3404

So Steam has become too big to fail? We cannot allow anything that could potentially put a dent in Valve’s bottom line? They just get to own PC gaming forever, I guess.

3405

I added the emphasis to the part that I think is great advice, and something that I had overlooked. I’m not anti-EGS, but I am concerned about the store’s longevity so I had decided that I’d wait a few years (much like I did with Steam) and see whether it had legs. But following your logic, there’s no reason to avoid buying the occasional game from them that I’m interested in.

Holding out for a Steam (or other) release doesn’t mean I’m putting my faith in EGS; it just means I’m buying a game I want and that I’m willing to potentially lose access to. Denying myself in this case doesn’t somehow make me stoic. Rebel Galaxy, here I come.

Good work, dan :)

3406

@tbaldree’s game looks good so I’d be willing to shell out 50€ (if default price was 30€) to avoid further fragmentation of my game library and to have easy access to steam forums that I often use to find information about obscure mechanics or fixes.

Alas, while his game does look good it’s not enough for me to prioritize it over my unwillingness to buy games that do not use Steam as their platform, for the reasons outlined above.

I don’t have any particular grudge against EGS, even if I think their store fails to meet even the minimum store features criteria, and I don’t care what info Epic or Tencent or China gather on me, for me it boils down to the fragmentation of the game library. If games on EGS were exclusive forever I wouldn’t give it a second thought and buy the ones that I wanted, just as I did with Origin and Battle.net in the past. But with a year exclusivity and the size of my backlog these days it’s not even a thing I have to consider, I simply default to no buy until the game hits the platform I want to play it on.

3407

Much appreciated!

3408
3409

Because a bunch of people who basically agree with you are trolling, and you are tacitly encouraging them.

The anti-Epic people have no problem at all with people saying “Epic is fine for me, I’ll buy games there, exclusives are no big deal to me.”

The pro-Epic people seem to have some desire to attack people who are saying “The problems with Epic are a big deal for me, I am less likely / not likely at all to buy games there for this reason.” I get tbaldree, because ultimately it affects people buying his stuff. Everyone else I thought it was some sincere sentiment, but seeing some of the bait-and-switch going on it’s pretty clear that it’s really about shit stirring.

3410

Could you just switch this to screaming, “Fake news!”

Thanks in advance.

3411

Also, yes, I left you years ago for a younger woman, but let’s be honest, you were getting kind of old and haggard looking, and I wasn’t getting nearly as much out of fucking you anymore.

But now that you’ve hit the gym, found a new job without me and make a lot of money, and are looking good, girl, I don’t know why you won’t take me back. Why do you keep bringing up that whole “leaving you” shit? I didn’t really leave. I’m here now, aren’t I? So I didn’t actually leave.

3412

I’m sorry to hear your feelings got hurt by a company making the business decision to focus their own games away from the PC market for a few years. But that’s an early contender for the worst analogies of 2019 awards. Well done.

3413

I don’t think that is the case. I see it the other way around. You have the pro competition (cause a lot of would rather have Steam Knocked down a peg, rather than see Epic as some great store) people asking why everyone is complaining about ‘exclusives’ and the pro Steam group arguing how life is unfair because the games they want aren’t on steam. And then the talk about all the features that epic lacks and is necessary and how if only Epic competed on price, everything would be fine.

Now, we have moved forward and asked whether Steam agreements mean that developers could compete on price, because it seems like Steam Prices on Steam must match prices on other store fronts. If not, then exclusives become the only way developers can offer cheaper prices and retain the same levels of revenue per unit.

So, it’s moving forward slowly. Now, if the ratio is right, we should see about 4-5 people argue against Epic, because this thread certainly seems to have more anti Epic participants than pro Epic participants

Oh, and for some reason, it’s important that people know that Epic abandoned them for a while, whatever that means.

3414

Well, from that point the concern becomes: What happens when there’s another downturn in PC gaming? Will Epic stick around (they didn’t last time)? Will the store stick around (plenty of stores have come and gone)? What happens with all the games I’ve bought if it doesn’t (If they’re exiting the market for business reasons, doesn’t make sense to keep throwing money at content servers does it)?

3415

Definitely. People on both sides understand that concern, I believe. Though a store doesn’t require you to be publishing your own games to make money in the market. So I’d say it’s not a huge concern at this point in time. But definitely something people worried should be keeping an eye on.

That analogy though… :)

3416

Perhaps abandoned is too loaded of a word.

So Epic as a company saw the PC market as too risky post Gears 1 and made a sensible business decision to pursue a safer more lucrative market. That’s fine.

Then a few years ago they came back as a developer and started releasing games again. I actually had the Epic client on my machine to play Paragon and Unreal Tournament (new one). I was even curious about the PVE Fortnite before the Battle Royale mode.

In the last year:

They abandoned further development and support for Paragon to pursue more lucrative endeavors.
They abandoned further development and support for Unreal Tournament to pursue more lucrative endeavors.
The development and support for Fortnite PVE has dramatically slowed (nearly stopped?) because Fortnite Battle Royale was way more lucrative.

Epic doesn’t seem to want to stick with a product or market unless it is generating a certain threshold of returns and I am sure that ratio is way out of whack after the runaway success of Fortnite.

As a for profit business that is their prerogative. To me, a wait and see approach on the store seems perfectly sensible to see if upper management wants to stick around long term or if they pull anchor and drop sails when it weakens to pursue more lucrative options.

3417

But, couldn’t you make the same claim about Steam? I mean, how long have we been waiting for Half-Life 3? They’ve abandon Half-Life to pursue more lucrative endeavors themselves.

3418

Touché!

3419

And one for April!

PvE got a half ass super underwhelming update roadmap back in February.

3420

That ain’t even comparable. It was never announced, let alone released.

3421

Yes. I don’t view Valve as a games developer anymore. I do view them as a reliable platform and store based on a great 14 year track record.

For all the games that Valve has released since Half Life 2 they have always been on PC or PC-centric so while they dabbled in console releases too their games have always been on PC and the best versions were always PC editions.

Also what @CraigM said.

3422

So in your own words, the analogy is the right analogy (because it’s exactly why you don’t take back fickle ex’s who have shown a tendency to leave when things get a little difficult, or even when they aren’t that difficult - because they’ve shown their colors, and will likely leave again if things get tough).

But then you want to babble about the analogy being bad.

Thanks! It was a good analogy.

3423

So what prevents a company who want to push Steam towards lowering their cut from releasing their game, then going to Fanatical and negotiating a better cut while Fanatical sells the game on sale at a discount? Many full value sales would then be through Fanatical and not Steam. In fact, I think I’ve seen this happen a lot recently.