If he just said "We made a business decision and we hope that our fans understand" and then got the hell off twitter and enjoyed his millions, this wouldn't be the 10th thread on him and the EGS.
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Randy Pitchford explains his support for EGS. (See Staff Post)
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If he just said "We made a business decision and we hope that our fans understand" and then got the hell off twitter and enjoyed his millions, this wouldn't be the 10th thread on him and the EGS.
I have no issue with storefronts (see origin, uplay etc.) but these senior execs falling upwards making some kind of pro consumer argument out of this is embarassing as fuck.
Just say you earn more money and couldn't care less about the consumer as long as your games are selling.
Just say you earn more money and couldn't care less about the consumer as long as your games are selling.
Tim & co. just can't let a week go by without personally stoking the flames. Shocker.
It is amusing to see folks like Randy bending over backwards to corporatesplain how this will ultimately benefit consumers too. Waiting for him to do a full heel turn and say it won't be on Steam at all.
It is amusing to see folks like Randy bending over backwards to corporatesplain how this will ultimately benefit consumers too. Waiting for him to do a full heel turn and say it won't be on Steam at all.
That's why Bobby Kotick is better than Randy. At least he tells you he's in it for the money! Which is fine, just be honest about it!
It's different from what you could call "2nd party exclusives", but not so different from third parties exclusives, and yes it is not something people are used to in the PC gaming world. It's a shitty practice and consumers should not welcome it, especially when we are talking about games already in development and that were pretty much guaranteed to be on other stores (65% of their exclusives are sequels). They are not funding or "saving" any games, just paying for these to be removed from other stores.
Who the fuck does Randy think he is fooling when he calls Valve's industry standard 30% cut "absurd"?
Epic is throwing huge amounts of money around, everyone is lining up for a piece before it inevitably runs out. The same people will drop Epic as soon as they find a better deal. Part of the cheque is an agreed narrative to follow. Steam is a monoploy... Epic is thinking of consumers... Features don't matter... People who can't access common payment systems won't be missed... Influencers actually influence...
"Second party" games are third party games that are fully funded by first party companies that wouldn't exist otherwise. What Epic has been doing is little more than paying for timed exclusivity on games they otherwise have no stake in otherwise, and given how chilly folks have gotten on them this console generation, like we saw on Rise of the Tomb Raider, bringing those types of business practices on a platform that had virtual consumer freedom on how and where to buy games, you can imagine why that hasn't been a popular line of thinking with that crowd.
It's not even really that new for the PC market, it's just disruptive and inconvenient.
People who actually use the "bigger dev cut" rhetoric unironically.
Lmao. What would the equivalent of "Get an Xbox 360" be for this?
"If you want to play in China, we have a product for you..."
The worst part of it is, this whole situation made some studios and indies I was extremely fond of turn their coats overnight. It makes me really sad that I know I'll never buy anything ever again from Heart Machine, Double Damage, Supergiant, etc.
It's not out of spite but out of principle and they sealed their fates by selling out but I'd rather none of this had ever happened.
Ah, I didn't realize that. Ok, thanks for the clarification!
OP is a human being with their own opinions. It's up to you to discern the facts from opinion.
Is the OP a journalist? Also he didn't post anything that randy didn't say.
Nearly the entire OP is quoted tweets. The only bit added I would consider biased is in the TL;DR when he says Randy calls Valve evil. Randy never said that AFAIK but it's not difficult to read between the lines that Randy does not care for Valve. Otherwise nearly the entire OP is verbatim from Tim/Randy.
Dude thinks Borderlands 3 success is a given. The world of loot shooters has changed since the last time he put out a game in the genre and by the look of their initial reveal, if anyone has been resting on their laurels, it's been Gearbox. Arrogant prick.
Anyone who says Steam was a monopoly automatically loses my attention. It's a completely uninformed claim that is also wrong.
Anyone who says Steam was a monopoly automatically loses my attention. It's a completely uninformed claim that is also wrong.
He quotes Pitchford himself and then links to reddit thread where you can read it yourself. That seems pretty unbiased to me.
Actually I don't really need to argue the reasons against Epic at the moment when I can just point to price discrepancy. As of the time before pre orders were taken off, it was cheaper for me to buy Anno 1800 on Steam then it was Epic by $10. Other games, upwards of $20 even. Epic is pushing $100AUD games back onto the PC market for Australians and that's apparently pro consumer?
I'm sorry, but ignore all facts as much as you want and claim until your heart bleeds that Epic is amazing and fuck Steam, but do not ignore this in your pro admiration for them. They are more expensive then even the competitor they are so boldly calling a monopoly and are forcing me to buy games through. I don't know how much more obvious I need to make it.
If you are ignoring that to state Epic is great, you are being disingenuous.
