I don't hate the EGS, but I don't want to use it.
I won't tell anyone to avoid it, but I can't recommend it to any friends either.
I won't tell anyone to avoid it, but I can't recommend it to any friends either.
Valve from the start offered something, and compensated the requirement of using their client, with features we didn't have before, and immediately battled other DRM systems.
It wasn't perfect, but it something. Epic offers nothing new at all, as compensation for their disruption, for customers.
It also took Steam a lot of time to get all the features it had..
I am just gonna post this again. https://twitter.com/direGoldfish/status/1128986329788964869EGS is the worst store for new indie developers. If you dont have a previous strong selling game or a hyped Kickstarter EGS doesn't give a fuck about you.
I am just gonna post this again. https://twitter.com/direGoldfish/status/1128986329788964869
To say they don't give a fuck is not right.
I guess it just makes zero difference to me. I'm after the game itself - whatever trappings in the store that's around it doesn't really matter to me. It also took Steam a lot of time to get all the features it had. At the start Steam was really just a storefront that had only about eight or nine games on it. Epic started in the same position. But I can see the argument that they don't bring anything new to the table - since Valve has already trodden the ground.
The only thing they're "changing" is adding "exclusives" to the PC platform... removing the freedom of choice PC Gamers have always been afforded. At least when it comes to games that don't release on their own publisher's store (which I'm fine with... it's their store, their game).changing the landscape of pc games distribution is exactly what competition is.
It's wild how many people here show their asses as being racist against the Chinese just because Epic is owned by Tencent.
Your post is all about devs, which is fine but for a store to work it needs to cater to costumers too.Bear with me here.
So we got plenty of threads about how shitty Epic is, and how insufferable Sweeney, and how unfair their buyouts are, and all that stuff. Besides all of that, I can't help but genuinely like the EGS so far.
When it started, I figured it'd be something like the beginnings of Humble Store or GOG after they went past retro games. A few somewhat good games for worse pricing, along with about 90% of indie games you can literally get anywhere for a better deal. The dev percentage split seemed like a scam and of course I, along with others, snickered about the once legendary Epic Games, now known only for Fortnite and other, more forgettable stuff, opening up a game store of all things.
But by now, I'm super surprised how this venture turned out.
Despite lacking some basic options like a cart (how!) the actual content really is hot. There's not a single filler game on there, the curation seems to be really good, and you can blind-buy almost every game without making a huge mistake.
This should probably have been the first point - I really do appreciate how they don't just throw their money at the biggest stars on the market aimlessly, but seem to care about finding a good exclusive or semi-exclusive basis of well-regarded or anticipated AAA games and many, many really cool but small-ish AA-/Indie games that simply would be forgotten days after release on Steam.
You can literally see this, for example, with the fantastic Operencia, which was on Steam's main page for about its release day and then never was seen again, while on EGS it's still just a tiny bit of scrolling away from any new customer, complete with its flashy big teaser image and all. Which I also like, by the way, no incredibly off-putting text list with tiny icons, surrounded by a jizillion "community" features and other lists and whatever the fuck, the games are front and center and get all the attention. GOG did this a while ago, which sadly didn't last too long, and I really liked their launcher back then as well (it's way better again in Galaxy 2.0, which fucking owns, btw).
Despite everyone throwing fits whenever it happens, I'm super happy for all smaller devs getting a shot on EGS exclusivity, I have a feeling they're not exactly paying change for the deals, and whenever devs get more (be it money, prominence or advertisement) out of their work, that's alright with me I guess. I also obviously very much appreciate the free games and Epics handling of this in paying the devs for every sold copy. (At least that's how I understood it works). In fact, Alan Wake being scheduled for next week's freebie, after I literally just thought about how it was basically erased from Steam after it was discounted to hell and back pretty much made me think about creating this thread.
