Epic Games Store - the console war comes to PC

[unfairlight]

My impression is that PC gaming is far greater than Steam

It's really not, outside of regional markets for more niche games like visual novels in Japan or all of China. I think Steam has at least a solid 70% share of the non-Chinese market and they allow basically anything on the store. If Epic wants to be more "curated" they will just leave out potential customers.

or if they can convert the younger people to their own Steam addicts.

They can't convert them into their own regular customers. Most of them aren't old enough to have a credit card and those that are have no reason to even buy from the store, as the chance that the games that they are really interested in even appear on it are low.

 

[ortucis]

Reddit is a fucking retard cesspit consisting of walled gardens of echo chambers enforced by their own systems to keep discussion at a minimum and group consensus at a maximum.

 

[JarlFrank]

But hey, you know why the developers who speak the loudest in favor of the Epic store don't praise GoG with the same vehemency? It's also a large store owned by a multi-million dollar company, and has plenty of market reach. Oh, right, it's because GoG also has such terrible anti-developer features as user reviews and discussion forums! How dare they encourage toxic gamer communities!!

Eh I think it's mostly because GOG is harder to get in for most developers. Refusal rate for being accepted to GOG store for most Indies is pretty high. So they tend to ignore it more.

At least that's the impression I've gotten from some discussions on net.

Which boils down to the same basic problem: shit quality. If GoG refuses your game, chances are good that it's not that great, which also means you will probably receive less than stellar reviews, which in the case of all the devs complaining about toxic communities means you also don't like user reviews and forums.

Now, of course, not ALL games that are rejected by GoG are necessarily bad. There are some excellent games such as Das Geisterschiff which didn't get onto GoG but are on Steam, and are pretty well-reviewed. But we don't see those developers complaining about toxicity.

At the center of the anti-Steam, pro-Epic developers are those who feel entitled towards getting sales, getting a high cut of profits, and not having to confront consumers if they are disgruntled.
They essentially want a store that does all the marketing for them (due to changes in the Steam discovery algorithm my game wasn't seen by as many people and sold less, boo hoo! Evil Steam! They should be responsible for giving my game good visibility! It's not me who has to spend more effort on marketing, no, it's the Steam discovery algorithms!) but takes barely any of the profit, leaving 88% to them rather than taking a 30% cut.

Essentially: "I made a game and dropped it into the store, now I expect money flowing in and people praising my efforts, else the world is unfair!"

If they really had that much of a problem with Steam, and don't manage to get onto GoG, there's still itch.io, which is specifically tailored towards indie games, but it has a much smaller reach than either GoG or Steam and you have to do all your marketing yourself. Which means work. Which these kinds of devs want to avoid.

 

[Thane Solus]

stop quoting itch.io, its only good to use their widget and if you re from US. Most people stop using it, and use as a widget humblebundle one, or if you are from US, you have a few others options which are more accessible as api like stripe.

See rimworld, or ftl, and many, many others much smaller in popularity . Now show me those awesome indie games that uses itcho (beside gamejam games, pixel platformers, or hobby games (Free)). Also its ran by some very special SJWs, tho i like the game administration and tools, it never went anywhere due to payment processing which is indeed problematic and i understand them.

 

[karoliner]

Is this the store to get all my loli porn games?

 

[J_C]

Sergey Galyonkin: Epic Games store courting a younger, Steam-less audience

Unless they are aiming to go for the mobile gaming audience, there really isn't much more room in the PC gaming world.

I'm not so sure. My impression is that PC gaming is far greater than Steam, even if you exclude China.

I think if you are a payer gamer, meaning a gamer who is regularly buying games, than 80% of them use Steam. The others use the smaller stores, like GOG. Those gamers who are not on Steam are likely those who are not buying PC games too often, like pirates and small kids with no money. And those won't buy it from Epic either.

