Epic paid $10.5 million upfront for Control exclusivity

GoodBoy said:
Hell, if you buy the game, you should get a copy of it on ALL of the stores/launchers it is for sale on, IMHO, to make sure you can play it with your buddies no matter where they buy it; or ensure cross-platform multiplayer support.. (but that's likely a nightmare when it comes to handling things like reporting cheating).
Click to expand...

What are the games where this is a problem? Are there games that have multiplayer segregated by launcher?
 
M76 said:
That's exactly what I meant when I said they treat developers as their clients and customers as chattel.
This wouldn't fly in any other industry. And it shouldn't here either.
Imagine a brick and mortar store where you can't do certain things that have been industry standards for decades.
And when you complain they just say, we'll add shopping carts after we satisfied the supplier's request for a new loading ramp, until then just deal with it.
Click to expand...

Companies are free to eschew industry standards provided they aren't enforced through government regulation. A grocery store with no carts would destroy their own bottom line because of the physical limitation it would place on customers; it would be difficult to make the same argument for an online video game store with no physical goods. It absolutely seems silly that EGS doesn't have a shopping cart, but you can still purchase products easily enough so I don't get why anyone would bother to complain.

Complaints about stuff like cloud saves, regional pricing, etc., are all easy to understand. Including stuff like "no shopping carts" just serves to derail the discussion IMO, because it's hardly going to be the issue that dissuades someone from using the store.
 
Aix. said:
What are the games where this is a problem? Are there games that have multiplayer segregated by launcher?
Click to expand...

Rocket League. This is a good explanation: https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/2/1...onix-acquisition-exclusivity-deal-valve-steam
plus, I had forgot that Epic bought the game studio. The article is from May so some details may have changed. At the time Epic was saying it would remain on sale on Steam, likely because EGS lacks many features that the game enjoys now on Steam (item trading and selling on the steam market looks like a big one).

But the wording was vague... with EGS's anti-consumer history, everyone has assumed the worst.

Another discussion is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19801283

The transition to it being Epic exclusive was strongly suggested but at this time is still unknown.
 
Aix. said:
Companies are free to eschew industry standards provided they aren't enforced through government regulation. A grocery store with no carts would destroy their own bottom line because of the physical limitation it would place on customers; it would be difficult to make the same argument for an online video game store with no physical goods. It absolutely seems silly that EGS doesn't have a shopping cart, but you can still purchase products easily enough so I don't get why anyone would bother to complain.

Complaints about stuff like cloud saves, regional pricing, etc., are all easy to understand. Including stuff like "no shopping carts" just serves to derail the discussion IMO, because it's hardly going to be the issue that dissuades someone from using the store.
Click to expand...
It was an example, that works in both cases, not a complaint. I don't give a damn about the lack of shopping cart on egs, but some people clearly do.
 
GoodBoy said:
Rocket League. This is a good explanation: https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/2/1...onix-acquisition-exclusivity-deal-valve-steam
plus, I had forgot that Epic bought the game studio. The article is from May so some details may have changed. At the time Epic was saying it would remain on sale on Steam, likely because EGS lacks many features that the game enjoys now on Steam (item trading and selling on the steam market looks like a big one).

But the wording was vague... with EGS's anti-consumer history, everyone has assumed the worst.

Another discussion is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19801283

The transition to it being Epic exclusive was strongly suggested but at this time is still unknown.
Click to expand...

So it's not currently a problem.
 
sharknice said:
It's most likely going free to play like Fortnite, and to get the latest version of the game you'll have to switch to EGS.
Click to expand...

But that assumes they would run some sort of legacy version of the game and restrict Steam owners from connecting to servers where EGS customers are playing. Wouldn't make a lot of sense to buy the devs, invest in the game, and then go tell the entire existing customer base to pound sand. I could understand if they stopped selling it on Steam though.
 
Ranulfo said:
There are many many games where the community page, the forums and most especially the mod workshop make or break a game. Pretty much every survival/builder game in the last 5+ years lives on mods to extend the life of the game (or fix bugs devs miss or wont fix). Many city builder games are the same way. Rimworld comes in drm free if you buy it from the dev's website but even they promote Steam (you can get a key if you buy it from their site with drm free version) because of one click mod installs.
Click to expand...

This shouldn't be hard for EGS to implement since they pretty much already do it with UE4. You can do it right now by clicking the UE4 tab in EGS. You can choose free content or paid content. They've actually had this for many years now as well. Don't see why it couldn't be expanded to mods for other games.

Then again, the pace of improvement seems to be so slow.
 
The whole RL thing is messy, and the community is still in the dark about quite a few things regarding it.

