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The Problems With The Epic Store (The Jimquisition)
- Thread starter lashman
- Start date
So anti consumer Jim encourages anti consumer Epic because fuck Valve? I can't even be bothered anymore, people just won't take Epic at face value and are so constantly ready to ignore everything in favour of "but the revenue cut!" Yeah, it's a bloody good cut for devs but when your curation is that strict it isn't beneficial to anyone but those already successful or having hyped media presence like Spellbreak.
Indies are actually worse off with Epic because their praised curation hates them and so far Epic have shown no interest in growing the store naturally through user features. Heck using Epic store I am actually worse off than Origin. Origin people. What a world.
Indies are actually worse off with Epic because their praised curation hates them and so far Epic have shown no interest in growing the store naturally through user features. Heck using Epic store I am actually worse off than Origin. Origin people. What a world.
There's urban dictionary entry for Kaz Hirai and Reggie Fils-Aime too, what are you getting at?
I am, Gabe is a cool dude. Valve has done a ton to benefit PC gaming (and me), why wouldn't I be grateful about that.
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I don't agree at all that Epic's moneyhatting is the only way to get their foot in the door. It's the most anti-consumer way to bully people into using their bare bones store.
Let's wait and see how many people will actually use Epic's Store to buy games that aren't exclusive. Epic won't get much profit (if any) with these moneyhats alone.
It's very easy not to buy a game. I haven't bought a Blizzard game since Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty. I haven't bought an EA or Ubisoft game in....even longer than that. I haven't bought a Bethesda game since the final Skyrim expansion. Now I'll not be buying Metro: Exodus and Outer Worlds. I can spend that money elsewhere on more deserving stuff to me, like Imperator: Rome and VtM: Bloodlines 2.
This video felt more like Jim was doubling down on his misguided opinions than actually giving Epic any of the heat it deserves. It's baffling to me because he usually loses his shit over anti-consumer anything. I guess his distaste for the Unity asset flips that sneak through the Steam system runs deep
I still don't get why he didn't bring up other factors, like free steam key generation and lower rates on popular games makes steam have better % rate, the issue with stealing steam data, and not wanting to be open with sales data. I'd figure be all over it with this video.
You all figuring out just now that Jim was never pro-consumer? His entire revenue stream is based around shitting on bad games, and various dramas surrounding the industry. Why would he want any of that to disappear?
He was a fantastic games journalist once. Now he is just an angry gamer YouTuber.
He was a fantastic games journalist once. Now he is just an angry gamer YouTuber.
It is what I dislike the most, is that Jim had a chance to really dig deep into all accounts of the current platform wars on PC yet chose to just sit back and throw a couple Epic jabs without really bothering to clarify why they are bad and the ramifications to them. It is disappointing because it is clear Epic isn't good for the PC platform with their current intentions, and to have Jim "Corporates Are Bad" Sterling bat for Epic is just disheartening when so much more could have been said and succinctly too.
Like someone else said, there has been better discussion on the topic here at Era then what Jim added in. It almost was just a "oh crap I said really good things about Epic and they are actually really bad, best call them out lightly and still dig at Steam where possible because fuck Steam!" I mean, half the content that Jim rages on towards Steam no one will ever see because no one seeks out the trash asset flip games as much as he does and so Steam's algorithm is SHOWING him more.
If metro sold really well on egs, they would have been yelling from the roof tops but instead we have silence.
I saw Angry Joe did a video about Epic as well, but even he didn't really come down as hard as I expected, and his one buddy did nothing but blame Steam.
Let's be real; When Epic's talking about a paid influencer program taking the place of consumer reviews, these people won't shit where they eat. It's no different than the many gaming "journalists" handling the entire situation with kid gloves and turning a blind eye to a lot of Epic's shit.
Let's be real; When Epic's talking about a paid influencer program taking the place of consumer reviews, these people won't shit where they eat. It's no different than the many gaming "journalists" handling the entire situation with kid gloves and turning a blind eye to a lot of Epic's shit.
We got an ambiguous statement that the game (maybe including steam preorders or maybe not) sold better than Metro Last Light over the launch period (maybe including preorders and maybe not; maybe including Redux which sold way way better than Last Light did or maybe not).
So yeah.
The biggest win for Ubisoft is that dropping steam and going to Epic resulted in dramatically higher percentage of sales being on uPlay, which again was the only real statement we got. When faced with a choice of Steam vs uPlay, most people pick Steam, but they are much more willing to go uPlay instead when the only alternative is Epic. Damning with faint praise.
i didn't say it's the only way,i said they are only using it to put their foot on the door and eventually they will have to stop spending money and start making some.
The worst part is that he makes all his money off patreon, where he doesn't need to be a clickbait angry gamer. He doesn't need to fixate on the hot new thing and make actually diverse longform content but alas, here we are.
Well I think the debate is more like if it's the only way you found to get into a market, maybe it means you're not necessary to that market.
