The Outer Worlds goes Epic Games Store-exclusive (also Windows Store)

[fantadomat]

Giving you a dagger in the back with one hand and with the other hand picking your pockets?

Backstab = bulgarian greeting

Let me give you hug .

 

[Latelistener]

 

[fantadomat]

 

[Sigourn]

It's very simple. Here are my terms, Obsidian: GOG or CODEX.

Retard.

Ban this asshole for encouraging piracy. Infinitron

 

[axedice]

Even if EGS was better than Steam in every feature (which is pretty much impossible from the get-go, but let's assume), you'd still need to get both developers and users to use it. Why would they do so? All the user's games are on Steam. Just because of better features? Nah. Won't happen. People are WAY too lazy for that. As a developer myself, while you shouldn't treat your users as idiots, you should also never, ever, underestimate their laziness and habits.
And if the users don't come, the developers won't, either. A lower cut won't be convincing enough if that is a lower cut of no user base. And if the developers don't come, the users won't, either. I'm sure you see the problem.

Lower cuts only effect the developer/publisher, so you need to engage the customers as well. Introduce a discount system where you give everyone "credits" for %25 of their last purchase. Also give them a welcome discount for %25, now you have a marketplace 25% cheaper than steam. Pair this with lower publisher cuts and everyone has an incentive to be on EGS.

Paid exclusivity ensures you get developers voluntarily (come on, nobody is being forced at gunpoint to sign any deals), while it also forces users to use your client. Now you have developers and users. Now you can start arguing with your actual store features.
That's why I see this exclusivity as necessary for Epic.

I don't think neither Cain nor Boyarsky voluntarily signed up for an EGS exclusive, its just that Obsidian signed a shitty deal with a Take2 subsidiary and now they're fucked. But the real issue is, you are creating a worse monster than steam to battle steam. Exclusivity deals offer no benefit for the customer, yet they may (and possibly will) create an environment which limits customer agency. If I like GOG, I can buy a game from GOG and not give a shit about steam. If steam offers a better regional price, I can also buy it from there and skip GOG etc. If a game is exclusive, I have no options. And if you're founding a system without options, then your endgame is pretty much going to be fucking the customer over since there are no alternatives.

 

[glass blackbird]

i don't think epic will buy exclusives ad infinitum simply because eventually it turns into a stupid expenditure with no ROI. so i don't think that's something to worry about. right now they're flush, but unless the epic store gets fixed up and becomes really good and they start making back their ridiculous exclusive deals, they're not gonna keep doing it. and do you really think that's gonna happen?

 

[thesheeep]

Spoiler

That piece of shit clickbait-style image is a collection of bullshit, lies and blatant exaggeration.
It is on the same level as "hurr durr here's proof Obama is a Muslim hurr durr".

Every single point this "thing" presents and finds totally terrible can be easily explained by anyone who actually knows a thing about software.
Just take that "Sweeney wants to know where you are!" statement - of course he does! As does every other software that has localized content, pricing, etc. And because one method of acquiring a user's location might fail, you try out multiple ones.
Or "Datamine what games you like!" - you mean, just like Steam or every other store that collects data on what you view/buy and uses that information to give you personalised content? How terrible... That it uses Steam's files to gain that info is actually rather clever, but it could do exactly the same through the Steam API. The files way means that Valve won't get to know everything Epic does with the data.
Or "Two different domains to track what you're doing" - Completely normal for any kind of user software that tracks usage data. Usually something like Google Analytics to track steps through the app and then other service(s) to track other data. If you find that bad, you're probably better off with an abacus than a computer.
Or the "security certificates" thing - normal procedure for almost every software using Chromium to display a website inside (or as) their UI. Chromium has to access certificates for - wait for it ! - certification.
Or "Why is your client looking at browser settings" - because the EGS (like most store-front software) is a browser itself, so it checks your normal browser's settings to apply some of these settings to itself.
Or "It's scraping names and paths of processes on your computer" - yeah, no shit. That's how you can tell which games are running (for example, to put an overlay on them), or to prevent running double instances of the EGS itself. There are many, many reasons to scan running applications' names.
The only part I find strange is why it would try to create a "shcore.dll" in the Fiddler directory - though I suspect that is actually Fiddler itself through some kind of injection, possible related to how it gathers its data.

