Yup, Tim just sucks. Speed conspiracy about MS and now he's doing those things he said they were doing and trying to justify it.
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Tim Sweeney confirms Epic is paying to keep games off third party sellers (Inc The Division 2)
- Thread starter BernardoOne
- Start date
I've taken this stance myself. I'll accept their free games but that's about it.
I'm not even touching those, and I'm going as far as to not purchase or play EGS exclusives on any platform. Like, I wanted to play RAGE 2 more than most of the people on this board, because I genuinely loved RAGE 1, but it ain't happening now, even despite the fact that I'd have bought RAGE 2 on Xbox, not PC. Same with Metro. (boy am I glad there's no shortage of dope shooters dropping this year... but so help me God I may even avoid DOOM:E and New Blood's PC versions if they're exclusive to Bethesda's launcher because that launcher just bloooows)
Well, there is still a chance Bethesda games show up on the Epic Games Store so you can have a choice of two launchers you don't want to use hah. If Epic will pay for Division 2, I could see them giving Bethesda money too. Not sure why UBI was a dev in need of money but if Epic will pay UBI, I could see them pay Bethesda.
I think a lot of people are going to do just that. Phoenix Point hurt, but not so bad, there's a lot of games released in a month, and I can wait a year to play it.
I hope every game that announces its an 'Epic Exclusive' gets booed at GDC.
Literally same boat, I would have bought metro and rage if on Steam, not now. Sucks cuz Rage I'm actually excited about to hold me off until Doom, which now that I think about it, is probably not gunna be on Steam either :/
Yep. Not betting on either of them coming to Steam. But I'm such an id fanboy that I'm not gonna be able to NOT get those games at launch.
None of us know the financial component behind those decisions. To claim you do is silly. Even if they picked it up they could have been in talks for further funding, whether or not that was with epic.
Unless, idk do you have some statement saying that skybound was keen to fund it all themselves with no outside funding?
The deal alone imo shows they know it wasnt exactly a slam dunk as far as getting a return for their investment.
I think the burden of evidence is on you to show that somehow these episodes would not have happened without Epic's involvement, especially given that Skybound have not once made any statements to that effect, and had announced their plans to finish the season prior to announcing any kind of deal with Epic.
I mean sure, I can't prove it in the same way you can't prove it definitely didn't happen. I'm speculating on an internet forum. I was just saying I suspect it may be the case from the info we have and the response was "This is not what's happening with Walking Dead."
We're all just speculating here, but responding with "no" as if it's proven truth isnt a super convincing argument.
Sure if you're just speculating on something (something which there is zero evidence for) that's fine.
My argument for why it is not likely at all that the rest of the season would not have happened without Epic is that Epic would have likely said on the record publicly that they saved the final season of the walking dead were it true. Because that would have been an easy PR win. Why spend all that money to save the final season of the walking dead from cancellation and not reap the rewards of doing so?
For customers it is the worst-case scenario.
Absolutely not. This kind of competition offers nothing to the customer.
It is in fact completely contradictory to everything he said before. There is to practical difference between Microsoft taking advantage of its position as a platform holder to cut out the competition and Epic using its cash reserves to cut out the competition. Different method, same result.
I have noticed there are some Tim Sweeney replies on Reddit the past couple days. He seems a little...delusional with his responses. Or just being intentionally obtuse. This one made me chuckle :
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/c...believe_that_epic_games_is/eimee9b/?context=3
Epic Store is the king of games for all publishers while Steam only offers Valve games. Well, we'll just see how this plays out over the next couple years. There is quite a bit to unpack from that one quote alone. Money can't buy you love from the community.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/c...believe_that_epic_games_is/eimee9b/?context=3
Epic Store is the king of games for all publishers while Steam only offers Valve games. Well, we'll just see how this plays out over the next couple years. There is quite a bit to unpack from that one quote alone. Money can't buy you love from the community.
I guess Sweeney assumes that only a vocal minority has issues with his moneyhatting strategy. Time will tell if he's right or not.
But I'm hoping so hard that he's wrong!
The Bethesda launcher is a different story, as you are able to buy keys for Bethesda's upcoming games from various places such as the Humble store that features a 10% discount for Humble Monthly bundle subscribers. The games are not exclusive to Bethesda's store. The launcher is terrible, although I hope it'll improve before Doom Eternal is out.
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Skybound announced they would finish it before they ever signed a deal.
