Ys net has heard the concerns regarding Epic Games Store exclusivity for Shenmue III and will assess the situation [Read Staff Post Before Posting]

[hydrophilic attack]

Industry actors only cares about their bottomline though. Having their sympathy or not is irrelevant.

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do you know why the government and police will not negotiate with terrorists and hostage-takers? because if you give those people what they want, you give people incentive to commit such acts

for similar reason, some developers may feel compelled to stop releasing games on steam if a portion of its userbase starts acting like babies and pirate a game just because it's exclusive on a store they don't like. (it would be an even easier decision to make if epic were to pay you handsomely for doing so.)

the point of disappointed steam users would be better made if they just abstained from the game completely, over resorting to piracy. (this is probably the course of action chosen by most people who don't want to support egs, but it takes just a few asshole pirates to ruin it for everyone else)

 

[hydrophilic attack]

Piracy is definitely going to spike. Shouting into the void about those that pirate does nothing. Ask the 1990's and music if that shit works. It doesn't.

And at the end of the day the financials will rule all. You'll either get your shit together or people will take your shit for free. Music eventually figured this out, but they were hardheaded too. Took them forever to get it right. All the monologues about doing the right thing, artists wearing 'fuck Napster' jackets and all the "You wouldn't download a car" commercials accomplished absolutely nothing. But sure, maybe itll work this time for gaming. Maybe gaming is 'special'.

Wouldnt hold your breath if I were you...

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in the current music industry paradigm, no one but the very biggest name is earning shit from those subscription models

so if i were a smaller developer, i would rather protect my bottom line by taking a money hat, than by creating a moral hazard by giving pirating babies what they want

 

[Deleted member 12867]

How are they stifling competition? They are competing in a legitimate way. At the end of the day, consumers are paying the same amount, devs are getting more money and Epic takes a smaller cut. That's a much healthier way for this to work.

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I just don't understand why they are throwing big money to games that are already coming to PC. Imagine how happy people would have been if they threw money at console exclusives to be ported exclusively to their store. I know if Persona series came to EGS I would have happily bought it and had no problem with the exclusivity.

 

[Morgfyre]

if you resort to piracy because you can't play a game the way you want, then you are nothing but a baby crying because your parent won't buy you the specific toy you want, and you're making industry actors lose any sympathy they may have otherwise had for your cause

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If you're an industry actor that's going with Epic, you're pretty much on the same level as an actor/actress that signs up to work with Woody Allen or Roman Polanski. Crying because people would rather pirate the work rather than financially contribute to someone who took a huge paycheck from a known problematic creep won't endear you to anyone.

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

I don't think Epics position with Fortnite should be ignored. They have other avenues for profit, and they could certainly justify investing money into their store as a long term strategy.

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Except then they start talking about how they want to "change the industry" and have everyone commit to a lower percentage cut that they themselves can't maintain without passing extra costs onto the consumer. And they're the only ones with a Fortnite. Everyone else runs their stores for a profit, Valve included.

do you know why the government and police will not negotiate with terrorists and hostage-takers? because if you give those people what they want, you give people incentive to commit such acts

for similar reason, some developers may feel compelled to stop releasing games on steam if a portion of its userbase starts acting like babies and pirate a game just because it's exclusive on a store they don't like. (it would be an even easier decision to make if epic were to pay you handsomely for doing so.)

the point of disappointed steam users would be better made if they just abstained from the game completely, over resorting to piracy. (this is probably the course of action chosen by most people who don't want to support egs, but it takes just a few asshole pirates to ruin it for everyone else)

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in the current music industry paradigm, no one but the very biggest name is earning shit from those subscription models

so if i were a smaller developer, i would rather protect my bottom line by taking a money hat, than by creating a moral hazard by giving pirating babies what they want

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Call them babies all you want, but fact of the matter is all this will do is feed into the loop. If smaller developers go for guaranteed payouts on the unfavorable store, piracy of the smaller devs will spike. If the devs go even harder for the unfavorable store, all that will happen is they will be pirated even harder. That's how we got the runaway piracy situation that caused Epic Games to 'rage quit' PC gaming and call PC gamers "a bunch of pirates", except with more and more draconian DRM as the cause.

