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Tim Sweeney: Epic Games Store is making the industry better but gamers don't see that
- Thread starter Komo
- Start date
Do you suffer from memory loss? I explicitly said I wouldn't, which you yourself acknowledged:
You know what? Fuck this shit, I'm going the Kamiya route; ignore and move on.
You can certainly have that discussion. I have zero interest in being a part of it.
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You really think someone would do that? Just go on the internet and tell lies? /s
Third party key resellers take a cut out of their share to offer us better prices.
Today this allowed me to pre-order Bloodlines 2 for roughly 22% less than what Steam charges.
Epic does not let publishers distribute keys to a multitude of key resellers -> no competitive pricing, depriving me of these better prices Sweeney says he wants us to have and implies publishers will give us because LOOK ALEPHANT = Epic is responsible for increased prices of games they pay publishers to make exclusive.
Please tell me where. I have been looking for some deals before I preorder myself.
I'm genuinely confused how Epic thought this was a winning strategy.
They had all the money in the world thanks to all those Fortnight Bucks and yet they squandered any & all good-will with the PC community by locking gamers into a bare-bones ecosystem with 3rd party exclusives and cock-blocking all other platforms that people were already happy with.
Who in their right minds thought this was a winning strategy?
Why didn't they invest that money into their own infrastructure to attract gamers? Are they that short on ideas?
Instead of building themselves up they chose to use that money to shut everyone else down.
What a goddamn waste of resources.
They had all the money in the world thanks to all those Fortnight Bucks and yet they squandered any & all good-will with the PC community by locking gamers into a bare-bones ecosystem with 3rd party exclusives and cock-blocking all other platforms that people were already happy with.
Who in their right minds thought this was a winning strategy?
Why didn't they invest that money into their own infrastructure to attract gamers? Are they that short on ideas?
Instead of building themselves up they chose to use that money to shut everyone else down.
What a goddamn waste of resources.
https://isthereanydeal.com/game/vampiremasqueradebloodlinesii/info/
I ordered from GMG, it's 15% off their ordinary price.
They charge me in GBP (£59.49, Blood Moon Edition), don't know if that matters in regard to it being 22% less than Steam.
Their ordinary price of £69.99 is already lower than Steam's €89.99.
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Taking out the fact that Epic/Tim have come across as aggressive and out of touch with PC gamers in some regards... let's cast our minds back to 2004. Those of us who were PC gaming back then will remember hearing of a Valve gaming platform/store and not thinking too much of it. Then we picked up our copies of Half-Life 2 and it REQUIRED you to install this piece of proprietary software or else you couldn't play the game. At this point in time, Steam was fairly rudementary but still this pissed a lot of gamers and Half-Life fans off because they didn't want some program running to launch games, they just wanted to install the game from the disc and play, not need some store thing to run it. People hated Steam back then - there's a slight hint of revisionist history with PC gamers in 2019 because we've all become so accustomed to Steam being the main place we have our game libraries. So to the people who don't like having multiple launchers to play different games, Valve literally started it, by locking Half-Life 2 behind Steam and I personally believe that was fundamental in getting the original user base on steam which it catapulted from.
Now... before we talk about exclusivity, let's talk about publishers. We already know there's other game stores outside of Valve's Steam on PC. We have EA's Origin, Ubisoft's uPlay and Microsoft's Windows Store... technically there's others but let's focus on these 3. There are games exclusive to these stores already on PC, so we like it? No! But we kind of have to deal with it and we've almost begun to accept it because if it's an EA game like Anthem, Battlefield or Battlefront we have to have Origin. Or if it's a Ubisoft game like Division, Far Cry or Assassin's Creed we have to use uPlay... but oh wait... more on Ubisoft later... they're an odd one. Then there's the Windows Store, games and franchises once only playable on Xbox can now be played on PC thanks to the Windows Store, you can get a free taste of Halo 5 with Halo 5: Forge, and buy games like Forza and Gears of War and play them on your PC... Microsoft have even realised PC gamers love steam and are releasing Master Chief Collection on Steam.
