I wouldn't really mind. As you said, it's the same hardware.
It's a silly example though. I can understand if you're running any linux distro, but if you're running Windows you just have to donwload an installer and that's it
Ah, so you're a Linux user then. Because honestly if using Linux was so seamless, there's no way its adoption rate would be so low, now with how it costs nothing to acquire and has a number of definite advantages over Windows.
Face it, Linux has a barrier to entry. Which is its defining problem - for the vast majority of people, even being free, Linux is just not as convenient.
I see you pushing back proposed effective forms of protest (Voting with your wallet) and claiming that what we have now is ok because seeing the outrage developers will think twice before taking the deal. I'll save my opinion about that because i don't want to get banned but, are you aware of how do you sound?
I did not "push back" voting with your wallet. I declared it ineffective, because voting with your wallet is a monetary form of protest. Epic Games is explicitly negating monetary protest by directly compensating the publisher for lost sales.
Do not put words in my mouth, I did not say that what we have now is "okay". I said that that's the way it's going to be. It's a statement based on observation, not an opinion.
Take a look at the current landscape and tell me you wouldn't shield developers from reviewbombing, death threats, insults and the likes just because they took their game to another fucking storefront for fucks sake.
The "current landscape" being a mad dash to wring as much money from the gamers by whatever means possible? The current landscape in which the consumer is regarded as anything from a resource to be exploited, to a necessary evil?
I don't condone death threats, I believe those should be regulated by law regardless of cause. Everything else though? Yes people tend to be volatile on the internet, but even so there are very few cases of review bombs and insult/harassment sprees that were not in some form caused by the inability of the playerbase to convey the magnitude of their displeasure by other means.
I would, for instance, in no shape way or form remove "review-bombing" as a form of expressing displeasure. I would instead create a way for users to manage how they view user reviews, to rate and evaluate them. Very much the kind of thing Steam does already, except I would make the "include off-topic review-bombs" option an opt-out, rather than opt-in. People should see them, and decide for themselves if they don't want to see them again. Because this way they will not bother the users who don't care for them, and the devs/publishers are not automatically shielded from negative feedback on any dumb decisions they commit in the future.
Yeah, why didn't they see such a huge and unjustified shitstorm coming?
Yes, why didn't they? They literally advertised the lack of user reviews and community forums as a safeguard to shield developers from negative backlash on their platform, and they didn't think that there exists an entire world-wide web beyond their platform for that backlash to spill over into, with far more wide-reaching social media services that leaves those developers completely exposed?
Oh, it isn't? Let's make these studio's fans buy another hardware... forever isn't scummy to you?
When console platform holders "buy exclusives", they buy them in advance. Because platforms are different and hard to port to, a "platform exclusive" is more often than not entirely funded by the platform holder, basically start to finish.
I would honestly get more value out of spending money on a PS4 to play some games, than getting those same games on EGS, even if I already have a PC to run them. Because with spending money on a PS4, I actually get something of value out of it - as another gaming platform, a standalone media player, a paperweight or a doorstop if nothing else. With entering the Epic Games Store ecosystem 'for free', I don't just get 'nothing' - I get stuff
taken away.
Buying exclusives (and incidentally support their operations with money) is a time-honored tradition too.
Not on PC. There were no platform wars on PC until Epic Games brought them in.
I have no idea what you mean by this. That's like saying would you be fine with the next Zelda running exclusively on Android because the Switch can technically run that OS. It's not going to happen. The fear monger approach isn't worth the eInk it's printed on.
It's not fearmongering, it's an exaggerated counterexample. I'm pretty tired of people saying that "all PC is the same hardware", as if software platforms do not exist, or do not have barriers to entry, or do not affect one's enjoyment of something in one way or another. Just because one can play the same game on a Switch in two different configurations (i.e., Doom, or any number of Shield ports or emulators, etc - via homebrew), does not mean that it doesn't matter which one you are able to play.
This entire gaming thing seems to be headed towards a "streaming future" where hardware won't mean a thing anymore. I wonder if the differences between software platforms will become a bit more obvious then.
So Epic publishing the games and having publishing control forever is better than a timed exclusivity after which the developer can do whatever they want with the IP?
I don't know, that kind of seems worse for consumers...
True, worse for the consumers overall. But that doesn't stop anyone now, so I'm not sure why it's a consideration. :P
Either way, it's a much better solution for developers, because they get some manner of 'contractual obligation' from the platform holder, to keep upholding them and any of their following projects, rather than getting paid for one game and getting thrown to the wolves after the exclusivity ends.
These developers that took the deal and only have timed exclusivity on their game, what do you think the user reviews on their game will be like elsewhere? Or on their next game? Or any community forums they set up? The internet is nothing if not petty, and it doesn't often forget.