Meme about Gabe Newell all you want, but he identified the root cause of piracy with surgical precision. I won't want to pirate a game if I can just as conveniently buy and download it. Making a potential pirate apprehensive of the buying, will only drive them further back to piracy.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

do you know why the government and police will not negotiate with terrorists and hostage-takers? because if you give those people what they want, you give people incentive to commit such acts

for similar reason, some developers may feel compelled to stop releasing games on steam if a portion of its userbase starts acting like babies and pirate a game just because it's exclusive on a store they don't like. (it would be an even easier decision to make if epic were to pay you handsomely for doing so.)

the point of disappointed steam users would be better made if they just abstained from the game completely, over resorting to piracy. (this is probably the course of action chosen by most people who don't want to support egs, but it takes just a few asshole pirates to ruin it for everyone else)

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I'm not sure developpers hold that much power, throwing away access to hundreds of millions of users because a portion of them is pirating seems to be a wrong business move to me. But tbh I also think that forfeiting long term goodwill for short term cash is a bad idea so what do I know?

And to be fair, piracy helped shaped the PC gaming landscape we have today. When you compete against free, you offer must be better than that and that's what Steam and GOG understood. If piracy increase, it just means that the value proposition isn't there yet.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

If you're an industry actor that's going with Epic, you're pretty much on the same level as an actor/actress that signs up to work with Woody Allen or Roman Polanski. Crying because people would rather pirate the work rather than financially contribute to someone who took a huge paycheck from a known problematic creep won't endear you to anyone.

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comparing timed exclusivity on a storefront to child abuse and pedophilia is a really bad look, and a surefire sign that you're taking this too seriously

yikes

 

[SteveWinwood]

comparing timed exclusivity on a storefront to child abuse and pedophilia is a really bad look, and a surefire sign that you're taking this too seriously

yikes

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but people who download video games without paying can be compared to terrorists?

 

[hydrophilic attack]

but people who download video games without paying can be compared to terrorists?

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I'm not comparing pirate babies to terrorists, I'm trying to explain the concept of moral hazard by use of the most famous example ("don't negotiate with terrorists")

 

[Cipherr]

in the current music industry paradigm, no one but the very biggest name is earning shit from those subscription models

so if i were a smaller developer, i would rather protect my bottom line by taking a money hat, than by creating a moral hazard by giving pirating babies what they want

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Then let your small hypothetical developer enjoy that; while assuming the money hats will last forever. See where that gets them. Unfortunately for them the consumers run the game, not the developers. And if they have forgotten that, consumers never tire of re-teaching this old lesson.

Won't be the first to try and bend the market and reality to your will with your dying breath. But like I said, just maybe they are special and will be the ones to pull it off. From their response, doesnt look like YsNet is interested in rolling those dice though. And I don't blame them. Learn from history, or get your ass kicked.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

Then let your small hypothetical developer enjoy that; while assuming the money hats will last forever. See where that gets them. Unfortunately for them the consumers run the game, not the developers. And if they have forgotten that, consumers never tire of re-teaching this old lesson.

Won't be the first to try and bend the market and reality to your will with your dying breath. But like I said, just maybe they are special and will be the ones to pull it off. From their response, doesnt look like YsNet is interested in rolling those dice though. And I don't blame them. Learn from history, or get your ass kicked.

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Are you really defending piracy as a consumer advocacy tool? Is that what is happening here?

To be clear, I support consumer advocacy by way of legal boycotts. You can see that If you go back and read my posts.

When I don't want to support a game for political reasons, I boycott it completely (see Persona 5). Protesting by way of piracy is such a chickenshit spineless thing to do. Such a pathetic lack of conviction.

 

[ArnoldJRimmer]

Are you really defending piracy as a consumer advocacy tool? Is that what is happening here?

To be clear, I support consumer advocacy by way of legal boycotts. You can see that If you go back and read my posts.

When I don't want to support a game for political reasons, I boycott it completely (see Persona 5). Protesting by way of piracy is such a chickenshit spineless thing to do. Such a pathetic lack of conviction.

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I don't know that he is defending it, so much as pointing out that it's the reality.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

I don't know that he is defending it, so much as pointing out that it's the reality.