Why am I explaining all this crap? Because we're used to it, we don't like it necessarily but we're used to it. However I think the reason why the Epic Games Store is rubbing so many people up the wrong way is the lack of choice for third party and indie games. We're used to being able to pick and choose between stores like Steam and GOG or even Origin and uPlay for some games, for years we've seen games launch across multiple different store fronts and we've enjoyed that aspect of choice. However, Epic came in with their Fortnite money and start gaining exclusivity from developers of highly anticipated games. This week we saw Satisfactory by Coffee Stain (Sanctum, Goat Simulator) launch in Early Access on EGS for 12 months before it will ever appear on any other store front on PC. We've also heard that the high profile RPG from Obsidian (KOTOR2, New Vegas), The Outer Worlds, is also going to be an Epic Games Store exclusive. Epic have been smart because they're offering devs much higher % of revenue than Stream as well as baskets of cash to get games onto their platform. The problem with this all being, if they never got exclusive games then they'd never ever be able to compete with Steam which is exactly what they want to do. It's pissing off PC gamers because if Epic launched a store with only Fortnite on it and then launched the same games day and date with steam, their adoption rate would be super low - but we've already seen and heard of success stories, Metro Exodus sold well on EGS and Satisfactory has been doing very well this week. It's a shame to say but it looks like EGS is here to stay and I honestly think Steam/Valve will fire back... eventually. Maybe not in a big way, but if they do go all out, they may start getting exclusives only on Steam - which doesn't seem like a bad thing as everyone has Steam but remember back to 2004 again... Half-Life 2 required Steam - if Valve do what Epic are doing - we'll officially be in the console wars equivalent on PC; with different store fronts restricting choice of PC gamers.
Back to Ubisoft real quick, if you search Steam Ubisoft do have a large catalog on there but (correct me if I'm wrong on this one) once you buy it on Steam it actually activates/opens uPlay to launch the game. So even if you want to only use Steam some games there are sly and launch other launchers just to start games up. We also just saw them launch Division 2 on EGS along side their own uPlay launcher. Muddying the waters even more.
This wasn't really supposed to be an opinion piece, more of just an overview of how Valve had a rocky controversial start and Epic are going through the same. However, Epic seem far more aggressive about restricting choice than Valve ever did with Steam. Sure they forced us to install it to play Half-Life 2 15 years ago but they were at the forefront of digital games purchasing on PC and laid the groundwork for PC game stores for years as well as had a huge hand in the decline of physical media for PC (while still prevalent, it's not as popular of choice for PC gamers anymore). I feel that Epic have swung into the scene, becoming an instant 'no-brainer' for developers because 'more money' but have ended up damaging their reputation with a lot of PC gamers, even if many of us with likely use EGS because we are gamers at heart and want to play these games no matter what platform they are on - and that brings us full circle. In 2004 we wanted to play Half-Life 2 so much that even if having a program installed to launch it from made us angry, we dealt with it because we wanted to play it. Now in 2019, we deal with this same problem again to play Metro Exodus and The Outer Worlds.
Now... before we talk about exclusivity, let's talk about publishers. We already know there's other game stores outside of Valve's Steam on PC. We have EA's Origin, Ubisoft's uPlay and Microsoft's Windows Store... technically there's others but let's focus on these 3. There are games exclusive to these stores already on PC, so we like it? No! But we kind of have to deal with it and we've almost begun to accept it because if it's an EA game like Anthem, Battlefield or Battlefront we have to have Origin. Or if it's a Ubisoft game like Division, Far Cry or Assassin's Creed we have to use uPlay... but oh wait... more on Ubisoft later... they're an odd one. Then there's the Windows Store, games and franchises once only playable on Xbox can now be played on PC thanks to the Windows Store, you can get a free taste of Halo 5 with Halo 5: Forge, and buy games like Forza and Gears of War and play them on your PC... Microsoft have even realised PC gamers love steam and are releasing Master Chief Collection on Steam.
Why am I explaining all this crap? Because we're used to it, we don't like it necessarily but we're used to it. However I think the reason why the Epic Games Store is rubbing so many people up the wrong way is the lack of choice for third party and indie games. We're used to being able to pick and choose between stores like Steam and GOG or even Origin and uPlay for some games, for years we've seen games launch across multiple different store fronts and we've enjoyed that aspect of choice. However, Epic came in with their Fortnite money and start gaining exclusivity from developers of highly anticipated games. This week we saw Satisfactory by Coffee Stain (Sanctum, Goat Simulator) launch in Early Access on EGS for 12 months before it will ever appear on any other store front on PC. We've also heard that the high profile RPG from Obsidian (KOTOR2, New Vegas), The Outer Worlds, is also going to be an Epic Games Store exclusive. Epic have been smart because they're offering devs much higher % of revenue than Stream as well as baskets of cash to get games onto their platform. The problem with this all being, if they never got exclusive games then they'd never ever be able to compete with Steam which is exactly what they want to do. It's pissing off PC gamers because if Epic launched a store with only Fortnite on it and then launched the same games day and date with steam, their adoption rate would be super low - but we've already seen and heard of success stories, Metro Exodus sold well on EGS and Satisfactory has been doing very well this week. It's a shame to say but it looks like EGS is here to stay and I honestly think Steam/Valve will fire back... eventually. Maybe not in a big way, but if they do go all out, they may start getting exclusives only on Steam - which doesn't seem like a bad thing as everyone has Steam but remember back to 2004 again... Half-Life 2 required Steam - if Valve do what Epic are doing - we'll officially be in the console wars equivalent on PC; with different store fronts restricting choice of PC gamers.