You can see this by the very simple fact that Walking Dead was not anywhere in the initial wave of EGS exclusive announcements. Believe me, if Epic had already signed it by then they would have shouted it from the rooftops
Unless there are special games that are exclusive to a store, nothing can hope to compete with Steam. And even then, you'll just play those games on those store and get anything else on Steam.
Why would you get a game in another store when you can have it on Steam where you have all your games and your friends and all the useless thingy ? Even if you have to pay more (and then you can get a cheap Steam key somewhere) ?
It really looks like why many people stay on Facebook. You know Facebook is spying on you, trying to manipulate you, etc ... but as long as your friends are on Facebook, you won't move. And they won't move because you won't move. A social network mexican standoff if you will.
I think PC gamers like store monopoly because it's more convenient.
Why would you get a game in another store when you can have it on Steam where you have all your games and your friends and all the useless thingy ? Even if you have to pay more (and then you can get a cheap Steam key somewhere) ?
It really looks like why many people stay on Facebook. You know Facebook is spying on you, trying to manipulate you, etc ... but as long as your friends are on Facebook, you won't move. And they won't move because you won't move. A social network mexican standoff if you will.
I think PC gamers like store monopoly because it's more convenient.
I mean, I kind of get why they're doing this. It would be nigh impossible competing with Steam no matter how many more features they have since it's such a big platform. I have a feeling they will do this to get up and running in the beginning and it might not happen as often later on. Do I like the idea of yet another launcher though? No, GoG Galaxy, Steam, Origin and Uplay is enough, but this feels like the way it would always be. Competition is good for the market in the long run. I also feel that Tim Sweeney is open about why they're doing it which is kudos in my book.
Have you even read the OP? We're not only talking about keeping games away from Steam and GoG. We're talking about a boycott of 3rd party keysellers as well.
Epic could have easily allowed keysellers like Humble or GreenManGaming to sell keys for the Epic Store, resulting in cheaper games for us as consumers while still having to use the Epic Store. But instead, Epic actually has a monopoly in selling certain games on PC, resulting in less options and higher game prices. I can't possibly understand how anyone can call this "competition".
PC gamers don't "like" store monopoly. They just want a FREE CHOICE where to buy their games. And Epic's moneyhats go straight against this.
No one would have complained if these games would have been released on Epic's Store in addition to Steam.
I read the OP, my answer was geared to all the people in here talking about different platforms / launchers. Should have made that clear, sorry. I agree that epic should allow 3rd party keys, I use Greenmangaming a lot.
No one would have complained right, but no one would have bought either.
There's a reason Steam is selling more than the other store for the same games.
PC gamers want "free competition" so they can buy their steam games cheaper.
I'm the same. I don't have an epic account nor an origin one and can't remember my password on Ubisoft.
I just don't see any store having a chance at competiting on the same ground.
Origin and Uplay compete with Steam by having their own true exclusive games developed in house, and in Ubisoft's case, by offering even better prices compared to Steam with the Uplay points system (not sure if it is available in all regions). Epic straight ignored the game development part (well outside of Fortnite obviously) and went on the easy road to buy exclusives, the difference is pretty clear.
Which is where Epic should start thinking.
"Why won't people buy on our store and use our launcher ?"
There's 2 answers for that:
1- A total barebone experience without decent features. To fix that means they'd have to make it better than Steam. And yes, it's possible. They're not a small company and they've been here for years.
2- People indeed likes to have a cohesive and consolidated library. To fix that means instead of paying millions to devs for exclusivity, that money should've gone toward a GOG Connect like service, where you can retrieve your Steam games on EGS. And for those who cant, make it so that retrieving or launching your Steam games from EGS store and vice-versa is a painless experience that is nearly automatic.
There. I built a serious Steam competitor.
So, that sucks for them, but maybe Epic shouldn't have literally left the PC market nearly 10 years ago, complaining about piracy. It's pretty shocking to think that in 2010, the indie boom was already happening on Steam, but Epic just thought "Nah, PC gamers are just pirates, they've killed us". If Epic had done then what Valve did - and what they're trying badly to do now - they'd be reaping the rewards of being the market leader, maybe, but instead they chose to leave the market entirely.
Isn't Gog having problems and laying people off ? Did GOG Connect service allow GOG to be on the same ground as Steam ?
Just relax, wait, dont give them money and it will be gone soon. At least that exclusive thing.
