Epic Games Storefront - A Good Incentive for Piracy
- Thread starter Wintermute
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Literally nobody here is talking about being loyal to Steam. Steam is the preferred choice for many people because of the ridiculous amount of features built into it that are beneficial to the consumer. What does Epic offer as a client? Nothing. This isn't about loyalty. This is about an inferior service barging its way into an industry and throwing around cash like they're a sailor in-port. There sure are a lot of cheap whores lapping it up too by the looks of it.
I swear to fucking god people on this forum have some serious issues about projecting their shit onto other people and trying to argue against arguments that aren't even being made.
(PS: I am actually loyal to Steam. I've taken the loyalty oath and everything. Death to Microsoft! Death to Origin! All hail Gaben's many folds! Half Life 3 will bring the promised land!)
I swear to fucking god people on this forum have some serious issues about projecting their shit onto other people and trying to argue against arguments that aren't even being made.
(PS: I am actually loyal to Steam. I've taken the loyalty oath and everything. Death to Microsoft! Death to Origin! All hail Gaben's many folds! Half Life 3 will bring the promised land!)
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Ravishing
Uninspiring Title
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You aren't loyal to steam yet you keep talking about their client. Who gives a shit about these store clients? I want 0 client. I just want to play the games.
And newsflash, Epic has been in this Industry longer than Valve.
You anti-Epic people are letting the FortNite hate get to you.
I love Valve & Epic equally. TF2 is still one of my all-time played. But I truly dislike the Steam client. It's so intrusive.
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Utnayan
F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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I am with you. Steam bent publishers over backwards for the last 5 years (Especially Indie). I did like their return policy though which I am sure has more to do with Publisher's veering away from Steam. Some of it so they do not have to pay the ungodly amount of 30% on each title sold (Gimme a break, I do not care WHAT value Steam brings at that point it isn't worth it for Publishers on back end sales tracking, yadda - most of the shit these publishers already have in place anyway) and some rests on the publisher with not wanting to agree to An EULA that forces them to provide a two hour refund.
I am not buying Metro Exodus on PC anyway so it doesn't effect me.
You're an imbecile that gets upset when people point it out. And there's nothing passive about me, spanky.
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Utnayan
F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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Some of the changes they make remind me of the horrible changes Google or Facebook make to a resounding thud of why. The latest friends UI chat change namely one of them.
Fight
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Steam, GoG, Humble, Origin... what ever the fuck platform you want to throw out there, their primary purpose is a platform to buy and deliver games. If Epic can get consumers their games cheaper ($50 vs $60) while giving the developers a greater portion of the profits, then I am not sure how you can even begin to make the argument that they are "an inferior service".
If they can consistently broker deals on games at the same level as Metro for the next year or two, they will take a huge bite out of Steam's business.
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Vorph
Silver Baronet of the Realm
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How much do you think Sony and MS take off digital console game sales? (I've heard it's about 35%.)
How much does pressing, packaging, and distributing physical copies cost, followed by the cut taken by retailers like Walmart/Gamestop/Amazon? (I've heard it's 50%+.)
Steam's cut was never particularly outlandish compared to the rest of the industry. They've already dropped it significantly for games that sell more than a million copies too.
Epic's store is an anti-consumer shithole (reviews, return policy, etc.).
And this cannot be repeated enough: Epic answers to China.
If all one cares about is price, then yeah, they're not an inferior store. If you care about more than just price, like the features that Steam offers or the anti-DRM approach of GoG, then they're an inferior service (albeit now with reduced prices in some cases, which will even it out for some). I guess we might be seeing a new situation where we have the PC gaming equivalent of "no frills" stores vs standard types of stores. At least until Epic grows their feature/services (provided they have interest in doing so) and at which point I'll be right there with everyone else enjoying both lower prices and equal service. That's a no brainer.
I have no doubt Valve is feeling the pressure already, which is a great thing if it continues to break them out of the laziness they were stagnating under for a fair number of years. I just hope it doesnt result in a race to the bottom for everyone which leaves us all with just a shitty situation on top of the inevitable return to normal prices.
Might be an irrelevant situation anyways if cloud gaming comes anywhere near the promise it's supposed to have.
meStevo
I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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Or stores with no meaningful promotion or presence. Last month I noticed there are games with timed exclusivity on the Discord store, lol.
Discord - Free voice and text chat for gamers
Vorph
Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Has any other game been put up on Epic's store at a reduced price? I don't think this is some new trend but rather a result of Epic buying up an exclusive that had already been presold on Steam for ages. It's simply an incentive to get people to cancel their order on Steam and buy from Epic instead.
Utnayan
F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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I hear ya about China.
I was under the assumption MS and Sony didn't take anything extra off digital sales that they already took from Licensed physical sales - either way they take it off the top of both and that percentage was static. Apple's and Oranges though because Sony and MS are sharing a console license fee to run on their systems as an actual gaming platform. Steam is just redistributing software at what I was told were higher fees than MS/Sony on their licencing fee for console/platform use. To me, the Sony/MS fee makes sense because they loss lead their hardware and their revenue is made off the licensing - Where Sure, Steam serves as a 3rd party platform, with some integrated match making if the developer/publisher want, but it usually just points to a game's server and makes it a little easier for the gamer in terms of a use case. There are other value points like 2 hour refunds, and Steam is a better consumer advocate and has a long running game history and 99% of the library is on Steam.
With that said, I am for competition in this space - and while I cringe at the fact of multiple services, I also do not want a monopoly for digital services.
Not that I know of, but it's hard to argue this stuff without including it as a likely future without it being brought up as a counter argument. I'd love to know the full details of the Exodus deal to see how the exclusivity played into it on top of the price, and whether or not one or both was paid for by epic, or if it was a split burden.
Ravishing
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If you count the free monthly game, then yea? Epic gives a lot away, mostly to game devs, for obvious reasons: they want games made on their engine to rake in that % cut.
Everything I've seen has them doing right in my book. They have not shown to be a money grubbing corporation (yet).
Look at it from Epic's perspective in the past couple years:
They had Unreal Tournament, which is/was a niche game really. Out-paced by all the modern FPS games
They spent 7+ years developing FortNite which looked to be a flop until they tacked on BR mode
They were dumping millions into Paragon, (SMITE competition), and only scrapped it after FortNite succeeded.
They had Infinity Blade for Mobile which, I guess, was kinda successful...
And mostly they just had a top-tier game engine for ages now which has kept them afloat.
I think the FortNite money is their reward and they are being very thankful & appreciative of the response to their game, after decades of 2nd/3rd tier games.
Not to say in another couple years they won't turn into villains, but at least for now they are trying to be the good guys.
Regarding China: Tencent owns 40%... But are you really boycotting Tencent companies? They have stakes in most gaming companies. Not Valve of course, but eh, whatever I guess. I see your point but there's a lot of games I like to play that Tencent has a piece of lol.
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