Back to Ubisoft real quick, if you search Steam Ubisoft do have a large catalog on there but (correct me if I'm wrong on this one) once you buy it on Steam it actually activates/opens uPlay to launch the game. So even if you want to only use Steam some games there are sly and launch other launchers just to start games up. We also just saw them launch Division 2 on EGS along side their own uPlay launcher. Muddying the waters even more.
This wasn't really supposed to be an opinion piece, more of just an overview of how Valve had a rocky controversial start and Epic are going through the same. However, Epic seem far more aggressive about restricting choice than Valve ever did with Steam. Sure they forced us to install it to play Half-Life 2 15 years ago but they were at the forefront of digital games purchasing on PC and laid the groundwork for PC game stores for years as well as had a huge hand in the decline of physical media for PC (while still prevalent, it's not as popular of choice for PC gamers anymore). I feel that Epic have swung into the scene, becoming an instant 'no-brainer' for developers because 'more money' but have ended up damaging their reputation with a lot of PC gamers, even if many of us with likely use EGS because we are gamers at heart and want to play these games no matter what platform they are on - and that brings us full circle. In 2004 we wanted to play Half-Life 2 so much that even if having a program installed to launch it from made us angry, we dealt with it because we wanted to play it. Now in 2019, we deal with this same problem again to play Metro Exodus and The Outer Worlds.
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Sweet thanks. I was hoping for something slightly more like 20% off as that would be my sweet spot. I will keep isthereanydeal in mind though as i still have a year to find a deal.
better for publishers, not better for consumers. It's not like any of the reduced cut is going to be seen in lower prices.
And Valve I think was the first non-MMO company to require their service running to play your games. The other DD services at the time did not.
And Valve I think was the first non-MMO company to require their service running to play your games. The other DD services at the time did not.
It's remarkable.
Every time someone at Epic opens their mouth, it makes me want to use their platform less.
Every time someone at Epic opens their mouth, it makes me want to use their platform less.
I don't think the industry heads understand the concept of centralizing a launcher. I don't want to have to have 50 different launchers installed on my computer (which I do unfortunately). Steam was/is a solid launcher with great organization and solid features built into it. I would legit pay a small monthly fee for a "movies anywhere" -like counterpart for PC games that has achievements and a social aspect that can unify all games from all launchers (and not require the use of those launchers in order to play).
Poor and middle class people never get this. Rich people are frugal as hell. Most stuff they have they got free or heavily discounted thru connections.
They watch every penny and make their money work for them. I've "yelled" at so many on this forum (because I like you all) about preordering digital (months out) , to give corporations more money they can sit and earn interest on while you get nothing as those preorders aren't even binding. Dates change, content changes. Financially it makes no sense especially when you can preorder digitally up until moments before release.
Ugh. Starting to sound like my dad and I don't even like him lol.
Ok rant over, I now return everyone to their regularly scheduled conversation.
I'm not sure why you lot are so aggro about this. If its good for devs = they can make more games, hire more staff etc. This isn't a bad thing at all.
It's PR speak but hey whatever. He's talking revenue for the dev houses, and this "teething drama" will be a distant memory in 1-2 years.
It's PR speak but hey whatever. He's talking revenue for the dev houses, and this "teething drama" will be a distant memory in 1-2 years.
One thing I hate more than anything in the world is people trying to tell me what's good for me.
That's a guaranteed way to make me do the exact opposite, even if I realize it may not be the best way of doing things.
Epic will not see a cent of my money.
All that money I'm saving by Epic taking titles I was really looking forward to (Like Sinking City, Outer Worlds, Control, etc) and putting them into its one-year paid beta will go to GOG. Because that's a store that gives me value for the price markup over Steam, and it needs my money a helluva lot more to survive Epic's "market disruption"
That's not totally correct. Steam was already around more for than a year prior to the release of HL2 and was a replacement for the World Opponent Network (ONE). This network was run by Sierra and was used for every online mod that came with HL1 but ONE got shutdown prior to the HL2 release.
Everyone who was playing Team Fortress, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, even Ricochet, was already using Steam before HL2 came out and everyone knew that you would need Steam to continue playing online mods based on HL1 or HL2.
"People hated Steam back then" is somewhat a hyperbole. Many people disliked it but also some people liked it because it allowed them to keep playing online.
Valve owned WON (not ONE). They shut it down and replaced it with Steam. There were a lot of very unhappy players who didn't want to install Steam at the time... lots of memes calling it a "Steaming pile of s***", etc.
valve should shutdown steam for at least 10-15 years to allow for the competition to catch up. its really unfair otherwise. all those years ago, how were epic to know that pc gaming wasn't actually dying and that pc gamers weren't all pirates. they shouldn't be punished for simple mistakes like that.
I didn't know people actually even bought Steam retail cards. I'm kinda confused about what costs Valve is covering, despite the image.
Love it. That twitter thread? is full of things Valve is doing that can help devs expand reach to developing markets that goes against the whole argument that Valve just sits there collecting their 30% and does nothing else.
Yeah. That extra cost that goes into these non-standard payment methods, they eat it from their cut.
Epic provides less payment methods and pushes that extra cost onto the consumer. It also helps from a practicality front, in that the costs you see on the store front will more often than not reflect the final price of the product you're buying.
There is that for sure. I was also looking at them setting it up so developers can easily distribute their games to PC cafes for example and general network API improvements.
All of that cost money to develop, test, support and so on.
In this very thread. Publishers are going to use all this extra cash to make us great new games, the extra money they get by screwing us over on competitive pricing will be good for us in the long run, COMPETITION. Sad stuff.
My parents often buy me those Steam gift cards for my birthday.
The costs they are covering is the retail store cut of the cards. They sell them to stores for 10-15% less than the face valve of the cards since I imagine most stores wouldn't sell them (or other gift cards like that) without making some money on them.
OP
OP
Nah I completely agree with you. They're especially now doing literally nothing (they being all the companies that are like this) to earn me to consider a pre-order. it's all skins in game and flashy shit.
I kinda actually agree, at least for now with a reservation to take it back. Any contestor to Steam has to do everything they can to get a foot in the race, and Epic's doing a pretty good job so far, snagging exclusives left and right, giving good deals to publishers and devs, and handing out really high quality free games to players. Also appreciate the hand-picked selection of games, instead of just allowing everything and not giving a shit about racist, sexist and otherwise horrible PoS games.
I don't really get being a "Fan" of Steam (or any other gigantic storefront, for that matter), so that's fine with me. I don't see Valve putting any effort in keeping me as an exclusive customer, be it pricing, sales or just allowing rancid software on their store and playing the "both sides" ball on topics I really care about.
What they do need to do though is to add more features to the actual store, adding a better overview/search/promotion situation and maybe add some community features like friendlist, hopping into multiplayer games and maybe user profiles.
IDK. I understand some of the anger steered at Epic, but overall, to me at least, it's way overblown and kind of silly sometimes. But yeah, that's just my own opinion, and believe me I noticed I'm in the minority here lol.
Blablablabla monopoly blablablabla, competition blablabla but ain't anything positive to consumers
Poor epic, most consumers are silly and hate him without any motivation... i am sad that some people not cares with his shitty practices with games that where anounced on another storefront or how they use his launcher as spyware or how the games that are exclusive om epic are more expensive....
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Oh but see he needs to push that notion. He wants it to continue, and people who continue it are idiots who are just following it.
He HAS to make it appear as tho the outrage has anything to do with 70/30 to even sound reasonable. It's false, but it's the only way he can make him sound credible.
except if you're born rich.
but yeah, most rich people I know who had to work to get where they are dont waste money. If something is broken, they'll fix it. If they want something, they'll wait until it gets a sale.
To add on to your point. Again if a developer works under a Publisher (who handles distribution) who gets the increased cut and the exclusive moneyhat?
So with the vast majority of the high profile moneyhats, it's not the dev getting the extra money. It's the Publisher. That's an inconvenient fact that is being left out.
Yah know, the same Publishers that are pretty awful that is causing a push for Developer Unionization (which I support completely)
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Yup.
I love how Publishers aren't even the ones suffering from the 70/30 thing. They do just fine. Why is epic doing this? Easy. They want the big publishers. They want to replace steam. They see that gigantic pie steam has all to itself, and they want it. And they can get it without earning their place as steam did, carving it out over the years as they pioneered something completely new. Because people forget there was a world where steam didn't exist. It wasn't great. Not for PC gaming. Epic has let Valve do all the work, and now they want in, and they can't even be arsed to copy Valve's homework.
In fact. This makes everything make a whole lot of sense don't it.
Because guess what. Valve knows this too. Hence: Valve progressively lowering their cut as your game sells more on steam now. This is also directly aimed at big publishers. They most certainly are competing with Epic. Directly. Because they know what Epic is going for.
This was never about the indies. It's about domination and control of the PC gaming space. The pay split is directly aimed at big publishers, i.e. the ones with power in the industry, because that's what Epic is trying to obtain.
Epic needs indies now because indies need all the financial help they can get. So we start with indies, we have all this great messaging towards indies. We talk about how much better our split is for developers.
Yeah. But fun fact: I can look and speak at one person as I talk to another.
Epic is speaking to indies, but they are directly addressing big publishers. This "pro-developer" is a palatable, good-guy stance. It sounds good, noble, wholesome. Fight for the underdog right? Yeah sure. I mean they're happy for that to be true, but indies are not the priority. The priority is the big guys. This is why no forums, no reviews, no anything that publishers don't like.
See there are so many minor things, if you look at them, you start to see that rift between indie and publisher. For example: publishers don't benefit or lose from the disinclusion of forums right? Because a big publisher can have their own forum. So not having one on Epic can only be a good thing for them. If they don't want a forum, they don't have to. If they want one, they can. But for indies? Well, having an already set up platform for a support forum is very useful to an indie dev. And guess what Epic doesn't have. Like. Yes, an indie and a big publisher could technically both not want a forum. Fine. But if they do want a forum, then only the big publisher has those resources. The publisher is fine whichever they want. The indie may be or may not be.
This isn't about supporting the developer. It's for the publishers out there. And it's not to lower prices. It's to appeal with them with the idea of even more record profits with no more effort than switching platform.
Which I mean, fine. Competition. It's not a bad thing to want to compete with steam. You need big devs to do that. But its couched in so much deceit. It's phrased as "for the developers" when it's really for the publishers. And see, none of it is an outright lie. It is for the smaller developers. They need to build a base of desired, exclusive smaller games. But the language is still manipulative. It's gaining support from people by misdirecting what Epic's priorities actually are to gain sympathies of those who may not have given it otherwise.
The problem is Epic does not care about earning their spot next to Valve. They care about coming in and bullying Valve out, taking advantage of Valve's rather open garden. They don't care about playing fair or earning their spot by their own merits. It's ruthless business tactics that does not care about the consumer or the developer. They care about what gets them money and ensures they win. This means indies be damned. It's just that, right now, they're useful. All Epic needs to do in the meantime is gaslight and insist this is good for the consumer because...trickledown is what it comes down to.
As a side note, I guarantee you if steam didn't exist right now and Epic was the one trying to control the PC gaming space, they would charge for online play.
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Yeah I could have been a lot less wordy and basically just said this lol.
This isn't about good guy Epic. It's about appealing directly to big publishers to try to create their own store and dominate PC gaming themselves.
This isn't "competition" guys. This is fight to the death.
This is why people like Valve more the Epic, ladies and gentleman.
And man, that's coming from someone like me who has a lot of criticism towards Valve.
They're trying to be conquerors. You don't give conquerors the benefit of the doubt.
It has nothing to do with the cut, it's a shitty storefront with lack of features that they are funneling developers exclusively into.
Funny you should mention that.
Because we're talking about a guy who hated PC gaming and left it because it was "all pirates." Which of course then was followed by Valve coming in and making steam and demonstrating that their philosophy about "if you provide a better service, they will come" was true. Yeah please tell me more about this guy who has been in the industry for so long...despite having been actively away from the relevant part of it we're discussing.
Oh and Sweeney still thought PC gaming was all pirates in 2010 apparently judging by the quote I quoted a bit above, while Steam continued to grow bigger and bigger. There is no indication that he doesn't still think that. And that he ever did given the evidence at the time has completely deleted his credibility on the matter. And given how controlled and walled EGS is, it seems pretty clear he still views PC gamers as dangerous, ruthless pirates. Some people resent that. Valve never had to treat PC gaming that way, leaving their own platform open to other developers, and never making any effort to pressure any publisher/developer to keep anything exclusive to Valve's store.
So yeah uh, forgive us all when we don't have a whole lot of confidence in this arrogant veteran of the industry, who has thrown up his hands and left the largest division of that industry, while others, like, huh, VALVE, succeeded there.
Ya nah. Fuck him.
This forum is so hypocritical. Everyone claims to be for the devs and better conditions and pay, but clearly not if it inconveniences them slightly because they can't have a game in their steam library. The reaction to the epic stuff in about 50 different threads is ridiculous. But as ever, reset doesn't represent the real world as games on epic seem to be selling well.