I remember simply scrolling to the bottom of the EULA to create an offline account.
Good luck creating an offline account on Steam with no internet connection.
4A Games developer: If Metro Exodus does not sell on the PC, the next Metro will not come out for it (Up: Deep Silver Official Response)
- Thread starter Sqrt
- Start date
Good luck creating an offline account on Steam with no internet connection.
What is this garbage? You need to pay almost 6 Euros in fees if you want to buy a game from EGS? You can buy some great games for 6 Euros on Steam, especially during sales period.But how is Finland considered developing country, where base price is 40% more than in US? and 5% payment fee on top of that makes it almost 50% more than.
It's just his shitty excuse.
Depends on the payment processor.
Unlike Steam, the Epic Game Store puts payment processing costs onto customers for quite a large number of payment processors.
I paid less the 6 euros for Metro 2033 and Last Light Bundle on Steam
So in those developing countries, with generally much weaker currencies, should pay extra, because a billion dollar company doesn't make enough money from them?
and thats a proper EXCUSE? The poorest of the poorest nations should pay more because Epic can't make enough money from them?
Suprisingly there is little support by Epic Defenders here to not overcharge poor countries.
So just another piece of proof that 12%/88% business model is unsustainable. Once masses flock to EGS and try to buy the latest AAA title they will LOVE these excessive hidden fees.
Right now EGS is running on good will of ill informed and confused faux competition mongers. Let's see how EGS performs in real life with real users come February 15th.
This is the equivalent of a man holding a gun to his own head and yelling "STOP OR THE IDIOT GETS IT"
By the way, to the people saying "review bombing is awful especially when people use reviews for tech aspects".
https://twitter.com/galyonkin/status/1092174967402307587
That's right. Not only there's no boards to voice your technical woes, not only they aim to make reviews opt-in... but freaking TICKETS FOR SUPPORT IS OPT-IN.
https://twitter.com/galyonkin/status/1092174967402307587
That's right. Not only there's no boards to voice your technical woes, not only they aim to make reviews opt-in... but freaking TICKETS FOR SUPPORT IS OPT-IN.
But how is Finland considered developing country, where base price is 40% more than in US? and 5% payment fee on top of that makes it almost 50% more than.
It's just his shitty excuse.
Holy shit...
I was under the impression Epic didn't like sales. Felt they devalued games and weren't effective at driving sales. Pulling a Nintendo is a bit tricky when you're dealing with other people's games and an open platform, though.
Not to mention their main product is F2P.
Holy fuck. Tech support being opt-in for developers is completely and absolutely idiotic.
It's not one or the the other. 30% is excessive 12% isn't sustainable. 18-20% is fair for a store front running scripts and software that isn't anything unique.
I believe I asked you to explain why you think MS/Sony's 30% cut is justified (despite them having paid online and lesser storefront features) but Valve's 30% cut would be "excessive". Do you want to elaborate?
jesus fucking christ
all this time they were touting "oh just use the ticket system if you have a technical issue"
and even that is fucking opt-in? jesus christ what a fucking disaster of a store.
But at least you're fighting the monopoly.But how is Finland considered developing country, where base price is 40% more than in US? and 5% payment fee on top of that makes it almost 50% more than.
It's just his shitty excuse.
/s
This is why Steam needs to remove any timed exclusive game from their store. Let Epic users get a ticket to solve their problems.
My post wasn't prompted by yours, although I can certainly see why it might have seemed that way! I was reading through earlier pages of the thread and forgot I wasn't on the most recent one.
Nah I didn't actually think you were referring to me. But I'm just puzzled as to what you mean because I haven't really seen that. You should probably quote posts who actually said that and respond to them, next time, because it just kind of looks like a strawman right now.
To be honest, I don't care what share of the sales price the devs get, I am not a shareholder. I care about what I get and at what price. Epic does not really wow me on those fronts.
Sergey says they will require the devs to provide some sort of way to contact them for technical issues when they opt out of the in-built ticketing system.
This thread is huge but is there really a majority saying developers should make less? It's a pain to navigate and look back all these pages.
