Epic Games Store now open!

Man of Honour
Joined
21 Nov 2004
Posts
44,880
Even when games were offered DRM Free on GOG people still decided to purchase on steam.

DRM doesn't bother me in the slightest and I prefer as many games as possible to be on as few platforms as possible. Steam was usually cheaper, so most games I would still get on there.
that said, and this is just my subjective view on where i draw the line..... BUT for me taking existing games that are on steam and getting them pulled - such as rocket league for example - is a step too far. much better to let that stay on steam - and if they want to give it away on epic store - but make RL2 or what ever to be an epic launcher exclusive. That is how i would do it personally.

Yup, this is the step too far.
 
Soldato
Joined
12 May 2005
Posts
8,384
GOG only has a fraction of features of Steam, and lot of people do not particularly care about DRM. Different people have different priorities. Shocker!

This is true, I don't so much mind the Steam DRM if there is any, some games on Steam have no DRM, quite a lot of the DOSBOX games repackaged from GOG on Steam have , for obvious reasons no DRM, what draws me to buying my games on Steam is the rich features backed into the client, I absolutely love the native DS4 controller support in Steam, and it just works, and I can find a controller config for a game so easily - even for games that have no support for controllers, I also do like having all my games in one if possible launcher, and I'm a bit of a sucker for Achievements - thats just down to me, its not essential I do agree.

Anyhow, out of all the launchers to appear on PC, Epic is the one with absolutely nothing of value. I'd rather just buy my games on uplay, or Origin , or MS Store if Steam isn't an option then use Epic launcher, only reason I have Epic launcher is to grab the free games at the moment, and I've played none of them anyhow, I got the Witness for free via Epic, the missing achievement system to me is a big loss, so I'll not bother to play it via that launcher, Origin or Steam offers the better experience - and this rings true for all PC games . Epic is just a poor games launcher, regardless of all the spyware chat, massive input from the Chinese, the exclusive deals, the exclusive titles, the poor business consumer practices by Epic, none of this is my biggest concern if I'm honest, its the fact the launcher is just so bloody awful, the epic store page is without doubt the worse.

Folks say Steam was the same but Steam launched when PC store front launchers were not even heard of, its not the same now, we have quite a few digital front end stores, and all of them have their own advantages, except for Epic launcher, its just a bland, featureless poor digital store front to buy and launch games from.

Thats why I am not keen on it.
 

wnb

wnb

Soldato
Joined
27 Feb 2004
Posts
3,983
Tecman, your not wrong about the basic features of Epic. Al l can do is buy games and lauch them, steam can do a lot more but for myself the lack of features does not bother me as I don't use many at all on steam. Steam for me is the community side of things, game guides and user made dlc but for steam to get to this point it took 18+ years. I guess Epic could have spent another 2 years getting a feature rich client before expanding the shop but the way things are going with early games why not have an early access store front.
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Feb 2009
Posts
3,090
Tecman, your not wrong about the basic features of Epic. Al l can do is buy games and lauch them, steam can do a lot more but for myself the lack of features does not bother me as I don't use many at all on steam. Steam for me is the community side of things, game guides and user made dlc but for steam to get to this point it took 18+ years. I guess Epic could have spent another 2 years getting a feature rich client before expanding the shop but the way things are going with early games why not have an early access store front.
As said many times before, if Epic came to the scene with its barebones featureless store, simply sold games, offered free games, offered lower prices and what not and added new features over time, nobody would mind and people would welcome Epic happily.
But it is the combination of having no features AND locking games to it with exclusivity moneyhat that sucks. If they absolutely insist that moneyhatting exclusives is necessary, then they should have at least gotten to a stage where their store has at least the basic functionality like playtime tracking, cloud saves, achievements, player profiles etc before doing so.
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Mar 2011
Posts
5,418
As said many times before, if Epic came to the scene with its barebones featureless store, simply sold games, offered free games, offered lower prices and what not and added new features over time, nobody would mind and people would welcome Epic happily.
But it is the combination of having no features AND locking games to it with exclusivity moneyhat that sucks. If they absolutely insist that moneyhatting exclusives is necessary, then they should have at least gotten to a stage where their store has at least the basic functionality like playtime tracking, cloud saves, achievements, player profiles etc before doing so.

Exactly right.... although the proven incredibly bad security record their platforms have and their near-majority ownership by Tencent is also causing people to be wary of them

But it's much easier for people with a chip on their shoulder over steam to minimise people's concerns behind "you're a steam fanboy... it's just another launcher... you've got Uplay and Origin already... what's the big deal?"
 
Soldato
Joined
12 May 2005
Posts
8,384
As said many times before, if Epic came to the scene with its barebones featureless store, simply sold games, offered free games, offered lower prices and what not and added new features over time, nobody would mind and people would welcome Epic happily.
But it is the combination of having no features AND locking games to it with exclusivity moneyhat that sucks. If they absolutely insist that moneyhatting exclusives is necessary, then they should have at least gotten to a stage where their store has at least the basic functionality like playtime tracking, cloud saves, achievements, player profiles etc before doing so.

Exactly this, it should at least have the basic features that all other launchers now have. Cloud saving, achievements and playtime tracking are all fairly standard for most high profile digital store launchers in today age.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
17 Aug 2007
Posts
28,937
Exactly this, it should at least have the basic features that all other launchers now have. Cloud saving, achievements and playtime tracking are all fairly standard for most high profile digital store launchers in today age.

