The Epic Monopoly - How Epic Store Exclusives are bringing console wars to PC

[EloKa]

Whether Valve planned Steam to become what it is at the start means nothing when they started to capitalize on it. It didnt take long for Steamworks to come along and offer a drm replacement.

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Steamworks is a toolbox that is designed to help developers and give them access to new features and is one of the big feature sets that many people don't really understand or talk about - same like Vulcan, Proton or SteamPIPE.

SteamDRM is one feature within the Steamworks toolbox and is optional. You can publish your game without SteamDRM but then you shouldn't expect to access all Steamwork features (like dedicated servers, marketplace, free matchmaking) that are run by Steam or people could sell / gift cracked games on Steam or play any multiplayer game with a pirated version. Getting access to A LOT of free multiplayer features with the only downside of having a free DRM in place - sounds like a good deal for most multiplayer games.

You can even release a multiplayer game on Steam without SteamDRM but then you can't access all of the other (multiplayer focused) Steamwork features but still some. Or you release it witout SteamDRM and create your own full automated backend service.

Complaining that Valve introduced SteamDRM with Steamworks is like complaining that your operating system got a security patch.

 

[dabri]

There goes yet again its just another launcher argument

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It's not "yet another launcher" argument. I'm well aware of the downsides to this. I just find it funny how we've transitioned from hating steam as a forced install/ launcher to where we are today where launchers/ store fronts are everywhere and having an item locked to a specific one is seen as a huge deal. Not that it's on one to begin with.

 

[Durante]

You're not excluded from exclusives that Epic buy to their platform, you just have to download their launcher, free of charge.

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You are excluded from the software platform, which includes things such as your friend list, cloud saves, achievements, streaming, family sharing, cloud screenshots, forums, mod hosting, universal controller mapping, etc.

EGS also doesn't have a legitimate third party key market, which makes games more expensive in effect in many cases.

If someone thinks that all of those things are worthless, then it's "just another launcher". Many people do not consider these things worthless.

So "No Steam, No Buy" was never a thing?

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Of course it was and is.

Because many people enjoy using the large catalog of platform-level features (both software-side and in terms of community hosting) which Steam offers them for free.

Why shouldn't customers let that influence their platform choice? Where's the problem with that?

 

[lactatingduck]

Epic doesn't have a monopoly.

 

[MaLDo]

I'm having a hard time to believe that EGS defense force are real people.

Valve wasnt doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. It was done to help secure their dominance. It was done to get people into their ecosystem. Once you are in its hard for people to abandon their library.

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What? So they are doing good for customers even in their "monopoly" situation because reasons... but they need Epic competition doing bad things to customers in order to be forced to do good things for customers. Are you serious?

 

[Pillock]

Epic doesn't have a monopoly.

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Yeah they do

 

[Doskoi Panda]

Are you serious?

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serious about muddying the waters

 

[Alexandros]

I jumped to the end after the first page.
Catching up now, sorry for premature posting.

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Maybe this will give you a clue:

Anecdotally speaking, I have 7 or 8 launchers on my computer (including EGS) and all have games that are exclusively available to them. However, that hasn't made me any more likely to buy games that are not exclusive to them. That's not because I have a shrine to Gabe in my bedroom, its because the feature set really is just leagues above everyone else. If I had my choice I'd buy all my games on GoGalaxy where I can also get DRM free copies. However, I don't because that client stinks compared to steam. I own Witcher 3 on gog but I had to add the exe to steam just so I could stream it to my TV and use my DS4 to play from the bed. Im not even sure how I'd pull all that off without steam.

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[Durante]

Valve wasnt doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. It was done to help secure their dominance. It was done to get people into their ecosystem. Once you are in its hard for people to abandon their library.

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I'm not sure what new information you think you are telling me, or what you are arguing for. I think from a consumer perspective, when talking about corporations, it is best to adopt a result-oriented approach. As in, what do I get out of it. Because you can never assume that any large-scale company is going to make significant decisions for "good" reasons.

