Epic Games Store now open!
- Thread starter ic1male
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Associate
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How are you getting those prices? Beyond 2 Souls shows as £14.39 for me.
Because you get £10 off in the coupon. And every time you buy a game you receive another coupon with £10 off (as long as the purchase is above £15 I think)
Its a genius way to do a sale.
It is my first time using Epic. Is it just me or is the download really slow? I have a quick internet connection but been downloading a game for 15 mins now and it is only on 6%. Anything I should be doing to get this quicker? Thanks.
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Downloads are really slow, managed to pickup Control and Rebel Galaxy Outlaw so far sale is far better than the current stream sale.
Oh yeah
Compared to what Valve offer on Steam nowadays 
the same old overpriced almost full price stuff passing as on sale because its not the usual excessive markup RRP prices they got away with for so many years 
Epic can afford to be generous but so can Valve they made billions out of PC gamers
yet obviously do not understand how to run a business & keep their customer base!
Soldato
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So like Dave said below your post
Log in, grab the free game, this will give you a £10 off any game over £14. It applies automatically at checkout . Also after buying your game you get another £10 coupon and so on etc.
Mine is downloading now at about 35Mbps, but I have a 200mb broadband (allegedly). It seems to be a little quicker this morning. Gave up on it last night.
Soldato
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Oh yeah
Epic can afford to be generous but so can Valve they made billions out of PC gamers
To me it just seems like some discussion in the Epic boardroom has gone:
"Mr Sweeny, sir, our data indicates that 95% of our user base have only used their accounts to redeem the free games and haven't ever bought anything or even put in their card details"
"We need a way to try and force people to spend, there's a real psychological barrier around that first purchase"
"I know! If we give out a coupon with the next free game that they can only redeem by actually buying something we can try and reel in a bunch of those freeloaders"
"Yes those foolish swines will lap it up thinking it's the best deal ever, that we're so generous and such great business people!"
"Meanwhile they'll have unwittingly created a sense of investment in the store and their library on it; perfect for the paid subscription model we want to pivot to down the road"
Yeah okay that last sentence is just there for dramatic effect, who knows what they're planning to do should they ever achieve their goal of having a true monopoly. But I guess we'll just have to see how many people fall for it. At least Randy might manage to shift a few copies of Borderlands 3 finally though so that'll be a good Christmas gift for him. I don't see Steam going anywhere anytime soon still (and actually I was looking through the sale this morning and thought the prices look alright, have earmarked a few things I've had my eye on for a while that I might pickup)
Soldato
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I think (some of) this could well be true...
But 1) why is that a bad thing and
2) what is to fall for?
As for your monopoly... It was steam who had practically a monopoly on PC gaming. It was THEM who introduced the forced DRM on games. Before steam I bought a game and that was that.... But they managed to create almost a monopoly on their DRM which has only fairly recently with the likes of uplay, origin and epic been put under pressure
Good deal is a good deal. Game Devs get a sale, (and don't lose much cash as epic cough up the difference), the user gets a great deal and like you say Epic get people used to buying from their store.
I just added another 2 to the collection , heavy rain and beyond 2 souls... And sold my unplayed PS4 copy for £9
But 1) why is that a bad thing and
2) what is to fall for?
As for your monopoly... It was steam who had practically a monopoly on PC gaming. It was THEM who introduced the forced DRM on games. Before steam I bought a game and that was that.... But they managed to create almost a monopoly on their DRM which has only fairly recently with the likes of uplay, origin and epic been put under pressure
Good deal is a good deal. Game Devs get a sale, (and don't lose much cash as epic cough up the difference), the user gets a great deal and like you say Epic get people used to buying from their store.
I just added another 2 to the collection , heavy rain and beyond 2 souls... And sold my unplayed PS4 copy for £9
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Soldato
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It's not necessarily a bad thing (depending on what you're evaluating) - it is a clever way to try and convert some of their passive users into actual users (without actually investing money into providing a better service) and from a business perspective I'm sure that is sound (if a bit short sighted) - but it also shows their view of things; why try to convert/attract/retain customers by improving or having a better service when you can just throw them £10 coupons and try to get them psychologically invested?