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It's possible, but the language used sounds pretty celebratory. The following almost reads like a call to action:

Won't be the first to try and bend the market and reality to your will with your dying breath. But like I said, just maybe they are special and will be the ones to pull it off. From their response, doesnt look like YsNet is interested in rolling those dice though. And I don't blame them. Learn from history, or get your ass kicked.

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[Deleted member 45414]

It's possible, but the language used sounds pretty celebratory. The following almost reads like a call to action:

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None of that reads like a call to action. It reads like a prediction, one that's a tad dramatic.

I'm sure piracy of Epic's exclusives will be higher than had they not been exclusive, for a multitude of reasons (pricing as always, protest, lazyness, regional unavailability), but I doubt it's going to have a significant impact on the developers, since they've already been paid off for what would have been their first year of sales or so.

Plus once the timed exclusivity ends on a number of titles I'm sure a lot of the holdouts will purchase the games on steam as if nothing had happened.

Let's not act like piracy is a way to negate people's criticisms of Epic.

 

[FuzzyWuzzy]

I mean piracy is the thing that has kept the pc market relatively consumer friendly, if you compete with free you tend to come up with good ideas or you go under.

I don't pirate games and don't defend pirates but as other posters have pointed out on pc you don't only compete with companies but also with pirates and I feel like epic will drive many back to piracy

 

[Cipherr]

I don't know that he is defending it, so much as pointing out that it's the reality.

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This, exactly. The language Im using isn't celebratory, its a sign of fatigue. The entire fucking thing is a GTA-Here-We-Go-Again.GIF in my eyes.

 

[Daphne]

Hmm, I wish Ys Net would just release their statement so this thread can stop being horribly derailed.

 

[Kyougar]

people that resort to piracy because a game is on the wrong storefront are trash

if i were a developer, i may have just decided to double down on EGS just because of that, as a "we don't negotiate with terrorists" sort of statement

really bad look, even though those people are not representative of steam users as a whole

i understand people's concerns with EGS exclusivity (especially in such an egregious case as a kickstarted game) but this kind of shit only makes steam fans look bad to the industry, even if it's just a smaller portion of them

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"I will make even less money and close my studio down because Epic didn't finance my follow-up-game to stick it to the Pirates!"

Yeah, said no economist ever.

 

[Deleted member 10629]

Hmm, I wish Ys Net would just release their statement so this thread can stop being horribly derailed.

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After what happened with Mighty No 9, I expect no statement at all.

 

[inner-G]

comparing timed exclusivity on a storefront to child abuse and pedophilia

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Epic Games and those are all crimes against humanity, though.

 

[Bowl0l]

After what happened with Mighty No 9, I expect no statement at all.

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Does Deep Silver involve with anymore KS? We need to warn the other KS.

 

[StereoVSN]

After what happened with Mighty No 9, I expect no statement at all.

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"We carefully considered all the options and decided to jointly say "Fuck You" to all our backers. Please enjoy Epic Gaming Store tm."

Edit: On Deep Silver/THQ, I purged their stuff from my steam and GoG wishlists and it actually saved me some cash for this Steam sale. There are plenty of other games. I did want to play Pathfinder but there are other RPGs, for example.

 

[TwoPikachus]

I just don't understand why they are throwing big money to games that are already coming to PC. Imagine how happy people would have been if they threw money at console exclusives to be ported exclusively to their store. I know if Persona series came to EGS I would have happily bought it and had no problem with the exclusivity.

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They did that, actually. They brought over a couple of smaller Sony Exclusives from Quantic Dream and they brought over Journey which I thought was absolutely brilliant.

I'm not very interested in these games in particular but I do wish they would pursue this style more heavily as opposed to taking games off of Steam. Fund games that don't get made anymore, bring over console exclusives, that's the kind of thing I would appreciate as a gamer. Not simply throwing money at games that would have come to Steam otherwise.

 

[Deleted member 10629]

Does Deep Silver involve with anymore KS? We need to warn the other KS.

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Honestly I dunno if they have their hands on other KS projects.

"We carefully considered all the options and decided to jointly say "Fuck You" to all our backers. Please enjoy Epic Gaming Store tm."

