When valve would do it, it would be anti-consumer, but when a spunky multi-billion dollar, funded by chinese conglomerate upstart does it, its okay?
And this is your idea of 'competition'?
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The Epic Games Store as described by Sergey Galyonkin (SteamSpy Creator, Currently At Epic) (Update: Sergey Clarifying Points on Twitter)
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When valve would do it, it would be anti-consumer, but when a spunky multi-billion dollar, funded by chinese conglomerate upstart does it, its okay?
And this is your idea of 'competition'?
I mean, he was technically running steam spy for years while working at epic, wasn't he?
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and obviously not telling anyone they are getting paid to advertise it.
This.
Also he keeps ignoring the fact that these exclusivity deals mean that consumer have to pay more because of the loss of cheaper keys in competing 3rd party keystores.
Firstly, I am literally getting 9 alerts after hitting the post reply button. Your lot are very passionate about proving me wrong but I have time to kill. So I apologize if I can't read most of what is happening in this thread right now.
Secondly, hardly anyone I am contesting with has shown me any references to how Epic, Sweeney (no mention of Sweeney in all the posts I replied to other than yours now) and Sergey being hypocritical. I base my arguments on the OP and off the other discussions regarding Epic's store launch. So if I don't get any references then it means I really didn't. So instead of accusing me of bullying you. Why don't you do me and yourself a favor by quoting these things you are pointing out.
It doesn't matter to me if you want to continue discussing it with me because it's no loss to me dude/dudette.
Nah, you showed how one store did things, not how the Epic Store will look like.
There is no way to solve discovery through curation without screwing over lots of developers in the process.
Probably? alot of clients tend to take snapshots of what's running.
Pretending its an out of no where hit and positing it as "see thats the power of steam discoverability" evidence isnt hard to understand why thats a wrong statement :)
You think Epic will be the first store in the history of humanity to solve the issues of curation?
It's not my job to educate you on the points you've already seen in other topics. Also, there's a neat little feature you can use to see my gender on this very forum, which would be quite useful for you to use and stop awkwardly using 'dude/dudette' over and over again when addressing me!
Not really, I just think it might not be as bad as people are implying it'll be. The ideas behind it seem solid enough for me to want to wait and see.
You dont think that you can find an economist who thinks that exclusive rights to X are the definition of restricting competition? This has nothing to do with "sides" or "morals."
And the reason Steam is as big as is, is the customer. You can sell your freely generated Steam keys through whatever store you want while giving Valve literally nothing. Using Steam as a launcher gives no straight monetary benefit to Valve, besides pubs can integrate their launchers to Steam as Ubi did with Siege.
The reason you have hard time grasping these arguments is that you are still looking at this from a strict hardware only perspective. And it is kinda fine, but I think its something that we need to recognize at this point.
Having multiple competing storefronts and multiple competing launchers without exclusive titles is literal perfect competition (or the so called "free market.") Customer is able to decide where to spend money, while content creators compete only on the quality of their content, launchers on the quality of their services and storefronts on prices.
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its literally what you asked for
sorry we cant look in the future for you
That's why it's a wait and see for me. I will still buy the games I like from EGS regardless (waiting on Rebel Galaxy 2!).
You bring out very good points but I'm done with the whole buy day 1 nonsense. I do a lot of research before a purchase and coincidentally I go to YouTube to check out if a game is worth buying. The good (and bad) thing about YouTube is that there are lots of review channels and never have I experienced a bunch of lopsided reviews and then buy a game only to be disappointed with my purchase. Of course that's just me.
Epic launched face first and hit a couple of brick walls along the way but as stated in the OP, they know they are lacking in consumer friendly features and plan to work on them. Do I believe them? Yeah but it doesn't matter because consumers will eventually see a bad deal when they see one.
And the point of history is to learn from it.
not repeat it point for point. nothing Epic has in the pipeline addresses these fundamental issues with hard-core curation.
If you want the Epic Games Store to be exactly like Steam, you can just keep using Steam? I'll wait to see how EGS does their storefront before passing judgement.
I'm not asking anyone to do that? I'm just looking forward to using it if it's really good.
If we going by definition then again the context where Epic is actually anti-competitive is if it actually had a monopoly on the PC online store market. Which it does not. The effects of Epic securing exclusives (from small developers nonetheless) will not echo through the market and neither will it dent the status quo. Despite it being Epic, it is still a small player in it's field. Epic still has to tip toe and look for loopholes to actually be worthy of competing against plenty of mature PC online storefronts.