I'm sorry, but ignore all facts as much as you want and claim until your heart bleeds that Epic is amazing and fuck Steam, but do not ignore this in your pro admiration for them. They are more expensive then even the competitor they are so boldly calling a monopoly and are forcing me to buy games through. I don't know how much more obvious I need to make it.
If you are ignoring that to state Epic is great, you are being disingenuous.
lol if he thinks it's absurd then he shouldn't put BL3 on consoles, right?
Hey, you know that thing you're concerned about and think is important? Not a big deal, dude.
This is some low-effort shit designed to rile people up.
A lot of times, 2nd party games wouldn't be made without the funding of the studio in the first place. What is better to compare it to is timed 3rd party games that are exclusive to a platform for a few months or years. Case in point, Tomb Raider on the xbox, releasing a year later on playstation and Destiny strikes for playstation. In both cases, there was a large uproar about the shady practices, which is no different here.
He comes from an educated perspective on this and I would agree with him that it is good. Hearing it come from people who release games gives it a lot more weight than consumers.
Yet somehow the cut on consoles is apparently fine and completely absent from these conversations. Related to the cut, the fact that keys can be generated with up to 100% of the profits to the developer is also completely ignored. The cut Valve takes in practice is a lot lower than 30%.
This is a good read. It gets really good from part 2 on.
My view on this is that if you want to be intellectually honest about the cut, you have to tackle it in lockstep on all platforms since 30% is the industry standard.
I didn't realise the Epic Game Store had the same gravitas as Brexit.
There are a plethora of reasons to be frustrated with Epic's moves surrounding their new store, but it really boils down to their actively being anti-consumer and removing choices, options, and features that would have otherwise existed for players of games they decide to moneyhat to be exclusive to their store. It's an outright attack on consumers and the fact that they double down and have the nerve to tell potential purchasers that, no, this is actually good for them and that they are trying to "save" PC gaming (despite being one of the biggest companies to abandon it a decade ago) is just beyond the pale.
And you immediately validate the criticism with this ridiculous post.
Ofcourse it's absent. It's inconvenient to their PR talking points about "the
This is about corporate or personal self interest and shilling a narrative, not a good faith discussion or debate.
Objectively, it doesn't, but on a personal level for some people? It probably has more. For example, people who find their release in gaming and live in territories where Epic does not and likely will not offer their service. They're getting royally screwed.
Anyway, your argument (if I can call that--I'm pretty sure you're just trolling) is nonsense. We can care about multiple things at once.
An aside, but I'm glad to see someone else bring up the split for MTX creators as a Valve criticism, it pretty much never gets brought up.
The funny part is that console owners arguably do less and offer less to justify their cut for digital purchases than Steam.
Given that their respective tenures in the industry are largely identical, I think it's more accurate to state that Randy is the Successful Denis Dyack instead.
Randy Pitchford is yet another pro-Epic industry person that failed to field even a single argument as to why customers should support Epic. He posted so much stuff yet he didn't manage to find one reason for supporting Epic that is to the benefit of customers. Not a single one. Every other person that has argued in favor of Epic, from publishers and developers to journalists, has also failed in similar fashion.
No one can argue beyond cliches and trickle-down economic theories because the truth is that there are zero benefits for customers. Precisely zero. Epic's policies are eliminating customer choice, they are forcing the use of a shockingly sub-par service and distorting the effects of actual, customer-focused competition.
People like Randy Pitchford are being paid more money because of Epic's moneyhats and that's why they are supporting the company. They don't care about the customers and they certainly don't care about the health of the PC platform. People like Tim Sweeney and Randy Pitchford are trying to force customers down a certain path, they are experiencing significant pushback and that's why they spend time out of their busy schedule to convince us that them making more money is somehow good for us, even if we are getting screwed over in the process.
No one can argue beyond cliches and trickle-down economic theories because the truth is that there are zero benefits for customers. Precisely zero. Epic's policies are eliminating customer choice, they are forcing the use of a shockingly sub-par service and distorting the effects of actual, customer-focused competition.
People like Randy Pitchford are being paid more money because of Epic's moneyhats and that's why they are supporting the company. They don't care about the customers and they certainly don't care about the health of the PC platform. People like Tim Sweeney and Randy Pitchford are trying to force customers down a certain path, they are experiencing significant pushback and that's why they spend time out of their busy schedule to convince us that them making more money is somehow good for us, even if we are getting screwed over in the process.
User Banned (5 Days): Ignoring staff post, inflammatory false equivalencies, and antagonizing other members over a series of posts
Well no, I personally think it's ridiculous that of all things that you could get riled up about in this industry, it's about the EGS.
Competition in the market is a good thing, Valve has droooopppppeeed the ball in terms of making their store front quality, they opened the floodgates to bullshit and they don't currently deserve the monopoly they have (or had).
The EGS having exclusive games doesn't mean you have to buy a new PC, you just download a new client.
It's annoying, sure, but the out of proportion reaction to the EGS is precisely why nobody treats gaming communities seriously, it's up there with "SJW's ruining Battlefield 3."
