-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
World of Goo getting rebuilt for modern PCs, updated version coming to EGS first, no artificial delay for other stores (see threadmark and staff post)
- Thread starter Deleted member 10737
- Start date
I am going to have to stop you here:
- EGS launched in a worse state as a launcher than Discord (which launched months before).
- EGS launched in a worse state as a launcher than Origin (which launched in 2013).
- EGS launched in a similar state as a launcher than Steam when it opened itself to third party publishers (ca 2006-7).
Why does it take around 5 months (at least) to get Cloud Saves?
Why did it take 1 month after launch for them to add Regional Pricing?
Why did it take 3.5 months for them to add a search bar to their shop (which doesnt have tags)?
These are all core things in a gaming shop.
They put zero effort into the shop side of the bussiness. It is not about launching a "perfect" product. It is about launching a product that it is not worse than subpar.
You are always giving it a pass because you are a developer so you see it in the eyes of developers. I am a consumer and thus I have my own different point of view and my point of view is that they give zero shits about me. They supposedly spend years making the store... by making a store that launched in a worse state than any default store-making website can do.
So there's a lot of different perspectives. In no particular order...
1. Some people (primarily console or mobile devs) just don't differentiate between storefronts. I live and work in the US, my friends mostly live and work in the US. EGS primarily serves the NA/EU regions, so they don't have perspective into foreign markets, so how EGS behaves and performs in those markets is not considered. And while they'd identify as "hardcore" gamers, they don't match the zeal and dedication of a lot of posters on Era. So they're not making use of all of Steam's features, or would even be able to rattle off what those features are. The truth is, most of Steam's features are not applicable to the average gamer. Cloud saves is probably the biggest QoL issue I'd identify as being notably missing from EGS at the moment (though it's in their roadmap for this summer). Let's put this group into the "ignorant" camp--not using it as a pejorative as much as saying that they don't have access to all the information to making a judgment call, or if they do, they don't think it matters.
2. Some people (primarily indie devs--including those with friends who actually have EGS deals) are looking at it from a business perspective. They recognize that indie development is taxing and difficult to sustain, and are open to any form of cash in hand. It's important to understand that having one hit doesn't ensure future hits, and that name recognition doesn't always translate to revenue. Not gonna name names here, but I've said in previous EGS threads, having a guaranteed amount of money will absolutely outweigh the risk of your game underperforming. These people are willing to overlook the consumer hit because they prioritize keeping their jobs and a steady source of income.
3.The last group (mostly AAA devs) basically hold the same arguments that Randy Pitchford put forth. Some of it is admittedly nebulous, but they're just not content with the state of digital retail right now and want to see greater evolution. They've never complained about the cut previously (it's just been accepted, mostly), but there's implicit acknowledgement that greater revenue will have trickle-down effects--not even necessarily in the form of cash-in-hand for individual employees, but greater opportunities for the dev houses.
Perhaps this could be of help?
https://www.mcvuk.com/just-6-of-devs-think-valve-justifies-its-30-steam-cut-says-new-gdc-poll/
There are two sides of the equation, and it does benefit gamers in the long run if the concerns of those who make the games you play are addressed.
The answer is that for most people those extra features that are missing (but still coming) are superfluous.
Do you have any development or IT experience?
Calling a search function superfluos in a store might be the worst most backwards statements I have seen. But yeah sure.
As I have said. The store launched in a worse state than you can get from any of the websites that create shops for you. Using Shopify would give you a better experience than EGS.
Again: I did not expect EGS to launch with most functionalities that Steam has. But I did expect it to be better than Origin at launch or at least the same level.
The reductionist take that adding regional pricing to even half of the internet-connected countries on the planet is a <1 month job is a really embarrassing one.
I can't really answer with 100% certainty because I don't have experience in most of those...
But as Hero says, in software development you generally try to prioritize based on impact and scope. Given that the new Epic is a very data-driven company, I can only assume that they determined none of those features were part of the MVP (minimum viable product) for a successful launch. This is honestly the right way to do software development nowadays.
