Because their choice takes away user choice, for many reasons that have been repeated since the EGL was announced. That's not something worthy of applause or respect.
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"No Steam No Buy" an explanation about competition, launchers, storefronts and monopolies on PC.
- Thread starter GhostTrick
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Because their choice takes away user choice, for many reasons that have been repeated since the EGL was announced. That's not something worthy of applause or respect.
Pretty much. I don't quite grasp how it's so hard for people to understand.
Maybe Playstation and Xbox have reached a level of parity in most respects, and the only real differences between them are the games they have? And so many people here assume this carries over to the PC launchers and figure that they're pretty much the same thing? I don't know enough about consoles to know if this is the case, though. More likely they know and ignore it.
This is pretty much what it all comes down to. People have built up a large Steam library and have all their friends on there (though Discord's already taken over as the best place to chat). They don't want to have their game libraries scattered across different launchers. Of course, they don't care that you know, maybe some other companies would like to run a storefront and make $$$?
Sure but in terms of choice is the same? "I want to play Halo on a PS4" "I want to play Hades on Steam", in both cases you can't.
Yeah Epic Store doesn't cost money like an Xbox, but the lack of choice is the same, and when I say Steam, you can change it for GOG or GMG and whatever online store.
But that's just your own private "policy" no-one would know if you played at the same time.
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They can run a storefront though and still not force people into a bad launcher.
Or just not payout artificial exclusivities. I mean, if they do, don't go telling me it's competition, that's it's needed and that it's a good thing.
They still pay for the exclusive rights and they could always create new channels if they chose. Plus there is that premium channel example where you can play everything through on demand. Could it be possible that the fact that you could get nearly every single piece of content produced within a single industry on a single platform actually be an extreme outlier rather than the rule?
Well, to be fair to them, if PSN (plus or not) was all I had on PC, I would be looking for "more competition!" desperately as well.
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Answer to that: DVDs. Have you ever heard of a movie exclusive to a DVD player brand ?
Yep, game websites are dreadfully terrible at reviewing any PC centric/ exclusive games.
Like, Hollow Knight, one of the best games ever made, took a shitload of months and a console port announcement to finally start being reviewed by most websites. Despite all the huge word of mouth and great sales it was getting.
So, what do you think will happen when Epic refuses the third refund for an Australian consumer? Would they get it or not? And why cant all customers do it? This is why Steam is great, everybody gets refunds on the same terms.
I understand that but it's no different from playing the game from disc before the age of digital distribution.
As a software developer I value the respect of one's game
Lack of ISP choice is not comparable to a video game developer choosing to where to sell their video game.
Can't get bad reviews if you don't have any reviews! Truly the Epic Launcher is peak innovation.
I wonder if people would be OK if certain web pages were exclusive to Mozilla Firefox or Edge, like if their answer would be "well, just install Edge! Problem solved!".
Chrome won the web browser battle not by buying exclusive web pages, but with a constant commitment to outdo the competition with a better product, rather than limiting the choice of what pages could be viewed in browsers.
Chrome won the web browser battle not by buying exclusive web pages, but with a constant commitment to outdo the competition with a better product, rather than limiting the choice of what pages could be viewed in browsers.
Are you conflating a content delivery device to the content itself? Because I'm sure that there were plenty of movies that never made it to DVD.
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You want more exemples ?
Have you ever heard about Gamestop paying to be the sole retail store for PS4 games ?
Gamestop sells a ton of exclusives to get people to buy stuff from them.
https://www.gamestop.com/nintendo-switch/games/mega-man-11-amiibo-edition-only-at-gamestop/163373
And this is what you want PC gaming to become? Publishers selling to the highest bidder?
For the exclusive games, it's possible the studios of those games actually want that exclusive spot on Epic's store. Imagine having all the Fortnite userbase's eyes on your game as opposed to the mess that is the Steam marketplace where your game gets buried. They're probably even being paid for exclusivity on said store. It's not always about what the consumer wants, especially gamers lol. As a business, you still do what's best for you and ensure your own success.
And will this suck for consumers? Maybe initially? But years from now? Could lead to more aggressive Steam sales. Could lead to Valve moneyhatting exclusives as well (which is more money for game studios so they can make more games). Maybe it'll lead to Valve making Half-Life 3, somehow ; )
Only time will tell. I got my popcorn out though to watch the show though.
If Steam didn't take a cut of microtransactions or DLC and allowed them to be bought directly from publishers, I reckon this whole thing may have played out differently. Everyone sees the games as a service future, an entrenched middle man taking 30% of your future services revenue just isnt gonna wash down as easy as 30% of the base game purchase.
why do people keep claiming that steam doesn't have a monopoly? is this based on anything factual?
