Epic Games Store

I think you missed a couple of points to bring it all full circle:
  1. Developers and publishers have a right to sell their product wherever they want.
  2. Customers have the right to shop where they want.
  3. Said developers/publishers don't get to cry about customers shopping where they want.
  4. Companies do not have a right to your money.
  5. Customers do not have a right to a developer/publisher's product.
  6. Said customers don't get to cry about developers/publishers selling products where they want.
Without 3 and 6 it's basically just your normal buyer/seller relationship, and both 3 and 6 are totally just opinion: both can cry if they want, but doing so won't change 1, 2, 4, & 5.
  1. If customers don't buy their games, devs/pubs will go out of business!
  2. If customers don't buy games, customers won't have games to play!
This is the showdown, and videogame customers have generally shown that they will crack if forced to choose between game and no game...and while there wasn't a pun intended there, the people claiming they will simply pirate the games to make some sort of stand are effectively undermining the pro-consumer discussion by making these arguments:
  1. Customers have the right to shop wherever they want.
  2. Developers do not have the right to sell their product wherever they want.
  3. Customers have the right to the developer's product.
  4. Customers are therefore justified in stealing the product of the developers if they can't shop for it wherever they want.
In this case, there is more desire to consume the product then there is conviction to punish the developer for their sales practices - in which case we get two new points:
  1. The developer was right to feel confident that their product was desirable and that they could sell the product on their terms; and
  2. Some consumers will resort to thievery of non-essential things if they are given any opportunity to rationalize it.
If a company makes a poor product or poor business decisions then they should go out of business. Video games is a saturated and booming industry. I will not shed a tear for any developer who fails to compete.
Why is the discussion about Epic and not the games?
"X" sucks because of "lists things having nothing to do with X".

"The developers wanted a better split". Ok, that is like saying "I hate X because he went to a better paying job".
If you have no options, then you do whatever you have to do.
If you have options, you calculate which one will give you the greatest about of financial stability and that is what you choose.
And if you are a big company you make your own store and pack your game full of microtransactions and DLCs and make various price point package options.

And if you are waiting for discounts when games hit steam... you probably won't see any. During a sale, sure, or maybe as a launch event.
Otherwise prices will remain exactly the same. That the is the current trend.


Video games are an entertainment product. The industry lives and dies based on the product they produce. This is not a charity. The developers who are going to Epic exclusively tell me that they are not confident that their product will sell, so they are depending on the guaranteed sales or "shares" Epic is buying into them. A company that has that little faith in their own product deserve no financial stability.
 
Video games are an entertainment product. The industry lives and dies based on the product they produce. This is not a charity. The developers who are going to Epic exclusively tell me that they are not confident that their product will sell, so they are depending on the guaranteed sales or "shares" Epic is buying into them. A company that has that little faith in their own product deserve no financial stability.

you don't know why people do or do not go to epic, and making up some fantasy reasons does nothing. like you can be sure your logic does not apply to borderlands, outer worlds, control or the ubi catalog. You could as well apply your logic to someone that switches jobs: "A person that has that little faith in their ability to rise in ranks deserves no financial stability."
 
Many are supportive of Epic's attempt at gaining some marketshare not because they are specifically 'epic fanboys' but because they would be supportive of any other company creating competition against an effective monopoly.

If Epic want a fair playing field then stop the exclusivity bullshit.
 
Randy Pitchfork will be like "Were sorry the Epic Game Store is overloaded from people trying to play Borderlands 3". Tim Sweeny is working on it as we speak with him Millennial coders who only know HTML so to make up for this Borderlands 3 is going to launch on Steam in 3 days.
 
You mean those timed exclusives that can only be bought on EGS? That's competition?

the competition is for stores to get games. it has nothing to do with consumers. consumers get the option of platforms. don't like epic, go with xbox or ps4. There is tons of shit I can't play because of platform exclusivity.
 
i can see it now, "users are having issues downloading borderlands 3, when will the issue get resolved?" Tim - "its complicated"
 
the competition is for stores to get games. it has nothing to do with consumers. consumers get the option of platforms. don't like epic, go with xbox or ps4. There is tons of shit I can't play because of platform exclusivity.

That's fine, but then sell the games on as many stores as possible without the exclusivity nonsense. Compete on price rather than locking down a game to a certain game store for a year.
 
You are going to have maybe 200,000k of Epik consumers trying to download the game at one time. I'm pretty much set on the client crashing. This is the biggest game besides Metro Exodus.
 