As it currently stands, the PROMISE is that if you purchased the game on Steam, you can continue to launch and play it from there, it will be updated as it would be through the EGS, and that Steam users can play with EGS-version users. It will no longer be purchasable in Steam early next year (no exact date given yet that I've heard)

Friends list will most likely be integrated into the game itself (idk if the Epic client has friends list or anything like that), it already has a loose chat client/friend finder/recently played with/etc., in game.

RL items have never been on the Steam Marketplace, they have been unlocked from crates that drop in game from keys purchased through the RL application itself, then traded via r/RLExchange. The thought is all cosmetics will be purchased directly from the EGS (exactly like you do with Fortnite....) What they are going to do with existing keys/crates is anyones guess, no official word on how that will be handled.
 
Aix. said:
What are the games where this is a problem? Are there games that have multiplayer segregated by launcher?
Click to expand...
They don't segregate multiplayer to my knowledge, but they do segregate friends lists. A good example of this is Rainbow Six Siege. I bought the game from Steam, where all my friends are. When I launch Siege it launches the UPlay launcher, which takes a while to open and also requires a separate UPlay account and login to UPlay. Even though I bought the game on Steam, it doesn't use the Steam Friends List. It uses the UPlay Friends List. So now I need to go through the process of adding everyone that I have been gaming with for decades to an entirely new Friends List. For no real benefit, other than to annoy me. Now I have a dozen different launchers, with a dozen different friends lists, and a dozen different username and password combinations (and a dozen different potential places for my credit card number to be stolen).
 
Aix. said:
But that assumes they would run some sort of legacy version of the game and restrict Steam owners from connecting to servers where EGS customers are playing. Wouldn't make a lot of sense to buy the devs, invest in the game, and then go tell the entire existing customer base to pound sand. I could understand if they stopped selling it on Steam though.
Click to expand...

Steam version won't work anymore.
They'll stop selling it on steam and you'll have to import your account to EGS. Exactly like what they're doing with Destiny 2 going from Blizzard to steam. Console versions won't have to do anything. People who already bought the game will probably get some bonus skins or season pass or something. Not really a big deal.
 
wizdum said:
Now I have a dozen different launchers, with a dozen different friends lists, and a dozen different username and password combinations (and a dozen different potential places for my credit card number to be stolen).
Click to expand...
And best of all: a dozen different friends with a dozen different usernames on a dozen different launchers.

When Battlefield 3 first came out with Origin's launcher, I remember giving up on trying to keep an internal brain map of which Steam friend was which Origin friend, and just turned off, blocked chat and disabled the in-game overlay altogether.

Just having friends lists split between two launchers was already a PITA.
 
Last edited:
In video games divide and conquer turns into divide and die.
 
sharknice said:
Steam version won't work anymore.
They'll stop selling it on steam and you'll have to import your account to EGS. Exactly like what they're doing with Destiny 2 going from Blizzard to steam. Console versions won't have to do anything. People who already bought the game will probably get some bonus skins or season pass or something. Not really a big deal.
Click to expand...

Got a source for that first statement? Genuinely curious, I haven't heard anything to that extent.
 
AlphaQup said:
Got a source for that first statement? Genuinely curious, I haven't heard anything to that extent.
Click to expand...

Epic hasn't said exactly what they're doing yet. The only thing they said is they will continue to support customers of the game.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.engadget.com/amp/2019/05/01/epic-buys-psyonix/

Epic wouldn't buy the game and simply change stores. They have plans to make it bigger and more profitable following the Fortnite model.
They're either making the existing game free to play, or making a new free to play version that would make the existing game pointless.
 
sharknice said:
Epic hasn't said exactly what they're doing yet. The only thing they said is they will continue to support customers of the game.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.engadget.com/amp/2019/05/01/epic-buys-psyonix/

Epic wouldn't buy the game and simply change stores. They have plans to make it bigger and more profitable following the Fortnite model.
They're either making the existing game free to play, or making a new free to play version that would make the existing game pointless.
Click to expand...

"Epic has since clarified that it didn't make definitive plans to remove Rocket League from Steam. "Long-term plans will be announced in the future," according to an Epic spokesperson. We've updated the article accordingly. This doesn't guarantee that Rocket League will remain on Steam indefinitely -- just that Epic hasn't confirmed plans one way or the other."

I don't take that as confirmation it's leaving Steam. No new information there in that article, Epic/Psyonix have been extremely quiet about this whole thing since ~April/May. Nothing has been set in stone yet.
 
odditory said:
And best of all: a dozen different friends with a dozen different usernames on a dozen different launchers.

When Battlefield 3 first came out with Origin's launcher, I remember giving up on trying to keep an internal brain map of which Steam friend was which Origin friend, and just turned off, blocked chat and disabled the in-game overlay altogether.

Just having friends lists split between two launchers was already a PITA.
Click to expand...

Quick, someone bring back Xfire!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top