I really hope this whole thing is working as a more profitable alternative for small and medium-sized game studios and single devs, and will find a solid stone to stand on its own (and maybe with less exclusivity deals as well). Personally, I also would like the bickering in every single EGS related thread to tone down a little bit -since this probably won't happen though: If there's any dev on Era who can share experiences with this storefront, or others who don't hate it and want to discuss it apart from its games' threads, that would be good too, I guess.
anyway, enough ramblings.
Despite everyone throwing fits whenever it happens, I'm super happy for all smaller devs getting a shot on EGS exclusivity, I have a feeling they're not exactly paying change for the deals, and whenever devs get more (be it money, prominence or advertisement) out of their work, that's alright with me I guess.
I really hope this whole thing is working as a more profitable alternative for small and medium-sized game studios and single devs, and will find a solid stone to stand on its own (and maybe with less exclusivity deals as well).
Wait, why? I honestly don't understand this part. Would you say the same thing about GOG?. In fact if i want to play a game from EGS i either have to add it to steam or install a bunch of programs to do what steam already does.
I am just gonna post this again. https://twitter.com/direGoldfish/status/1128986329788964869
To say they don't give a fuck is not right.
I mean they are a business, of course they will be interested if a game piques their interest.
Not saying that it is easy though.
But if that makes zero difference to you, it's still a key difference between Steams launch and the current EGS relaunch.
And it's one of the key factors to take in consideration when anyone ask themselves why people are making such a fuzz about the EGS store now.
When the best thing you can say about something is "it doesn't bother me" or "I don't care", then you can be pretty sure that there are issues there, that people have valid concerns about.
The mass amounts of visibility games get on the store now is a temporary thing while they work on actually getting more games on their service.
I wouldn't have been able to buy Control so soon if not for EGS. So far it's been excellent.
I'm sure the devs Epic chooses to shower with money are fucking loving it, but that ignores all the devs who aren't getting a slice of that pie.
...what?
Controls launch date didn't change afaik.
So unless you mean the cheaper regional pricing I'm not sure what you mean.
On steam, you're selling directly to the market, with little help but very few barriers for entry. And if you make a lot of sales, you can get enough to pay your salary on the game you made.
On epic, you're selling to epic, and if you make the sale, you get a lot of guaranteed money, which will almost certainly set you up for the future.
Neither of these are particularly pro or anti indie compared to eachother -- they both benefit certain kinds of developers, in certain circumstances.
But as a gamedev and also somebody who like, knows absolutely anything about business, i'm really glad more big players are taking the second route. I hope a lot more follow epics path, including, ideally, steam. Ultimately, consumers' concerns (which regard whether they can play a fun game in their preferred way) are trivial compared to the concerns of workers and developers (which regard to whether they can survive and pay rent).
Sell on Steam? Build a good game? I am also building my first game, but I am not expecting anything. Just gonna bust my ass to work on it, and I already have venue to grow.Gwen Frey is a supremely talented artist with 10 years experience on games like Bioshock Infinite. She also co-founded the studio that shipped The Flame and the Flood. Not exactly a brand new indie dev. How does someone working on their first title ever get on EGS?
You know people HATED steam when CS 1.6 came out. It was the first and only platform to give PC games a real structure. Also, competition is good!
Can you imagine consoles without competition? Do you think any of the big three would ever upgrade their services if there wasn't any one to compete with them?
Somehow it's not surprising that some game developers, probably the same ones that like the idea of including gambling mechanics in games targeted at children, don't care about consumer concerns :)
I think the store is fine. It lacks a lot of super basic features, but it's fine. It does most of what it should be expected to do, the free games are great.
Epic buying exclusives in anti-competitive.You know people HATED steam when CS 1.6 came out. It was the first and only platform to give PC games a real structure. Also, competition is good!
Can you imagine consoles without competition? Do you think any of the big three would ever upgrade their services if there wasn't any one to compete with them?
I think the store is fine. It lacks a lot of super basic features, but it's fine. It does most of what it should be expected to do, the free games are great.