There are many reasons as a consumer to not like the epic games store, which has been documented countless times. Not liking the Epic Games Store or the actions Deep Silver and Epic made isn't the same as saying people wouldn't want developers to make more.
The problem with this, is that it's pretty easy to exploit by just giving an email address that nobody ever reads.
None of the Metro games have been a broken mess, why would they start now? Sure, base 2033 wasn't the most optimised but mess is a huge stretch, never mind broken.
Embarrassing post and no wonder 4A devs are starting to tilt.
This isn't all that ridiculous though? Not compared to Steam anyway. Steam doesn't have the option to send support tickets to developers at all. If you click on "support" on a game's page in your library, it gets you to an FAQ. If your answer is not in there you can click on a "contact game support" button, however this only gets you a page saying "We're sorry to hear you are having trouble with this game" with links to the websites of the publisher or video game. Which don't even necessarily send you to the support website.
Having an opt-in ticket support system is actually more than what Steam offers when it comes to letting you contact the developers.
Last edited:
I mean you know Steam has forums that devs regularly post in, right? Epic doesn't.
This is technically true, but it's important to understand that this revelation comes within context of having opt-in reviews. In steam, consumer has power in form of a review. However small that is, if there's a broad issue, this quickly adds up and even makes headlines.
On Epic Games you easily end up without even that.
An ticket support system is great. But having it was the way to supposedly making reviews opt-in. It was basically a way to communicate about technical issues but in silence (ticket means others cant see it. A review or a thread though ?). But now, it's also opt-in. Which means in the end, publishers are getting more and more way to offload and silence customers.
And you can ignore support tickets. I assume at that point you actually contact Epic to deal with that shit.
But how is Finland considered developing country, where base price is 40% more than in US? and 5% payment fee on top of that makes it almost 50% more than.
It's just his shitty excuse.
lolwut, that pricing is insane.
If it's blatant that they're doing it to "silence" customers, folks have plenty of places to complain about that.
Realistically though, the real reason this is opt-in is probably because a lot of smaller developers don't have the resources to deal with support tickets. For example, it will be impossible for small indie teams to deal with all the support tickets they'd get. Dealing with those is an entire job which they'd need to hire and train people for. And that's not something all indie developers can do. Developers who get a ton of hate and harassment from bigots probably don't want to make use of it either, since that'd just be another way for them to get harassed by.
I imagine big publishers who can do that will generally make use of it, or give a link where people can send messages to their customer support. If they don't and it's blatantly done to "silence" customers, folks have plenty of options to start a shitstorm about that. They've clearly found plenty already. Given that I don't think there's ever been a case of publishers shutting down their customer support to do this though, I doubt it'll happen.
Yes, people have ways to complain. But the further away it is from the store page, the better it is for the devs.
I'll take an exemple with Amazon or Steam: When you see a product page the reviews often tells you what you need to know about the product. And if a product is bad, you know it fast enough whereas without it, you'd need to search on the internet elsewhere in the hope to find an answer.
We're talking about support tickets, not user reviews or forums.
This support ticket is the answer to why the user reviews are opt-in and forums unavailable.
I think you have this the other way around - large developers have their own support infrastructure and are less likely to make use of an integrated system, while small developers are more likely to use the integrated one. Unless I've missed something the integrated support on Steam has never been a thing that people have made a fuss about being too hard to manage or w/e.
It pretty clearly isn't. I imagine they're opt-in because there have been a ton of cases where people abused user reviews on Steam. No forums I imagine is because without proper moderation, forums can easily become a toxic mess. Again, Steam's forums are a good example of that.
Sergey clearly said so. That reviews were used as a way to complain about technical issues and that instead they wanted to provide a ticket support.
A ticket support is far less vocal than a review or a thread on the storepage.
The ticket system is now opt-in too.
I don't have a PC with windows to check but in Norway a surcharge based on payment type is not legal.
You have to give all customers the same price regardless and it can't be displayed on the receipt if you bake it into the price like VAT.
I see Finland is treated well with a 85€ price + surcharge.
You have to give all customers the same price regardless and it can't be displayed on the receipt if you bake it into the price like VAT.
I see Finland is treated well with a 85€ price + surcharge.
