Epic Games Store now open!

Kenai said:
Let's not forget Valve built Steam off the back of making it's own games exclusive or launcher tied (and also forcing launcher tie in for disc based copies too) and then later dishing out free copies of said games to attract more users. The only difference is that they were ahead of others and weren't seen to be trying to 'damage' another platform by doing so. Ultimately if Epic want to compete, they need to create reasons for people to move across and try it out. No one will bother just on the back of all the games being 5% cheaper because they take a smaller cut, so they're going to push hard for exclusives and deals to give people a reason to install it. Because virtually everything seems to be sold on Steam these days, any sort of exclusivity clause is going to look like an 'attack on Steam', if Steam wasn't so close to being a monopoly and there were other significant players in the marketplace, it wouldn't be seen as an attack on one particular platform.
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1st party exclusivity is different to approaching dev's to do 3rd party exclusivity.

This is just very anti consumer practice.

Epic are not prepared to compete on a service level or pricing level, but instead want to "force" people over to their platform via exclusivity deals. I have never been a fan of exclusivity, I am consistent in that view, e.g. I dont like the way sky tv operate either. It made me hate the console market with all the exclusivity nonsense in that market as well which thankfully has died down a bit this generation.

Steam was dominant but not a monopoly. There is a difference. A monopoly is when you have no competitors, Steam has gog, uplay store, EA store, windows store as competitors. It was perhaps a monopoly early days but that was simply due to been first to market, anyone first to market in a sector will have a monopoly for a while for been first. I dont think I have have ever heard of steam approaching a 3rd party dev to say to them to only release on steam and no other platforms.

In regards to Troy, the perfect thing to do would have been free for first 24 hours on Epic, thats it, they should have just left at that, it would have attracted gamers, not be seen as anti competitive, and people would have had the choice of getting it for free on Epic or paying for it on steam, I really dont understand why they didnt just do that, but they had to do it, they had to insist on the exclusivity.

Also as harsh as it may sound if Epic cannot naturally make a place for it self, then it has no place in the market, if they can only gain a foothold via exclusivity then it means they are a failed product. Also I expect they grabbing more people via free games than exclusivity, for the exclusivity, everyone I know is just waiting for steam release if they want the game. I know some who have signed up for free games, but not a single person who signed up to buy an exclusive game, so its no surprise that policy is losing them money.

Also steam store had more competitors then realised all those key stores are store competitors, on steam each dev can generate keys for free and sell them via other stores. A fair chunk of my games were not purchased on the steam store.

For me Epic store is the developer rebellion, as its haven for dev's who dont like pro consumer practices.
 
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Kenai said:
Let's not forget Valve built Steam off the back of making it's own games exclusive or launcher tied (and also forcing launcher tie in for disc based copies too) and then later dishing out free copies of said games to attract more users. The only difference is that they were ahead of others and weren't seen to be trying to 'damage' another platform by doing so. Ultimately if Epic want to compete, they need to create reasons for people to move across and try it out. No one will bother just on the back of all the games being 5% cheaper because they take a smaller cut, so they're going to push hard for exclusives and deals to give people a reason to install it. Because virtually everything seems to be sold on Steam these days, any sort of exclusivity clause is going to look like an 'attack on Steam', if Steam wasn't so close to being a monopoly and there were other significant players in the marketplace, it wouldn't be seen as an attack on one particular platform.
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Saved me the hassle of typing the same thing. Epic are trying to take a bigger piece of the market using exclusivity and free games as a big part to lure new and existing customers to their platform.

chrcoluk said:
1st party exclusivity is different to approaching dev's to do 3rd party exclusivity.

This is just very anti consumer practice.

Epic are not prepared to compete on a service level or pricing level, but instead want to "force" people over to their platform via exclusivity deals. I have never been a fan of exclusivity, I am consistent in that view, e.g. I dont like the way sky tv operate either. It made me hate the console market with all the exclusivity nonsense in that market as well which thankfully has died down a bit this generation.

Steam was dominant but not a monopoly. There is a difference. A monopoly is when you have no competitors, Steam has gog, uplay store, EA store, windows store as competitors. It was perhaps a monopoly early days but that was simply due to been first to market, anyone first to market in a sector will have a monopoly for a while for been first. I dont think I have have ever heard of steam approaching a 3rd party dev to say to them to only release on steam and no other platforms.

In regards to Troy, the perfect thing to do would have been free for first 24 hours on Epic, thats it, they should have just left at that, it would have attracted gamers, not be seen as anti competitive, and people would have had the choice of getting it for free on Epic or paying for it on steam, I really dont understand why they didnt just do that, but they had to do it, they had to insist on the exclusivity.