I'm sorry to say that the very fact you are using the word "store" to try to describe a Steam monopoly make that post hard to take seriously. It would be one thing to argue that as a platform is a monopoly ( given league of legends, Fortnite, Apex, overwatch etc.. success, it would be hard to agree with but still ), but as a store ? what do you think all those "isthereanydeal" pictures are showing if not the fact that the steam platform is full of competing stores ( where no money is given to Valve/Steam ).
No one is arguing for a steam monopoly, but for a competition which benefit the consumer in service and/or price.
GoG's troubles came from something else entirely. It's a platform aiming for a niche audience. It never aimed to be a Steam competitor but a service selling older, DRM free games. The DRM free part is also the reason why it struggled sales wise: Not a lot of publishers want to make their games DRM free.
(And GoG connect was as niche as a service than GoG was. Only a handful games were supported).
At least they are using it on something... Valve hasn't been making any games people want with all that Steam money tbh.
But I get the hate Epic Store is getting, it's going on a anti-consumer path which I won't follow for sure... So far I have only played Subnautica there
By using their war chest for something other than paying finished games to not be on competitors.
Take a popular dev and fund a brand new game from them, exclusive to your store forever.
Instead of buying exclusivity, pay devs to release their game on your service at a lower base price.
Add features consumers would like and Steam doesn't have.
There are ways to compete, they just take long term thinking and effort compared to just trying a "hostile takeover" on the market.
old post but I'd like to take a moment to agree.
I've loved me some Epic for going on 2 decades. Unreal Tournament '99 in no uncertain terms introduced me to online gaming AND online gaming community as a concept with its in-game chat and server browsers. Many of my favorite gaming memories were made on Facing Worlds. I loved their Unreal Tournament releases on consoles (sans UT3) and Gears damn near changed my and my little brother's gaming lives.
But this shit right here? I can't ride with this stuff. Not right now. When they calm this kind of activity down and settle into just being another normal storefront with enough features to justify making the choice to buy from them instead of Steam or its resellers, cool. Until then I'm not buying anything from them.
I don't think anybody here or even the internet in general is against games being sold on stores/services other than Steam. What they take issue with is games being sold elsewhere at the expense of Steam. Nobody cares that there are GOG and EGS versions of Darksiders 3, for example, because they exist alongside the Steam version rather than in lieu of it.
It's not the consumer's fault that Epic is several years late to the party. We all know why it is engaging in monopolistic, inherently anti-consumer behaviour, but just because something may make business sense doesn't automatically mean it's reasonable and beyond reproach. Users are not beholden to corporations; corporations are beholden to their users.
"Something", in this case, is merely artificial exclusivity. The games Epic has moneyhatted -- thus far, at least -- would exist with or without that money.
Then even a Gog connect like won't even help you to be a competitor to Steam (not a niche competitor but a real one).
Steam allows you to launch games not coming from Steam. Pricewise they are killing with all their seasonal rebates that people are waiting for them.
They have been pretty fair to consumers.
You don't even hope to try to compete unless you are playing dirty like Epic and even then I don't think it would work in the long run.
How would you people think a fair competitor would be able to compete, starting from nothing ?
That's exactly was i'm doing.
I had an Epic account before Fortnite introduced the BR mode that destroyed the coop horde mode that was supposed to be the game initially. I have now requested my account to be terminated.
I'm not touching this store ever again unless they deeply change their tactics.
Valve make a game ( lol artifact but still ), work on VR on the software and hardware side, acquire Campo Santo : doing nothing with their money.
Epic, cancel Paragon, stop working on Unreal Tournament, use their money to make third party games exclusive to a worst platform service and price wise : at least they do something with their money.
please
I have been complaining about valve abyssal support with their highly successfull games ( dota 2 -aka only 1 hero released last year-, TF2 ) for years, and their valve time for everything ( 2 years since the UI rework is known, more than a year for the VR knuckle I think ), etc, etc.. but let's stay serious for a second and not act like as if as consumer/gamer we should see how they use their money as worst than how epic does.
By throwing money at the right things.
And yes, a GOG Connect like would help, more than an exclusive actually. Because according to some people, customers wont move from Steam because of their established library. How do you fix that ? By making their library follow them.
Well your library is not really following you. The games are on your launcher but the patch, the addons, etc ... are still on Steam and you need to get back.
As Steam also allows you to launch external games, it's a two-side battle you can't really win.
Of course it does. It's the point of a GoG Connect system. If you own a game on Steam, you'll also OWN it on EGS. I don't mean only appearing on your launcher but also being tied to your EGS account.