Edit: On Deep Silver/THQ, I purged their stuff from my steam and GoG wishlists and it actually saved me some cash for this Steam sale. There are plenty of other games. I did want to play Pathfinder but there are other RPGs, for example.

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Yeah, they're gonna wait for this to blow over and laugh all the way to the bank. Which is a shame.

 

[Deleted member 45414]

They did that, actually. They brought over a couple of smaller Sony Exclusives from Quantic Dream and they brought over Journey which I thought was absolutely brilliant.

I'm not very interested in these games in particular but I do wish they would pursue this style more heavily as opposed to taking games off of Steam. Fund games that don't get made anymore, bring over console exclusives, that's the kind of thing I would appreciate as a gamer. Not simply throwing money at games that would have come to Steam otherwise.

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Did they fully fund those game ports?

Because I'm almost certain they would have made bank with or without Epic, so I'm curious if they actually needed funding.

 

[Lakeside]

I'm trying to understand the "Slacker Backer" campaign. That's apparently where my money went and the Fangamer survey still says "Steam".

Fangamer won't respond to me about anything so I'm uncertain where to direct my issue with this.

 

[Lothars]

Did they fully fund those game ports?

Because I'm almost certain they would have made bank with or without Epic, so I'm curious if they actually needed funding.

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Nope from what i understand they are more timed exclusives and were planning to come to PC but epic did help them come out sooner. It seems like a smart way to do it either way.

 

[EloKa]

They did that, actually. They brought over a couple of smaller Sony Exclusives from Quantic Dream and they brought over Journey which I thought was absolutely brilliant.

I'm not very interested in these games in particular but I do wish they would pursue this style more heavily as opposed to taking games off of Steam. Fund games that don't get made anymore, bring over console exclusives, that's the kind of thing I would appreciate as a gamer. Not simply throwing money at games that would have come to Steam otherwise.

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Afaik QD had stated that they were already porting the games to PC way before the EGS existed. Without the EGS exlusivity deals the games would have appeared on other PC stores. Epic didn't fund the ports or anything like that.

 

[Madjoki]

Did they fully fund those game ports?

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Nope. They just paid to keep them off from Steam. (Heavy Rain Demo for example, still has plenty of Steam references to forgot to scrub, thatgamecompany's other ex-Sony exclusive came to Steam and EGS same day)

 

[elyetis]

I don't pirate games and don't defend pirates but as other posters have pointed out on pc you don't only compete with companies but also with pirates and I feel like epic will drive many back to piracy

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Am I the only one who wouldn't be surprised to see Tim try to buy Denuvo or even make their own similar DRM, before even thinking of properly competing in the service departement ?

It seems so in character that I'm actually surprised to see it didn't already happen. I'm now wondering if it's gonna be a 2019 thing or a 2020.

They did that, actually. They brought over a couple of smaller Sony Exclusives from Quantic Dream and they brought over Journey which I thought was absolutely brilliant.

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They didn't, those port were happening either way.

Hmm, I wish Ys Net would just release their statement so this thread can stop being horribly derailed.

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It's only Wednesday.

 

[Daphne]

It's only Wednesday.

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It's Thursday, actually. ;)

 

[GrrImAFridge]

Afaik QD had stated that they were already porting the games to PC way before the EGS existed. Without the EGS exlusivity deals the games would have appeared on other PC stores. Epic didn't fund the ports or anything like that.

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Nope. They just paid to keep them off from Steam. (Heavy Rain Demo for example, still has plenty of Steam references to forgot to scrub, thatgamecompany's other ex-Sony exclusive came to Steam and EGS same day)

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To add to this, Journey, like Flower, is published by Annapurna.

 

[DigitalScars]

I just got a reply to my KS message to them, it appears they are still allowing platform changes to PS4. It's not a great outcome but a choice id rather have over being stuck with EGS version.

 

[YuSuzzune]

I just got a reply to my KS message to them, it appears they are still allowing platform changes to PS4. It's not a great outcome but a choice id rather have over being stuck with EGS version.

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Nice to know, but I want to read a statement from them regarding Steam keys before switching platform as last resource.

 

[dex3108]

 

[DigitalScars]

Nice to know, but I want to read a statement from them regarding Steam keys before switching platform as last resource.