Re: Cloud saves specifically, I have no experience here, but I imagine it's a pretty complicated process that would've extended MVP scope.
Re: regional pricing, unlike Steam, their audience is presumably 80%+ Tier 1 countries, so regional pricing is less important and not required for MVP.
Re: search bar, this is actually quite easy to do relatively speaking, but would result in a potentially bad user experience given the limited number of titles they launched with. For example, if a user were under the assumption that they had a more robust list of titles, and kept searching for titles they didn't have, they'd have a bad user experience. So my assumption is that this was intentional. Could be wrong though... maybe there's more to it!
Also I think some people might be asking "they have tons of money, why don't they just throw more people at it?"
Well, after they're done, they need to be moved onto new projects. And if those projects don't exist, they get laid off.
And THAT'S how you get an ActiBlizz situation!
People said that Linux users have "zero access to Epic Store", I corrected them. Who's mocking who?
EGS launched in a bad state, no one is really questioning that, but I imagine the aggressiveness of the business division really surprised the actual store development team and they expanded too quickly for them to get in front of the stores shortcomings.
One thing is to talk about missing features like cloud saves, another thing is to implement them. Everything takes time from a development perspective and we can't expect things to change overnight, Epic has actually been quite fast at implementing some of the missing features. Not to say it isn't alright they launched in such a poor state, but we can't fault the developers of the store much here since they are trying their best to support what is probably the fastest growing gaming platform in the world right now.
30 days to implement regional pricing is insanely fast in my book considering the logistics of implementing and testing that, 5 months for cloud saves is also quite fast considering the infrastructure needed to be developed to support at the scale they operate on.
They don't need marketing or publicity, since barely anyone is buying the game anymore. They're being paid to give it away free on the EGS, with Epic funding the updates to fix legacy issues with the game. Nothing wrong with a temporary exclusive in this case.
I thought people said they wouldn't have issues with Epic having exclusives they funded?
Can't very well turn down a good deal from EGS to appease people who bought their game for $.99 years ago.
According to my Steam account I got this game in 2010, almost assuredly when the first Humble Bundle happened
God I'm An Old now
God I'm An Old now
When you have a small, curated library of games to choose from, yes, a search function is absolutely superfluous. Nome even mentioned how it could make the user experience worse by having it implemented too soon.
You're looking at it from a consumer standpoint, which is completely fine, but you need to realize that the majority of complaints and criticisms about the actual store front will be handled within a year or so, which is extremely quick in terms of software development.
Which brings me to my next point, when developing, they probably used something like the MoSCoW method.
I imagine for Epic, they decided the must haves were the launcher could be opened, a game could be purchased, and the game could be played. I would guess that's all that really matters to 80% of gamers, and everything else is superfluous to their overall experience. Software development is harder than you think or credit it for, and from a business standpoint it doesn't make sense to have waited for a search function or cloud-saves to be there on day one when most consumers probably don't use them.
Interview with Ars Technica
Hey everyone,
I reached out to Tomorrow Corporation to get more context and see what story we might run at Ars Technica, as opposed to just running with PC Gamer's report. I'm glad I did. Our conversation is now up:
More on this version's newly unencrypted assets and more at Ars.
I reached out to Tomorrow Corporation to get more context and see what story we might run at Ars Technica, as opposed to just running with PC Gamer's report. I'm glad I did. Our conversation is now up:
More on this version's newly unencrypted assets and more at Ars.
EGS seems to be improving a bit, especially with selling some keys on humble and gmg.
World of Goo as the free game? Pathetic. I can still play it NP on my 4:3 lcd monitor, thanks. Lol.
World of Goo as the free game? Pathetic. I can still play it NP on my 4:3 lcd monitor, thanks. Lol.
Oops. PC Gamer tripping all over themselves to be an EGS advertorial.