The thing I don't like is how Tim Sweeney is acting like he's saving the industry from Steam. Meanwhile they are taking a bit less than half of what Steam's cut is, they are offering like 1/10th of the features that Steam offers.
Yeah, so, this is what's at the heart of it.
If you view the world as an us vs them where you, a noble consumer, are the enemy of people working 40-60 hour weeks to bring you entertainment, who are implied to be sinister and greedy, why would you support a store that provides additional opportunities to developers?
But the reality is most people who sell games on either store are just trying to make enough money to not get laid off next year (or in the case of indies, get a retroactive salary for the x years they worked for free) because the economy (and whole world economic system) is fucked.
It's wild how many people here show their asses as being racist against the Chinese just because Epic is owned by Tencent.
I don't mind if a developer needs to take Epic's money to keep the lights on, but I do mind the "BE EXCITED FOR EGS" and the "fuck you, you mean nothing."
I can give you a few dozen features that are cool that EGS could do show its better then steam.I guess it just makes zero difference to me. I'm after the game itself - whatever trappings in the store that's around it doesn't really matter to me. It also took Steam a lot of time to get all the features it had. At the start Steam was really just a storefront that had only about eight or nine games on it. Epic started in the same position. But I can see the argument that they don't bring anything new to the table - since Valve has already trodden the ground.
First your post is a bit of "whataboutism". GoG to my knowledge never removed games from steam and tried to "force" me to use the store. The thing is GoG offers cheaper games then steam (by this i mean that if a game is available in both steam and GOG it is generaly cheaper on GOG). Also do note that GOG has always been looking for interwining with steam more. The closer it comes to steam the higher the ammount of games i will buy in GOG. Do note taht GOG at least offers DRM free which is a great feature when you don't ahve acces to the world wide web. So comparing GOG to EGS is bit weird.Wait, why? I honestly don't understand this part. Would you say the same thing about GOG?
Calling out a company that uses predatory business practices for MTX, is known for taking far more information from your system/you than is needed for their product and calling them out for their abundant purchases of companies in attempts to gain massive amounts of market share isn't racist.It's wild how many people here show their asses as being racist against the Chinese just because Epic is owned by Tencent.
wow you better apologize!It's wild how many people here show their asses as being racist against the Chinese just because Epic is owned by Tencent.
Higher prices. Worse services.
Higher prices especially.
"Bu but the 400 dollars console".
Dont worry, when you wont have anymore 3rd party stores and you'll have to fork 60 full dollars instead of 45, you'll end up quickly paying those 400 dollars for the sake of exclusivity.
Epic's offering is a pile of cash that's it, We will see the effects long term but I could see it ending up fairly negatively long term.There was never any reason to hate on a digital storefront. Epic's offering is clearly interesting for those who create and publish games, and players aren't entitled to a choice of platforms/stores beyond those chosen by these creators/publishers.
That's fine, you and anyone else pretending it's because it's a launcher are and continue to be wrong and out of touch with reality.Agreed. No one will ever convince me that a large part of the outrage isn't due to outdated notions that another icon running in your Taskbar is going to noticeably slow your computer down.
..what?First your post is a bit of "whataboutism". GoG to my knowledge never removed games from steam and tried to "force" me to use the store. The thing is GoG offers cheaper games then steam (by this i mean that if a game is available in both steam and GOG it is generaly cheaper on GOG). Also do note that GOG has always been looking for interwining with steam more. The closer it comes to steam the higher the ammount of games i will buy in GOG. Do note taht GOG at least offers DRM free which is a great feature when you don't ahve acces to the world wide web. So comparing GOG to EGS is bit weird.
I prefer steam feature set so I buy most games on steam.
And by "whataboutism" is that it doesn't matter how bad or good GOG is because this thread is about EGS. Just like saying you can't criticize EGS because "X has the same problem". It matters not, i buy where i prefer and EGS is doing everything it can to make my PC experience worse.
, in your words.In fact if i want to play a game from EGS i either have to add it to steam or install a bunch of programs to do what steam already does.