Whats wrong with EPIC?

[Junglist]

I haven't bothered creating an account just yet which means I've missed out on some great free games.

I was furious when EA forced Origin with BF3 but now I just expect games to go on other platforms and now my games are spread across all of them even had to make a Rockstar one recently as I refused to pay £54 for RDR2 when I could've got it for £32 elsewhere.

Plus, the GoG Galaxy service makes worrying about other store fronts a null and void point.

 

[StrongSad]

I had no issues at the start, thought "competition is always healthy" however the practice of paying for exclusives at the expense of consumers choice has annoyed me somewhat. Also I am a bit surprised Humble Bundle are using Epic for RDR2. Now I bought RDR2 on CDKeys so paid less and that is on R*'s own crappy launcher but I have always used humble as it was easy to activate on steam and where my main game library is. So I hope they are not going to be getting into bed with them.

As for the launcher. Just like every other launcher on my PC other than steam (which is more than a launcher) it starts the game and after I am done, it's off until I need it again.

 

[AHarvey]

No Remote Play
No Remote Play on TV
No Achievements
Community
Market Place
Workshop
Trading Cards (not for everyone)
Custom Profile
Remote play together
VR Mode
DS4 controller support
Big Picture mode

Epic Store has none of them, rumours of Chinese Spyware has never been proven, I do not respect Epics money hatting exclusives but the games Epic buys up for 6 - 12 months generally come to other platforms , for me its the launcher is just absolutely terrible and I just don't want to buy my games from the store so I don't want to use it, as a consumer you're entitled to pick and choose where you buy your products, some like Epic, some use it to get the game they want, and some won't use it and for me I don't want to use it.

The thing is, nothing you've posted there I've ever used bar maybe the workshop.

Achievements to me should just be finishing the game, communities are normally made in-game and use personal discord/web space or the come from places like this.

People had been complaining about cloud saves missing from Epic, which is in for many games and they are working at improving it.

Christmas has come and gone and it shows people are happy with Epic and are buying through them. Ultimately, it's a games platform and it does that well. All the other stuff are all extras and I don't feel they make it less a platform for not having it.

Pricing is definitely an issue but their sales worked really well. Free games are great. I've no complaints and purchased my first games over Christmas.

 

[iv-tecman]

The thing is, nothing you've posted there I've ever used bar maybe the workshop.

Achievements to me should just be finishing the game, communities are normally made in-game and use personal discord/web space or the come from places like this.

People had been complaining about cloud saves missing from Epic, which is in for many games and they are working at improving it.

Christmas has come and gone and it shows people are happy with Epic and are buying through them. Ultimately, it's a games platform and it does that well. All the other stuff are all extras and I don't feel they make it less a platform for not having it.

Pricing is definitely an issue but their sales worked really well. Free games are great. I've no complaints and purchased my first games over Christmas.

Which is perfectly fine, but I do use some of these features, and I suspect I'm not the only one. Thankfully Steam allows linking of other none steam games, and most of these features will work for those games too

As I said, some use the epic store, you clearly do, some only as they have to, and some won't and I'm one of those at the moment, I do not like how Epic conducted business and locked out games to one platform only, its fair enough for EA games only on Origin, and UBI soft games only on uplay, but Epic did this with third party games - not cool IMO - some will and do disagree.

 

[Vince]

You'll happily install a launcher for a single game, but a launcher for multiple games is a step too far?

I don't use Steam personally, just Origin, Uplay, MS Store, GOG.

You disected that like a true pro. Correct ill actively wait for a title to hit steam or just let it pass me by unless its something like tarkov which is stand alone and that i want to support.

Epic could give me their entire library for free and it still wouldnt be welcome.

 

[iv-tecman]

You disected that like a true pro. Correct ill actively wait for a title to hit steam or just let it pass me by unless its something like tarkov which is stand alone and that i want to support.

Epic could give me their entire library for free and it still wouldnt be welcome.

lol, loving that comment, anyhow vast majority of games on Epic will hit Steam and other platforms eventually, and the ones that don't oh well, plenty of other games to play eh ?

 

[Vince]

lol, loving that comment, anyhow vast majority of games on Epic will hit Steam and other platforms eventually, and the ones that don't oh well, plenty of other games to play eh ?