So what's going to be the next big crazy irrelevant/completely made up problem social justice gamers are going to complain about after the launch goes smoothly?

They send your cloud save data straight to the Chinese government where it's evaluated and applied to your social credit score.
 
I'm curious why people think Borderlands 3 is going to be a bust on Epic. I'm not saying it won't, but it doesn't sound like there's a reason why it'll be problematic other than people don't like Epic's store.
 
I'm curious why people think Borderlands 3 is going to be a bust on Epic. I'm not saying it won't, but it doesn't sound like there's a reason why it'll be problematic other than people don't like Epic's store.
Because no one likes timed exclusives. Let me buy PC games from my preferred stores.
 
That's fine, but then sell the games on as many stores as possible without the exclusivity nonsense. Compete on price rather than locking down a game to a certain game store for a year.

Just like all the Steam games that launched on Origin, Uplay and all those other clients.... right? Try getting a copy of Borderlands 2 that doesn't run on Steam and let me know how that works out for you. It is more work for less money which makes zero sense as a business. The only reason it is timed for Steam is that currently there is still a number of people who won't buy on EGS, allowing them to make up some of the lost sales at a later date. As time goes on they'll stop doing this as more people get used to EGS or get tired of waiting a 6 months to a year for every major AAA game. Or if EGS ends up being a flop somehow I suppose they'll migrate back to Steam but that is an unlikely scenario.
 
That's fine, but then sell the games on as many stores as possible without the exclusivity nonsense. Compete on price rather than locking down a game to a certain game store for a year.

how exactly is it more profitable for a game company to sell a game at deep discounts? Apple is one of the richest companies in the world, and you know what type of discounts they offer? 0. If you want a discount on one of their iphones you either buy it used or you want for a new generation to come out and hope for a price cut.
Similar applies to games. If you don't want to pay launch price, then you wait. Or like many you can say screw you to developers and pirate it, but that is your choice.
EU lawsuits against valve are going to guarantee everyone in the entire EU pays the exact same price for games regardless of region, so there will not be any shopping around for prices.
 
You can also buy new iphones from many different stores.... not limited to just one store.
 
how exactly is it more profitable for a game company to sell a game at deep discounts?
I never mentioned deep discounts. Store A could sell the game for $60 and store B sells it for $55. Saving $5 isn't much, but I did end up saving a few bucks.
 
I'm curious why people think Borderlands 3 is going to be a bust on Epic. I'm not saying it won't, but it doesn't sound like there's a reason why it'll be problematic other than people don't like Epic's store.

Because the anti-EGS crowd needs every reason they can get to justify their disdain, even if they have to stretch or invent facts to do it.

This is why we've got people telling us a game will never sell high volume on EGS, but then also telling us the game is going to have a shitty launch because there is no pre-load and the servers won't be able to handle the load from all the people who bought the game trying to download it at the same time. Fear not, EGS haters. If the game flops because it's on EGS, downloads should be nice and speedy on day one, right? ;)
 
I never mentioned deep discounts. Store A could sell the game for $60 and store B sells it for $55. Saving $5 isn't much, but I did end up saving a few bucks.

Game companies, like all other industries, are going to charge as much as they feel the market can bear. Right now the sweet spot for a AAA game is $60.
With DLC/Season passes/Deluxe editions the price will go up, but base price is going to be $60. There are other pricepoints, AA may be $50, lesser known developers $40, indie $20-$30 or less.

In the steam business model they will be getting $18 of the $60. They also allow for the developers to sell their keys on their own. Thus you have the fraud based on stolen cards, also grey market key sales which result in regional pricing exploitation
Epic business model they charge $7.20 of the $60. There is no "room" for other stores to give a discount and make a profit unless the developer/publisher sells at a deep price cut.

Are the developers greedy? You can talk greed about publishers that take existing games and add casinos, more loot boxes and microtransactions.
There is nothing wrong however with someone spending years making a game and wanting to make a profit off of it.

Look at Cyberpunk 2077. People have been anticipating this game for years. Steam has done nothing for it, yet they are going to collect 20-30% of all steam sale revenue, a move that will cost CDPR millions of dollars for the stupidest shit reason, "because people want to have the game in their steam library".
If there were no other options then the bulk of people would have bought from GoG.

Pre-orders for Cyberpunk 2077 went live on Steam alongside news of its release date and a new at Microsoft’s E3 conference, and at time of writing, not two hours later, it is already at the top of Steam’s global top sellers list – check it out.
 