Read the OP, Epic is intending to release keys for third party sellers. Epic also does not take a cut. It comes with caveats like not undercutting EGS prices.
My perspective is that I hate people being hyperbolic when there really is nothing to fret about because at this stage consumers have the upper hand.
Must be nice to live where you are. The existence of the free market is from competition and that is what Epic does bring to the table. It didn't take away anything from the market, actually adding to it by being willing to port console games. Very simply because consumer choice has not been disrupted the way you paint it.
I can't, because Epic is paying devs and publishers to remove their games from Steam.
Seems like a good deal for developers? They certainly weren't forced at gunpoint to take that deal. And if Steam is such a better place for visibility, why would any dev/publisher accept an exclusivity deal?
It doesn't have anything to do with visibility. Epic just paid them a huge sum of money upfront.
But you're right, it was the devs choice as well. I really hope it backfires to them, because I don't want moneyhatting 3rd party devs for store exclusivity to become the new standard for PC gaming. We don't want other storefront owners doing this as well.
Look at you guys.....you carry a banner saying exclusivity is anti competitive but it's okay when publishers buy out studios and IP (and then squeeze them dry and spit them out in the gutter) and yet I am the one who has to explain himself? *Slow clap*
You guys really need to decide what flag you're waving. So is exclusivity anti consumer or not. Or wait.....maybe it depends on the context? Cause I get shot down by trying to explain that what Epic is doing is not anti competitive because of the context that it's a small player among mature veterans.
Hmm....I feel like buying Dead Space 3 on Steam.....oh wait.....(for reference I installed Origin because of DS3)
This whole Epic has taken away consumer choice is cow nuts. It's still on the PC for fuck sake. I don't pay premium for every digital PC store I peruse. With services like Discord being extremely popular I really don't see why y'all raising the pitchforks.
It's very interesting to me that the guy who created SteamSpy now works at Epic. That's gonna lead to some really interesting statistics for Epic.
I also don't know if I should find that move in itself questionable. It's somewhat similar to the idea of upgrading the UE4 engine based on the input Epic got from supporting PUBG and using that experience from that other firm to polish their own game in that very genre.
That said, thanks for that OP! Wasn't really in the loop anymore when it came to EGS and this put a few things in perspective.
It's really nice to see them reaching out to Sony to get Journey on PC. That's what I want to see more off! That's the kind of (timed) exclusivity deal, I can get behind!
And it's good that they plan to broaden their feature set considerably and are using a different approach to reach a userbase through influencers. Might work out, might not and definitely needs refinement, but there's nothing completely wrong with the idea itself.
But there's still a lot to criticise in their approach and execution. I'm still out for the while, but that might change in the future if they get to a place where they are a valid option when it comes to features.
Fascinating to read that so many of the Fortnite userbase isn't on steam (yet) too.
I also don't know if I should find that move in itself questionable. It's somewhat similar to the idea of upgrading the UE4 engine based on the input Epic got from supporting PUBG and using that experience from that other firm to polish their own game in that very genre.
That said, thanks for that OP! Wasn't really in the loop anymore when it came to EGS and this put a few things in perspective.
It's really nice to see them reaching out to Sony to get Journey on PC. That's what I want to see more off! That's the kind of (timed) exclusivity deal, I can get behind!
And it's good that they plan to broaden their feature set considerably and are using a different approach to reach a userbase through influencers. Might work out, might not and definitely needs refinement, but there's nothing completely wrong with the idea itself.
But there's still a lot to criticise in their approach and execution. I'm still out for the while, but that might change in the future if they get to a place where they are a valid option when it comes to features.
Fascinating to read that so many of the Fortnite userbase isn't on steam (yet) too.
They are literally paying to remove games from other stores. How in hell is that not anti-competitive?
Dead Space is a EA game made by a a EA owned studio, a EA IP, fully funded by EA. Not sure why did you think that was a good comparison
As I and some other people already explained to you, there's a HUGE difference between funding the development of a new game, or moneyhatting a promising game when it's nearly finished.
Many people DO have their reasons to prefer a certain storefront over another, no matter if you agree with these reasons or not. Also, this thread made it very clear that plenty of people don't like Epic's vision on their store. By moneyhatting 3rd party games, Epic DOES take these people's choice away to play these games in their ecosystem of choice, or to ignore a certain store because they don't like it.
