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[PCWorld] A year in, the Epic Games Store's fight against Steam has made PC gaming better for everyone.
- Thread starter AshenOne
- Start date
Microsoft's strategy on steam was hinted way back before the existence of the EGS (through mentions of the XBL API on Steam source code). Same thing for HL: Alyx or the new library UI, the whole article is based on the supposition that Epic's presence helped "accelerate things" which there are no concrete proofs of.
They really want the narrative of Epic helping pc gaming to become true. The only thing they really did is denying my money to some devs for a year (or maybe forever if I've lost interest).
They really want the narrative of Epic helping pc gaming to become true. The only thing they really did is denying my money to some devs for a year (or maybe forever if I've lost interest).
EGS helps games like Control to become (more) profitable. I don't even talk about exclusive deals, but the 88%/12% share (also used by GoG) now is better for the industry than the 70%/30% split.
When I buy a game from a publisher, I want to support him, not the retailer who sold it to me. I don't like Valve games, I don't really like Steam (I think Valve allows too much games to be released on it), so I don't want to give them money (or as less as possible) when I buy a new game. I don't like Epic games either, but at least they created the Unreal Engine, an amazing engine, so they feel more legitimate to me.
Why would EGS push Valve to improve Steam at a greater tick rate when Epic isn't competing on features? If one believes that Epic is driving customers away from Steam through paying for timed exclusives, Valve won't achieve anything by improving its service since Epic will keep paying for moneyhats. Epic's current strategy gives Valve zero incentive to improve Steam.
You are for the devs, but want less games to be allowed to be in the storefront, probably the most important part for small devs. 70% is better than 0% for them.
You are also wrong on GoG as GoG also uses the 30% standard.
I'm still looking for what Epic have done for me, as a customer, and reading that article, I'm not closer to an answer to this.
Because no, 50 free games (out of which I have picked just the three that interested me, and that I didn't alreay own) is not that answer.
Free games are everywhere on Steam. Dirt cheap bundles are everywhere on Steam. Epic providing 50 free games is not an offset to the disruption they have caused for me, with their exclusivity deals, where they take away options, rather then adding more.
I've bought on game on Epic, because it was where it was sold now. Outer Wilds. An experience I can summarize in:
I mean, it's been one year since the relaunch of the client, and they still don't show installation sizes for games when I start installing them. That's how barebones the client still is.
Better for everyone? Not really.
And cheerleading articles like this, doesn't really give Epic any incentive to focus on improving anything.
Because no, 50 free games (out of which I have picked just the three that interested me, and that I didn't alreay own) is not that answer.
Free games are everywhere on Steam. Dirt cheap bundles are everywhere on Steam. Epic providing 50 free games is not an offset to the disruption they have caused for me, with their exclusivity deals, where they take away options, rather then adding more.
I've bought on game on Epic, because it was where it was sold now. Outer Wilds. An experience I can summarize in:
- I almost lost my save for, because it doesn't have cloud saves.
- I still add as a shortcut to Steam, to play in big picture mode, to get to start on my Secondary Display (TV) instead of my primary display.
- I've beat, but have no idea how long I spent with it, since it doesn't track playtime.
I mean, it's been one year since the relaunch of the client, and they still don't show installation sizes for games when I start installing them. That's how barebones the client still is.
Better for everyone? Not really.
And cheerleading articles like this, doesn't really give Epic any incentive to focus on improving anything.
I'm in favour of developpers who release good games. It can be indie, AA or AAA, but it should be good. If it isn't, I don't want to see it on the storefront.
About GoG, I can't find the percentage, but they said they increased the dev share this year: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...-program-for-consumers-to-give-devs-large-cut
That's the weirdest post I seen in weeks.
"I dont like X company's games so I refuse to buy OTHER games from that company other's business."
"I dont like Y company but they made a great Y product unrelated to their store so I want to buy there".
Sorry but what does Valve's games has anything to do with other games on their store ?
The problem is that good is subjective and a line in the sand that clearly depends on the viewer. On my eyes EGS has at least 2 games that are outright broken and not good.
About GoG, their most recent revenue publish (as they are a public company) still showrd a 30% cut.
When I buy a game on PlayStation 4, I know 30% of the money I spend will go to Sony, which will use a part of this money to create amazing games like Until Dawn, Everybody's Gone to the rapture, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Detroit or Astro Bot.
When I buy a game on Steam, I don't know where the money will go (because Valve don't tell anything about that), but I know Valve will continue to support their live-service games (Dota 2, CS: GO, Team Fortress) which I completely don't care. I'm happy about Half Life: Alix (even if I won't play it since I don't have a VR headset on PC), but I think Valve is a worth publisher than Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, CD Projekt, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft or almost every other publisher who has its own storefront.