Look at Cyberpunk 2077. People have been anticipating this game for years. Steam has done nothing for it, yet they are going to collect 20-30% of all steam sale revenue, a move that will cost CDPR millions of dollars for the stupidest shit reason, "because people want to have the game in their steam library". If there were no other options then the bulk of people would have bought from GoG.

Good points. I've got it wishlisted on GOG and it's most likely a day one buy. I rarely buy directly from Steam anymore because I find better deals on cdkeys and other legit key sites.
 
I will also get Cyberpunk 2077 from GOG, but i wouldn't say steam has done nothing for it, more people will know about it and buy it due to it being on multiple stores.
 
I will also get Cyberpunk 2077 from GOG, but i wouldn't say steam has done nothing for it, more people will know about it and buy it due to it being on multiple stores.

The question is would they have bought it from GoG if it was not on steam, and if no, would they later buy it from steam once it launched there.
CDPR made a weak excuse that exclusives don't work for them, but this was based on a derivative card game that nobody had really heard of and people were not enthusiastic about.
I think 2077 could have changed that, and hell, they could have made it GoG preorder exclusive for a few months and then added other store preorders some time later if they felt concerned.
 
I will also get Cyberpunk 2077 from GOG, but i wouldn't say steam has done nothing for it, more people will know about it and buy it due to it being on multiple stores.

Do you really think so? For smaller, indie games, I've got no doubt that exposure on Steam can make or break a game... but Cyberpunk has a monumental amount of hype. It's one of the most anticipated video game releases ever, and is likely to become a benchmark that many other games get compared to for years to come. Does a game like that really need Steam for exposure? How many are going to see CP2077 pop up on Steam and think... I've never heard of this, better check it out. My guess is almost nobody.

My belief is that the reason Cyberpunk isn't exclusive to GOG is because of the negative press and public perception surrounding EGS right now. They are trying to grow GOG and don't want to see it surrounded in controversy. They don't need Steam's exposure, they just don't want to deal with the all the crying that would happen if they skipped it. It's kind of a shame that they have to lose millions of dollars to keep people from bitching at them, but that's the choice right now in this industry.
 
actually I hope your right and more developers stay away from the exclusive bs, and im talking about only being on steam also. I want to see games on all the stores but probably not gunna happen.
 
EU lawsuits against valve are going to guarantee everyone in the entire EU pays the exact same price for games regardless of region, so there will not be any shopping around for prices.

Unlikely to happen, or games are going to get realy cheap in parts of Europe. There are countries in the EU where the average person makes 400-500€ a month, how many 60€ games you think they will able to afford which is what I'm paying them? There are such huge differences in wages in Europe that unified prices are a dream.

Look here for a rough idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage
 
Given the choice between completely removing region locking or unifying pricing....
keep in mind that steam as such, does not set pricing per region. That is something done by the developer/publisher. steam will give a list of suggested prices per region
anyway net results is that if region locking is removed then the effective price for a game is the price of the lowest cost region.
If that is 30% of the price the game sells for in the expensive regions then the minimum price of games will be increased to compensate.
It is going to suck for a lot of people but I can't see game companies choosing to lose tons of money.
I believe activision had a similar lawsuit. looking at their region now for EU, they have two. Germany and everywhere else.
And complaints like this:
I don't know what influenced your decisions when it comes to regional pricing. However, prices for your games in many countries, including Ukraine are higher than in US.

How come Crash and Spyro (39.99 in US) both cost 47.99 in Ukraine (country of CIS region)? Do you, guys, realize that this price is like half of average monthly salary in that country? It is worth of 3 weeks of grocery shopping. Speaking of CIS region, in Russia both games cost ~22$. People would just ignore your games or will download them from illegal sources Best case scenario - gray markek
 
It was announced today that, on PC, we will get a 48-hour pre-load for Borderlands 3, and the game will be going live midnight BST, meaning those of of in NA will get to play Thursday evening between 4PM and 7PM depending on time zone... a couple hours early.

One more pretend issue we can put to rest. I eagerly await the next fabricated crisis that never happens.
 
Nooooooo! My feels and lack of understanding how business works! Oh no! (breaks down into psychosis)
 
I am not really a fan of preload. At least for steam I have found it takes longer to decrypt the files than it does to download at launch anyway.
epic downloads may or may not be worse, but decryption is likely going to be the same, taking an hour or so depending on size.
I'm also not really sold on the game. I was not happy with a lot of the mechanics in BL2, and then much later after buying a season pass finding out it was a "first" season pass.
 
