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Epic Games Store - the console war comes to PC

cvv

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So basically the so called "competition" in this case has literally no positives.

The fact there IS competition is a huge positive. You never know what a competitive market produces, what level of effort and endeavour corporations can muster when they can't just sit comfortably and count money but when someone is putting heat on them.

Valve just announced dedicated servers for non-Valve games. Apparently they've been thinking about it for a long time and they've put it on their priority list just now. Did it just happened or are they shifting in a higher gear because they have to?

So give it time. Markets don't work miracles overnight.
 

CyberWhale

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I only welcome someone finally trying to take on Steam, however sloppily.

Finally? We have already proven that this isn't true. All the bigger companies have tried it (Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, even CDPR when they went from good-old-games to just GOG), they've just failed in succeeding it. And I don't see the problem with that, there are always going to be winners and losers in a free market.
 

Sentinel

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Valve just announced dedicated servers for non-Valve games. Apparently they've been thinking about it for a long time and they've put it on their priority list just now. Did it just happened or are they shifting in a higher gear because they have to?
Valve didn't actually publicly announce anything. Just like anything comes out of that company, it was "leaked" via documentation.

The fact there IS competition is a huge positive. You never know what a competitive market produces, what level of effort and endeavour corporations can muster when they can't just sit comfortably and count money but when someone is putting heat on them
You're absolutely right on this. The problem is your first sentence. There isn't competition here whatsoever. If the games were on Steam AND on the Epic store, then there'd be competition.
 

Sentinel

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Because no reason to switch.
Yeah, and why's that? Could it have something to do with Steam offering a million shit that no other launcher does?
Nope, nothing to do with that I'm sure.

No other company has actually tried to take on Steam. They always have launchers that are straight from 2003. Epic is trying to take on Steam using mafia tactics.
 

cvv

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Because no reason to switch.
Yeah, and why's that? Could it have something to do with Steam offering a million shit that no other launcher does?
Nope, nothing to do with that I'm sure.

And I wish Epic introduced a million shit too. Because then this argument would go away. Everyone would see it doesn't matter. People don't switch from their ecosystems with all their friends, games, achievements, messages, user levels, with lists, curator lists, trading cards and subscribed mods, because someone else offers the same shit or even slightly better shit too.

Facebook vs. Google+. Consumer lock-in.
 

Sentinel

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Also there's a pretty cool talk about the relay system Valve uses and will let other developers use to reduce end user latency on their multiplayer games

 

JarlFrank

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See, the thing is - other stores like GoG have built their own little niche where they're successful with a certain customer base, and many games end up being released on GoG as well as Steam.

So the whole "Epic is the FIRST STORE EVER to compete with Steam" is retarded and wrong.

Competition already exists. Good competition that offers something. Right now, Epic Store isn't even on the level of GoG, and regarding consumer-friendliness it is far far away from both Steam and GoG.

The entire hype about the store is led by entitled indie devs and shitty game journalists who are happy about the bigger cut for devs and the lack of reviews and forums, because gamers are evil, Steam is bad for being laissez-faire about its community, and GoG is irrelevant because it actually does curation and rejects games that are too shit.

Epic Store is the champion of the entitlement brigade, and that's why they're hyping it so much. Anyone who actually buys games sticks with the better stores.
 

sullynathan

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GOG isn't real competition to STEAM, get serious here. It's an alternative where niche games go, yet those niche games still sell more on STEAM. It's so much of a non-competitor that CDPR's attempt to release Thronebreaker only on GOG fell below expectations sales-wise.

I get that we all like GOG here, but be realistic.
 

racofer

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Epic is pushing for games to be more expensive to sustain their store.
Totally pro-customer, amirite? :lol:
 

FeelTheRads

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If other developers are not willing to put games on other stores (Epic included) or if the stores are not willing to put those games on their store (GOG, for example) then Steam isn't the guilty party or a target to point your rage at.

Irrelevant, retard. Since you say you care so much about consumers, then you should care that consumers are locked into one client only. It does not fucking matter who decided to do that. The result is exactly the same.

On the contrary, you should be grateful that you can play the game at all thanks to them

:lol: totally not a steamtard.

Yeah, I should be grateful that for most developers using other stores is simply not worth it since they'd hardly get any sales, as most people use steam anyway.
So fucking grateful.

Even if Valve was forcing others to use Steam (which you failed to prove)

I didn't claim they do, retard and I never tried to prove it. I said "as far as we know". I'm sure the reason is what I said above: not worth it for the developers to release on another platforms.

So any platform that could eventually give more options to the consumers would be a good thing. Yes, if at some point it would be worth it for developers to release on multiple platforms that would actually be a good thing.
But I'm sure steamtards can't comprehend that because hurrr muh steam and muh friends on steam and muh trading cards.

First that is not competition, but the opposite- monopoly- you can get the game only from one place. Second Steam doesn't stop devs and publisher from selling elsewhere, this is decision PUBLISHERS/DEVS make not steam.

What's the difference? You can still get it from one place only. That's still exclusivity. That's still monopoly. Whoever is behind it DOES NOT FUCKING MATTER, the user is still forced to buy from one store only.

Third there was/is complains all the time if games are released only on steam, just open any GOG thread on any forum to see people demand game be sold there. Also when steam was new and some publishers were deciding to lock their games to Steam exclusively people were complaining a lot, so you are lying or have no clue what you're talking about.

Oh, really, show me where any of the steamtards in this thread ever complained for a game being exclusively released on Steam? Most of the complaining is when a game is not released on Steam.
So why do they buy those games if their interests are so noble and they only care about the users and don't want to support exclusives?

No, what they are crying about is exclusives that are not on their favorite platform. Essentially, it's fine to be on other platforms as long as it's on Steam too. If it's only on Steam that's also fine. But no way should it be only on another platform!
Talk about mafia tactics. That's pretty much it except the steamtards do the work for Valve. When you have such retarded sheeple as fanboys you don't even need to do any dirty work.
 
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passerby

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30% is decently generous compared to previous eras. You got manufacture cost fpr CD, distribution and logistics on top of hefty retail cut too.
For new, full priced games manufacturing and logistics are around 5% and retailers take around 25%, so Steam cut is the same as physical retail.
Some retailers negotiate slightly better price for bulk purchase and/or compete with smaller than 25% cut, this why you can usually find new releases cheaper than on Steam in retail, or on retail keys sites like GMG.

There is a difference in older discounted games profitability and visibility compared to retail, but around 70% of total revenue comes from the first 2-3 months of full price, or close to full price sales.
 
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cvv

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Oh, really, show me where any of the steamtards in this thread ever complained for a game being exclusively released on Steam?

We flamed about this 2 days ago. They say Steam exclusives are fine bc Valve doesn't bribe devs to get them. I know.

Anyway the problem with the whole debate about exclusives is that it's utterly incoherent when there's noone but Steam. When noone else is playing broadly the same game. It's like talking about Playstation "exclusives" before there was Xbox. It doesn't make sense. Only when Xbox came around with their exclusives it started to make sense talking about Sony exclusives.

That's why I say, let's give it time. In a year we'll gather here and exchange stories about Valve's unshakeable pro-consumerist attitudes.
 

Jarpie

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Competition is almost always for the good, as companies/businesses will have to compete for the customers, but Epic Games are fucking up royally, no user reviews and -scores, no forums/discussion and no mod support? Yeah, that'll certainly get customers to switch from Steam for their store. You can send messages to the devs? What do you guys think, how big of a chance there is for those devs who gets triggered by negative reviews and posts on the intarwebz to ignore any critical messages they get in the epic games' store?
 

Tehdagah

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It's all Valve's fault for sucking 30% of profit from devs.
It's the share traditionally asked by storefronts. The problem here is not Epic launching another storefront to compete with Steam, the problem is moneyhatting which is seen as an unfair business practice (Intel got in trouble with the EU for moneyhatting OEM manufacturers into buying their processors and chipsets during the Athlon era - I wonder if there is the legal ground for filing a complaint also in this case).

Want to be competitive? Compete on promotions, convenience, features but not force users to "try" your services by taking away other options. Especially since this is not an Epic developed title (which is the only justification I see for forcing their services onto the users).
Valve should compete by sucking less money from devs.
 

CyberWhale

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Competition is good, but not when it's setting a precedent for anti-consumer policies. Still, I think we could all profit if Epic at least lasts long enough for Steam to reduce their cut even by 5% or 10%. This happened when EA and Origin introduced refunds in 2013 and Valve had to follow suit, so it could happen this time around as well. Sure, Epic store would fail, but nobody actually gives a fuck about it anyway + even they would profit at least partially if they would decide to sell their games through Steam sometimes in the future again.

P.S. Metro games are being review-bombed all over Steam, although nothing on Metacritic until now.
 

CyberWhale

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Still, I think we could all profit if Epic at least lasts long enough for Steam to reduce their cut even by 5% or 10%.
Exactly how if you are going to pay the same price for the game? Triple AAA game are $60 even if Steam takes nothing(PS4), for example.

1) Sony is also taking a 30% cut
2) it's the developers who abuse the tradition and use the $60 price tag, they could easily lower it to 40 or 50 if they wanted to
 

passerby

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It's publishers job and obligation, to maximize the revenue so the price is as high, or as low as it has to be to achieve that, it has nothing to do with a store cut.

Advantage from lower cut for both publishers and customers would be higher profitability of game publishing business, which would allow more games to be released and still be profitable with less copies sold.
 

Drakron

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It'd be laughably easy for Steam to match all their discounts. It'd be easy for them to match all QoL improvements, advantages and offers. They have the upper hand.

Why match?

Just fight fire with fire, make their own exclusives with the big AAA titles like Far Crap and AssHistory ... if Epic wants to play divide and conquer I am sure Ubisoft is as willing to play with both sides, hell bring Take-Two into this crap by paying for Red Dead Redemption 2 PC port as well the exclusive rights on Steam, if Epic wants to play the console game they should remember Sony did not just sit and let MS keep getting XBox exclusives.
 

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