Good to know and good reporting.
OP
OP
thank you, threadmarked
i'll ask for a title change
So people jumped to conclusions and spouted hatred for EGS (and some even the developers) for nothing?
Those conclusions were reached based on the article, which states the update is coming to EGS first.
OP
OP
is this a good title?
"World of Goo getting rebuilt for modern PCs, updated version coming to EGS first, no artificial delay for other stores (see threadmark and staff post)"
"World of Goo getting rebuilt for modern PCs, updated version coming to EGS first, no artificial delay for other stores (see threadmark and staff post)"
Well, the assumption was that EGS paid for exclusivity, when there is no exclusivity. I was guilty of that assumption too.
Turns out they just wanted to prioritize the version being featured.
A proactive fix for EGS seems reasonable, although I wonder if it was maybe just planned to be a silent update (on current platforms) that was changed with being a free game.
Seems like 21:9 support is implied:
OP
OP
Yeah, concluding that Epic moneyhatted a 10 year old game to have a resolution bump for a year was totally a rational thought.
It really never made sense to me why Epic would ever pay for a patch. I couldn't see what they were getting out of it. Exclusive games make sense but an exclusive period for a patch, for a game as old as World Of Goo, with as many copies as it sold, just seemed so odd.
Dont be so fucking ignorant. People were claiming this was a remaster and all and no one said it was a year.
I mean, it was a thought that was plausible with the information given, regardless if people were criticising or defending it.
And crazier things have happened in the gaming industry.
And I'd argue people in this thread still defending the shortcomings of a multibillion corporation with "give them time!" is more irrational.
Why would anything think this is a remaster? It's basically just a GoG style update. Res bump + make sure it doesn't crash. It's literally in the OP.
Yeah, paying for patch alone doesn't make much sense but:
- Giveaway
- Patch first
- Their next game
as package deal? That is very realistic.
Epic says they pay for games they giveaway, so we know they already did that.
And for other games, exclusive games have come from devs who were featured in giveaway, so that's plausible.
I called it a remaster because they're redoing assets rather than just fixing technical issues. I think that's a perfectly fair characterization, but difference is mostly semantic anyway.
On the one hand, who expects a patch at all for a decade old game. This presumably wouldn't have happened otherwise.
But on the other hand, the patch being a timed exclusive is real dumb. Like...why even? It is properly silly and seems incredibly petty.
If Epic hadn't done that, everyone would be perfectly happy about this.
A game's patched to work better with modern PC's and it's free on EGS. Cool.
But no, we cant let competitions haves it, precious.
Like...what the fuck?
Oh I see.
If Epic hadn't done that, everyone would be perfectly happy about this.
A game's patched to work better with modern PC's and it's free on EGS. Cool.
But no, we cant let competitions haves it, precious.
Like...what the fuck?
Oh I see.
Last edited:
Isn't that the definition of a remaster to be fair? People in this thread said this was a new game and not an update which made this whole thing more confusing.
What I meant with that is people said it wasn't an update which implies a "new game". Then I personally think its more ok with EGS exclusivity (but still shitty). Holding a update for a game that people already bought would've been disgusting (which was what the article was implying).
I mean.. you already have people in this thread talking about double triple dipping. The vast majority of them will play it on epic, some weirdo few will wait until the steam patch.
Along with axiom verge I'd say epic has picked some real winners to give away for free.
I commented using the info available at the time, am happy now with the Ars info and not at all ashamed of my comment.
I have been buying the games from this dev directly from them since Little Inferno (full price, not at $.99 like someone else implied), based on how I liked World of Goo and would 100% be turned off if the original (false) gist of the story turned out to be true.
What does Epic get out of those people? Why pay for a patch so that maybe a couple people that already own the game will come to your store and download it? It does nothing but make them look petty to block a patch just to force existing owners to download a game they already paid money for. They could just do their free game period, look good and lose nothing. Again, it makes no sense.