That is pretty much it. Also i have quite a lot to protect given what i do for a living. I have access to very sensitive information to do with ungranted patents and my gaming desktop and workstation sits behind my corporate firewall.

A few years back i had a load of launchers including origin, uplay etc and just uninstalled everything gave up all my games on them and have been steam only since. I dont miss them.

 

[ZombieFan]

So what % of ownership is the level at which the moral outrage at Tencent becomes unacceptable? Surely if people are principled, they should avoid all companies funded by Tencent, including Discord.

The point where they start influencing decisions made.

So I'm guessing that this must be more than 40% then? Considering that Epic have publically stated multiple times that Tencent have no influence on decisions made at the company, and no evidence has been found to contradict this.

I'm guessing that if you believe they /do/ have an influcence and Epic is lying, then to play it safe it's worth staying away from any company Tencent have invested in (just in case all invested companies are lying about their involvement as well)?

 

[bigmike20vt]

Epic Store fine imo. lacking a bit in features but nothing disasterous - no achievements or trading cards, the rest however is done better by other services anyway (chat i use discord, and online reviews, personally i think steam reviews are rubbish in general anyway).

They have cloud saves which i think was missing right at the start, other than that it is just a store front.

IF fragmented libraries is a problem for you (it is for me) I can reccomend GOG galaxy 2, it works well and you can tie all your accounts into it. Playnite does similar but i have never used that.
Tim Sweeney is a hypocrite and comes across as a bit of a ****** imo, and Ideally I do not like the idea of paying for exclusives either however I see the necessity for it.... hell people can often buy DRM free games and get to own the game themselves from the likes of GOG and yet they will often still pay more to have a license to play from steam.... With that kind of mindshare how can anyone compete with Steam WITHOUT getting exclusives.?.

Valve are not the saviors of PC gaming and GabeN is not doing us some huge favour... it is Valve who 1st introduced having a forced DRM by locking us to steam, even IF we owned a physical copy of the game.... up until HL2 non of this was forced on us. Valve have had it easy for so long with no competition, it has allowed them to stop doing what they actually used to do really well..... making games. I hope now with things going as they are that will all change, and titles such as HL-A wont be a 1 off.

IMO they are all in it to milk us for as much as they can..... dont agree with a valve update to their Ts and Cs... Say goodbye to your entire games collection... you dont get that with GOG games but that isnt enough to make most people not choose steam.

Modding and a VR area are 2 areas noticeable by their absence, and is something to consider if the game you want is likely to have a modding community..... These are coming but I dunno when,.

 

[Curlyriff]

No Remote Play
No Remote Play on TV
No Achievements
Community
Market Place
Workshop
Trading Cards (not for everyone)
Custom Profile
Remote play together
VR Mode
DS4 controller support
Big Picture mode

No Remote Play - Never used
No Remote Play on TV - Never used
No Achievements - Not bothered in slightest
Community - Meh, got here and discord and that for community
Market Place - Never used / not bothered
Workshop - Yep this is one needed and will come
Trading Cards (not for everyone) - not bothered
Custom Profile - hopefully but not critical
Remote play together - never used and not bothered
VR Mode - never used / not worried
DS4 controller support - not critical
Big Picture mode - not critical

So yeah okay those are elements but they are not like priority for a store front really. However just for reference this is where they are at and what they are doing:
https://trello.com/b/GXLc34hk/epic-games-store-roadmap

I have it installed for the free games mostly but if something comes up on there I would like to play that fine. I hardly purchase much these days. Some of the features look a good step over what Steam are currently offering too. Dynamic bundle system would be good for instance. Self-service refunds be handy. Price protection, cool that is good to see.

 

[james.miller]

So I'm guessing that this must be more than 40% then? Considering that Epic have publically stated multiple times that Tencent have no influence on decisions made at the company, and no evidence has been found to contradict this.

I'm guessing that if you believe they /do/ have an influcence and Epic is lying, then to play it safe it's worth staying away from any company Tencent have invested in (just in case all invested companies are lying about their involvement as well)?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1095515651832201217

I'm guessing a tweet from the man himself doesn't count as evidence then. So Epic have publicly stated, more than once, that Tencent have no influence have they? So who was lying then? Whoever was representing Epic when those statements were made or was it Epic CEO Tim Sweeney when he said they DO weigh in and vote on business matters?

