PC Tim Sweeney's latest ridiculous ultimatum to Valve/Steam: permanently match Epic's 88/12 revenue split and we'll "hastily retreat" from EGS exclusives

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

1 hour ago, Paperclyp said:

This is totally legit.

 

But I get the sense most people who are acting incensed over this are not basing it off of this. It’s more how dare epic take my games off of steam in and of itself. 

In this instance, your sense is quite incorrect 

 

On ResetERA, on Reddit, on the comments sections of PC gaming sites, the primary argument being put forth against Epic's strategy is that of the effect on third-party storefronts that have made the costs of PC gaming more affordable, especially in non-US and non-European markets.

[Xbob42]

1 hour ago, mikechorney said:

If publishers and devs flow through the savings to me, I don't particularly care.

OLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

It's quite the opposite! They're happy to take that bigger cut, and keep charging you the exact same amount, microtransactions and all.

Anyone that thinks they're gonna "pass the savings on" is fucking delusional.

The EGS benefits only developers. Or I guess publishers, as I doubt developers see a cut unless they don't have a publisher.

 

Imagine if you logged on to PSN, and to get, I dunno, let's say MLB The Show 2025 or whatever. But you had to launch into a busted ass version of PSN that didn't have cloud saves and had a completely separate friend list. You're completely out of the ecosystem for a game that has always been in said ecosystem. Well, there must be a good reason. Oh, the game is somehow more expensive because the price is fixed? You have access to less features overall? Well, this kinda sucks. But don't bitch about it because someone will lecture you on why it's "good competition" or whatever, and less-features PSN is also free! Don't be a baby, rebuild your friend list and back up your saves manually, you dumb bitch.

 

Good competition provides tangible benefits to the consumer. This is doing the opposite. That's all the reason anybody needs to not like it. And yes, even something as simple as "you took it off the platform I like to play my games on" is a totally valid excuse that no one needs to justify to anybody. Consumers have the advantage of being picky. If only that were the only issue.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

1 hour ago, mikechorney said:

If publishers and devs flow through the savings to me, I don't particularly care.

That has happened in only one instance so far - Metro Exodus is $50 on EGS instead of the usual $60.

 

And even then, that discount is ONLY available to US customers - the rest of the world is paying the "normal" price in their own local currencies.

 

There really is absolutely nothing to benefit the end-consumer out of the EGS thus far.

[Paperclyp]

33 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

In this instance, your sense is quite incorrect 

 

On ResetERA, on Reddit, on the comments sections of PC gaming sites, the primary argument being put forth against Epic's strategy is that of the effect on third-party storefronts that have made the costs of PC gaming more affordable, especially in non-US and non-European markets.

That could be, I just am cynical that they come up with those arguments after they decide they’re pissed. 

 

Which is impossible to prove or even provide evidence for, which makes my post essentially pointless, but hey... most of my posts are just that anyway. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

2 hours ago, SFLUFAN said:

That has happened in only one instance so far - Metro Exodus is $50 on EGS instead of the usual $60.

 

And even then, that discount is ONLY available to US customers - the rest of the world is paying the "normal" price in their own local currencies.

 

There really is absolutely nothing to benefit the end-consumer out of the EGS thus far.

More competition inevitably leads to lower prices.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

18 minutes ago, mikechorney said:

More competition inevitably leads to lower prices.

Unless EGS keys are made available on third-party storefronts at similar discounts to what Steam keys currently receive, there will be LESS competition.

[Dodger]

As Jim Sterling mentioned in his latest video, EGS is no longer trying to be friendly competition to make the world a better place for developers. They are trying to take Steams place as the near monopoly gatekeeper of PC gaming. They want to be Steam. It's not about offering competition, it's about buying their way into a monopoly so they can be the only game in town. 

[Remarkableriots]

15 minutes ago, Dodger said:

As Jim Sterling mentioned in his latest video, EGS is no longer trying to be friendly competition to make the world a better place for developers. They are trying to take Steams place as the near monopoly gatekeeper of PC gaming. They want to be Steam. It's not about offering competition, it's about buying their way into a monopoly so they can be the only game in town. 

Did i miss news about Steam closing?