First thing: Review bombing is a marginal thing in Steam. And in most cases they are due to legitimate concerns (such as when Paradox increased the price of all their DLC).
Second thing: Galy said that they wouldnt allow for reviews focusing on bad performances or bugs and that there would be a ticket system for it.
Third thing: Their solution for forums is pushing the issue to Reddit and Discord, both clearly known for being easy to moderate and totally not toxic (/s).
So one of the reasons Gabe keeps Valve a private company is so he has no pressure to grow or expand. He can do whatever he wants.
Yes he could expand , but he decided a long time ago to shift company focus from the traditional game development model to something else. He saw an opportunity.
Steam was not some big business plan. I know people who there at the start and no one knew it would turn into what it has today. Most of the people who were originally on steam left the company ages ago.
At some point steam began making them lots of money while Gabe saw traditional game development required lots of money with limited payoff. Steam required far less investment but was generating massive revenue the company could funnel to other initiatives.
When you look at other companies especially public ones they have immense pressure put on them by board members, shareholders, to not only do well but increase areas in the business by a specific margin. It's not good enough to double revenue, we want it tripled,etc.
I see lots of people saying what Epic was in the past. Companies are not your friends nor can you talk about them like they are people.
Companies will shift their approach and views based on many internal and external factors , sometimes their approach will align with your values, sometimes they won't.
Publishers want their investment back and are not scouring forums to understand what one service offers compared to another for users. You're dealing with people who look at financial statements and forecast risk. Most probably don't even play games that often. Their job is to ensure their company is making the best financial decisions.
My guess is before the game was pulled they weren't very confident in the games performance, maybe weak preorders, maybe the game went over budget and they would prefer to at least garuntee they don't end up in the red.
What many don't get is it's not about potential sales it's about garunteed money in hand preferably before a planned milestone. Potentially the business required the money now not after release for some reason.
publishers have more than one investment usually and often they can affect one another.
All we can do is speculate as we don't know the terms of the deal.
These decisions are usually made by a select few , they trickle down to everyone else who is told to do their job.
Anyone who works at a big company knows this. The majority of the time most employees are cringing at decisions that come down but it is what it is.
Valve can counter offer. It's business, they choose not too. I honestly don't think Gabe would care. His belief is we will focus on doing what we do and gamers,devs,publishers can use our services if they want.
Best way to get back at Epic is ignore them and stop giving them free press. Wishlist the game on steam so they can see all the money they are missing out on and buy it when it releases on your platform of choice. Communicate to the developer you look forward to buying their game when it releases as originally planned. That's it.
As far as why valve leaves up forums because it's good SEO marketing for them. You google and they come up , maybe you can't buy a game there but you're still at their storefront and they look like the mature business partner. Win Win for them.
The real problem is the majority of gamers and game developers can't afford to invest in funding/making our games so now we have a third party ie the business. The ride has just begun.
That'd be because Steam doesn't have a ticket support system that developers and publishers can use, the only one there is goes to Valve. The support for specific games is basically a FAQ and links to the publisher's or developer's websites.
And again: customer support is an entire job. Small developers often won't be able to deal with support tickets. Not without the time spent on those either eating into the time they spend doing their actual job, or them having to do a lot of overtime.
1. Not sure where you're getting "most of the time they are due to legitimate concerns" from. There have been plenty of times where review bombing has come from bigots who are mad because the game represented marginalised folks in some way, or because the developers changed something that was sexist or racist.
2. Then he shouldn't have promised that. Doesn't mean that a support ticket system being opt-in is a bad thing.
3. The thing there is that at least those communities are an option rather than something forced on developers/publishers that they need to deal with. And it's not like Steam's forums have been any better than Discord or Reddit.
"some people have used street protests to engage in rioting and property damage, therefore the solution is to ban all forms of street protest."
Holy fuck this is a terrible comparison. Just, holy fuck.
I wasn't even saying Epic Store not having user reviews at all is a good thing, just that Steam's review system has been exploited by bigots plenty of times. But even if I was, holy fuck.
Those are the ones that get in the news, and deservedly so. Don't make the mistake of thinking the most notable (and worst, by a mile) examples make up the majority of cases.