So what is the actual easily observable outcome?
Valve bound people to their platform by offering a large and expanding catalog of platform-level software perks that their entire existing library can benefit from. And by implementing useful community features like mod and guide hosting etc.
Conversely, Epic is trying to get people to use their platform by making that the only possible option.
Many consumers prefer the former approach.

I just don't see what's surprising about any of this.

 

[water_wendi]

I'm having a hard time to believe that EGS defense force are real people.


What? So they are doing good for customers even in their "monopoly" situation because reasons... but they need Epic competition doing bad things to customers in order to be forced to do good things for customers. Are you serious?

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i also dont think Epic is giving away free games out of the kindness of their hearts.

ive got to cut the reply short because i have to leave for work though.

 

[Adamska]

You create a monopoly on distribution for the given time period. Seriously, that's the entire point.

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Ah, yes, I see. It's just that when these are timed deals, I find it weird to apply the term monopoly, but I suppose that's the case for the digital distribution of these exclusives.

universal controller mapping

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But isn't that feature available even for games that don't run through Steam? I mean, if you have Steam installed of course.

 

[blacklotus]

Maybe this will give you a clue:

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I have read the topic now and ResetEra user was kind enough to portray to me his experience and problems with this new platform and right now I understand how this can be a huge deal to some people as opposed to my (privileged) experience.

I think that part of this discussion should be centred on what issues are caused by the youngness of the platform versus the strategic decisions of Epic.
Also, if there are to be other store platforms it feels - after so many years of videogame industry - kinda naive to expect this type of deals not to happen.

While the thread title will seem way to strong to many people I fully understand how some people might be impacted the same as someone that has to buy a console to play a specific game.

Thanks Era.

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[RPGam3r]

The epic store can't even match the steam version we used in 2009. Nor can they match other platforms like origin when it launched in 2011.

But regardless I don't give a shit.
Epic is paying for exclusivity on games NOW and they want my business NOW so they gotta deliver the basic shit I come to expect from a store NOW.

Why is the onus on me to give this million dollar company time to improve?

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I just find the lists people toss out to be shortsighted in either the past or future. Time will tell if they feature up in the same way. In the mean time I think getting exclusives is an alternate route to get people in the door that will probably work.

 

[thirtypercent]

It's not "yet another launcher" argument. I'm well aware of the downsides to this. I just find it funny how we've transitioned from hating steam as a forced install/ launcher to where we are today where launchers/ store fronts are everywhere and having an item locked to a specific one is seen as a huge deal. Not that it's on one to begin with.

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I never hated Steam. It was weird at first, had issues but I liked some of its features like automatic patching, still remember Valve delivering a patch because their metric did show ppl died an awful lot at a certain part of HL2. Cool and novel for a single player title. Then they slowly grew, added 3rd party games and features, big sales, earned my trust and so on. Meanwhile Epic abandoned the platform because we're all pirates and MS tried to make paid online play and the terrible GFWL a thing. Only one with a different, valid approach that gave customers value was GOG with them bringing back old games and being 100% DRM free. Now Epic is back and have done fuck all to earn my business.

 

[elyetis]

Valve wasnt doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. It was done to help secure their dominance. It was done to get people into their ecosystem. Once you are in its hard for people to abandon their library.

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Most of us don't defend the intent of what Valve did/does, only the end result for us consummer.

Epic offer free games every two week.
Epic moneyhat exclusivity deal on third party games.

Both are made with the same intent, but as a consummer, one is laudable, the other is... well this thread.

We see the same things in say cross platform multiplayer thread, where we have people popup with some "Nintendo and Microsft are only doing it because it give them good PR/advantage them !!!!!!"... and the answer still is : "so what ?".

 

[z1ggy]

It's not "yet another launcher" argument. I'm well aware of the downsides to this. I just find it funny how we've transitioned from hating steam as a forced install/ launcher to where we are today where launchers/ store fronts are everywhere and having an item locked to a specific one is seen as a huge deal. Not that it's on one to begin with.

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Now people are complaining they have to use one launcher over the other. At least the launchers are free.