Once they stop moneyhatting, what do they have left ? What's their proposition ?
Epic doesn't aim to compete. They aim to convert the market to them, to move the devs to them. The point for them to moneyhat all these games is to hope that players don't care and that they have numbers to show to publishers, that Steam or not, the games will sell as much. The difference being a 12% cut. And it'll be at this moment that they hope to start making money:
Seek renting on that 12% cut without ever improving their service, or the bare minimum, for the devs needs.
Epic's philosophy is all about trickle down economics.
-You'll get lower prices if the devs make a lot of money and IF they see it makes more money.
-You'll get more features if the devs needs them so you'll profit from these needs.
But well, we learned in the real world that trickle down economics doesn't work.
he did mentioned the backlash he received from his steam episode and acknowledged that he only looked at it in the developer pov.
a good episode imo.
after the moneyhat stops they will have to start competing, which is what the (frankly laughable) roadmap is for...
as to what they will add to the formula we will see..but without the moneyhatting, most games will at best go back to be both on steam and on epic store, so it will be up to the consumer to decide.
that's assuming that without moneyhatting any deal with the epic store will have necessary to be exclusive to their shop and nowhere else..but it's already not the case with the moneyhatting being in place, since most of their exclusive are just temporary ones, so i frankly doubt that when the money tap runs dry, they will be in the position to ask for total exclusivity.
and if they do, and all that makes the devs go to them is that bigger slice of the profit pie..well at that point is not really on epic but on the publishers/developers,that frankly have the right to decide where to sell their games, much like the consumer has the right to ignore their proposition if they don't like it.
lots of assumptions here.
again,you assume that once established epic will not try to improve the system for the end customer, something that is in both their interest and in the interest of their "real customers" being the publishers/devs. Buying exclusives to gain space is nothing new in the industry..console manufacturers have done it for decades, and none of those competitors just stopped improving their value proposition after they stopped buying exclusives.
If their improvement will be enough to compete with steam, that has almost 15 years of advantage, we will see...but at some point they will have to stop spending and start competing
The fact epic won't have a god damn shopping cart for another 6 months is mind blowing. That has to be the most basic shit you include in a store front.
It's not about assumptions here. It's about what Epic said about features. Read what Tim Sweeney claims. They wont compete and try to reach Steam feature set. Storefronts in general are good enough (not talking about EGS here though) and what matter is the devs. As I said, the point in buying exclusives for EGS right now is to try to prove a point: That they may get as much sales on EGS than they used to be, which means switching stores and go EGS only will mean higher cut for them. Basically trying to enforce a smaller cut.
And that smaller cut is not sustainable if you want a growing ecosystem and one with competing stores.
Could you imagine how the reception would've been competently different if they came out with something like No One Lives Forever 3? Actually using their money to sort out that copyright hell and bringing a net positive to PC gamers.
Instead we have whatever this is which is helping no one unless you're a huge publisher, a huge indie studio or Epic.
i will look for those calims when i have the time,but i find strange that they said publicly that they are not ever gonna get their store better for the end user.
Bigger cuts,when moneyhatting is not involved, matter only if you can get the same amount of sales, and that means fostering the end user too.
you might prove the point once or twice..but it doesn't mean the customer will always be there forever.
also, do we have any proof/declaration from people in the know that the steam cut (30% right?) is the smaller possible cut for that type of service a store provides, and that any lower cut would leave epic with no money to invest in making her store better?
That mean they have to actuallu compete! The effort! Oh such horror!
Here I searched the very thread for you.
That 30% is the smaller cut possible, no. That 12% isn't sustainable ? Yes. Since Epic always move the cost onto the customer. We know that GoG lowered their share (we don't know how lower) and that meant the end of their "fair price" program. It'd be hard to say which is the lowest cut possible for a growth on top of improving the services for the end customer.
if you mean this
"There is no hope of displacing a dominant storefront solely by adding marginally more store features or a marginally better install experience. These battles will be won on the basis of game supply, consumer prices, and developer revenue sharing "
while english is not my first language, i don't think it means that they are never gonna improve their store ever, it means that to put their proverbial foot in the door they will need to aim at other means than to just say "hey, we are steam but better...but you already have 98% of your library on steam so you will continue buying there anyway"
but that's just for displacing steam from their almost-kinda-maybe monopoly on the pc gaming landscape.
If only someone would have made another store, with their own distribution method, in the past... Perhaps someone could create one and call it Good Old Games, or Itch.io, or Humble Bundle, or Uplay, or Origin, or (and I hate myself for saying this) Windows/Microsoft Store. Since apparently none of these stores/platforms exist, I bet these names are free for the taking!
How is that good in the long run ?
It is good when these major players compete on the upper side by trying to be BETTER for the market and gaining advantage on that base. It's bad when these players fight for their own ground or walled garden.
Competition isn't a virtue by itself. You can see that in a LOT of markets.