Wouldn't it be a sight to see if Eurogamer, Kotaku, PC Gamer and all these outlets took Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft to task for their "obscene" cut though?
Seriously, I wish that some good came out of this. If for example this brought about a realization about the drawbacks of the walled garden design every console shares, it'd be pretty sweet, especially as they slowly turn into PCs more and more. The only reason this conversation - as distasteful and corrupt as it sometimes gets - can even happen on PC is because the platform is so open.
This is a basic fact of the PC platform that even people defending EGS should appreciate and fight for.
I'm impressed. I was ready to try and reply to Randy's comments.
But he really did it. He went and elaborated a long and complex essay, going at the very minimum details with great effort to repeat the same bullshit PR spins we are already tired to see, while dribbling around some points that can't really be spun. Amazingly crafted narrative about "features" and how this is all a bet for the future - a future that is just better. For all of us. I'm just baffled. Not to mention the same tired misinformation and bad faith takes.
Even though there is a specific point I agree with, it is contextualized and weaponized in the dumbest and most predictable way.
Nothing about this ""explanation"" is even remotely worth engaging or rebutting.
If you actually read through the whole thing, hell, HALF of the thing, and think otherwise, or found it thoughtful in some way, I am just laughing at you. He throws one sentence that directly contradicts the previous one at such pace, it would make my essay teacher from highschool blush. And it's long winded, holy balls hahahahaha
Oh, and also:
CEOs talking about company values lmao
But he really did it. He went and elaborated a long and complex essay, going at the very minimum details with great effort to repeat the same bullshit PR spins we are already tired to see, while dribbling around some points that can't really be spun. Amazingly crafted narrative about "features" and how this is all a bet for the future - a future that is just better. For all of us. I'm just baffled. Not to mention the same tired misinformation and bad faith takes.
Even though there is a specific point I agree with, it is contextualized and weaponized in the dumbest and most predictable way.
Nothing about this ""explanation"" is even remotely worth engaging or rebutting.
If you actually read through the whole thing, hell, HALF of the thing, and think otherwise, or found it thoughtful in some way, I am just laughing at you. He throws one sentence that directly contradicts the previous one at such pace, it would make my essay teacher from highschool blush. And it's long winded, holy balls hahahahaha
Oh, and also:
CEOs talking about company values lmao
this motherfucker should stop with this magic shit and start a career as a comedian oh my god ahahahahahahaahah
You're completely ignorant about this topic you obviously do not care about and you need to stop.
Valve has never had a monopoly. They started allowing just about anything on the store after intense industry criticism for how bad and unfair their curation and approval process was. Now they are being criticized for not curating despite offering plenty of tools to the community to do so. Could it be better? Sure, but someone is always going to lose out in a curation scenario.
EGS is not doing a good job either and they've basically stated that they don't plan to, either. They just have fewer games right now. It will turn to shit, too, if they ever get to even half the size of Steam. It's ridiculous that you're arguing that having fewer games to buy is a good thing or that moneyhatting exclusives is competition we should be happy about as consumers.
Your comparison to "SJWs ruining shit" is just inflammatory nonsense that I can only hope is actioned against.
Just because you personally don't give a shit does not mean that the people who do care do not have valid concerns.
I disagree. There is nothing about Randy Pitchford's argument that gives it any more weight than the customer's.
OP
OP
The reason GOG has struggled is because it IS pro-consumer, their no DRM policy is what stops developers and publishers using them for new releases.
That's not down to GOG, that's down to publishers and developers wanting DRM.
I would be willing to bet hard money on that if all the new releases came out on GOG and offered DRM free games for new releases they would be more successful than Steam long term.
Also, whilst you're right to say these games can only be activated on steam, the more important point is that the KEYS can be purchased from multiple outlets at different price points, therefore keeping other companies in business and offering true competition.
They aren't "solving curation" they are taking it backward by putting in place their own selective policy which limits the indie games than go on their store based on their own assessment of what constitutes as "quality" which was the same mistake Valve made before they changed their policy, it's sending things backwards, not forwards and again limiting consumer choice.
I understand they are not literally forcing developers but no developer is going to turn down a huge bag of cash which removes any risk and immediately puts them in the black, that would be ridiculous and Epic know this.
I've never understood this "support the devs above all else" mentality. A consumer's opinion on a consumer-facing service that someone is trying to sell them is a hell of a lot more important.
Most people who don't use Steam in the first place, maybe.
OP
OP
I hear this argument so much and I don't understand why people are willing to bend over backwards to defend decisions that actively work against their interests as consumers.
Randy Pitchford might be educated in the business but it doesn't mean he can predict the future and it doesn't mean he is looking out for consumers best interests, if anything his track record shows he is working against the interests of consumers and the second he is called out in it he tries to play the victim or handwave complaints.
People seem so willing to put the interests of companies before themselves these days.