Also as harsh as it may sound if Epic cannot naturally make a place for it self, then it has no place in the market, if they can only gain a foothold via exclusivity then it means they are a failed product. Also I expect they grabbing more people via free games than exclusivity, for the exclusivity, everyone I know is just waiting for steam release if they want the game. I know some who have signed up for free games, but not a single person who signed up to buy an exclusive game, so its no surprise that policy is losing them money.

Also steam store had more competitors then realised all those key stores are store competitors, on steam each dev can generate keys for free and sell them via other stores. A fair chunk of my games were not purchased on the steam store.

For me Epic store is the developer rebellion, as its haven for dev's who dont like pro consumer practices.
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Cringing really hard for you mate. The only thing I can agree with you on is the fact that as consumers we have less choice over which platform we purchase certain games on while it's tied to it's exclusivity deal, which isn't that big of a deal.

Monopoly: exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices
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uPlay, Rockstar Social Club, Bethesda etc all exist because of the monopoly Steam held demanding 30% per transaction. Game publishers and direct competitors to Steam need to adapt to grow in a competitive market. Sometimes we as consumers are going to lose out, ultimately we benefit.

Competition is good, whether you're morally offended as a consequence is moot at best.
 
.Lethal said:
Saved me the hassle of typing the same thing. Epic are trying to take a bigger piece of the market using exclusivity and free games as a big part to lure new and existing customers to their platform.



Cringing really hard for you mate. The only thing I can agree with you on is the fact that as consumers we have less choice over which platform we purchase certain games on while it's tied to it's exclusivity deal, which isn't that big of a deal.



uPlay, Rockstar Social Club, Bethesda etc all exist because of the monopoly Steam held demanding 30% per transaction. Game publishers and direct competitors to Steam need to adapt to grow in a competitive market. Sometimes we as consumers are going to lose out, ultimately we benefit.

Competition is good, whether you're morally offended as a consequence is moot at best.
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30% is actually historically low and no more than microsoft and sony share.

Whether there is excess profit I dont know but it is wrong to paint a picture that steam is somehow charging more than other companies offering similar services. Remember as well steam gets no revenue for addon services. Online gaming is free on the steam platform.

Epic isnt an example of 18% is viable as they are a loss making platform as a store. If they didnt have billions of chinese investment and fortnite money they would be liquidated.

Also to be frank I couldnt care less what steam's revenue share is, I care about the consumer side of things. When steam was started there was explanations given how it was there designed to combat piracy, and to do that was to address the detachment between consumers and developers, making games more readily available, better offers, consumer friendly features.

I would be very surprised if Epic exclusives dont have a higher than average rate of piracy.

In terms of uplay etc. they started their own stores for their own games, it was annoying, but what they didnt do is approach other developers and buy them out for exclusivity, it was their stores for their games. Also as I said steam didnt have a monopoly, when uplay etc. were setup, gog was already in existance.
 
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chrcoluk said:
Nice find, fair enough, any more?

Do you consider exclusivity deals to be good competitive practice? I am curious.
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Nope. No others that I'm aware of.

From a business point of view, exclusivity deals are a very competitive practice and a very common thing to do in all types of retail (I'm old enough to remember old tv adverts which told you something was 'only available at WHSmiths!'). From a personal point of view, I don't really care. Having something just sold on EGS doesn't stop me playing something anymore than something only being available on Steam. And I get that Valve may have not paid the publishers for exclusivity but the net result is the same - if that's the only place it's available due to whatever reason, I have to use Steam to play it, and I accept that.

Question - if Epic didn't pay developers for exclusivity, would you be happy for a game to only be available on EGS, if that was the publisher's choice?
 
If a publisher just decided to do that of their own bat, I wouldnt like it (temporarily until epic sort out their launcher features), but I wouldnt have particular issue with it either. It makes no business sense why they would do that, 82% of 100 sales is nothing compared to 70% of 100k sales, but if they did it out of choice, I wouldnt be making these posts no. That would actually show that Epic have done something to attract their store to someone with merit.

Its not just paying them either, Epic seem to have a policy for smaller devs that if they "choose" Epic, then it has to be exclusive, which seems odd. That suggests to me they know if people have a choice between themselves, gog and steam, they wouldnt get picked, and thats what they should be addressing. If that never gets addressed then they will just be seen as a source for free games.

To me competition is offering an alternative for the same "product" at a different place, so basically e.g. I can buy a 2080 from OCUK as well as other retailers, that is competition. But if nvidia did a deal with OCUK to be only sold by OCUK in this country, thats not competition it becomes a monopoly. So it is interesting me and you see competitive in a different light.