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Yeah, you are right.

 

[Deleted member 3208]

I just find the lists people toss out to be shortsighted in either the past or future. Time will tell if they feature up in the same way. In the mean time I think getting exclusives is an alternate route to get people in the door that will probably work.

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Why should I buy a smartphone that lacks most of the features smartphones from other manufacturers have? Because the manufacturer is new and we need to give them time to develop those features?

It doesn't work like that.

As for your last statement, Microsoft failed hard trying to force PC Gamers pay to play online. Epic might share the same fate by moneyhatting these developers and publishers.

 

[fiendcode]

Epic's already in the industry. They've developed several games, and their launcher's been around for years.

This is not even close to someone trying to break into the console industry. Their anti-competitive practices would probably be as bad as Nintendo's from the '80s if they had the power to do so.

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It's almost identical, Sony and Microsoft had both made games/hardware too previously and both financially secured 3rd party exclusives to drive their platform entries. And that's really all this is.

I don't really understand your anticompetitive speculation though, now that sounds nothing close to what the current situation is. Valve would be the one in a position now to support that behavior if they were so inclined.

 

[MadMod]

At what cost? More money to developers don't necessarily mean more and better games and in the end it might not even mean more money for developers if customers chose not to use the platform unless they make it a better alternative.

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Thats the thing we don't know, steam has been stagnant for a while now, something needed to change right? Competition is good, no matter how much it shakes up people.

Tbh I'm just interested in what happens in the future to each store, I'm positive about it, can't blame me for being optimistic haha.

 

[Alexandros]

So far neither Epic nor anyone else has managed to field a proper argument as to why customers should take their business from a company that offers by far the best service on the market and give it to another company that thinks the best way to lure customers is to literally force them to buy from them by removing all other options. Customers are being asked to reward a company that acts in an anti-consumer way right now to protect themselves from a company that might or might not act in an anti-consumer way in the future.

I have followed each of these discussions closely and literally no one has presented a solid argument beyond vague and nebulous "competition is good" cliches.

 

[Deleted member 3208]

Thats the thing we don't know, steam has been stagnant for a while now, something needed to change right? Competition is good, no matter how much it shakes up people.

Tbh I'm just interested in what happens in the future to each store, I'm positive about it, can't blame me for being optimistic haha.

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In what way has Steam been stagnant? Please, explain that to everyone.

 

[degauss]

Let's ask the gamers in China about this...

Oh wait, they're locked out.

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Talk about the tail wagging the dog.

Steam has had its own issues with China and from the sounds of it, will continue to.

That's a very arbitrary thing to knock EGS for, that they are slightly behind steam in terms of dealing with government interference and censorship in one part of the world.

 

[bmdubya]

This is horse shit. You can have as many different sources for games as you want on pc. It's just a tiny bit les convenient.

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Yes, it was a bit less convenient when I wanted to play Ashen through Game Pass on my PC but then I couldn't because it was made an Epic Games Store exclusive a few weeks before launch. Just a slight, tiny inconvenience.

Amazing that people think the issue is just downloading another launcher.

 

[Csr]

Generalized statements only lead to circular arguments.

"Competition is always good"

How are the exclusives on the Epic store going to make Steam better? Steam and most other launchers and stores have already ton of features more than the Epic store. Adding even more doesn't do anything against exclusives.
You could say they might feel pressured to lower their cut but If the bigger cut allows Valve to add features for both consumers and developers like they have done even without Epic's "competition" then i definitely want them to keep the bigger cut. We have seen more games/ports and players and features than ever before so we know their model works. After reading their own comment about the low cut I suspect Epic will increase it if they get enough customers on their store.

Exclusivity actually leads to no competition among the stores for those exclusive games, which also leads to higher prices for consumers overall (exception being countries where Epic has regional pricing and Steam doesn't).

On another note
I don't think we should bother addressing the "it's just another launcher" comments, It should be bannable at this point IMO. If you are going to dismiss all arguments after all these big threads then you are just purposefully antagonizing other posters and derailing the discussion.