I never said you rely solely on that (it's funny how it's my second point and you skipped the first one). I said it gives you a bigger ground to begin with and allow for a stable long term transition instead of forcing people one time only (which means a close to 0 retention rate).
I'm not sure this is true. Internet is filled with people complaining about Steam, including many well-known journalists and people here on Era. I guess they would be happy to see an alternative for Steam, at least if Epic had been using a more pro-consumer course.
This would be such a great feature that I would have considered EGS.
CDKeys gets physical boxes to get the keys. Different to how authorized key resellers work (where they get the keys directly from the publisher).
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? What kind of shitpost is this? Epic has literally killed every single one of their games that isn't Fortnite.
Valve is still developing and supporting three of the most sucessful games on the PC platform that people 100% want.
A service that would allow the resale of digital games would hit Steam hard.
Useless thingy? I kinda get the feeling that you're not arguing in good faith.
Yes. It's by far the best service of its kind.
Dude, what a hell are you talking about? So they use their money not to make a store similar to Steam but to moneyhat games
People like steam store because is the one with most consumer friendly features.
Epic is like " we took your favorite games so the only way to play is buying from our shit store bwhahaa"
I've been thinking that I kept confounding the Steam launcher with the Steam Store and in fact Steam has had this genius idea of putting everything in the same place. Whenever you want to play your games, talk to your friends or whatever, you may have a look at the Store with their rebates and their games selection.
What is making money is not the services, it's the store, so the more chance you have to look at it, the better.
I don't use Steam voice or community as I find Discord much better. I don't find the Steam streaming any good compared to Youtube/Twitch.
The VR is nice because ... well it's the only VR for PC as I know.
So yeah for me I find those services useless until Steam are really working on them to be on par with the best (and even then, I find it hard to convince my friends to part with Discord to use Steam services).
Still with all my griefs, I only have Steam as a Store/launcher on my computer. Could be the power of laziness, if it works well enough, it's enough.
What is making money is not the services, it's the store, so the more chance you have to look at it, the better.
I'm only using Steam. I tolerate the Steam launcher but find it ugly and clunky. Yet it does it work well for all I care (automatic update and information about DLC).
I don't use Steam voice or community as I find Discord much better. I don't find the Steam streaming any good compared to Youtube/Twitch.
The VR is nice because ... well it's the only VR for PC as I know.
So yeah for me I find those services useless until Steam are really working on them to be on par with the best (and even then, I find it hard to convince my friends to part with Discord to use Steam services).
The best in an integrated package, indeed.
Still with all my griefs, I only have Steam as a Store/launcher on my computer. Could be the power of laziness, if it works well enough, it's enough.
I'm all for pubs and devs choosing of their own free will to go to the Epic store for the 88% cut. I'm all for pubs and devs choosing to sell on both Steam and Epic if they choose. I am not ok with Epic paying pubs and devs to keep games off of other storefronts. It's anti-competitive.
Let your storefront grow on it's own. Most epic store users are kids who have the launcher from fortnite and likely don't even know what Steam is. They will use Epic as their main storefront I bet.
Let your storefront grow on it's own. Most epic store users are kids who have the launcher from fortnite and likely don't even know what Steam is. They will use Epic as their main storefront I bet.
Bingo.
I don't think Epic's goal is to convert Steam users into EGS users, but more to convert the existing Fortnite userbase into EGS users. They've already got their users into the ecosystem with Fortnite, they want to keep them there with the exclusives.
First they need to convert Fortnite users into people who buy games. Not as easy as it sounds.
Why should we the customers be the ones thinking and worrying about how a competitor wants to enter a market They`re the ones with the cash and the will to start a competition years later, they`re the ones who should have a plan. Its not your job as a consumer to worry about how a business do its thing unless it actively harms you (what Epic is doing right now)
No one was babysitting the MS store before they tried stuff like gamepass and play anywhere to try and sway buyers to their side of the fence. And when buyers don`t do that (because they pretty much wont), then its on microsoft to offer more value or fix their store or whatever, not us. That`s how competition works. Jimmy and Timmy are selling lemonade but Timmy uses salt instead of sugar cause hes a moron so we buy with Jimmy instead. Epic is Bimmy, going around buying all the lemons so Jimmy and Timmy cant make lemonade anymore, and then charging double and saying they`re pro competiton because they buy lemons for a higher price.