I completely agree that Epic should be more strict about games released on Epic Games Store. But at least, I know that someone who works for Epic has played every game released on Epic Games Store. The same isn't true for Steam, where you can find games like this: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/steam-game-allegedly-mining-cryptocurrency/
What makes that statement funnier is that Epic allowed a game to launch with a 100% game breaking bug (due to file flaw) at less than 2 hours pf gameplay.
They dont play or test all the games / updatrs they havr. Like Steam they do a screening to prevent the exploits.
Wasn't that the case because the Dev was forced to remove everything related to Steam and accidently removed a sprite file named Steam?
People weren't just clamoring for it, we have known about this update since at least early 2017 from both files in the beta cf :
and Valve presentation at Indigo 2017
It just got released at valve time, after the curator page got updated at the end of 2017 and the steam chat in June 2018.
It very much is a "coincidence" just like, say, Quantic Dream games coming to PC after EGS came to be.
Imagine defending a bad platform that doesn't offer the customers anything worthwhile and has hurt crowdfunding as well. Egs still isn't doing anything beneficial from everything I've seen.
Epic didn't force him, he thought they wouldn't want any mention of Steam. Still the issue is that they clearly didnt test the game.
I thought there was genuine issues with steam royalties etc. Which a little pressure may cause steam to look at its platform.
Ultimately your point seems completely sound though. Money hats do nothing.
Yeah genuine issue's no one seems to have with other marketplaces except with Steam (while they all take the same revenue cut).
It's so crazy to me that PC gaming was in dire state before steam hit it's stride and made traditional PC gaming viable again, but now we are acting like their business model is hurting developers. While Valve made traditional PC gaming viable/profitable in the first place.
I'd also like to remind everyone that it was in fact Epic who fucked off from PC gaming to console development after declaring it a haven of piracy.
And now they're back with a saviour complex from big, bad Valve...
And now they're back with a saviour complex from big, bad Valve...
The EGS share is only relevant after the exclusivity fee is paid back. If the game does not sell enough copies for epic to recoup their exclusivity fee the developers don't get anything beyond the lump sum. We don't know if control has sold enough copies.
If the cut is so good, why aren't we seeing more games on epic? If the cut is so good? Why is no one else lowering their cut as well? Maybe because they don't allow enough games to be released on it?
Valve's contribution to PC gaming goes a lot beyond being just a storefront. This has been discussed many times.
You have personal hangups on this issue that prevent you from thinking rationally about it.
User Banned (3 Days) - Driveby Posting with History of Platform Warring
Competition is good for us customers.
Feels like its the other way round. If Control is on Steam, they might be a bigger success and sold much more.
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hard to imagine offering anything more worthwhile for customers then literally handing out free games but sure go off
You do realise what happens with that 30% right? If you are gonna be like, it goes directly into the pockets then you clearly have very little understanding about the amount of service a platform like steam puts forth for that 30 percent cut.
I can honestly say that so far EGS has not affected my life at all outside of some ire over a timed exclusive or two.
What an outrageous claim to make about Epic and just why I feel so jaded with so many gaming news outlets general coverage of events.
What an outrageous claim to make about Epic and just why I feel so jaded with so many gaming news outlets general coverage of events.
I don't understand. If a game don't sell enough to recover the exclusivity fee, it means that the publisher received more money that what it would have had without this exclusive deal. If it sells enough, the publisher will also get more money, because he will receive 88% on each new copy sold. In both cases, it's positive for the publisher.
More games like what? Yes, there is still publishers who only release their games on Steam (like japanese publishers). Yes, it's a shame and I hope it will change, but Epic has so much great games that it was hard for me to vote for Steam Awards this year, because a lot of amazing PC games weren't released on Steam.
Valve is an amazing company for people who play on Linux, it's true. But for people who play on Windows, I don't think it's true. For VR, for example, Sony and Oculus published a lot of great exclusives, Valve will release its first big exclusive next year.
Valve tried a lot of things (Steam Link, Steam Controller, etc.), but most of them failed. And if I only look at the recent years, I don't think they did a lot of good things.
It's hard to say, I can't know how the game would have done on Steam. But
For VR Valve created the bases that allows Oculus to exist. It also created the entire Open VR api, which is what Direct X is to normal videogames.You not seeing it doesnt mean Valve has done nothing.
Same here, haven't visited the store even once.
But it has absolutely changed things, but not for the better, now there is always a risk that I have to wait longer on a release. Previously I used to like Epic, but not so much now.
When the free games are not worth using the service then yeah no benefit. Egs isn't benefiting the customer in any way.
And also would have likely sold enough to qualify for the greater revenue splits.
But they've given out a ton of free games that are totally worth using the store? I'm pretty sure the free game available right now is Rayman Legends, one of my literal favourite games of all time.
EGS is a fucking disgusting example of capitalism making markets worse to benefit large companies, but I'm really not sure I understand why you'd pretend that the free games aren't a benefit. You can argue they don't outweigh the negatives, but the words you're saying aren't doing that.