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Yeah i may have been a bit hasty changing to ps4, would have preferred steam key and by no means does this make me any less pissed off. Just happy im not locked to egs as i wouldnt bother playing it.

 

[TwoPikachus]

Welp, they've done nothing good from my perspective then. I had no idea Sony was planning to let those go to PC already.

 

[Madjoki]

So changing to PS4 (physical/digital) seems best option, better resell value and it costs Ys net more since they have to pay license fees (20% physical / 30% digital).

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

When I don't want to support a game for political reasons, I boycott it completely (see Persona 5). Protesting by way of piracy is such a chickenshit spineless thing to do. Such a pathetic lack of conviction.

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Conviction doesn't factor into it. It's a principle matter. If I were to boycott a game, it would be a statement of "I will not buy this game unless such-and-such changes are made". Pirating a game has more finality to it - it's a statement of "I will play your game the way I want to, not the way you want me to", whether it be made out of base greed or to spite the developers/publishers.

Framing boycotting and piracy as a dichotomy, and shunning people for not holding to some kind of honor code demanding that the true way to act is to 'hold fast' and not play a desirable game because "that'll show em", is not particularly meaningful - especially in cases like these with Kickstarter exclusivity deals, when the developer/player relations have long since had 'honor' thrown out the window. It's illegal, but even honest people will do it if you wrong them enough as a dev. Try to force them into a choice they won't take, and they'll take the darker path, that's just how it is.

 

[Demacabre]

So changing to PS4 (physical/digital) seems best option, better resell value and it costs Ys net more since they have to pay license fees (20% physical / 30% digital).

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Just remember only Steam is bad with their cut.... for reasons*...

*helps the EGS narrative by framing it that way.

 

[Madjoki]

Just remember only Steam is bad with their cut.... for reasons*...

*helps the EGS narrative by framing it that way.

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but it's not the same, you don't have to pay cut on keys. that's clearly worse ;)

 

[Seductivpancakes]

I just got a reply to my KS message to them, it appears they are still allowing platform changes to PS4. It's not a great outcome but a choice id rather have over being stuck with EGS version.

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Well at least this way I can sell it on eBay.

 

[dex3108]

My bet is still on them staying silent.

 

[Mabec]

They probably wont say anything until Epic Game staff gets back from vaca

 

[Mifec]

I see Suzuki is practicing fading into obscurity early. I thought it would happen after Shenmue 3.

 

[Fishsnot]

On a sidenote, it's offputting and embarrassing how some have started calling him Timmy in an effort to belittle him. Please stop.

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What on earth am I reading here?

You are embarrassed by people calling him "Timmy"? Out of disrespect? L-O-L
Well we wouldn't want to hurt the multi billionaires feelings on a gaming forum now would we?
Yet I suppose it's perfectly acceptable for "Timmy" Tencent to flat out disrespect gamers and especially backers of this game and continually treat all of us like something he just stepped in?
I think if we really try hard enough, we can all collectively put our heads together and conjure up a lot worse things to call the prick if you would prefer?
On a side note however, he is doing a grand job of embarrassing himself on his own at this point, without being called "Timmy" of all things.
For goodness sakes....

 

[Shaneus]

Still waiting. Guessing they're holding out until, ooh, say mid-November?

 

[ZugZug123]

For all the people in this thread that are defending EGS and devs taking the moneyhat based on the generous EGS 12% cut: tell my why the games made exclusive to EGS cannot show up on Itch.io.

It is a smaller shop with name recognition only for indie fans and their cut can be close to 0%. Surely if Timmy is just worried about devs getting the best cut possible for their hard work, he would not be against the exclusives showing up on a shop that in no way can threaten Epic right? And given the almost not cost to setup a game page on Itch a dev would surely not have anything against it right?

But that is not happening. Why? Because Epic' s goal is to buy a user base and market share and the devs are there for the money hat only, not to find the most customers they can. It's greed on both sides and screw the customers access to choices on where to buy games.

 

[Seductivpancakes]

If there's gonna be a statement, its gonna be Friday.

 

[Fishsnot]

If there's gonna be a statement, its gonna be Friday.

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In what month?