Epic is in no way doing anything out of the ordinary. Except that Steam files stuff, that's really the first time I've seen anyone doing it. Clever, though I don't know if that is allowed, they might end up having to use Valve's API for that if it turns out to be illegal.
And all of this has been explained already by Epic and others.
But no, the tinfoil hats, with their unlimited ignorance on actual software development, insist on the evilness of it all.

 

[GrainWetski]

What seems to be inevitable in the future is that every mildly successful developer will want to have their own DRM platform, just like Valve and Epic did, and self-publish their own games. This could be the last opportunity to show a bit of resistance to that, but who am I kidding, you are obviously more than happy to pave the way.

The future will be having to launch your games through 15 launchers. Clicking play on Steam opens up Epic which opens up Bethesda's which opens up Take 2's and so on. You won't be able to skip any launcher either because they care so much about consumers.

It's just another launcher, guys. I have 350 installed already, what's another one?

Oh, and look, Valve has just gone public with their overhaul of the Steam client with first screens. What a coincidence, at this time. I'm sure it couldn't be that they started actually improving their long-neglected monopoly software once a serious contender was on the horizon.
Mark my words, some time from now, Valve will also announce a lowered cut for developers on Steam. Big titles already have something lower than 30% (via oh-so-shady deals), they'll just have to also lower that for smaller developers. If they don't, and EGS remains successful, they'll be in trouble.
Even if EGS should ultimately fail (unlikely, but possible), I'm certain that at the very least, the pressure on Steam will have lead to an improvement of that platform.

You Epic shills are geniunely retarded. Are you even familiar with Valve? "Valve time" is a thing for a reason. I can guarantee they've been working on this for far longer than Epic's store was even a glimmer in Sweeney's dead eyes. They didn't throw this together in 3 weeks.

I swear, they could release Half-Life 3 tomorrow and you retards would thank your god Epic because apparently Valve made the game in 6 months. Pretty funny position for Valve to be in if they care about the extremely loud minority of Epic shills, outside of the gaywhorenos, that will pretend everything they do from now on is entirely thanks to Epic's benevolence.

Thanks, Epic, our lord and saviour of PC gaming. You claim to hate us, but you really love and adore us, master Sweeney. Jesus Christ..

 

[thesheeep]

You Epic shills are geniunely retarded.

I love how relentlessly you prove your idiocy. It is a miracle you manage to type full sentences. Do you have an aide for that?

I certainly don't shill for Epic, I haven't even bought a single game from their store. If I wouldn't have to use Fortnite for work (3rd party software), I wouldn't even have EGS installed as so far nothing is there that I'd want to play right now and couldn't wait for a year.
What I am doing is merely not bashing them for showing some sense of business.
As well as taking apart the more inane attempts at bashing them, like that "info pic".

Are you even familiar with Valve? "Valve time" is a thing for a reason. I can guarantee they've been working on this for far longer than Epic's store was even a glimmer in Sweeney's dead eyes. They didn't throw this together in 3 weeks.

The weird thing that you actually seem to believe that. Maybe you should let go of your own very obvious fanboyism, before wrongly accusing others?
Oh, btw... Epic Store was announced in December 2018. A change like that is absolutely doable in three months with even a small team. Hell, I could probably do it alone (if I let go of sleep...). I doubt Valve just has a small team working on Steam.

Even if EGS was better than Steam in every feature (which is pretty much impossible from the get-go, but let's assume), you'd still need to get both developers and users to use it. Why would they do so? All the user's games are on Steam. Just because of better features? Nah. Won't happen. People are WAY too lazy for that. As a developer myself, while you shouldn't treat your users as idiots, you should also never, ever, underestimate their laziness and habits.
And if the users don't come, the developers won't, either. A lower cut won't be convincing enough if that is a lower cut of no user base. And if the developers don't come, the users won't, either. I'm sure you see the problem.

Lower cuts only effect the developer/publisher, so you need to engage the customers as well. Introduce a discount system where you give everyone "credits" for %25 of their last purchase. Also give them a welcome discount for %25, now you have a marketplace 25% cheaper than steam. Pair this with lower publisher cuts and everyone has an incentive to be on EGS.

Could work. But is absolutely not guaranteed to.
You know what is guaranteed to? Exclusivity...

 

[Reinhardt]

It's very simple. Here are my terms, Obsidian: GOG or CODEX.

Retard.

Ban this asshole for encouraging piracy. Infinitron

Where? What's wrong with buying game from GOG and discussing it on codex?