 

[Ascheroth]

Thats the thing we don't know, steam has been stagnant for a while now, something needed to change right? Competition is good, no matter how much it shakes up people.

Tbh I'm just interested in what happens in the future to each store, I'm positive about it, can't blame me for being optimistic haha.

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Yeah, Steam is so so stagnant.
A lot of things happened in 2018 and are already planned going forward.
Proton alone was a megaton and that wasn't even all that happened.

 

[MadMod]

In what way has Steam been stagnant? Please, explain that to everyone.

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The company has, for years, taken a hands-off approach to moderating its storefront and the way users behave on its platform, have you not been paying attention? The amount of trolling and hateful spam is incredible. How many indie review bombing's did we have last year? For the most petty reasons too.

Yeah, Steam is so so stagnant.
A lot of things happened in 2018 and are already planned going forward.
Proton alone was a megaton and that wasn't even all that happened.

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I wasn't referring to the amount of people that use it. :)

 

[RPGam3r]

Why should I buy a smartphone that lacks most of the features smartphones from other manufacturers have? Because the manufacturer is new and we need to give them time to develop those features?

It doesn't work like that.

As for your last statement, Microsoft failed hard trying to force PC Gamers pay to play online. Epic might share the same fate by moneyhatting these developers and publishers.

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I didn't say you have to buy (and let's be clear there is no "buy" here) whether or not exclusives matter as a reason to get into there storefront is up to you.

I really don't think the exclusive tactic will go away considering how useful it has established itself in other markets. I think PC gamers have just been lucky to have enjoyed to market the way it has been.

 

[Budi]

The company has, for years, taken a hands-off approach to moderating its storefront and the way users behave on its platform, have you not been paying attention? The amount of trolling and hateful spam is incredible. How many indie review bombing's did we have last year? For the most petty reasons too.

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Sooo, they should do like their competition then? Not have forums and user reviews at all? And for the review bombing point, they actually implemented a tool that recognizes such patterns as review bombing and lets the user filter that out. So yeah... Also any developer can opt-in to have Valve moderate their forums, or they can do it themselves if they so choose.

Also that thread which got shared to you, had plenty of info on it which isn't about user numbers. I'll help you out a bit, here's some of the things that are coming. There's also stuff in that thread which happened last year.

• Store Discoverability: We're working on a new recommendation engine powered by machine-learning, that can match players to games based on their individual tastes. Algorithms are only a part of our discoverability solution, however, so we're building more broadcasting and curating features and are constantly assessing the overall design of the store.
• Steam China: We've partnered with Perfect World to bring Steam onshore into China. We'll reveal more details about this in the coming months.
• Steam Library Update: Some long awaited changes to the Steam Client will ship, including a reworked Steam Library, built on top of the technology we shipped in Steam Chat.
• New Events System: We're upgrading the events system in the Steam Community, enabling you to highlight interesting activities in your games like tournaments, streams, or weekly challenges.
• Steam TV: We're working on expanding Steam TV beyond just broadcasting specific tournaments and special events, in order to support all games.
• Steam Chat: We're going to ship a new Steam Chat mobile app, so you can share your favorite GIFs with your friends while on the go.
• Steam Trust: The technology behind Trusted Matchmaking on CS:GO is getting an upgrade and will become a full Steam feature that will be available to all games. This means you'll have more information that you can use to help determine how likely a player is a cheater or not.
• Steam PC Cafe Program: We are going to officially ship a new PC Cafe Program so that players can have a good experience using Steam in hundreds of thousands of PC Cafes Worldwide.

 

[Nostremitus]

Generalized statements only lead to circular arguments.

"Competition is always good"

How are the exclusives on the Epic store going to make Steam better? Steam and most other launchers and stores have already ton of features more than the Epic store. Adding even more doesn't do anything against exclusives.
You could say they might feel pressured to lower their cut but If the bigger cut allows Valve to add features for both consumers and developers like they have done even without Epic's "competition" then i definitely want them to keep the bigger cut. We have seen more games/ports and players and features than ever before so we know their model works. After reading their own comment about the low cut I suspect Epic will increase it if they get enough customers on their store.