Last but not least: Epic is backed by Tencent, a huge Chinese company (with a not-so-great reputation), so they aren't a "small player". What Epic does can have a significant impact on the future of PC gaming. And from what I've heard, seen and read for now, it's not going to be for the better for us as consumers.
The free games thing really confuses me since that is one move that actually favors the consumer and Epic at the expense of the dev while pretty much everything is devs first. I think free weekends seem much more dev friendly than games staying on your account permanently. Even for single players games like Edith Finch that can easily be finished in the weekend. Those can eventually become copies sold, but EGS copies of Subnautica never will.
What a bizarre set of principles overall though.
What a bizarre set of principles overall though.
So are you upset that a Chinese conglomerate is funding Epic now?
And yes competition is healthy when the consumer gets to decide where the market moves but not when consumer choices are pinned down, and in this case, once again, as a consumers we are very much in control of the fate of the Epic Game Store
You do know that some of these 3rd party key stores get their keys illegally right? Especially the popular ones. You know who I am talking about. There's a reason product prices do not deviate much unless the third party seller bought their stock wholesale or with not so legal methods.
In case I'm taking out of context, this does not include sales by authorized resellers.
First, I'm sorry dudette....in the wake of my keyboard warrior-ing I forgot I can check profiles. Which I don't do by the way cause I don't like to play the dirty laundry card.
I would reread posts and do some Googlin' but right now there's too much to sieve through seriously.
Wow, you can see reason! See if you don't like it then don't support it. Consumers still have a choice here so vote with your wallet.
Listen guys and gals, it's been great being able to discuss and argue about this because if there were no debates about issues like these then we as consumers lose completely. We may not see eye to eye but I can agree to disagree and I hope you can too. For me, it's a wait and see but from what I read in the well written and thought out OP, I don't see Epic competing with Steam mano a mano. Securing exclusives is just a way to get content so that that TenCent money don't go down the drain, Epic knows not to mess with the PC master race.
Regional pricing sucks but I've had to deal with regional pricing my whole life so I know how to prioritize my budgets, and believe me most of us Asians are stingy with our money so we make em count, but I want my favorite indie devs to keep on making the games I love so for me it's money well spent.
I'm a consumer and I vote with my wallet and no debate is a bad debate unless you shitting on someone personally. I'm gonna be done with EGS store topics for a while now. Oh and if you are upset cause you can't get your cheap game keys cause "reasons" then I'm not pandering to you and go screw someone else's bread and butter.
Uhh this seems...bad. Not that paid influencers aren't a thing already obviously, but I don't like systemizing it like this
Probably because Epic is offering the developers a truckload of money to offset (and then some) the smaller amount of sales that the developer will make by exclusively releasing on the Epic store. Also, let's not pretend that these games/developers that Epic is buying off would have any trouble getting noticed or selling their games on Steam because they've already made a huge name for themselves. Does anyone seriously think that The Division 2, or the next Supergiant/meatboy game would have any trouble getting noticed on Steam?
And for all the shit that people give the Steam store in regards to visibility, I think their discovery tools are pretty damn good considering they have over 30,000 games for sale on the store and have an open door for developers to release on the platform. Almost any game worth a damn will be highlighted in the 'popular new releases' category, and if you're so inclined you can make one click to view all the new releases of the day. You also have various categories and tags that you can specifically search for. On top of this, Steam appears to do an excellent job of recommending titles to you based on your previous purchases/tastes, and supporting this you have an excellent curator system built in to provide further recommendations, not to mention the extremely helpful user reviews on each games store page that Epic wants to do away with - an extremely anti consumer action.
In comparison, what does the Epic store offer in terms of discovery and user friendliness? it might seem like a great place for visibility now when there's barely 20 games on the store, but can you imagine how shitty it would be when it has even 1/20th of the number of games that are available on Steam with their complete lack of discovery tools? This store seems like nothing more than a curated wall garden that favors the interests of the few elite developers that are allowed to release on the platform over the interests of the consumers.
Hold on. There's a HUGE difference between keystores like humble, fanatical or GMG who buy all their keys at official resellers, or "marketplaces" like g2a and kinguin where anyone can sell keys without verification where they came from. And these marketplaces are the exception, not the rule. Legit keystores are one of the major perks of PC gaming, and Epic's plan to take them out of the equation is NOT good for us as consumers.