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

EPIC

 

[thesheeep]

I never said that...

You're starting to sound severely schizophrenic. Do you agree with me that epic's action are anti-consumer fuckery or not? I don't care if it's a valid strategy for them or not, no one does and why should they, this is not what's getting people angry.

I do agree with that. And I never claimed otherwise. What I'm saying is that there is no other way for them to have a realistic stab at Valve. Which is, I assume, their intention.
What I'm also saying is that it is not a big deal. Only extremely few, and very vocal, people have a problem with it at all. The same people that probably had/have a problem with Steam to begin with. Most think like I do and will just install what is needed to play the game they want to play. So I'd launch my game frome EGS instead of Steam. Problem? No. Hell, I might even add an EGS game to my Steam library if that is possible. Even less of a problem.
The only really annoying thing would be layering of launchers or overlays, as is/was the case with a few titles requiring Steam as well as UPlay. But I think that is annoying enough for users to only happen extremely rarely.

But again, back to my initial post - fabulously optimistic. I'm sure that anti-consumer tools will be put to rest as soon as we can have a healthy competition. Especially if they prove effective and everyone on the market is made aware of that. That's how rl works. It's not setting a dangerous precedence at all.

That is indeed one possible outcome. However, these exclusivity deals are a loss of money for Epic, a bet at best. It will only be worth it on its own in cases where the game is VERY successful. They simply cannot keep doing that forever.
However, let's assume they can and others (namely Steam) start doing the same:
Right now, we have games that are Steam-exclusive (by dev decision, but in the end it doesn't matter who decides), Epic-exclusive, publisher-store-exclusive (ala Origin), anywhere, or excluding Steam. In your case, the only change would be we'd also have games that are excluding Epic (if Steam, for example, also starts having deals that allow their games to be sold anywhere except Steam) or excluding other stores specifically.
Don't see much of an issue here that would cause me to raise a fuss.

I hope you, at the very least, have a conscience to realize that just a few posts ago you suggested that a market in which companies spend huge sums of money to make sure they're the only ones with means to distribute certain products might result in lower prices.

I did not suggest that. I was laying words in your (?) mouth, trying to figure out what your point could have been in how Steam is supposed to "retaliate".

And you're asking me this question as a PC gamer? You do realize how PC market looked before evulll monopoly took over? How we had many different entities in each country "fiercely competing" for the consumer? If not, then check how prices looked then, check the sales and promos, check refunds and customer support, check anything ffs this is not gaming kindergarten class.

That was also before the internet "took over". Markets with and without internet really aren't comparable.
What happened then was digital downloads began to take root and - due to many reasons - were cheaper. Across the board, that wasn't just Steam, but many others. If you remember, there was a time before Steam, but there were already digital downloads on various platforms. The phenomenon of digital downloads can hardly be considered a single entity competitor.
It wasn't Valve or Steam that made games cheaper, it was the existence and spread of internet technology. Same with movies, music, etc.

Or a more concrete example: there was this time when MS was actually dead serious about competing on PC market and paid studios to develop their "exclusives". Which, due to stark competition, cost merely 300% of a typical, brand new "aaa" release (example from my local market), with said aaa baseline already being way too steep for a typical customer.

I honestly have no idea what you are even talking about. This was either before my time, or after I stopped caring about non-digital stores. I haven't heard of an occurance of a single publisher asking for three times as much as competitors.
But even if that was true, you are just proving my point, because obviously MS is not competing in the PC market any more (well, they might get back into it, who knows), so their plan with the triple prices failed. Just as Epic would fail if they started asking for obscene amounts of money or similar stunts.

I care about the bigger picture and I don't like it.

Fair enough. I just think you'll have to try to adjust to a new situation eventually.

 

[Atlantico]

Just to take a step back here,

- a handful of shills for a specific online storefront
- a storefront which produces nothing of value
- are pissing themselves with rage and indignation
- because a game that hasn't been released yet isn't on their storefront of choice
- the game is still made available on two other online storefronts
- just not the one they're shilling for

Incidentally, this is exactly what happened when EA Origin started and cut their titles from Steam.

We've been here before, the complaints, the autistic screeches, the frothing of the mouth, hating the new storefront... yet, EA Origin is here to stay. So is Epic, is Steam, so is UPlay and so is Battle.net.