But on the bigger picture, I also believe that having multiple major platforms (and not storefronts) but platforms as launcher for 3rd party games is terrible as it leads to a fragmentation of the PC market. What it means is that for ONE PC game, you'll need as much as different builds/versions for EACH platform. And it also means for multiplayer games DIFFERENT servers. It's the case for Windows Store, GOG or Discord where we saw multi-launcher games having different servers... for the SAME PC GAME.
This is terrible.
Wait, the Epic store really doesn't have their older titles on it? How the hell did they forget to add those?
I really don't understand the point of watching the videos of someone whose opinions you respect, if all you want is for them to agree 100% with your point of view, and anything else means you're going to disregard their opinion wholesale. What is even the point? What are you learning? The close-mindedness and confirmation bias about this whole deal is frankly embarrassing.
How are the names ordered in the group, anyway? It doesn't appear to be alphabetical, at least. That's kind of relevant; since the screenshot is of page 1, is there anything explicitly in common between those particular members that caused them to be on page 1?
Because that's where I tend to pull up on the point that we're only seeing one page: We're seeing one page, but it's page 1. That suggests it wasn't cherry-picked to be a page which leads to a certain conclusion. If the people on page 1 are a representative sample of the people in the group as a whole it's possibly a reasonable rough metric - but they may not be, which comes around again to the query about the ordering criteria.
To get deeper into probability (and well out of my depth!): what are the odds of a randomly-selected sample (Let's say 50-out-of-500) not being reflective of the distribution of the entire sample?
Anyone who calls Steam a monopoly or near-monopoly does not understand the meaning of the word. They should stop posting and take an economics class. Steam does not limit product to being sold on just their site. They do not demand exclusives. They do not demand that if the product is sold elsewhere it must launch on Steam. They are no more of a monopoly than Google Chrome. Both are simply the market leaders of their respective industries by consumer choice. Largely Steam was adopted by developers due to critical mass of the customer base and a consumer-friendly way to copy-protect their products.
How about having a little depth to the analysis? Jim literally said everything we already know without a single fresh idea or perspective anywhere in sight. There's nothing of value in this video, just the same arguments that were posted on Era million times before, only this time with English accent.
My apologies, it seems my initial translation went wrong ^^
This said, even when it's temporary, it really hate what Epic is doing now. I'm not sure I ever want to support them, even if they stop moneyhatting.
It sorts group members who are online and in-game to the front, then lists members who are online but not in-game, then lists members who are offline.
"We have to be competitive by being anti-competitive so we can eventually be more competitive, TRUST US :)"
"We're not just doing this because it's the easiest and most low-cost effort, FOR REAL :)"
"If we get big we'll be the best option for consumers, HONEST :)"
"This isn't just about making lots of money fast, PROMISE :)"
I dunno. I'm having a hard time believing Epic has the best interests of users in mind. They've stated they want price control and distribution control. They've misrepresented "12% vs 30%" while pushing processing fees onto users and advertising fees onto developers. Meanwhile Valve has outright encouraged 3rd party key sellers and implemented such things as regional pricing of their own free will and they continue to do forward thinking, user focused things such as Proton.
EGS apparently was very, very rushed project and shoved out of the door as quickly as possible.
According Sweeney it's one of the reasons why they are bypassing all API's as they didn't take time to implement any, just bruteforce what they need from surrounding clients. Like data gathering from Steam Accounts, accidental byproduct of rushing that they never bothered to fix or intentional?
<Insert_joke_crappy_games_no_EGS>
no big corporation has the user best interest in mind, not epic, not valve
business is basically a perennial war between the end user and the ones that want his/her money
any pro consumer improvement is just a way to sell more and or attract more end users..which is what epic will have to start doing sooner or later when they will not be able to just moneyhat everything
and if ,without the binding of money, developers decide that they prefer epic's formula and to sell exclusively on their platform, it will be within their rights to sell their games where they decide, and so it will be up to the end user to stick for him/herself and vote with their wallets.
we can't force someone to sell their work at our conditions
they can't force someone to buy at their conditions
if gamers have enough of a spine to do so though..that's another story
Corporations are made of people and some are better than others. "They're all bad" isn't a realistic or accurate analysis.
Valve is a private entity without outside financial pressures, such as shareholders or a larger holding corporation. They are employee directed. Their employees are longtime industry vets who are also invested in the marketplace as users. Hence why they would develop something like Proton, or Steam Link, or Steam Controller.
No, they're not perfect, but their corporate structure is more relatable than Epic's and their track record speaks volumes to their long term goals.
I will never buy a game on the EGS until they allow for true competitive pricing. As far as I can see, all EGS exclusives actually cost more to me as a consumer so I really don't have much reason to spend money against my own interests. I already skipped Metro and will likely skip most of the other timed exclusives until they come on Steam.
Your answer doesn't seem to a reply my post, there. Are you sure you quoted the right ones?
