a lot more respect from me if they just owned up to the hustle.
Unrelated, could a mod tell me how quickly a thread titled "I actually hate the Epic Game Store" would get closed?
For what it's worth, I don't use EGS currently (but have in the past) because it doesn't have anything I want and because I find it slightly distasteful, but I'm not mad about it either. I'd be more inclined to use it if they stopped pretending that they were trying to save gaming and help developers though. They would earn a lot more respect from me if they just owned up to the hustle.
Unrelated, could a mod tell me how quickly a thread titled "I actually hate the Epic Game Store" would get closed?
OP
OP
..what?
I was literally asking why you can't just start and play games you bought on a different store, as you said you can't in the post I quoted:
, in your words.
I chose Gog as an example because they also sell their own keys.
I still have no idea what you meant.
I have a friend that now lives a few thousand miles away. He plays a shitload of Tetris 99 but hasn't even heard of Tetris Effect (no PS4, only PC and Switch). His birthday is coming up. I cannot gift this guy Tetris Effect. It's exclusively on a storefront that does not support gifting. Gifting isn't even expected to be a feature within six months. That also means another Christmas is guaranteed go by without a means to gift someone a PC copy of an EGS-exclusive game. One can't even gift PC Fortnite V-Bucks right now - how fucking crazy is that?
Borderlands 3 is coming out in September. It's the end of July. Cloud saves are not yet implemented. Cloud Saves are scheduled for July. EGS updates, however, have regularly missed their target window throughout the year. It is possible that we will not have cloud save support in time for Borderlands 3. There would be a backlash to that alone, and it would be entirely justified. Hopefully it doesn't come to that, but it's a shame that it can't even be ruled out.
These are just two examples of what consumers are missing right now on the service. There are legitimate reasons to be frustrated by the Epic Games Store. There are legitimate reasons to be concerned about titles exclusive to the Epic Games Store.
Do I believe that EGS will eventually have all the features that matter? Even with Fortnite sales being down, the money Epic still brings in is immense. They have the resources and I have no doubt that EGS will eventually and finally get all the basics covered. But in this 1-2 year period of time where games are exclusive to a platform with quite a bit of expected functionality missing, it's absolutely valid to be frustrated when a game becomes exclusive to a platform without said features.
Borderlands 3 is coming out in September. It's the end of July. Cloud saves are not yet implemented. Cloud Saves are scheduled for July. EGS updates, however, have regularly missed their target window throughout the year. It is possible that we will not have cloud save support in time for Borderlands 3. There would be a backlash to that alone, and it would be entirely justified. Hopefully it doesn't come to that, but it's a shame that it can't even be ruled out.
These are just two examples of what consumers are missing right now on the service. There are legitimate reasons to be frustrated by the Epic Games Store. There are legitimate reasons to be concerned about titles exclusive to the Epic Games Store.
Do I believe that EGS will eventually have all the features that matter? Even with Fortnite sales being down, the money Epic still brings in is immense. They have the resources and I have no doubt that EGS will eventually and finally get all the basics covered. But in this 1-2 year period of time where games are exclusive to a platform with quite a bit of expected functionality missing, it's absolutely valid to be frustrated when a game becomes exclusive to a platform without said features.