Posts like this are so worthless, where's the competition? Money-hatting isn't competition, true competition would be releasing a competitive storefront that actually gave benefits to the consumer, not forcing them to use your sub-par store and still not having basic features a year later.
Also why is 30% only unfair from Steam, but not from Apple/Sony/Microsoft/GOG/etc? Steam has used that to make a feature rich, robust platform that has improved PC gaming in many ways. I couldn't imagine going back to not having Big Picture mode, remote play on any TV or iPad in my house, and the highly customizable controller support. Not to mention things like Steam Workshop for mods and their massive support for VR. You'll never see these kinds of innovations out of the EGS because their revenue split doesn't allow for much more than processing fees to be covered, leaving little to no money for development of the storefront.
It's not that free games aren't great. It's that they are not a factor when trying to answer the question "why should I buy games on EGS rather than on Steam".
I agree, but like I specifically pointed out, the words Lothars is saying don't mean that. I'm not sure what that argument has to do with the reply chain at all. Lothars initial post was mocking anyone for defending the store, not a question of why you should choose it over steam. He is saying that EGS has done nothing beneficial, and his argument as to why the free games aren't beneficial is because they aren't worth using the service, which is subjective as hell to the point of being a really weird opinion to try and force to be a general statement.
I would have downloaded EGS just for the free games. I am myself a counter to the point he's trying to make.
I don't understand Free Games as the ultimate USP for some members of forums like this one.
I understand it in the context of the launcher being a Fortnite player, and getting younger people without disposable income entrenched in the service and attached to a large library of games they own for free. It (theoretically; I'm not sure how many of those Fortnite players are actually playing or even claiming that free stuff) makes great business sense for Epic, but for enthusiasts on a forum like this, where people are informed and just buy the shit they want, it flies over my head. Like, any of that stuff that's legitimately great I probably played on Steam and I don't have the free time to dabble in the rest.
I understand it in the context of the launcher being a Fortnite player, and getting younger people without disposable income entrenched in the service and attached to a large library of games they own for free. It (theoretically; I'm not sure how many of those Fortnite players are actually playing or even claiming that free stuff) makes great business sense for Epic, but for enthusiasts on a forum like this, where people are informed and just buy the shit they want, it flies over my head. Like, any of that stuff that's legitimately great I probably played on Steam and I don't have the free time to dabble in the rest.
one thing the article didn't say that i find awesome is that epic got some long time exlusives to finally come to pc like the 3 quantic dream games.
also since epic store library is still somewhat small compared to steam's massive library, we get the chance to see some indies take the spotlight on epic's like subliminal, ancestors, operencia and etc...
I'm actually the kind of guy who doesn't really care in which launcher i play my games and i in a way like the work that epic did with their store...
also since epic store library is still somewhat small compared to steam's massive library, we get the chance to see some indies take the spotlight on epic's like subliminal, ancestors, operencia and etc...
I'm actually the kind of guy who doesn't really care in which launcher i play my games and i in a way like the work that epic did with their store...
Epic themselves acknolwedged they had nothing to do with those games coming to PC, they just bought excluvitivity
Epic had nothing to do with QD games coming to Steam, that's even been mentioned already in this very thread...
I understand that, but I think that Lothar was questioning whether the service is worth using from the perspective of a customer. After all, I imagine that the giveaways are intended to get customers to engage with the service, use it, acquire a games library on it and eventually spend some money on it. In my opinion the point was that free games aren't worth becoming an EGS customer for.
I'm saying that free games they have given out isn't a reason to use them. I've gotten rayman legends on multiple services for free before they offered it. I'm also saying egs has actively made pc gaming worst with what they have done.
also anyone defending the egs store only shows their ass, that's a definite.
There are some glaring logical flaws with the premise of the article - it basically assumes every single thing that has happened on Steam since the launch of EGS has happened specifically because of EGS. It's not unreasonable to think that parts of it were accelerated as a response, but as the tardiness of EGS' own feature set shows, making substantial changes or improvements to a digital storefront takes time. Obviously things like the library revamp have been going on behind the scenes for some time.
As for changing PC gaming, eh. Not for me personally, anyway. EGS is something I boot up once a week to get the free game (unless it was already free elsewhere or I already bought it years ago), and occasionally to play those. It's not my platform of choice for anything, and none of the exclusives have been unmissable enough or not sufficiently unavailable on console to make me pay the extra 10€ EGS tax and be stuck with it in their gimped launcher.
As for changing PC gaming, eh. Not for me personally, anyway. EGS is something I boot up once a week to get the free game (unless it was already free elsewhere or I already bought it years ago), and occasionally to play those. It's not my platform of choice for anything, and none of the exclusives have been unmissable enough or not sufficiently unavailable on console to make me pay the extra 10€ EGS tax and be stuck with it in their gimped launcher.