There is a natural monopoly where someone has setup shop somewhere, and simply because no one has chose to compete with them they have a monopoly, typically something that is a benefit of been first to market, then there is the forceful monopoly where you tie down the supply of a product only to yourself.

I agree exclusivity is all over the place, to me it doesnt make it ok, but I do accept it is common practice.
 
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I don't care about exclusivity deals. I'm quite happy to wait for a game to come to steam.

On the flip side, I don't really care what I launch my games from, so the free games on epic are nothing but a win. If other games are cheaper on Epic, I'll by them on Epic.

Valve don't care about me. Epic don't care either. Both want my money. I don't feel loyal to either. I'm happy with more choice... Steam sales have been poor for years, and general prices have shot through the roof, simply because they could.
 
I don't get why people crave features on a launcher/store front either.
Exclusivity is a bit of an issue but at the end of the day if the price of the game is good then its about the game and not how you launch it so who really cares. You would need your head checked if you didn't buy your favourite game because it was exclusive to one "launcher". Are steam achievements worth that much to people?
 
weldon855 said:
I don't get why people crave features on a launcher/store front either.
Exclusivity is a bit of an issue but at the end of the day if the price of the game is good then its about the game and not how you launch it so who really cares. You would need your head checked if you didn't buy your favourite game because it was exclusive to one "launcher". Are steam achievements worth that much to people?
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To some they are really important yeah, when they got introduced for the xbox originally, it was seen as a game changer to the gaming industry. I absolutely love achievements, there is even people that buy games just to get achievements, so e.g. if a game is known you can get achievements really quickly and easy, then people buy it so they can rack up their achievements. Its also seen as competitive by some, so sony now encrypt saves on the ps4 to prevent people cheating on achievements as well.

I have deliberately brought games from steam instead of gog on occasion even for a higher price purely on the basis the gog version had no achievements. gog supports achievements, but not all of the games have it enabled.

uplay has took it further that their own achievement system rewards you by giving you items in games or discounts on future purchases from their store, thats what I call a proper unique feature that can draw people to your store/launcher.

achievements also has made me double or triple dip for games, I suspect it increases sales.

so e.g. I first played lightning returns on the ps3, got 100% trophies. Then brought it on the xbox just so I could get the achievements on my xbox profile, then again on steam for the same again on steam.
 
chrcoluk said:
To some they are really important yeah, when they got introduced for the xbox originally, it was seen as a game changer to the gaming industry. I absolutely love achievements, there is even people that buy games just to get achievements, so e.g. if a game is known you can get achievements really quickly and easy, then people buy it so they can rack up their achievements. Its also seen as competitive by some, so sony now encrypt saves on the ps4 to prevent people cheating on achievements as well.

I have deliberately brought games from steam instead of gog on occasion even for a higher price purely on the basis the gog version had no achievements. gog supports achievements, but not all of the games have it enabled.

uplay has took it further that their own achievement system rewards you by giving you items in games or discounts on future purchases from their store, thats what I call a proper unique feature that can draw people to your store/launcher.

achievements also has made me double or triple dip for games, I suspect it increases sales.

so e.g. I first played lightning returns on the ps3, got 100% trophies. Then brought it on the xbox just so I could get the achievements on my xbox profile, then again on steam for the same again on steam.
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Okay but what you really need is PC platform achievements(like Xbox and PS) not some achievements on Uplay only , some on origin only, some on gog only and some on steam only. Maybe that doesn't exist though so that fools will buy the same game 4 times.
 
weldon855 said:
Okay but what you really need is PC platform achievements(like Xbox and PS) not some achievements on Uplay only , some on origin only, some on gog only and some on steam only. Maybe that doesn't exist though so that fools will buy the same game 4 times.
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That would be the case if everyone didnt make their own launchers, even very small devs are making own launchers now, everyone wants one.

Now this path has been taken there wont be a centralised achievement system.
 
chrcoluk said:
That would be the case if everyone didnt make their own launchers, even very small devs are making own launchers now, everyone wants one.

Now this path has been taken there wont be a centralised achievement system.
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Yes , well a long time ago steam wouldn't play nice with others so slowly one by one the others decided they wanted their own store fronts and "launcher".
 
chrcoluk said:
That would be the case if everyone didnt make their own launchers, even very small devs are making own launchers now, everyone wants one.

Now this path has been taken there wont be a centralised achievement system.
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It'd be pretty cool if GoG with their Galaxy 2 integration of launchers could also integrate and present your achievements from the different platforms all together
 
weldon855 said:
Yes , well a long time ago steam wouldn't play nice with others so slowly one by one the others decided they wanted their own store fronts and "launcher".
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Ok, but how does that explain why these guys arent using GOG, what monopolistic practices have GOG done to stop them using it?
 
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