 

[Belegarsson]

Motherfucker

https://store.steampowered.com/app/412020/Metro_Exodus/

Notice: Later today, sales of Metro Exodus will be discontinued on Steam due to a publisher decision to make the game exclusive to another PC store.

The developer and publisher have assured us that all prior sales of the game on Steam will be fulfilled on Steam, and Steam owners will be able to access the game and any future updates or DLC through Steam.

We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale through the February 15th release date, but we were only recently informed of the decision and given limited time to let everyone know.

"Another PC store" here is Epic Store of course.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Another Epic win.

 

[Infinitron]

God damn, it's really on now if they're even poaching away Europublishers: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-01-28-epics-latest-pc-exclusive-is-metro-exodus

Epic's latest PC exclusive is Metro Exodus

Epic's war on Steam continues: its latest high-profile PC exclusive is Metro Exodus.

The deal to release Metro Exodus on 15th February 2019 solely through the Epic Games store follows a similar deal for Ubisoft's The Division 2.

There's a Steam page for Metro Exodus, but we expect it to be pulled shortly, as The Division 2's Steam page was. All existing Steam pre-orders for Metro Exodus will be honoured.

Epic recently launched the Epic Games store offering a bigger cut of sales to developers than Valve currently offers through Steam. It's also made a game free to download every fortnight since.

In December, Epic signed a deal with Skybound to bring Telltale's The Walking Dead: The Final Season on PC to the Epic Games store, but the deal with Ubisoft for The Division 2 was a significant step-up, and this latest deal for the promising Metro Exodus bolsters Epic's effort.

Epic offers developers / publishers 88 per cent of revenue, which is significantly higher than the 70 per cent Steam offers. Epic said in order to pass the savings on to gamers, Metro Exodus will now sell for $49.99 in North America when purchased from the Epic Games store and €59.99 in most European countries. On Steam, Metro Exodus was priced £49.99. Now, on the Epic Games store, it's priced £41.99.

"We are delighted to partner with Epic to bring the digital PC version of Metro Exodus to market," said Dr. Klemens Kundratitz, CEO at Metro publisher Deep Silver.

"Epic's generous revenue terms are a game changer that will allow publishers to invest more into content creation, or pass on savings to the players. By teaming up with Epic we will be able to invest more into the future of Metro and our ongoing partnership with series developer 4A Games, to the benefit of our Metro fans."

Meanwhile, Deep Silver said it will release Metro 2033 Redux and Metro: Last Light Redux on the Epic Games store later this year.

 

[toro]

Motherfucker

https://store.steampowered.com/app/412020/Metro_Exodus/

Notice: Later today, sales of Metro Exodus will be discontinued on Steam due to a publisher decision to make the game exclusive to another PC store.

The developer and publisher have assured us that all prior sales of the game on Steam will be fulfilled on Steam, and Steam owners will be able to access the game and any future updates or DLC through Steam.

We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale through the February 15th release date, but we were only recently informed of the decision and given limited time to let everyone know.

"Another PC store" here is Epic Store of course.

Good. I don't need to care about this anymore.

 

[frajaq]

Piratechads win again

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Not going to buy anything there at least until epic fix that abomination of a store/client (at this point it's really just a game launcher) and make it looking somewhat decent in comparison with steam. Thankfully I've got my backlog.


Having said that, a dreadful idea came to my mind, that M&B 2 Bannerlord might also share the fate of all these games avoiding immediate steam release in favour of exclusivity to epic store... So far it's the only upcoming game I intended to play on release.

 

[Jinn]

Fuck steam, but fuck EPIC store even harder. I will never buy a game off that shit.

 

[Ivan]

Motherfucker

https://store.steampowered.com/app/412020/Metro_Exodus/

Notice: Later today, sales of Metro Exodus will be discontinued on Steam due to a publisher decision to make the game exclusive to another PC store.

The developer and publisher have assured us that all prior sales of the game on Steam will be fulfilled on Steam, and Steam owners will be able to access the game and any future updates or DLC through Steam.

