Epic doing Epic things?

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Lakados

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https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-games-store-self-publishing/

So Epic is taking a swing at Valve and trying to get more small publishers in the store, their rules are simple and mostly unobjectionable.
I mean steam has me on lock because... <gestures at the back catalog of unplayed games>
But I will always welcome competition to the market, and the more ideas the better.
 
Frankly that "Epic Online Services" is eventually what caused me to stop launching epic games, even with the free games every week or whatever. I have zero interest installing a piece of epic software that runs 24/7.
At this point, I just wait for the game to come to STEAM or I won't play it on PC.
 
Lakados said:
https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-games-store-self-publishing/

So Epic is taking a swing at Valve and trying to get more small publishers in the store, their rules are simple and mostly unobjectionable.
I mean steam has me on lock because... <gestures at the back catalog of unplayed games>
But I will always welcome competition to the market, and the more ideas the better.
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I'm with you. More competition is better. Even if it means another launcher.
 
OFaceSIG said:
I'm with you. More competition is better. Even if it means another launcher.
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At this point all the games I am playing are just desktop icons and the launchers are basically silent, so they can do their thing down there in the bottom corner and I only need to remember them when I rebuild things or I am looking to buy something "new".
 
Lakados said:
https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-games-store-self-publishing/

So Epic is taking a swing at Valve and trying to get more small publishers in the store, their rules are simple and mostly unobjectionable.
I mean steam has me on lock because... <gestures at the back catalog of unplayed games>
But I will always welcome competition to the market, and the more ideas the better.
Click to expand...
Let me know when they make a Epic Deck and bring their store to Linux. Until then they can go fly a kite.
 
I'm not going to lie. I am pretty prejudiced against epic because of their prior efforts to bribe developers/studios with exclusivity deals.

That is not competition. It is competition when the customer has a choice.

Valve has not been perfect in this regard either though. For instance, their requirement of those who sell their titles on Steam that they cannot sell them for less elsewhere is anti-competitive and should be illegal. (not sure if they are even still doing this or if it is historical at this point)

Ideally we would get back to the good old days where the games are launcher agnostic, and you can buy them anywhere you please.

Heck, it would be even better if they were portable. If you could transfer the license you bought for a game from one store/launcher to another and thus only use the store/launcher that is the best store/launcher. Now THAT would be real competition.

One thing that really drives me up a wall is when I buy a title from Steam, install it, and the title installs it's own launcher and tries to force me to create an account just to run it. I recently bought and then requested a refund for Red Dead Redemption for this reason. I don't want the Rockstar launcher, and I don't want an online account for an offline single player game (even if it has an optional multiplayer component). Same with the Far Cry series which has installed and required Ubisoft connect and an online account in order to play.

I am a big believer in developers getting paid, but if they are going to be dicks and force their launchers/accounts on me, I am going to return the favor and just run the "community editions". Fuck 'em.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I am a big believer in developers getting paid, but if they are going to be dicks and force their launchers/accounts on me, I am going to return the favor and just run the "community editions". Fuck 'em
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First off they aren't "dicks" for having their own account system. Second, if you really believed in devs getting paid, you'd buy the game still and use the "community edition". Just refunding and pirating isn't the answer and is the epitome of being a "dick". Finally, you can't even use the traditional pirate argument of "I was just trying it!" with your ridiculous post.
 
People are not spending more money on Epic compared to last year. The increase in money spent on third-party games was proportional to the increase in user (18%) for a net-zero gain and an average of $1.50 spent per user. This was the same as last year. Epic cannot sustain their business if they keep running on giving out games for free.

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Epic makes *all* of their money from Fortnite. (And Unreal Engine) Taking a tiny bit of Valve's cut of the publishing business is purely to try and lure more people into Fortnites ecosystem.
 
TheSlySyl said:
Epic makes *all* of their money from Fortnite. (And Unreal Engine) Taking a tiny bit of Valve's cut of the publishing business is purely to try and lure more people into Fortnites ecosystem.
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Yep, unreal engine is nothing ;) /s.
 
GoldenTiger said:
First off they aren't "dicks" for having their own account system. Second, if you really believed in devs getting paid, you'd buy the game still and use the "community edition". Just refunding and pirating isn't the answer and is the epitome of being a "dick". Finally, you can't even use the traditional pirate argument of "I was just trying it!" with your ridiculous post.
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I go back and forth on this.