[Xbob42]

12 minutes ago, Dodger said:

As Jim Sterling mentioned in his latest video, EGS is no longer trying to be friendly competition to make the world a better place for developers. They are trying to take Steams place as the near monopoly gatekeeper of PC gaming. They want to be Steam. It's not about offering competition, it's about buying their way into a monopoly so they can be the only game in town. 

Nah, it's even worse than that. They don't want to be like Steam, they want to be Modern AAA Publisher Steam. People constantly bitch and moan about Valve being hands-off with Steam, but that's what I've always liked about it. They're not trying to please investors like Epic has to, so they don't make massive pushes for nasty ass shit. That doesn't mean they don't dabble in shit like microtransactions and loot boxes (because they sure as hell have for a long time) but that's almost always relegated to their own games, rather than the service as a whole.

Everything I'm seeing from Epic is a much more insidious direction. Curation's great until you realize multiple games that interest you got rejected while very questionable garbage somehow made it through. Developers getting a bigger cut is great until you realize none of that is passed on to you or towards a better game, and in fact just goes to publishers/executives. (Not that they shouldn't fight for a bigger cut, I just don't personally care because I know I'll get jack shit out of it. It isn't a selling point.) More competition sounds good until you realize it's actually less competition. 

EGS is offering the customers nothing. And they don't want to. They won't start being better, they want to take the top spot and make things better for them.

[Dodger]

3 minutes ago, Remarkableriots said:

Did i miss news about Steam closing?

 

No, Steam presumably isn't closing anytime soon. It's just that it's become apparent that Epic's intent is no longer, hai guiz we bought a few exclusives so you'll come check out our new store that's giving developers 88%. Come check us out and show your support for your favorite developer by using our store instead. It's now a clear strategy of taking as many games as possible away from Steam so you'll have no choice but to use them. And you know how ecosystems go. Next think you know you got 10 games on EGS and now you don't want bother going back to Steam. 

 

It's kind of fucked up in that the public almost wants a monopoly. How many people have the attitude well if it's not on Steam I just won't get it? People want the convenience of having all of their games on one platform, without all the headaches of having to deal with only one platform. Steam is at at least mostly seen as a benevolent monopoly, or at least as close to it as you can get.  

 

Epic seems like they will putting enough pressure on Steam to force a response though. 

[Xbob42]

I think it's less people want a monopoly, and more people like having a unified library where all updates and such are handled in the exact same way. I doubt many sane people are opposed to other stores existing at all. I'm sure not, but I like more choices, not less. Exclusives give me less choices and leave a bad taste in my mouth. They don't entice me, they irritate me. That isn't a selling point, it's a "fuck you, I just won't buy the game, then" point. Game ALSO on the Epic Store? Great! Game ONLY on the Epic Store? Fuck off.

 

And thanks to the endless deluge of quality games we've had over the last few years, it's not a problem at all to skip or wait for games. That's why it doesn't bother me quite as much as it could have. Like I said, if Epic pulled this in 2011 or so and started with Dark Souls exclusivity, we might all be EGS-exclusive users right now simply because games came out a lot less frequently back then, let alone PC ports of highly sought after console titles.

[crispy4000]

If games on Epic’s store ever cost less on the whole, it’ll be because consumers aren’t willing to pay for it.

 

Look at the eShop.  Indie devs charge way more there than on PC, because they get away with it.  People are willing to pay premiums there.  I literally just saw a game on r/gamedeals (Figment) discounted to $10 on Nintendo’s platform but going for $1 for a Steam key from Fanatical.

 

We haven’t seen that result on EGS yet.  We won’t until it becomes a more popular place to buy games, and developers (and storefronts) feel like they have to undercut each other to get attention.

 

There’s not enough competition on their store as it stands.

 

[Brian]

On 4/26/2019 at 4:48 PM, SFLUFAN said:

That has happened in only one instance so far - Metro Exodus is $50 on EGS instead of the usual $60.

 

And even then, that discount is ONLY available to US customers - the rest of the world is paying the "normal" price in their own local currencies.

 

There really is absolutely nothing to benefit the end-consumer out of the EGS thus far.

I’m sure the reason for the US only discount is due to Epic subsidizing so they can say “see! EGS is great for the consumer and trickle down economics is a real thing!”