I agree about Steam to some extent as well (in fact I remember really disliking it when it first came on the scene) but Valve won me (and many others) over to eventually become the monopoly that they did; and only part of that was achieved by having good deals. In many ways you could argue that the big dominant force that Valve were trying to displace from the previous "monopoly" was piracy (can't get much better value than that!) and brick + mortar stores, and they did it by just being a better alternative - and it worked really well...
uPlay, Origin etc. haven't really taken off in the same way because they assumed all they needed to do was half-heartedly copy Steam (with corners cut to avoid hurting profits) and then ransom their titles to their own service - and it's not really worked that well (EA bringing their titles back to Steam is clear evidence of that). Epic now think all they need to do is copy the (failed) uPlay, Origin etc. formula and then throw so much money at everyone involved until they abandon all of the reasons why they continue to use Steam. Why? No idea, perhaps all they care about is money themselves so they project that onto the entire gaming + developer community; everyone has a price (they hope)
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Anyone who played the first Counter strike versions knows the manual update business is terribly awkward especially beta versions. Steam seems to get it right and even manage to fix their opps quite quickly also. Steam was not that great a while back but to be fair they do keep on working on it and returning some of those profits which is only common sense really.
Its then hard for anyone else to catchup on them when they always had the lead and havent especially slowed or stopped. Another retaining factor is I've got 3 figure sums tied up on steam, if it wasnt that closed off I could use it elsewhere but its easier to keep using steam. I want valve to skip to the end game, give me a way to use the whole library on a non windows machine. They are a giant company but not quite there, its possible they do need to be more open to EA etc to get this done. Windows has threatened to cut off anyone like steam who compete with their ideas such as windows store etc. Sounds like it'd break EU law to me but I wouldnt put it past them.
Steam was a requirement for Half life 2 and that cs version, I'd not got it for ages otherwise.
Soldato
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So personally I am cutting Epic some slack on their service because they are fairly new.
Ultimately if Epic want to compete with steam long-term they are going to have to offer many of the features steam has.
I think They will get there......initially they didn't even have cloud saves but they do now.
Achievements I am not that bothered about myself but I know many are, I suspect they need to come.. and trading cards, what a genius valve move, they literally make money for nothing . Epic would be insane to not just copy that totally.
The chat feature personally I use discord separate app anyway.
Modding support is a huge feature which I wod like to see (is that in yet?) And also wish lists and stuff like that. Again no brainer feature which will make them money so sure it will come
The main reason why I am hopeful for epic is... They still actually make games unlike valve who stopped for ages. Yes I know they have recently started again but maybe that is because in part of epic taking "their" games ?.
Ultimately if Epic want to compete with steam long-term they are going to have to offer many of the features steam has.
I think They will get there......initially they didn't even have cloud saves but they do now.
Achievements I am not that bothered about myself but I know many are, I suspect they need to come.. and trading cards, what a genius valve move, they literally make money for nothing . Epic would be insane to not just copy that totally.
The chat feature personally I use discord separate app anyway.
Modding support is a huge feature which I wod like to see (is that in yet?) And also wish lists and stuff like that. Again no brainer feature which will make them money so sure it will come
The main reason why I am hopeful for epic is... They still actually make games unlike valve who stopped for ages. Yes I know they have recently started again but maybe that is because in part of epic taking "their" games ?.
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I'm shocked you've not broken that drum you keep banging
That's a lot of insider knowledge you have there... anyone would think you were on the board, or maybe just voicing your opinion as fact
I know you'll reply, and I'll ignore it... again
Soldato
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I'm shocked you've not broken that drum you keep banging
That's a lot of insider knowledge you have there... anyone would think you were on the board, or maybe just voicing your opinion as fact
I know you'll reply, and I'll ignore it... again
Very tough of you
(you ignored my last post so hard you quoted it and replied? Okay, well just in case you're full of it I'll reply anyway)I don't see where I claimed to have insider knowledge - I said "it seems like" this was their thinking, and that "perhaps all they care about is money" - I could be wrong but if Epic really are doing anything that genuinely benefits the consumer (in any meaningful way, not just filling the pig trough with more money) you can absolutely count on it that Tim Sweeny and his pet Randy wouldn't shut up about it on Twitter for a second, and yet all he does is continue to cry about Valve and wonder why everybody isn't swarming over to EGS because of all that money
They are new (to distributing games) but they are also extremely wealthy (especially compared to where Valve were when they started) and I don't believe for a second that they couldn't compete on features if they wanted to (but it would come at a cost that they don't seem to think they need to pay if they can win people over with money alone). I would love to see Epic actually take on Valve properly - imagine what great features we might see from both camps if they were in an arms race to try and provide the best service they could; but nothing about what they've done so far suggests to me that they intend to ever try and do that (and because of that I hope they fail miserably)
...that they can only afford due to Fortnite - Epic is literally losing money on every sale.
But yes, to convince people to get signed up, the free games and sales like this work like a charm.
I'm sure they are losing money on each sale, they must be surely, not that I care about that of course. I'm getting games on the cheap, which is precisely what I expect from a sale, actual sale prices.