I do own a large number of games like this, which I have played the community edition of for one reason or another (usually due to forced launcher/account issues, or bribed exclusives, because I wanted the devs to get paid.

With The Outer Worlds and Metro Exodus I played the "community edition" during the year long Epic exclusive, and then bought the games as soon as they came to Steam, despite having already finished them. Fair is fair. I played it, I paid for it.

But then I realized, if they get my money, they have no incentive to change their ways.

You have to create the incentive for them to do the right thing.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
If they get my money, they have no incentive to change their ways.
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Lol, yeah I'm sure that's really socking it to them! /s Most places nowadays require accounts. You're not a customer to "incentivize" them at this point.

jfreund said:
Yes, they most certainly are.
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How so? It's typical nowadays with any business.
 
Lakados said:
https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-games-store-self-publishing/

So Epic is taking a swing at Valve and trying to get more small publishers in the store, their rules are simple and mostly unobjectionable.
I mean steam has me on lock because... <gestures at the back catalog of unplayed games>
But I will always welcome competition to the market, and the more ideas the better.
Click to expand...
More like epic doing crappy things. Forcing all inclusive closs platform compatibility on small devs can break them. Also who cares about hentai games? Don't go looking for them Tim, and you'll never see them on Steam. Is this supposed to be some moral virtue signal?

BTW did they stop with the exclusivity crap? Even if they did you never wash off that stench. They'll forever be known as the store who bribed devs to screw over gamers.
 
DukenukemX said:
Let me know when they make a Epic Deck and bring their store to Linux. Until then they can go fly a kite.
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https://github.com/derrod/legendary
Epic has an open-store API so it is accessible through Heroic Games Launcher, Lutris, and Bottles currently, you don't need to install their launcher in Linux and really why would you want to when there are better clients already available?
I am still not convinced that the Steam Deck wasn't a gimmick, should they release a V2 then I will acknowledge it as a thing until then its another one of Valve's fire-and-forget products, but now they do have another console they are about to release so who knows maybe they are serious this time around.
 
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M76 said:
More like epic doing crappy things. Forcing all inclusive closs platform compatibility on small devs can break them. Also who cares about hentai games? Don't go looking for them Tim, and you'll never see them on Steam. Is this supposed to be some moral virtue signal?

BTW did they stop with the exclusivity crap? Even if they did you never wash off that stench. They'll forever be known as the store who bribed devs to screw over gamers.
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If a "small developer" is able to release a console title and a PC title they shouldn't have a problem with cross-play, it is one of the functions built into the unreal engine after all, Epic already did that work for them, the PSN is the only part that makes things difficult as you need to jump through hoops for Sony first.
I'm still butthurt over Valve not including installers in their sponsored titles back in the late '90s and early 2000s, when you would go to a store and buy a box with a CD in the box only to find the CD was a steam installer and you had to download the game, good internet in rural Canada during that time was not exactly common and the nearest store to actually buy PC games was like towns over so a good 2h worth of driving to find that shit out.
Compared to that paying devs for the inconvenience and obvious revenue loss of not putting their titles on Steam is minor in my book, paid exclusive content is rampant everywhere and I don't see it any different than Xbox or Sony paying for their exclusively timed content.
 
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Lakados said:
If a "small developer" is able to release a console title and a PC title they shouldn't have a problem with cross-play, it is one of the functions built into the unreal engine after all, Epic already did that work for them, the PSN is the only part that makes things difficult as you need to jump through hoops for Sony first.
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They mean cross store compatibility not hardware platform. Call me racist but I don't think console and pc players should mix anyway :p Being able to play against steam players in a multiplayer game seems like a ploy to me to get devs not to release their game on steam instead of dealing with that can of worms.
Lakados said:
I'm still butthurt over Valve not including installers in their sponsored titles back in the late '90s and early 2000s, when you would go to a store and buy a box with a CD in the box only to find the CD was a steam installer and you had to download the game, good internet in rural Canada during that time was not exactly common and the nearest store to actually buy PC games was like towns over so a good 2h worth of driving to find that shit out.
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What are you talking about 90s? Steam didn't become a thing until 2002, but really only started catching on with HL2 in 2003. Also only having a steam installer on the phyisical media is defnitiely not steam policy, every single steam game I purchased including valve's own orange box in retail had the full game on the discs.
Lakados said:
Compared to that paying devs for the inconvenience and obvious revenue loss of not putting their titles on Steam is minor in my book, paid exclusive content is rampant everywhere and I don't see it any different than Xbox or Sony paying for their exclusively timed content.
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Paying devs for the privilege of inconveniencing players was the official policy at epic. Not having game installers on discs might have been some publishers taking shortcuts on their own, not at the behest of valve.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Lol, yeah I'm sure that's really socking it to them! /s Most places nowadays require accounts. You're not a customer to "incentivize" them at this point.
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If its just me, then no. I may overspend on games, but even I don't buy enough games for that.

But I'm not the only person who dislikes this behavior. Single player games should never require accounts or being online.

With a little luck those lost sales will add up to the point where they outweigh the positives for the studio of doing this, and they'll just give up on it.

I'll admit it is a sthretch though, but wasn't there a major publisher in the last year or two who gave up on this behavior and moved back to just using Steam? I can't remember which one, but I do recall reading it in the news here or on TheFPSReview.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
If its just me, then no. I may overspend on games, but even I don't buy enough games for that.

But I'm not the only person who dislikes this behavior.

With a little luck those lost sales will add up to the poiint where they outweigh the positives for the studio of doing this, and they'll just give up on it.
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Yup. Maybe one of these days Epic will actually offer a competitive store front and services instead of trying to lure people over with the same list of free games. As I've said in every other Epic thread, I know where else I can go for "free" games. Tim already paid the dev off to cover my copy anyways, lol.
 
Armenius said:
People are not spending more money on Epic compared to last year. The increase in money spent on third-party games was proportional to the increase in user (18%) for a net-zero gain and an average of $1.50 spent per user. This was the same as last year. Epic cannot sustain their business if they keep running on giving out games for free.

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Their metrics seem based around user count, not around what actually drives revenue.

This was the same issue Twitter had. They didn't seem to care if they were making any money or not, even if their users were bots, as long as that total user count kept going up.

It's a cautionary business tale. Be careful what goals you set for your organization, because you get what you measure.
 
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Always funny to see people get mad when Epic does something good.
REEEE I might not be able to launch my game through Steam.
REEEEE they have an option that's not required or checked by default to share your data with the developers of the game you're getting for free. Yes, that's an actual complaint made in the past by one of the people in this thread.
 
M76 said:
What are you talking about 90s? Steam didn't become a thing until 2002, but really only started catching on with HL2 in 2003. Also only having a steam installer on the phyisical media is defnitiely not steam policy, every single steam game I purchased including valve's own orange box in retail had the full game on the discs.
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Valve launched its services in 1998, they renamed it steam in 2003.
But when I bought HL. back in 99, (I didn't have a PC that could play it in 98), I had to download it, which required me to cart my tower to the public library and use their internet to download it.
It wasn't until after Y2K that I was able to ditch dialup for DSL, still not great, moved to a larger area in 2003 for school/work so finally got good internet then, but Valve continued the practice well into the 20-teens, Total War Shogun 2, for example, bought it at an EB games, CD, CD-Key and all that jazz in the box. Pop the CD in the drive for a Steam installer to launch instead, turns out the CD key was not a CD key at all but the steam redemption code. It very much was something that Valve was doing from the get-go and they paid publishers and developers to do it.
 
sharknice said:
Always funny to see people get mad when Epic does something good.
REEEE I might not be able to launch my game through Steam.
REEEEE they have an option that's not required or checked by default to share your data with the developers of the game you're getting for free. Yes, that's an actual complaint made in the past by one of the people in this thread.
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It is true. You don't have to accept a free game.

But they should be disclosing front and center with freaking large red blinking letters if any data is going to be sent.

Honestly, in my perfect world it would be illegal to offer a product or service in exchange for user data. If something is free, it would have to be free with no strings attached. Data sharing should always be opt in, and not required to use such services.
 
GoldenTiger said:
How so? It's typical nowadays with any business.
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And they are dicks.

I want to play your game. Take my money and fuck off for another 4 years or so when you have another game I want to play. I don't want a "relationship" or to "engage" with a developer. When I start the game, I want to start the game, not see your re-damned-dundant launcher shitting on my screen trying to sell me something (glaring at you, 2K).
 
Lakados said:
Valve launched its services in 1998, they renamed it steam in 2003.
But when I bought HL. back in 99, (I didn't have a PC that could play it in 98), I had to download it, which required me to cart my tower to the public library and use their internet to download it.
It wasn't until after Y2K that I was able to ditch dialup for DSL, still not great, moved to a larger area in 2003 for school/work so finally got good internet then, but Valve continued the practice well into the 20-teens, Total War Shogun 2, for example, bought it at an EB games, CD, CD-Key and all that jazz in the box. Pop the CD in the drive for a Steam installer to launch instead, turns out the CD key was not a CD key at all but the steam redemption code. It very much was something that Valve was doing from the get-go and they paid publishers and developers to do it.
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Before steam (2003 2002 ish) they did not have a download service for full games, are you remembering something different? I'm not familiar with any delivery method for half life in 1999 other than physical disc. In 2003 CS 1.6 was released on steam, is that what you are thinking of? Or maybe HL2 which required steam?

1998 - mid 2000's was its WON servers, which offered very limited services ( I dont recall being able to download games on the WON servers)
 
serpretetsky said:
Before steam (2003 2002 ish) they did not have a download service for full games, are you remembering something different? I'm not familiar with any delivery method for half life in 1999 other than physical disc. In 2003 CS 1.6 was released on steam, is that what you are thinking of? Or maybe HL2 which required steam?

1998 - mid 2000's was its WON servers, which offered very limited services ( I dont recall being able to download games on the WON servers)
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Yeah, my recollection of WON was that all it was was a unique player ID, and server browsing, and that's it. But it has been a really long time, so I could be wrong.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I remember using Counter-Strike on the WON network in the early days.

I believe it was owned by Sierra Games, but Valve used it in Half-Life until Steam came around.

Or something like that. It has been a while.
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Yeah, they shut down the WON servers in 2004 and required all users to migrate to Steam or lose access to their keys.
It was a big deal for Counterstrike at the time because Steam required the 1.6 patch which was terrible compared to 1.5 used by most players.
But yeah Sierra created WON, and sold it to Havas, who merged making it Flipside, it was purchased by Valve who shut it down and rolled all its functions and games into Steam. Homeworld, Half-Life, Outpost 2, StarTrek Armada, Soldier of Fortune, ARC, and a handful of others.
Not a popular decision at the time and I remember the IRC rooms being very vocal in their displeasure with the move at the time.
 
Lakados said:
Yeah, they shut down the WON servers in 2004 and required all users to migrate to Steam or lose access to their keys.
It was a big deal for Counterstrike at the time because Steam required the 1.6 patch which was terrible compared to 1.5 used by most players.
But yeah Sierra created WON, and sold it to Havas, who merged making it Flipside, it was purchased by Valve who shut it down and rolled all its functions and games into Steam. Homeworld, Half-Life, Outpost 2, StarTrek Armada, Soldier of Fortune, ARC, and a handful of others.
Not a popular decision at the time and I remember the IRC rooms being very vocal in their displeasure with the move at the time.
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Ah, I ran a number of very popular CS servers at the time

I migrated the main one over to Source as soon as it launched. I kept the original 1.x version (whatever it was at the time, 1.5?) on one of the secondary servers, but most of our players migrated to source real quick.

I don't recall any problems with 1.6, but I don't think I ever really played it. Most of my CS memories come from the 1.1-1.3 era (though I started playing probably at beta7 or something like that. I wasn't quite there from the first beta4 release.

Edit:

I just looked at the version histories. While I could have sworn I got Source earlier, I guess it didn't come out until 2004. 1.6 was 2003, so I guess we must have been on 1.6 for a while.

It's been 20 years. I can't remember shit anymore.
 
M76 said:
Forcing all inclusive closs platform compatibility on small devs can break them.
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In what way? It is essentially like Steamworks, just doesn't require Steam only.

M76 said:
BTW did they stop with the exclusivity crap? Even if they did you never wash off that stench. They'll forever be known as the store who bribed devs to screw over gamers.
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Evidently it does, because you're okay with Valve/Steam locking games to a single client and buying out independent studios and their in development games. :p


Zarathustra[H] said:
Their metrics seem based around user count, not around what actually drives revenue.

This was the same issue Twitter had. They didn't seem to care if they were making any money or not, even if their users were bots, as long as that total user count kept going up.

It's a cautionary business tale. Be careful what goals you set for your organization, because you get what you measure.
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They also over value the free games they give out. Typically they value them at full MSRP of something like $60, even though the game regularly goes on sale for $15-20. So if they give out 100 games with a list price of $60 that have long since had a massive sales slow down, they'll say the gave out $6,000 worth of games. In reality, it was more like $1,500-$2,000. They probably pay the devs a greatly discounted rate too, much like Nvidia/AMD do when they give out free games with GPUs. Not a bad deal for the developers honestly. Most of the indie games probably get more money by "giving their game away" than they do selling it normally.
 
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Lakados said:
Yeah, they shut down the WON servers in 2004 and required all users to migrate to Steam or lose access to their keys.
It was a big deal for Counterstrike at the time because Steam required the 1.6 patch which was terrible compared to 1.5 used by most players.
But yeah Sierra created WON, and sold it to Havas, who merged making it Flipside, it was purchased by Valve who shut it down and rolled all its functions and games into Steam. Homeworld, Half-Life, Outpost 2, StarTrek Armada, Soldier of Fortune, ARC, and a handful of others.
Not a popular decision at the time and I remember the IRC rooms being very vocal in their displeasure with the move at the time.
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I boycotted Steam for years because of this changing of the rules they did. The begining of taking away server control for a lot of games from the customers.
 
jfreund said:
And they are dicks.

I want to play your game. Take my money and fuck off for another 4 years or so when you have another game I want to play. I don't want a "relationship" or to "engage" with a developer. When I start the game, I want to start the game, not see your re-damned-dundant launcher shitting on my screen trying to sell me something (glaring at you, 2K).
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It's called cross-promotion. It's not unusual, nor is it that big a deal.
 
GoldenTiger said:
It's called cross-promotion. It's not unusual, nor is it that big a deal.
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The 2k launcher that was added to their games on Steam has caused tons of issues for end users(such as inability to launch, CTDs, and noticeable framerate hits) with zero benefit. So far I've been able to disable it with a launch flag when I've encountered it but I wouldn't be surprised to see that option go away at some point.
 
Ebernanut said:
The 2k launcher that was added to their games on Steam has caused tons of issues for end users(such as inability to launch, CTDs, and noticeable framerate hits) with zero benefit. So far I've been able to disable it with a launch flag when I've encountered it but I wouldn't be surprised to see that option go away at some point.
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Ok, so I should have said "normally" not a big deal, since apparently one launcher you use is buggy :p? You knew what was meant.
 
I think no matter what happens, everyone is aware of the video card storm that's been happening lately. Video cards have never been more popular, along with gaming, so I can imagine that a lot of people all have powerful video cards, and suddenly game developers realize that they have a lot more room to design games, with the idea that everyone has an RTX 2060 or better card. That's a lot of power, even at that minimum, and when game developers begin to push more AAA-appearing games, even if they are actually just very nice looking amateur games, then that's when it will be the time to begin buying games, and I can't imagine that there's any way to actually compete in a meaningful way other than exclusive contracts. Certainly rude to us consumers, but really. What are they supposed to do? The one store to rule them all that contains all content will just become an expensive monopoly, so it's best to deliberately diversify as a consumer, such that we can force these companies to compete, and thus offer us more features and reasons to choose one over another. Yeah, I guess it's stupid, but that's clearly what's happening, and either we play their game wisely, or we end up favoring whatever the most convenient monopoly is.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Ok, so I should have said "normally" not a big deal, since apparently one launcher you use is buggy :p? You knew what was meant.
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The post you were responding to specifically called out the 2k Launcher though so I thought I'd point out that not only is it used for potentially unwanted advertising and data collection it also actively causes issues for end users.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Ok, so I should have said "normally" not a big deal, since apparently one launcher you use is buggy :p? You knew what was meant.
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Its not just 2k's launcher but that one gets the most notice these days because its been pretty bad. Most of them have annoyances to outright game affecting bugs. The 2k launcher causing framerate issues didn't help their new Marvel game's reputation.
 
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