There will be exclusives between these services, there already were before Epic came on the scene, don't pretend this is anything new.

All of these launchers are equally stupid, they're all spying on your hardware, what apps you're running, what IPs you're connecting to, they all add DRM but none of them adds any value.

They're just middleware between you and the game you want to play. So please, cut the shilling. They're all shit.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

That is not true, storefronts provide value. I can speak only for myself, but Steam, Origin and Uplay give you addons to the games you buy. You may not find them to your liking, but achievements, e-peen, frends lists, chat/voip functionality and even simple fps counter does give you some value and most importantly push some people from piracy.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Incidentally, this is exactly what happened when EA Origin started and cut their titles from Steam.

And I've never bothered to buy another EA game since. Of course its true EA only produces shit but still.

 

[Sigourn]

That is not true, storefronts provide value. I can speak only for myself, but Steam, Origin and Uplay give you addons to the games you buy. You may not find them to your liking, but achievements, e-peen, frends lists, chat/voip functionality and even simple fps counter does give you some value and most importantly push some people from piracy.

That doesn't speak badly about Epic, it speaks badly about players who see more value in Gaben's shit than they see in the game itself.

 

[Alexios]

lots of obsidian fanboys in denial itt

 

[Atlantico]

lots of obsidian fanboys in denial itt

How can we know that, itt we're only discussing storefronts, not the actual game by Obsidian?

 

[Abu Antar]

I'll get the PS4 version, that'll show Epic and Microsoft!

 

[Steamboat Willie]

And I've never bothered to buy another EA game since. Of course its true EA only produces shit but still.

I haven't bought one since Mass Effect 3. Not because of any boycott or anything, but because they plainly have not produced a product I have any interest in buying since.

 

[GrainWetski]

I love how relentlessly you prove your idiocy. It is a miracle you manage to type full sentences. Do you have an aide for that?

I certainly don't shill for Epic, I haven't even bought a single game from their store. If I wouldn't have to use Fortnite for work (3rd party software), I wouldn't even have EGS installed as so far nothing is there that I'd want to play right now and couldn't wait for a year.
What I am doing is merely not bashing them for showing some sense of business.
As well as taking apart the more inane attempts at bashing them, like that "info pic".


The weird thing that you actually seem to believe that. Maybe you should let go of your own very obvious fanboyism, before wrongly accusing others?
Oh, btw... Epic Store was announced in December 2018. A change like that is absolutely doable in three months with even a small team. Hell, I could probably do it alone (if I let go of sleep...). I doubt Valve just has a small team working on Steam

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Valve Time

It's literally the main thing Valve is known for, for at least 15 years now. Keep believing Epic is saving PC gaming, though.

 

[Atlantico]

It's literally the main thing Valve is known for, for at least 15 years now.

If you think some forced third-rate meta-meme, involving your online storefront of choice, is something people generally *know* about,.. let alone care a single shit about, or that the this is what this is what "the main thing Valve is known for" - do yourself a big favor and step away from the keyboard and consider who you are and what you are doing.

You're living in a bubble, smelling your own farts, completely disconnected from the general population.

 

[AwesomeButton]

It's very simple. Here are my terms, Obsidian: GOG or CODEX.

Retard.

Ban this asshole for encouraging piracy. Infinitron

What should I rate this post - retarded, butthurt, sheeple, shit? Or simply "sigourn"?

 

[Jenkem]

Steam has something of value as Valve actually puts their money and resources into making PC gaming better. They make several open software APIs, they support Linux and getting Windows games to run on Linux and run well, they are researching and putting time/effort/money into VR development and other technical enhancements.

What is Epic doing? Popularizing dance moves with 12 year olds?

 

[Squid]

The Epic Games Store sucks. Plain and simple. It just recently got an offline mode and a search bar. They only provide more for the devs and publishers. I'm all for getting more to the people who actually made the game but they don't offer anything enticing to the customer besides taking other publisher/developer's games and making them an exclusive to that storefront for a year. That's not a benefit, it's just pushing customer to go there because if they want that game, they have to go there.

You can shit on Steam all you want because they deserve it. Just because Steam is shit, doesn't make the Epic Store great.

Does the Epic store offer any lower prices than anywhere else? Or do AAA games still release at 60 USD there despite developers making 88+% instead of 70%?

What benefit besides getting the game a year earlier than others who refuse to go to their service does the customer get? Explain that.