[TwinIon]

19 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Nah, it's even worse than that. They don't want to be like Steam, they want to be Modern AAA Publisher Steam. People constantly bitch and moan about Valve being hands-off with Steam, but that's what I've always liked about it. They're not trying to please investors like Epic has to, so they don't make massive pushes for nasty ass shit. That doesn't mean they don't dabble in shit like microtransactions and loot boxes (because they sure as hell have for a long time) but that's almost always relegated to their own games, rather than the service as a whole.

Everything I'm seeing from Epic is a much more insidious direction. Curation's great until you realize multiple games that interest you got rejected while very questionable garbage somehow made it through. Developers getting a bigger cut is great until you realize none of that is passed on to you or towards a better game, and in fact just goes to publishers/executives. (Not that they shouldn't fight for a bigger cut, I just don't personally care because I know I'll get jack shit out of it. It isn't a selling point.) More competition sounds good until you realize it's actually less competition. 

EGS is offering the customers nothing. And they don't want to. They won't start being better, they want to take the top spot and make things better for them.

This is the kind of argument against Epic that I find so puzzling. 

 

How is it that Epic is making "massive pushes for nasty ass shit" like microtransactions and loot boxes? Is it just the Support-A-Creator program, which is essentially just affiliate links? Epic is paying for exclusivity, as far as I can tell, there's no evidence they're pushing developers to build more predatory games. In the world of predatory PC gaming, Valve might actually be the worst offender, given how long they turned a blind eye towards children gambling.

 

When it comes to curation, why does it even matter if a specific game was rejected? In the old days of Steam, when it was basically the only distribution platform around, it was a make or break difference. As long as competition (read: Steam) exists, that's not the case for a game rejected by the EGS. We can question their curation criteria, but I don't see how it's particularly "insidious."

 

 

As I've said before, I don't think that the lower cut is in any way charitable of them, and I'm not arguing that the EGS is a great platform or anything, but I feel like all the arguments boil down to reverse engineering absurd positions born from a mild inconvenience or pre-existing loyalties.

 

I don't think the EGS is currently a worthy competitor to Steam, but I'd sure like it, or any other store, to become one. Valve has been too lazy for too long, and while their near monopoly position was initially earned, I think some healthy competition would only be beneficial to everyone. We've seen a lot of game stores from big companies fail to compete with Steam on any meaningful level. Amazon hasn't really gained traction, Microsoft's was a flop, Blizzard and EA are staying in their own little sandboxes.

 

Epic is competing with a platform that has built up a feature and customer base over a more than a decade, so it makes sense to me that they're a bit behind. They need to bring money in to justify further investment, and their methods for doing so have been pretty standard. When you see a "Netflix Original" there are pretty good odds that Netflix didn't pay to produce it or do anything but buy up the rights to a finished product, be that from indie movie makers or the BBC, but I've never heard anyone complain about "anti-competitive" behavior for doing so. Exclusives were briefly a point of competition for music services, but that didn't work out well for the artists, so it basically stopped (although we're seeing it again with podcasts). Games are already more like video, where you have to pay different providers for different content, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

 

Of course they're trying to build a business for themselves, but so is everyone else. If Epic puts Steam out of business without ever building a competitive product, I will weep for the terrible state of the world, but I don't see that being the case. Either they'll evolve their product into something worthwhile, something that makes you want to buy non-exclusive games from them, and they'll eventually prove a worthy competitor to Steam, or they won't and no one will use it for anything other than exclusives. Either outcome seems fine with me.

 

[Xbob42]

32 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

This is the kind of argument against Epic that I find so puzzling. 

 

How is it that Epic is making "massive pushes for nasty ass shit" like microtransactions and loot boxes? Is it just the Support-A-Creator program, which is essentially just affiliate links? Epic is paying for exclusivity, as far as I can tell, there's no evidence they're pushing developers to build more predatory games. In the world of predatory PC gaming, Valve might actually be the worst offender, given how long they turned a blind eye towards children gambling.

Are you seriously asking me why a publicly owned company would be pushing for industry best practices for monetizing literally anything they can?

Lootboxes and microtransactions are just one piece of the puzzle, one that I fully expect them to embrace on a service level at some point, provided they're successful of course. But I was talking on a broader level. We can see a much simpler and clearer version of this already: They don't allow keys to be sold from anywhere but "partners," and by "partners" I mean The Humble Store, where the prices are exactly the same.