Exclusivity actually leads to no competition among the stores for those exclusive games, which also leads to higher prices for consumers overall (exception being countries where Epic has regional pricing and Steam doesn't).

On another note
I don't think we should bother addressing the "it's just another launcher" comments, It should be bannable at this point IMO. If you are going to dismiss all arguments after all these big threads then you are just purposefully antagonizing other posters and derailing the discussion.

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Why would the Epic store need to make Steam better? That's flawed logic. If it makes for a better environment for developers and another avenue for the consumer to look for deals then it's done all it needs to. Seriously, this "everything must revolve around Steam" mentality is ridiculous and further proof of just how deeply ingrained Valves monopoly is on the PC gaming industry.

 

[Deleted member 3208]

The company has, for years, taken a hands-off approach to moderating its storefront and the way users behave on its platform, have you not been paying attention? The amount of trolling and hateful spam is incredible. How many indie review bombing's did we have last year? For the most petty reasons too.

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Valve has said they will start moderating forums. Of course, developers also can moderate their own game's forums and ban people or close toxic threads.

As for review bombing, Valve implemented a timeline graphics. This helps people filter the real reviews and the recent ones.

I didn't say you have to buy (and let's be clear there is no "buy" here) whether or not exclusives matter as a reason to get into there storefront is up to you.

I really don't think the exclusive tactic will go away considering how useful it has established itself in other markets. I think PC gamers have just been lucky to have enjoyed to market the way it has been.

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Market will decide. Seeing how Metro Exodus went to top sellers on Steam after the game was announced to be timed-exclusive, customers are already speaking with their wallets.

 

[MadMod]

Valve has said they will start moderating forums. Of course, developers also can moderate their own game's forums and ban people or close toxic threads.

As for review bombing, Valve implemented a timeline graphics. This helps people filter the real reviews and the recent ones.

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I was referring to past tense, a lot of these changes are for the better. With some pressure clearly coming from Epic to implement them.

 

[Resiverence]

Honestly, it's hard to care for the EGS for me personally. This is because it's just an idiotic play at trying to get the pc market and it very well shows. Here's why:

Platform exclusivity is NOT console exclusivity: The hardware barrier not being present here makes it easy for folks here to say "it's just another launcher to download" but that goes both ways really. If all Epic's got up their sleeve is forced exclusivity, nobody's really going to give a shit about their store for anything that isn't and nk way in hell is buying up exclusivity helping them with profits either. It's justifiable in consoles because of the hardware barrier, getting someone onto the system becomes a priority in that case. Then consider all the bad rep it's giving them and all the spite they're gaining from customers who can't actually buy on "just another launcher" and it's just the cherry on the top of their bs.

Hey at least I'm getting a few free games out of it :^)

 

[Budi]

I was referring to past tense, a lot of these changes are for the better. With some pressure clearly coming from Epic to implement them.

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That's your own fantasy, these things have been worked for a lot longer than Epic Store has been a thing (and many of them were implemented before that). Can you tell me what kind of pressure Epic is bringing? What are the features Steam needs to implement because their competition has it?

 

[Alexandros]

Why would the Epic store need to make Steam better? That's flawed logic. If it makes for a better environment for developers and another avenue for the consumer to look for deals then it's done all it needs to.

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It needs to provide a good service to customers too.

 

[Lashley]

It needs to provide a good service to customers too.

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Not according to people on here. Apparently if you treat your customers like shit they'll still flock to that store.

 

[Ascheroth]

I wasn't referring to the amount of people that use it. :)

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Neither does the thread I linked you.

 

[Deleted member 3208]

I was referring to past tense, a lot of these changes are for the better. With some pressure clearly coming from Epic to implement them.

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How come Epic pressured Valve to implement those stuff? Reviews timeline was introduced in 2017 and, while doing some search in Google, Valve started moderating forum in September of last year. Epic announced their store on December.