The only one of those 3 example items that vaguely interest me in a launcher would be playtime tracking (though it would have to work better than Steams which seems to be all over the place on its times for me and has been for years and years, there are games on mine which say 40 hours and I know for a fact that I never played it past about 10). Having said that though, I dont ultimately care whether my launchers have any of those features at all, as I just dont use them. I know many people do though, just not me :)
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Nov 2009
Posts
24,766
Location
Planet Earth
Exactly this, it should at least have the basic features that all other launchers now have. Cloud saving, achievements and playtime tracking are all fairly standard for most high profile digital store launchers in today age.

Exactly and its not like EGS is backed by some tiny small games dev is it?? Epic has billions of dollars and is backed by Tencent the biggest gaming company in terms of revenue. All EGS are doing is cost cutting and pushing out the minimum to reduce how much they spend. Valve not only has the best features,it also invested massively into Linux gaming,pushing game streaming and making it accessible even on TVs as apps,and even pushing open things like SteamVR.

How come almost all these competitors after 15 years still can't match or beat what Valve has done in terms of functionality?? They CBA,that is why,and companies only pushed their games on Steam since it was the best launcher and storefront of them all.

If Valve is "lazy" blame the competition.

I have seen people use the argument that "X launcher/storefront is new" and that "time is needed". Why is time needed?? For literally everything you buy,like a phone,camera,CPU,etc you need to have a better or cheaper product than the incumbants on the market.

If Proton made a new luxury car and wanted to sell it in the UK and say they were to shake up the market,would they price the car at the same price as a Mercedes or BMW,but with half the features,less support,etc but instead decided to bribe 75% of the luxury dealerships to not sell Mercedes or BMW instead as a winning strategy? It wouldn't work,but it seems with gamers it works fine,especially with a CEO who said customers don't matter.

Exactly right.... although the proven incredibly bad security record their platforms have and their near-majority ownership by Tencent is also causing people to be wary of them

But it's much easier for people with a chip on their shoulder over steam to minimise people's concerns behind "you're a steam fanboy... it's just another launcher... you've got Uplay and Origin already... what's the big deal?"

Well you had people attacking industry commentors and people on forums about how microtransaction models from mobile games were going to enter PC and change things in a negative way. That worked out well didn't it?? :p

No wonder games publishers and devs treat gamers like crap,it seems its easy money for them. Companies like EA have had a great run,and even if they are making "less" money now,they are still making loads.
 
Last edited:
Caporegime
Joined
17 Feb 2006
Posts
29,263
Location
Cornwall
I like GOG, but it's almost always more expensive than Steam. It therefore doesn't take any special conspiracy theory to explain why GOG gets less sales.
 
Soldato
Joined
27 Feb 2015
Posts
12,596
Cat explained it well.

If epic were motivated they could have these features implemented by now, they not because it isnt a priority for them.

GOG didnt always have the features it has now, e.g. they now support achievements but didnt at launch, and the games on their website will list if the feature is enabled or not on the game, also they didnt always even have a launcher, it was initially just a web storefront.

Most of my games that I own that are on both GOG and steam I actually have on both platforms, I have been supporting GOG and putting my money where my mouth is. I do usually play them on steam, but buy them anyway also on GOG.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Mar 2008
Posts
10,078
Location
Stoke area
Lol, I see all the butthurt is still going on in here over a launcher :D

Lots of talk about all the extra's and when they should be in, no one has any idea what is going on behind the scenes and, lets face it, a lot of the missing extra's mentioned are probably used by a minority of users. Yes, Cloud saving would be nice, I'm sure we'll get it soon. Achievements are quite frankly a sad gimmick that stuck. Too many games rely on them instead of decent gameplay. Streaming, TV & Linux gaming again are probably not as widely used as other areas and are not going to be a priority.

Don't like their businesses practices, fair enough, that's your choice but you're not going to change the mind of anyone that a) doesn't care and b) can't see a problem with it.

Instead, either petition Epic for the features you want and argue their practices with them, start your own platform as you're obviously so knowledgable in business practices and what's best for the gaming world or just keep playing what you're playing and enjoy yourself :D
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Aug 2007
Posts
4,097
Lol, I see all the butthurt is still going on in here over a launcher :D

Lots of talk about all the extra's and when they should be in, no one has any idea what is going on behind the scenes and, lets face it, a lot of the missing extra's mentioned are probably used by a minority of users. Yes, Cloud saving would be nice, I'm sure we'll get it soon. Achievements are quite frankly a sad gimmick that stuck. Too many games rely on them instead of decent gameplay. Streaming, TV & Linux gaming again are probably not as widely used as other areas and are not going to be a priority.

Don't like their businesses practices, fair enough, that's your choice but you're not going to change the mind of anyone that a) doesn't care and b) can't see a problem with it.

Instead, either petition Epic for the features you want and argue their practices with them, start your own platform as you're obviously so knowledgable in business practices and what's best for the gaming world or just keep playing what you're playing and enjoy yourself :D

Umm, yes people are 'butthurt'..... And yes, its about the launcher.....

Try to think how much you care that they care, and that's how much they care that you don't care.

And its fine to criticise something without going out and producing something yourself, that's always such a ridiculous argument. You can be a film critic without making amazing films, you can criticise Tesco without going out and setting up a multi million pound grocery business.
 
Soldato
Joined
27 Feb 2015
Posts
12,596
Achievements "stuck" because it isnt a gimmick, its popular with players. I love achievements, the best thing major nelson did for gamers as he was the originator of the idea.
 
Caporegime
OP
Joined
28 Oct 2003
Posts
31,842
Location
Chestershire
Achievements "stuck" because it isnt a gimmick, its popular with players. I love achievements, the best thing major nelson did for gamers as he was the originator of the idea.

Yes it's one thing I really miss playing mostly on PC now, my PlayStation trophies! I find they encourage you to play more of the game than I typically would, which can only be a good thing, getting your money's worth.
 
Back
Top Bottom