[TwinIon]

3 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Are you seriously asking me why a publicly owned company would be pushing for industry best practices for monetizing literally anything they can?


Lootboxes and microtransactions are just one piece of the puzzle, one that I fully expect them to embrace on a service level at some point, provided they're successful of course. But I was talking on a broader level. We can see a much simpler and clearer version of this already: They don't allow keys to be sold from anywhere but "partners," and by "partners" I mean The Humble Store, where the prices are exactly the same.

So your only evidence that they're pursuing some kind of predatory or "insidious" behavior is that they have a profit motive and only sell keys through one additional retailer right now? Their road map has "shopping cart" as a long term goal. It's pretty far from a complete service at this point. Judging a platform that doesn't have a wishlist for being feature incomplete seems a bit premature.

 

Honestly, I think it's rather notable that they allow keys to be sold through 3rd parties at all, much less this early in the platform's development. It's not something we see on platforms like the iOS app store or many others. And, as far as I can tell, Humble subscribers do get a discount on some games, so they're already allowing some mild price flexibility. 

 

I can understand the annoyance of a game being sold solely through a platform in such an early stage of development. There's no question as to how far the EGS needs to go to match Steam's feature set, and I personally see no reason to buy a game there that is available anywhere else. What I don't understand is the extreme vilification of a platform that is looking to bring competition to a sector with very little.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

On 5/3/2019 at 2:58 PM, TwinIon said:

As I've said before, I don't think that the lower cut is in any way charitable of them, and I'm not arguing that the EGS is a great platform or anything, but I feel like all the arguments boil down to reverse engineering absurd positions born from a mild inconvenience or pre-existing loyalties.

I categorically do not agree with the notion that my argument based on my best interests as a consumer regarding the availability of comparable discounts on third-party storefronts is a "reverse-engineered, absurd" one based on a "mild inconvenience" or "pre-existing loyalties".   Until such time that I receive discounts on EGS titles at third-party storefronts -- without needing to pay a subscription to that storefront as is the case with Humble -- comparable to those that I receive for Steam titles, then in no way, shape, or form does it constitute "legitimate" competition from my consumer perspective.

 

Hell, I got a 20%+ discount on RAGE 2 at GMG and I will receive a Bethesda key for that game.  RAGE 2 is also being sold on Steam itself, but not at a discount so why the devil would I buy the Steam version? I'm not in the business of assisting Gabe Newell in adding to his knife collection!

 

Again, my position regarding the EGS has absolutely nothing to do with the "inconvenience" of using a non-Steam launcher or "pre-existing loyalty" to Valve/Steam.  It has to do with the money in my pocket - give me comparable discounts on EGS titles on third-party sellers that I receive on Steam/Origin/Uplay/Bethesda titles and I'll fork over the cash, pure and simple.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

On 5/3/2019 at 7:09 PM, TwinIon said:

What I don't understand is the extreme vilification of a platform that is looking to bring competition to a sector with very little.

What on Earth do you mean that there is "very little" competition in this sector?  Have you seen the sheer proliferation of third-party storefronts selling PC keys?

 

This sector has competition for consumer spending -- the only competition that as a consumer should matter -- in spades!  If we need to be "grateful" to Valve for something (Not that anyone should be "grateful" to a for-profit entity for anything. Ever.), it should be for facilitating this highly-competitive consumer environment for PC gaming.

[JPDunks4]

14 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Are you seriously asking me why a publicly owned company would be pushing for industry best practices for monetizing literally anything they can?

Lootboxes and microtransactions are just one piece of the puzzle, one that I fully expect them to embrace on a service level at some point, provided they're successful of course. But I was talking on a broader level. We can see a much simpler and clearer version of this already: They don't allow keys to be sold from anywhere but "partners," and by "partners" I mean The Humble Store, where the prices are exactly the same.

 

I'm fairly certain Epic is not a publicly owned company. 

[Xbob42]

I meant publicly traded, of course!

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

1 hour ago, Xbob42 said:

I meant publicly traded, of course!

A "publicly-owned" company and a "publicly-traded" company are the same thing, and Epic is neither.

[Xbob42]

I meant neither, of course!

[Keyser_Soze]

6 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

I meant neither, of course!