I am not really a fan of preload. At least for steam I have found it takes longer to decrypt the files than it does to download at launch anyway.
epic downloads may or may not be worse, but decryption is likely going to be the same, taking an hour or so depending on size.
I'm also not really sold on the game. I was not happy with a lot of the mechanics in BL2, and then much later after buying a season pass finding out it was a "first" season pass.

I'm with you on this. Especially with a fast internet connection. The very few games I've had corruption issues with have been ones I pre-loaded, too. Delete them and re-download the final version = problems solved.
 
If there a s game that gets away with having more than one season of DLC, BL2 should be it. On top of the decent amount of features given to everyone, the number of story DLCs were enough to make them reasonably priced and a few of them are in my top 5 list of DLCs (but Lair of the Shadow Broker is probably #1). But that's just like my opinion man...
 
I want to upgrade to a better Borderlands 3 version but Epic won't let me at this time.
 
The Humble Bundle store seems to be the only legit place to gets keys for Epic I think Epic sponcered them you can pick up Control for 59.00 and 9.00 off if you are a humble bundle subscriber. So 3.00 for the Monthly bundle and a 9.00 discount on Control. Then Humble Bundle store give you 3.00 in credit so the Humble Monthly is free basically.


https://www.humblebundle.com/store/control?hmb_source=search_bar
 
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The Humble Bundle store seems to be the only legit place to gets keys for Epic I think Epic sponcered them you can pick up Control for 59.00 and 9.00 off if you are a humble bundle subscriber. So 3.00 for the Monthly bundle and a 9.00 discount on Control. Then Humble Bundle store give you 3.00 in credit so the Humble Monthly is free basically.


https://www.humblebundle.com/store/control?hmb_source=search_bar

GMG also has EGS keys. That is where I purchased Borderlands 3.
 
It's weird everyone has Borderlands 3 keys but even Green Man Gaming doesn't have Control or Metro Exodus. Epic has some kinda thing going on with the Humble store.
 
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I am sure borderlands said what they wanted and epic said "ok". In terms of other stores... I doubt epic has anything to do with that. I mean they probably do dynamic key activation for humble, which means when you buy a game, you don't actually get a key, you get a popup that allows you to log into epic and register your key. That prevents the huge blocks of credit card fraud happening with G2A. But for $9 off on a $60 game, that is > than the 12% epic split, which would be $7. So humble store must be subsidizing the cost to get subscribers.
 
GMG also has EGS keys. That is where I purchased Borderlands 3.

CD keys as well. But it seems to vary from game to game. Newer games like BL3 have more options. I assume it comes down to developers/publishers and most are opting not to use the 3rd party stores. I know EA and Ubisoft were looking to cut out 3rd party sales entirely a few years back and it will probably become a bigger trend, but EA/Ubi seem to be going to subscriptions. Probably decided to go that route before drying up 3rd party sites completely.

On another note, Uplay+ launched yesterday with a free trial but it doesn't work. Wouldn't pay money for it but figured I'd see how their subscription model worked. Can't finish checkout for the free trial at all. Contacted customer support and they're dumb as hell, their website and Uplay itself is buggy, gives errors and all kinds of issues. Unlike EA, Ubisoft doesn't understand what customer service is. They should just admit they fucked up and give people one or two games of their choice for free and shelve Uplay+ for another year or two.
 
It's weird everyone has Borderlands 3 keys but even Green Man Gaming doesn't have Control or Metro Exodus. Epic has some kinda thing going on with the Humble store.

Ancestors is another that is on GMG.

Regardless, EGS exclusives are definitely being controlled a lot tighter regarding who gets to sell keys. I imagine that deals with GMG and Humble were specifically negotiated into these games exclusivity contracts.
 
One more pretend issue we can put to rest. I eagerly await the next fabricated crisis that never happens.
Lack of preload as a rule wasn't a pretend issue. In BL3's case Epic had nothing to do with the last minute preloader appearance - Gearbox built out their own.

BL3 Multiplayer infrastructure also won't be homed to EGS - Gearbox is hosting that themselves too. I'd lay money they're already using steamworks for it, because BL2 had it, and it avoids creating extra work when it hits Steam and other PC stores. Gearbox has stated all PC versions would be able to play together.

2K might as well have just sold it through their own store and launcher, rather than give Tim/Epic money for doing nothing, well except when he put the preorder on fire sale without permission and 2K had to pull the game from the store.
 
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