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https://www.amazon.com/Mega-Man-11-...id=1544654069&sr=8-1&keywords=megaman+11&th=1
If it's about the amiibo... Come on, you're reaching.
Both Chrome and Firefox started eating MS monopoly before the smartphone craze.
I think it's impossible to make people understand.
Does Steam fit this criteria?
I want a vibrant market where developers have the opportunity to make the games they want to make. If that means that some get paid for exclusivity, then so be it.
To an extent, but I don't want to push this into the steam/platform arguments, because I would say your argument should be 'I want to play Hades on PC', in which case you still can choose to do so. That it's not on your client of preference is a choice you're making, there isn't anything but your own opinion of the launcher stopping you, whereas the ps4 will not play the xbox game at all ever . For me, it's more about the game than the features that come along side it, so right now Epic's store has nothing of interest for me, but I'm not going to dismiss it outright because it's store sucks if it eventually does have games I want, even if they are exclusively.
I know this is simply my opinion,s o I don't want to get into fights with anyone
You mean the actual market don't allow to devs make the games they want?
Because the amount of PC games released each month says otherwise.
You gave me an example of a content delivery device being able to be played on every content delivery device player as a reason why I'm wrong. Who's really reaching here?
ah yeah this is what I thought was going on, people trying to take the extreme defintion of pure monopoly and applying it incorrectly here. thanks for clearing that up.
Flip that around. What evidence is there that Steam is a monopoly? Other stores exist, there are clearly no artificial barriers to entering the market (since Epic just entered it), Steam can't dictate the selling price essentially independent of demand.
It doesn't appear to meet any of the criteria characteristic of a monopoly.
But they can be bought directly from the publisher.
- Games can be sold for 100%/0% at the publishers/Dev's own store
- DLC can be sold for 100%/0% at the publishers/Dev's own store
- Microtransactions can be sold for 100%/0% t the publishers/Dev's own store (some games have different Steam and Publisher accounts, if there is a separate Steam account, you can't buy directly from the Dev in this case. But if the Account is the same, you can either buy from Steam or the Dev.)
Yeah man, but they compete with my Xbox! Call in the FTC and shut 'em down!
Is this why people can call this a good example of competition? Are you using other definitions of words, besides the actual definition?
Things are good now but they could get better. Look at television shows. We have more amazing television than we could ever hope to watch because some very deep pocketed companies are competing for eyeballs with - you guessed it - exclusive content. Let Epic take the risk of developing a store. Let them help fund or de-risk projects currently in production. At the end of the day, we'll all get more great games to choose from.
Because there's dozens and dozens of stores to buy PC games from, there's like 15 clients out there all seemingly withholding their own games from steam, and the biggest games on PC aren't on steam (fortnite, WoW, minecraft, LoL, Overwatch etc)?
Thanks for this post. I myself didn't quite understand the backlash at first, but this OP consolidated all of the concerns of the launcher quite well.
Plus, I'm pretty sure that there are often stories about Mom and Pop video game shops that don't get to sell the latest video game release. I think it most recently happened with Red Dead 2.
With the rise of countless Netflix competitors, a lot of online these streaming services are also finding it harder to make money, as the continued fracturing of that market is driving people back to piracy: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/d3q45v/bittorrent-usage-increases-netflix-streaming-sites
It's the same thing many of us can see happening to PC gaming if this continues.
I'm not sure myself but can you buy microtransactions in online games directly from the publisher and not use steam, wallet etc?
It's based on the definition of a monopoly
I know that's a bit of a smart ass answer but it really doesn't get much more simple than that
So they will consolidate. Netflix buys Crackle or another company exits the market and it settles in to a long run growth pattern. What's the greatest number of launchers/stores that could conceivably exist on the PC market? We don't know yet.
Your take is intensely idiotic. The situation with Netflix is that competing subscription services are popping up. The requirement to pay $10 a month to see X (exclusive to DC Universe) show plus another $10 to see Y (exclusive to Hulu) show is the reason for the uptick in piracy, not the need to install another app.
Depends if we are talking about content which has a separate DLC listing on Steam or not. Those can have keys generated just like the game.
For example, on Rocket League all the cars can be bought on third party websites, but keys cannot. You need to pay for keys with your steam wallet or paypal.
This has already been happening. You're pretending Epic's money hatting tactics are solving a problem that didn't exist.
Given the number of similar threads on the topic, we're consolidating a number of the Epic Store threads down to a single thread. Please use this new thread for discussion about the Epic Store. New threads can of course be made if they are significant enough to fall under the "new news = new thread."
https://www.resetera.com/threads/epic-games-store-discussion.86783/
https://www.resetera.com/threads/epic-games-store-discussion.86783/
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