We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale through the February 15th release date, but we were only recently informed of the decision and given limited time to let everyone know.

"Another PC store" here is Epic Store of course.

Good. I don't need to care about this anymore.

QFT. Now it's much easier for me to "meh" even more easily now.

 

[passerby]

Ubisoft can afford not selling Division 2 on Steam, because uplay is well established and most people are going to buy there anyway, there is no point buying it outside of uplay since it's required anyway.

But Metro ? Sadly the game is guaranteed to flop on PC now.

 

[Makabb]

lol its ded on pc

 

[Makabb]

lol developers pushing windows 10 garbo

 

[cvv]

First everyone rages about Steam being monopoly. Then a viable competition finally comes and everybody starts raging they're never, NEVER I SAY, buying anything from the competition.

Retard central ITT.

 

[J_C]

First everyone rages about Steam being monopoly. Then a viable competition finally comes and everybody starts raging they're never, NEVER I SAY, buying anything from the competition.

Retard central ITT.

There is a difference about having a competition, and having a competition with exclusivity deals on PC. Fuck, it's enough that we have to deal with exclusives on consoles, now we do it on PC?

 

[cvv]

There is a difference about having a competition, and having a competition with exclusivity deals on PC.

And how else do you suppose anyone can make even a dent in Gaben's fucking behemoth? Is having one more tiny icon on your desktop really so unbearable a price to pay for knocking that greedy fat fuck from his golden throne? And having cheaper games and better terms for the devs? Metro is 10 bucks cheaper on Epic FFS.

Jesus Christ, gamers should be pulped and pressed for pure retardation juice.

 

[Sentinel]

And how else do you suppose anyone can make even a dent in Gaben's fucking behemoth?

how about providing a better service? that's how gayben and his pals got people to start buying games

ironically Steam is the most user and consumer friendly storefront on PC out now. User reviews, forums, communities, guides, seamless mod support, all shit other storefronts dont want you to have.

 

[Sentinel]

Epic offers developers / publishers 88 per cent of revenue, which is significantly higher than the 70 per cent Steam offers. Epic said in order to pass the savings on to gamers, Metro Exodus will now sell for $49.99 in North America when purchased from the Epic Games store and €59.99 in most European countries. On Steam, Metro Exodus was priced £49.99. Now, on the Epic Games store, it's priced £41.99.

This justification is funny too. Let's backtrack 9 years.

Metro games have traditionally released at $50 no matter the storefront.

 

[MuscleSpark]

I love how EU and other regions got dicked yet again by having the prices raised on them just before the announcement.

 

[SpoilVictor]

Seriously guys, it's 2019 I thought that we have all that exclusive thing behind and become more inclusive like whole western world

On more serious note: fuck Epic and their commie overlords

Even more serious note: Steam never had any monopoly, they are just dominant on the market due to being early to digital distribution. It's not like only Gaben has servers capable to handle game downloads and refuses to let any other company to use it. They are behemoth, but they have earned that status.

Wanna compete with Steam - great, do it, competition is good. But when you make game exclusive just to use your shitty store then fuck you. Not to mention that means goodbye to GoG version. Also in like 3 months after release I could buy Metro with like 40% discount from other legit sources - will I have that opportunity with Derpic Store? I doubt.

Funny how no one defended GfWL, Windows Store exclusivity.

 

[cvv]

how about providing a better service? that's how gayben and his pals got people to start buying games

Gayben FORCED people on his shitty platform not with "better services" but by Steam-locking HalfLife and Counterstrike.

Analogically Epic has no choice but to apply some force in return, seeing how after 10 years of Steam monopoly legions of gaymers have been stockholm-syndromed against any and all alternatives.

I get it, nobody likes being forced into something. Me neither. And Epic launcher is shitty and I have no allegiance to this particular corporation. But one additional icon ony my desktop is a small price to pay for getting rid that fucking toad.