I am glad it's not the case that Epic is paying for exclusive patches but I am surprised at how many people seemed totally fine with it.
Thanks for this interesting post. The reasoning of groups 1 and 2 sounds familiar to me, but I'm a bit confused about group 3. Pc gaming is almost full digital, resulting in many benefits for devs already: no retail costs, self publishing, Steam offering many features like matchmaking etc.
I may be wrong, but I think discovery and the fact that there are too many good/similar games in most (niche) genres are the most significant issues for smaller devs. I'm not sure sure this applies for AAA games as well. So I'm curious why they aren't content with the state of digital retail right now and want to see greater evolution. Is this only about the smaller cut or are there other issues I'm not aware of?
In a hypothetical situation where EGS paid a developer to patch a game, why should EGS (or anyone for that matter) willingly allow their direct competitors to benefit from their investment? I don't see the issue with that. If you are willing to front the cash to have the patch created, you should reap the benefits of it.
To put this in a different perspective. In the film market, if the Criterion Collection spends the money to make a pristine transfer of a film, should they then be obliged to give that transfer to every Blu-Ray/Streaming service that also has the rights to the film?
To me you do it for the good PR which is way more valuable than an exclusive patch for a 10-year-old indie game. The film example doesn't work because in that market you aren't used to getting your movies updated for free. There has been countless examples through the years on PC of old games being updated with patches. Your film example would make more sense for a remake or a remaster.
Caveat here, I've never published anything on Steam. So I don't actually keep track of all the features Steam provides outside of gleaning what's been said in these threads (for example, I didn't realize DRM was optional on Steam, and got owned for it lol). Also, this is gonna be pretty rambly because I'm at the end of a long day of work, so apologies if my thoughts aren't cohesive.
Regarding the publishing aspect--I think this is a misconception regarding how much work goes into publishing, and what the term publishing actually means nowadays. In effect, publishing refers to all of the work not involved in directly developing the game, including but not limited to--business development (raising funds, making deals), funding and payroll, marketing, community management, user acquisition, localization, customer support, and production of physical media. In the old days, the logistics of physical media was the biggest hump for most developers to get their product launched; nowadays, it's "mostly" payroll, as the rest is either optional or has been hammered down to a science (user acquisition and marketing in particular, while still extremely expensive, have become extremely streamlined due to digital marketing innovations like ad bids and targeted ads). The value add of many Steam features, while 100% positive for consumers, and certainly wasn't standardized before Steam, presents a smaller benefit to AAA devs who may already have certain frameworks in place, and who are expected to support those things for the major console platform holders anyway.
The role of Steam as a storefront and distributor basically harkens back to the subject of marketing and user acquisition again. Something all platform holders do (including Apple and Google) is that they'll co-promote your product if they believe in it, generally at no extra cost, because it helps to promote their own platform as well. Steam, as far as I know, does not do this, either within its own ecosystem or outside it. This is important, as given how expensive user acquisition is, this type of "organic" featuring can save millions of dollars in user acquisition costs. I can't speak for AAA traditional boxed products here, as they tend to spend their budget in a launch blitz, but in my field (mobile F2P GaaS), user acquisition spend can go upwards of $1 million / week for top-performing GaaS products. When my friends (and Randy) say things like they want Valve to reinvest their revenue into the storefront, what they're saying is that they want features and services that benefit the developer and help them make more sales, or help them better reach their customers. Or, failing that, for them to offer a better cut to devs/pubs, because the biggest benefit to selling on Steam for them is the size of the audience, not anything else. In other words, for every feature Steam has, you have to ask, "what direct measurable revenue benefit does this provide to the developer?" and you'll see their perspective on why certain things don't matter as much. The big one that Steam currently offers that's very beneficial to devs is superior regional pricing options, but I suspect that the types of games EGS are currently offering underperform outside of T1 countries anyway.
Also a bigger cut would be great :P
Last edited: