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As a consumer, I want competition in distribution space. I wonder why are people mad about a new entrant giving back more money to developers and in process potentially lowering the cost of game for a consumer? I am all for Epic challenging steam through any (exclusive deals included) means. When companies compete consumer wins.The internet is going to shit itself if it's an Epic Store exclusive.
As a consumer, I want competition in distribution space.
Since the publisher makes the decision on the cost of the game I doubt prices will be much lower on EGS. Shaving $10 off a game isn't going to compel many gamers to flock to their underdeveloped store.As a consumer, I want competition in distribution space. I wonder why are people mad about a new entrant giving back more money to developers and in process potentially lowering the cost of game for a consumer? I am all for Epic challenging steam through any (exclusive deals included) means. When companies compete consumer wins.
You are. I’m willing to bet the vast majority of PC gamers do not care at all what launcher is used to launch the game. The echo chambers of Reddit and online forums typically aren’t an accurate depiction of the population they’re trying to represent.I am probably in the minority on that statement.
FUCK!
Fucking Gearbox! Either its a bad April Fools joke or its indeed an Epic Store exclusive.
I honestly hope not, mainly because I don't think Gearbox can really afford to fuck up this badly if it's true.
Then you should be against EGS's shady practices. Here's the reality:
Competition: If Epic would subsidize the price of games to be $10+ cheaper than Steam. Consumer has a choice.
Anti-competition/monopoly: Epic bribing publishers to not sell games on Steam. Price is locked, consumer has no choice where to buy.
The latter is what's pissing everybody off, especially since Epic seems to be trying to steal every new game coming out.
Metro seems to have done well, proving that games can sell on a platform that isn't Steam. If a publisher thinks that the extra revenue cut can bring in more money than they may lose by ditching Steam,
I disagree with this entirely. For starters, EGS has nothing to do with the price of games on it's platform. Competition, per your definition, they literally cannot achieve. What really confuses me is to call them out for creating a monopoly, while somehow defending Steam? Steam is the monopoly. It's taken 15 years for a real competitor to try and challenge Steam, and I imagine it will take several more years for EGS to really make a dent in their market share. For the most part, Steam is PC gaming. The fact that Steam is a monopoly doesn't have an easily perceived negative impact on the consumer, and thus we either don't see it, or don't care. The reality is that Steam is taking 30% of every sale they make because they can. Because their dominance has been largely unchallenged. For basically anybody that isn't EA, your option is to give 30% of your games revenue to Valve, or don't sell your game on PC. That is abso-fucking-lutely as monopoly as it gets, and quite honestly I don't think it's good for PC gaming. PC is already the underdog platform compared to consoles. By being the least profitable platform, it's the platform that gets the least attention. It's the reason we get shitty PC ports. Or see games that release on consoles but don't make it to PC. Or come years later so that we'll all double dip. I'm not blaming Steam for this, and I don't know if EGS giving developers an extra 18% of their sales can change that, but it sure as shit can't hurt.
The issue here isn't exclusivity. If these games were Steam exclusives, zero fucks would be given. The real issue is people don't want to install another launcher. And truthfully, I get that. I bitched as well as any of you when Battlefield 3 and Mass Effect 3 never showed up on Steam. Then I bitched some more when Uplay became mandatory for games I bought on Steam. But honestly, now that pretty much every major publisher has their own launcher, I'm numb to it. I'm done worrying about what platform my games are on. I haven't purchased anything on EGS yet, but really only because nothing has been released there that interests me yet. I would like to see them grown and become as fully realized as Steam. If they can do that, and make PC a more lucrative platform for publishers, they absolutely have my business.
At the end of the day, the guy you quoted was 100% right. Competition is absolutely a good thing, and that makes EGS a good thing. If EGS can grow large enough to challenge Steam, to take away their monopoly status, that is a good thing. And quite honestly, right now they're doing it the only way they can. Without exclusives, nobody has a reason to shop with them over Steam. You're average consumer doesn't put enough thought into their purchase to consider what an 18% going into a developers pockets could do. Without exclusives, they can't grow and it's business-as-usual over at Steam. It's only anti-consumer until you realize that a lower price tag isn't the only way to benefit the consumer.
Also, it wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing EGS exclusive games that aren't negotiated by Epic. Metro seems to have done well, proving that games can sell on a platform that isn't Steam. If a publisher thinks that the extra revenue cut can bring in more money than they may lose by ditching Steam, it makes sense to launch only on EGS. 2K knows BL3 is a big enough franchise to get people to give up the fight and install EGS. It wouldn't surprise me if BL3 was EGS exclusive. It also wouldn't surprise me to hear Epic had nothing to do with it.
^ Steam is anything but unchallenged or a monopoly these days. Almost every major AAA publisher has their own store/downloader now.
More importantly Valve has never bribed publishers or told them to stop selling their games on other stores. That would be actual monopolist behavior. People are upset about far more than Epic being another launcher, it's disingenuous to try to minimize it.
I also don't buy the "it's the only way Epic can gain a foothold" ..then if Epic gets bigger then what? You think they're going to stop their current business practices and stop trying to steal every new game that comes out?
Anyone that gives Epic/Tencent a dime is feeding the biggest cancer in PC gaming right now. People are looking at the now only, not the long-term damage Epic is doing.
Nothing was really proven. They were too embarrassed to release the numbers the way every other publisher does when they have amazing sales in the first days and weeks, and only congratulated themselves for exceeding Last Light's initial sales, a title that had low sales in the beginning and most sales came after. Metro Exodus got a huge boost by a year and a half of hype, free advertising and prominent front page and popup placement on Steam. Epic did fuckall.
And the extra revenue cut is meaningless when theyre doing a fraction of the volume they would on steam. I don't get how so many people miss the basic math here.
As others have already stated there are more launchers then steam, but as consumers we want price wars, not exclusivity wars, same as with PC hardware, looking at you Nvidia.
Also if you sell enough steam takes a smaller cut https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/3/18123649/valve-steam-revenue-sharing while ofc this is mostly usefull for AAA games that sell enough volume.
And while EGS maybe has no say on the price of games on their store, if you get a bigger piece of the pie you can drop you price a bit and still make more money at least if you sel the same amount os you would on the competition.
Perhaps I'm not reading the right news sources because I very rarely see publishers sharing sales numbers, especially platform specific. Exceeding the previous games sales is enough to say it wasn't a total flop, and no doubt other publishers are looking at that. I'm not trying to draw a conclusion from a sample of one, but right now it's really the only example for a AAA release exclusive to EGS. As time goes on, and more games release on it, we will see how viable it really is.
Obviously you're 100% correct that both the increased cut and the loss of Steam sales have to be factored into if you've made or lost money by being exclusive, but we'll really never know how many Steam sales might have been lost. You can't prove how many people would have bought the game but didn't because it wasn't on Steam. And it's really no different to what we saw with EA so many years ago. People bitched like crazy and I'm sure EA lost sales by ditching Steam initially, but it obviously worked out in the end because Origin is still a thing and they never went back, and several years later people don't bitch about it anymore. You have too look at this as more of a today issue. Origin is an normal is Steam for most people, we've accepted it and moved on. EGS is merely the Origin/Uplay/etc for publishers that aren't big enough to launch their own platform. Their reasons for jumping ship are the same.
Perhaps I'm not reading the right news sources because I very rarely see publishers sharing sales numbers, especially platform specific. Exceeding the previous games sales is enough to say it wasn't a total flop, and no doubt other publishers are looking at that. I'm not trying to draw a conclusion from a sample of one, but right now it's really the only example for a AAA release exclusive to EGS. As time goes on, and more games release on it, we will see how viable it really is.
Obviously you're 100% correct that both the increased cut and the loss of Steam sales have to be factored into if you've made or lost money by being exclusive, but we'll really never know how many Steam sales might have been lost. You can't prove how many people would have bought the game but didn't because it wasn't on Steam. And it's really no different to what we saw with EA so many years ago. People bitched like crazy and I'm sure EA lost sales by ditching Steam initially, but it obviously worked out in the end because Origin is still a thing and they never went back, and several years later people don't bitch about it anymore. You have too look at this as more of a today issue. Origin is an normal is Steam for most people, we've accepted it and moved on. EGS is merely the Origin/Uplay/etc for publishers that aren't big enough to launch their own platform. Their reasons for jumping ship are the same.
Yeah I wouldn't be suprised one bit if it launches on Epic seems like any good AAA game is launching under it because all the cool kids are doing it.
Exactly. Borderlands 1 and 2 = the ultimate drop-in co-op games. People I used to co-op with are still on Steam.It is looking like more of the same, with a bit more variety of location. Which is a good thing in my book.
I am still holding onto the the thin hope that this will not be another Epic exclusive. I only use GOG and Steam, so this being an Epic store exclusive, would be a disappointment to me and a lost sale for them. Meh whatever, if they don't care to sell in one of the stores I shop at, then I will just do without.
This is a game designed for friends lists. Using multiple clients, is a pita when it comes to friends lists.
The internet is going to shit itself if it's an Epic Store exclusive.
I like to point out it is a 6-month Epic exclusive. It will be on Steam if you don't mind the wait.
Do they really make more money on the savings from not taking the Valve cut vs having their game on the most prolific digital platform?
From where I sit, that's really what this whole "Epic exclusive" argument boils down to for me. ADD fronts, guys. ADD.