I know what you're trying to do but seriously, just do a little research first.

 

[Poneros]

My problem with all these stores, it's not just Epic, is that they're ****. Just utterly terrible to use, sluggish, buggy, etc - a complete mess. In which case I don't mind logging in to add a free game but I'd never give them money. I already feel dirty having done it for Odyssey & Origins, but those are such exceptional games that... well, I can make an exception for, and even then for Origins I use the DRMless version rather than uplay. If they do the same for Odyssey then it's good-bye Uplay. Having to deal with both EGS & R*L for RDR2 recently ...oof. Would have immediately refunded it if it weren't a gift.

 

[Curlyriff]

snip

What about

Riot Games (League of Legends) - 100 percent
In 2011, Tencent went from being Riot Games' publishing partner in China to its majority stakeholder after paying $400 million for a 93 percent stake in the League of Legends developer. Four years later, Tencent scooped up the remaining 7 percent equity for an undisclosed amount, taking full control over Riot Games just as League of Legends was exploding as an esport around the world.

Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile) - 80 percent
In 2018 Tencent snatched up a majority stake in the New Zealand developer of Path of Exile, Grinding Gear Games. The purchase alarmed Path of Exile players who feared the Chinese publisher would start implementing more aggressive microtransactions or changes to Path of Exile's delicate in-game economy. But, like many of Tencent's acquisitions, Grinding Gear Games has supposedly kept its independence over Path of Exile's operation. In the year since, little has changed about Path of Exile's economy or microtransactions despite the game's continued growth.

Other investments worth noting
Supercell - 84.3 percent: Tencent's $8.6 billion dollar investment in this Finnish mobile developer is one of the biggest purchases in videogame history. But considering 60 percent of Tencent's $19.13 billion in gaming revenue last year came from mobile games, and Supercell's enduring hits like Clash of Clans, the acquisition makes a lot of sense. Like Riot Games, Supercell reportedly retains most of its independence and is still located in Finland.

Tencent actually helped stop a hostile takeover at Ubi :/ like there is so much fear mongering with them in honesty. They haven't to date seemed to have changed the course of any of games/developers.

And people saying they stealing code etc would still need the store to add all that data in. Whom says Ubi doesn't do that even for the 5% either? Could be part of their investment to sell data to them. Can't have it both ways. It is not likely that prior to Epic games that they were not already getting data of players.

 

[james.miller]

What about them? I dont touch them either.

I'm glad Tencent went in on the ubisoft deal because it was the lesser of two evils. I'd rather it wasnt tencent themselves but it could have been worse.

 

[dr_volki]

the whole poe community was crying when tencent bought GGG. yet to see any negative impact from this, in fact i'd say poe got even better since the takeover.

 

[McBain]

Seems fine to me, only problem is when they have games that are exclusive to the platform = tend to be more expensive as no competition.

Simplest solution to that is wait for it to become non exclusive or wait for it to come down a bit in price. No biggie for me.

 

[bigmike20vt]

Division 2 Gold edition for £6.50
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw £7.99
Heavy Rain and Beyond 2 Souls £4.25 each.

and about 50 free titles over the last 13 months........ Personally I cant grumble on the value

 

[iamtheoneneo]

hyprocrtics honestly. The moment a game goes exclusively on epic that you want your be chomping at the bit to install it.

Let's not pretend you actually care about these issues....you don't!

Competition is good, Steam are certainly not some holy company we should all praise.

 

[eekfek]

Nothing.

Whoever sells my game the cheapest gets the money.

 

[ZombieFan]

I'm guessing a tweet from the man himself doesn't count as evidence then. So Epic have publicly stated, more than once, that Tencent have no influence have they? So who was lying then? Whoever was representing Epic when those statements were made or was it Epic CEO Tim Sweeney when he said they DO weigh in and vote on business matters?

I know what you're trying to do but seriously, just do a little research first.

I conceed that my wording was incorrect. Tencent can make suggestions to influence the Epic board, but Tim has complete control of the resulting decisions. Two months after that tweet, from Tim (read the entire tweet thread):

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1113963223517138949