So I am screwing someone else's bread and butter because I'm buying games on legal keystores like Humble or GMG? You're so full of shit dude. The existence of these keystores even convinces me to buy MORE games. There are dozens of games that I wouldn't have bought if they weren't significantly cheaper than MSRP in one of these keystores. And it happened several times that I bought the sequel or the new game from the same developer on day one at full price because I liked one of these games.
I respect your opinion that Epic's Store isn't that bad at all, but accusing me of stealing developers bread and butter is complete nonsense. I spend a lot of money on games. Go ask my wife. ^^
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Funny considering Epic is making an effort to pin down my choice as to which service I buy my games for.
Internally developed games are expected. Unreal Tournament and Fortnite are fine. What's not expected or appreciated is pinning down games from other developers. Especially when those games were slated for a platform I prefer to use.
You seem to be completely missing the very basic understanding of 1st party exclusivity vs paid exclusivity.
Of course EA games are exclusive to Origin, because it's the game they developed themselves. Have you seen people complaining about EA games being exclusive on Origins nowadays? Now, if Epic makes Fortnite exclusive to Epic store, no one would complain. Oh wait, it is. Have you seen people complained Fortnite being an Epic Store exclusive? Are you still with me up until this point? Good. Now, take a moment and see The Division 2 case. The store was already on Steam, and now it's gone. Who's the developer of The Division again? Is it Epic?
That's what I'm doing to and I will not buy a game on the epic game store as long as they are buying exclusivity and taking games off other stores. If it causes the games not to sell than I hope those same devs realize why the game didn't sell.
Hell, if Division 2 was exclusive to Uplay, people would probably say Ubisoft is stupid for missing that Steam money, but wouldn't be angry or disappointed.
Yeah really fucking yikes. Their TOS is seriously disgusting to read into.
I personally have their client run under a completely different user profile with no access to anything but the folder for fortnite. Because well tecent/epic I dunno don't trust that at all.
Yeah I mean thankfully it's pretty easy to delete and install the MS Store so I'm fine with it.
Exactly. I've always seen Ubisoft still selling their games on the most popular storefront as a huge pro-consumer move. And the results were there: Ubisofts games were selling VERY well on Steam. But I guess Epic's money was a more appealing option...
There's a couple of Gamer Youtubers I follow, but I learn about what games to get generally from friends, this forum, and Steam's discovery queue. Streamers mean nothing to me. The fact that so many features are coming later for Epic Store is also disappointing, and I'm wary of the review systems being talked about.
Steam/GOG will probably remain my primary platforms because I don't think Epic Store is for me.
Steam/GOG will probably remain my primary platforms because I don't think Epic Store is for me.
Brief summary
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Ran out of characters in the OP, so I guess I'll threadmark this.
As requested, some highlights:
- Only half of Fortnite players have Steam, and of those who do only 60% actively use it.
- Epic will manually curate the front page. Discovery on the Epic Games Store (EGS) will not be funneled through algorithms on its front page.
- Discovery on the EGS will primarily happen through influencers, who are incentivized to promote games through referral links.
- Developers are completely free to adjust influencers' cut as they see fit. Standard rates are expected to settle in about a year's time. Galyonkin gives the example of 20% for smaller indie productions, 5% for bigger games.
- For the first 24 months since the EGS's launch, Epic covers the first 5% of influencers' cut.
- The EGS's newsfeed will be a user-filtered aggregate for what's going on with the games, developers, friends, updates, and upcoming releases you follow.
- Customer reviews will be opt-in. Galyonkin expects devs to opt-in to reviews if review bombing won't be an issue.
- Epic is considering different ways of doing reviews that will prevent review bombing. One being a pop-up that some players get wherein they are asked to review the game they just played, i.e. not all players can review at any time.
- Epic has invested in facilitating/finalizing ports of games for their store. They do off-site marketing for games that are (timed) exclusives and provide (financial) assurances for minimum sales.
- The PC port of Journey was brokered by Epic.
- Many consumer-facing features to come to the store in 2019, including achievements, cloud saves, social features, download speed caps, user profiles, and more.
- The EGS will go open to self-publishing by the end of 2019.
- The 12% will not be raised, but perhaps lowered at a later point as Epic gets a better deal with payment processing companies.
