“Game store”. It’s right in the title.
OK. But I’m not sure why consumers are supposed to care.
Well, that’s kind of the question. Are they capable of competing on audience?
Six months ago it seemed implausible that the Fortnite audience would be plopping down money on indie games, so there should be no new audience for them to tap into. And then on the other hand they should have a lot of trouble attracting people over from Steam. The store was garbage to start with, their progress on improving it is glacial, and a lot of that existing audience for indie games really dislikes Epic.
But every indication we have is that the games are selling very well.
So there’s a disconnect somewhere.
Because better developer deals means more developer, which means more games.
Except it’s only a very limited and select number of developers that are getting those deals.
Sure, but you have to start with those developers that can deliver.
It’s a business, and I want more games, but I don’t want more crappy games. That how we ended up with the mess that is Steam. A lot of those indie games just aren’t good enough.
So don’t buy them. Steam, unlike EGS, has a ton of info and forums so you can decide what is right for you. Most games on EGS have some screen shots and a promotional blurb. Steam needs competition, but it needs it from a decent service, not someone just throwing money at the problem.
But why should EGS want to waste space on crappy indie games either? I mean, that tmwas the critique leveled. Why is EGS only offering the deal to a hand full of developers. And its to keep the ratio of crap low.
When it comes to search ability real estate is a premium. Every game should count for something on a platform as small as EGS is. When they have matured, I am sure we will see a much wider selection of games, but that still doesn’t mean the flood gates need to be opened to every Tom, Dick and Harry.
This is such an outrageous assertion, based on nothing but your wishful thinking of where EGS will benignly take the market. There is no guarantee that either more money for developers or a larger cut of given revenue will ensure more games or a better overall customer experience. This is like Republicans trickle down economics applied to the games industry.
I feel like EGS is more like Google+ vs Facebook. EGS having disruption at the start using funny money, but after a couple years the charm spell will wear off. The store will land firmly into the second tier a la Origin, Uplay, GOG, etc. while Steam continues to rule supreme.
Outrageous assertion eh? The Ooblets team provides testimony that supports @legowarrior’s claim.
“Now we can just focus on making the game without worrying about keeping the lights on. The upfront money they’re providing means we’ll be able to afford more help and resources to start ramping up production and doing some cooler things.”
The problem is how do you define “crappy indie game”? Any selective curation is going to miss potentially good games. Look at how many very good and successful games are coming out of independent studios that aren’t EA, Ubisoft, Activision, etc… Most of the time you won’t even know until after they become successful.
The point is that you have asserted that EGS will result in more games because developers will make more money. That may or may not be true, but I can assure you it won’t be true for the many successful indies that can’t get on their platform It very much limits your argument to a relative select handful of developers.
They were making the game anyway. They just found a different way to fund it.
A much less taxing and time consuming one. It gives them less to be stressed about, and stress kills creativity.
I mean, unless one of those Epic Haters on Twitters decides to follow through on their threats and actually kill the developers. I mean, nothing kills creativity like actually being murdered.
And it won’t be true of Steam at all if people have to wad through all the trash that is put up every day.
There is no one perfect solution, but having multiple stores compete allows us to try out different solutions. And it gives some developers more options as well.
Maybe having just Steam is good enough for a lot of people, but I want to see what other stores can come up.
Sure, but let’s not act like Epic is causing some great upsurge of new developers. Epic is just a publisher with their own store. They might help a few developers they deem worthy, meanwhile Steam is giving indies of all levels access to a store and a chance to make money.
When rational points are exhausted. Bring out the old beaten strawman.
Dude it was a joke. It’s ok to let it slide.
I love that I’m reading a thread where people (and I’m deliberately not replying to anyone specific) are making the (paraphrased) argument “stores that choose what they want to sell are unreasonable and anti-consumer.”
To be 100% honest, I don’t care that much if Epic only does this temporarily. I buy games on the cheap anyway, and I don’t mind waiting a year to get it elsewhere, probably on GOG. And it better be at a discount. If the companies expect to sell it a year later at full price, then this proves the exact opposite of what @legowarrior is claiming: that exclusivity is actually harming the consumer, because fake scarcity is causing the price to remain high for longer than it normally would.
Also, my fear is that Epic will not only keep doing this for a very long time, but that what they really want is to get games to be exclusive with them forever. Think about it – currently, exclusivity forever is a hard sell, because the store is unproven. But if the store does prove itself, developers will be more willing to be exclusive forever. They won’t need any more money to convince them – all they want to know is that they won’t lose sales long-term. So the actual result will probably, once again, be that the customer is screwed even harder.
I think this is a very likely outcome, and probably Epic’s real plan. This is made even more likely to happen by the fact that @Lunarstorm seems to suggest they’re doing well. If their current strategy is profitable, then there’s no reason for Epic to ever stop doing this. If you have the tools to predict which steam game will sell well, and you can calculate how much you expect them to sell, and you have the cash, you can always offer the devs less than what you think they’ll actually earn. You’re just laying out the money ahead of time. It’s like an insurance company for game sales – the better your actuaries, the better you can locate the Indies that’ll sell well and place them in your pool. Your goal is to get the best pool possible and offer them insurance aka money up front. Indies are so risk averse, you can massively undercut what you think they’ll actually make and still come out ahead. So this trend probably isn’t stopping anytime soon, no matter what Sweeney says. Instead, assuming the store succeeds, we’re going to get more and more Indies agreeing to permanent exclusivity rather than temporary exclusivity.
So, bigger developers that do more games that legowarrior deems worthy. Somehow, because he doesn’t have a voice.
Cultural guilds deciding what should be in big stores weren’t exactly golden ages of creativity. Payola was full of similar songs, the age before Netflix had crappy copy after crappy copy, the pre-steam age was all about grey and brown FPS and WoW-killers.
That’s not a hard guess. :p but if their plan is to guess the most profitable games, they’ll fail, like everyone else did. Before even trying to be an actual competitor.
(ah, you deleted it. It’s not controversial, so I hope it’s OK.)
You won’t. It could be, but it’s not profitable (or easy, or without forcing your way) to improve stuff to the average person (though Proton is surprisingly popular at killing dual booting). Unless you count Stadia or Android, I guess.