 

[Alexandros]

Not according to people on here. Apparently if you treat your customers like shit they'll still flock to that store.

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Well, to be fair to those people, treating customers like shit has worked pretty well for some parts of the industry. It doesn't mean that everyone else should fall in line though.

 

[Csr]

Why would the Epic store need to make Steam better? That's flawed logic. If it makes for a better environment for developers and another avenue for the consumer to look for deals then it's done all it needs to. Seriously, this "everything must revolve around Steam" mentality is ridiculous and further proof of just how deeply ingrained Valves monopoly is on the PC gaming industry.

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I am referring to people who make the argument that Epic will stop valve from stagnating. I should have been more clear.

But I don't see how removing the game from other stores will actually lead to the consumer finding better deals. Or how getting exclusivity with so few features helps anyone but epic and a selective few publishers devs.

 

[Deleted member 2840]

The company has, for years, taken a hands-off approach to moderating its storefront and the way users behave on its platform, have you not been paying attention? The amount of trolling and hateful spam is incredible. How many indie review bombing's did we have last year? For the most petty reasons too.



I wasn't referring to the amount of people that use it. :)

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Did you even read the thread posted?
"Since we started moderating game forums in late September, our team has gone through 113,290 reported posts, most of which were resolved in less than a day. The team also looked at 332,768 reports on user generated content across all game community hubs (300 million pieces of content were posted last year)."

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

I don't really understand your anticompetitive speculation though, now that sounds nothing close to what the current situation is. Valve would be the one in a position now to support that behavior if they were so inclined.

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You don't seem to understand the current situation then, and it's been discussed to death.

 

[Morrigan]

With some pressure clearly coming from Epic to implement them.

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"Clearly" coming from Epic? Can you list examples or provide evidence for this bold claim?

 

[Deleted member 401]

"Clearly" coming from Epic? Can you list examples or provide evidence for this bold claim?

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Valve is really feeling the pressure from EGS' game forums.

 

[Deleted member 3208]

Valve is really feeling the pressure from EGS' game forums.

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And from EGS's Review System.

 

[Chairmanchuck (另一个我)]

 

[Deleted member 2840]

Valve is really feeling the pressure from EGS' game forums.

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And from EGS's Review System.

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Number of trolling posts in the Steam forums: in the thousands
Number of trolling posts in the EGS forums: 0

Number of review bombings on Steam: a lot
Number of review bombings on EGS: 0

Checkmate, atheists

 

[fiendcode]

You don't seem to understand the current situation then, and it's been discussed to death.

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No, I just don't understand your off base Nintendo comparison. Which only you seem to be making. A whole once.

 

[JD3Nine]

Talk about the tail wagging the dog.

Steam has had its own issues with China and from the sounds of it, will continue to.

That's a very arbitrary thing to knock EGS for, that they are slightly behind steam in terms of dealing with government interference and censorship in one part of the world.

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"Slightly behind" Haha.

 

[Nostremitus]

I am referring to people who make the argument that Epic will stop valve from stagnating. I should have been more clear.

But I don't see how removing the game from other stores will actually lead to the consumer finding better deals. Or how getting exclusivity with so few features helps anyone but epic and a selective few publishers devs.

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OH, that makes sense.

The exclusivity piece could be viewed two ways. There's the anti-consumer view that it hurts the consumer by locking it to the one store and there's the pro-consumer view that a strong initial pushing into the market is needed to break the current strangle - hold that Valve has on it.

 

[Ge0force]

The exclusivity piece could be viewed two ways. There's the anti-consumer view that it hurts the consumer by locking it to the one store and there's the pro-consumer view that a strong initial pushing into the market is needed to break the current strangle - hold that Valve has on it.

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If this was true, pc gamers would already have been leaving Steam for the Windows Store, since it has plenty of exclusives. But that didn't happen.
Just like no one will leave Steam for Epic's Store, as long as it isn't actually better than Steam.

Also, a company shouldn't use anti-consumer tactics for whatever their goal is.