- Expects that Epic will have 50% of Steam's userbase in 5-6 years
- Players can contact devs directly for tech support through a ticket system.
- No massive store-wide sales events like on Steam. Regularly-priced games will be featured alongside games on sale.
- The EGS will give developers as much info on players as they can.
My takeaways, in brief:
- The EGS's in-built userbase is radically from Steam. Valve and Epic may be competing for different audiences. Influencer-driven discovery may well work out.
- However, the nature of EGS's front page coupled with this style of discovery may also render certain types of (smaller) games invisible, especially once the store goes open to self-publishing. No guarantees that influencers will ever play your games, less so if it's not a game that drives viewership.
- Once the Epic's 24-month promotion for influencers' cut runs out, smaller devs could start losing a significant chunk of their margin for sales through influencers. What if competition for their attention will drive developers' margins lower and lower?
- Remains to be seen whether Epic will be able to convert the huge Fortnite playerbase to regular customers on the EGS. Games that do well on Steam may not necessarily do well on the EGS and vice-versa.
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Didn't Galyonkin EXPLCITLY argue against a ticket system because gamers might be mean to devs?
I've seen this a couple of times and do people know what SteamSpy is? You don't think literally every company uses/analyzes all freely available info about their competitors?
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OP
I thought that was with regard to forums. You're right though. People will be assholes anywhere. Though I would expect it to be somewhat mitigated at least when there's a direct line of communication. I watched a presentation by a developer on Steam, who basically said that once they started having a more visual presence on the forums, people became less toxic knowing that it'd be read by them.
Actually a lot of smaller devs use SteamSpy to analyze the market and to choose the direction of their new games. It was a tool created for devs, the fact that many players like to check it is just a byproduct
People being toxic is one problem. Tens of thousands of people submitting a support ticket for the same problem instead of reading the solution on a forum will be something else. I wonder if this will cause less work for the devs than moderating a forum.
This seems catastrophic for consumers; the presumption of influencer impartiality goes out of the window the second they are incentivized when people buy games. Evidently, the intent is to make influencers recommend Epic store games (where they can get a share of the revenue) rather than Steam games (where they can't).
As a developer myself, I want nothing to do with visibility that is obtained by paying off theorethically impartial sources like influencers. I want influencers to recommend my game if they think it's good, not because someone (me, Epic or anyone else) is paying them to. I really hope this is only for the first 24 months and then things return to a less murky state, but as it stands it's already quite a stain.
I've been a pretty strong defender of the Epic store regarding other controversial issues like "moneyhatted" exclusivity, but this is where I draw the line. Paying reviewers to recommend your game is fucking gross.
Please remember companies are not making pro consumer moves , they make decisions that are good for business first and if that happens to be good for you then great but as soon as a better business opportunity comes along they will shift their strategy.
That's why you should never identify with a corporation they are not making decisions for consumers first it's business first. They will always do what's in their best interest not yours. Just because their current strategy may align with your opinion of pro consumer does not mean that's why they chose that strategy initially.
Expect all big companies to change how they approach business so it's best not to get attached.
- Only half of Fortnite players have Steam, and of those who do only 60% actively use it.
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A survey perhaps. Maybe something more questionable, but with privacy regulations looming over them I would really doubt that.
First of all, I'm really not sure if my point is really a negative. I just don't know enough about either the process nor the data to really make an informed judgement, same as with the PUBG engine help - Fortnite case. No idea what really went on behind the curtains.
Of course everyone uses the available data and that's a really good thing!
The sceptical part comes with the owner and creator of the site (that's funded through patreon) now working for a shop that's actively trying to get into and change the market with every possible hook available. SteamSpy is not independent any more, even if the data that's available still is.
Here comes the part where I'm speculating: When I would be Epic, I would use every possible statistic to better my chances. Even with stuff not available to the public on SteamSpy and maybe with stuff that digs deep into the Steam API that would not be possible without employing Sergey. That's not necessarily a bad thing though, but it's enough to make me a bit sceptical. I mean how would you have the data to cross reference the steam and Fortnite crowd anyway? And as detailed as saying people with steam and Fortnite won't use steam as regularly?
It's a similar situation where a former independent US Newspaper would be bought by Trump (or Obama before, doesn't have to be Trump). Maybe the articles are still good and informed. But you wouldn't trust them the same as before and might ask yourself what they are not reporting/what leads they won't follow any more/where they get their data.