Steam better up its game * Epic store exclusives for the win

I don't actually care about epic store lol, it was just a click bait. But I can totally understand now why so many developers are moving there recently. I mean it's hard to blame them when Steam charging the devs 30% commission, mean while Epic store only 12%.

I used to to be a staunch Steam defender, but more and more i can see they are lagging behind its competition and blatantly refuse to evolve...or make games anymore.

Epic store is not making games either, but at least they invest into exclusives and give away free games. You can cry me a river about how unfair exclusives are, but if this is a free market, if something gets new clients then it's fair. Steam has enjoyed its monopoly for too long, so that it became quite complacent with being the the biggest digital store, not doing anything for PC community anymore.

And worst of all, it's lagging behind regarding the subscription services. Meanwhile all companies scrambling around offering better and better deals and selection of games for their monthly deals, Steam is not doing a damn about that.

Ubisoft is preparing a Plus service, MS is offering a game pass for PC for 1 buck, EA games are not that overpriced with their monthly service either. All these services offer many new games at the same time as their launch dates for a fraction of money than paying 60 bucks on Steam. Yes, I am not owning the games, only renting, but in the digital era, why care to own anything. We are not actually owning them anyways. So, nowadays subscription services completely replaced for me the need of buying games at full price at launch, when i can play most new releases for 12 bucks a month or less.

Tonight I will be playing Gears of War 5 for 1 buck with MS Game Pass. Yadda yadda MS store sucks blah blah, 1 buck vs 60 on Steam, who the **** cares?

What a hot take.

lol I haven't boughten anything on epic games store even though there locking stuff down

EGS is worth installing because of the occasional free games you get.

Epic needs to first learn to walk before it can run. The launcher/store is an absolute joke. Planned updates are constantly delayed, and it still lacks a shopping cart.

As I understand it, developers are basically getting screwed by Epic's exclusive deals. Publishers know they'll make less money selling through the Epic store, so Epic pays them a bunch of money up front to cover this loss. Win/win, right? Not exactly. You see, most developer contracts depend on number of sales, and since fewer copies will be sold through Epic, this means smaller profit for the developer. But what does the publisher care when they already have their money?

I'm a consumer, I care about me.

Publishers would sell your kidneys if they could get away with it.

Epic Store sucks. The practices they implement suck.

After decades of predatory practices, to the point governments have became involved, why the hell would any sane person give them the good will of "you will get better games"?

90% of games put resources into day-1, and some launch with hundreds of dollars of DLC out the door.

Boo fucking hoo, screw em', they'll happily screw you. And indeed, will if Epic (which it won't) becomes the norm.

But yes, Valve have been far to laxed, even before Epic Store showed up. Like a distracted kid wandering off to do what they want.

Very few developers I find are deserving of goodwill.

- CDP

-Nihon Falcom

- Possibly others, somewhere

Only reason Epic's doing the whole exclusivity approach is that they know no f(*&er would use their store otherwise. I mean, why would you? It's brought nothing new to the table - no lower prices, no new features. Not even basic features you'd want from a launcher. Just the same games you could have got somewhere else if EGS hadn't snatched them away from all the other stores.

Then there's the question of how long you actually can run a store, constantly shelling out for exclusives on just 12% of whatever revenue Tim Sweeney's Twitter account hasn't managed to cost you in a given month.

We'll see.

Steam is the most polished and feature-full digital platform rtn, no doubt that. But as well it's the most boring digital platform imo. Steam literally doesn't have anything to offer rather than solid digital platform and full priced games.

I think Steam worst offense is the greed. Because it does have resources, influence and opportunity to:

A) Make its own games

B) Encourage development of PC exclusives

C) Create its own subscription service that would shame those of MS, Origin and Humble Bundle.

But it just sits there on its laurels of monopoly and doesn't do a shit.

Maybe Epic Store practices are questionable, but at least it's not boring like Steam. Competition is good. And you can not fight such a monopolist like Steam without playing dirty.

I am not advocating for Epic Store, I am just hating on Steam for its lack of imagination and greed.

Dont care about Steam or Epic Game Store. If I can get a game for 80% discount I go to that store and I buy.

Don't even care about the Launcher Wars. I buy games whoever has it that peaks my interest, I download it, install it, and play it! That's all their is to it. Now if you excuse me, I am off to go play Control that happens to be on Epic now. Have a nice day :)

I understand how it is "good for developers" but at the same time, going for the quick buck generally does not work out in the long run.

Tencent-Epic doesn't really seem all that interested in fostering a good environment for games and gamers, they just want their slice of the pie.

I don't care about how many launchers I have (between Steam, Origin, GoG, a few MMO's with their own deal, Uplay, and so on I have more than a few...what's one more?) but I do care about the services I am provided with. Tencent-Epic store provides few, if any, services in addition to simply selling you a game. Steam and all the others do. Shit man even Origin and Uplay offer a better experience.

I will recommend Tencent-Epic store the second it rivals Steam and other programs, but until that day I am going to continue to view them as the dirty-dealing, pay-to-win, don't-pass-the-discount-to-customers cheapskates they are.

Does Epic even make games anymore, other than Fortnite? Any good ones, at least? Maybe they are trying to be like Valve...

This about sums up my feelings on it.

EGS's practices suck, and until they attempt to better their service instead of throwing money to compensate for its inadequacies, they'll not get mine. There's a few games I'm waiting a year for to arrive on Steam.

Control £47.99, I thought this was a PC game. Oh, their interface is terrible.

Yea I've been buying games on the Epic store because I really don't have that much loyalty to Valve/Steam at this point. They have been sitting on their asses making ultra-safe business moves while very slowly improving their platform over more than a decade. They haven't made a worthwhile game in my eyes since 2011. They were a huge deal in the 2000's but barely did shit in the 2010's. They needed real competition to get them going again.

Epic store is not that bad. its basic but i mean who the **** is buying so many games at once that they need a shopping cart? It lets me play games with minimal hassle. they give out free games. it works fine as a launcher. Its important to me to support developers I like and they get a better deal through Epic. more important than some vague protest against a less feature rich but fully functional launcher and some aggressive but effective exclusivity deals. I don't blame any devs for going that route.

I'd be interested to know how much their exclusivity effects their sales compared to if they were on steam. I'd bet it hurts less than losing 30% vs. 12% of your profits.

I'm surprised TC is using the Epic store, I think in the past he couldn't even figure out Amazon

You want Steam to become a subscription service? Why the ****? People are already going back to piracy because of all the different sub services for movies/TV, you want the same to happen to gaming?

Yup, and Tim and co. keep gloating about it. Hell, I'm all for Steam having competition, but you actually have to BE competition. I have to begrudgingly use this store when I know it can be played better elsewhere. It's like MS with Mixer making a personal slave out of Ninja to draw attention to their fledgling service. If you find you have to brute force the market into your platform... means your product's issues probably extend beyond having to shanghai big titles.

Lagging behind the competition
-but epic game store has less features
-doesn't sell their keys to third party merchants where I can get even cheaper sales
-doesn't account for other currencies around the world as well as Steam does

I the buying person have gained nothing out of the equation. My platform was always going to get the games Epic got as exclusives, except now I have less options from where I can buy.

I have zero problem with Epic spending the money they want on exclusives, by all means do business. But Idgaf about the devs cut that much to ignore my cut. What about me, myself, and I? what you doing for them, because so far it's jack shit other than "if I want to play X when it actually releases and not a year later on steam, i have to buy it from epic". And so far they haven't picked a game where I'm willing to not wait a year.

DMC5? Yeah okay I would have bought it. Steam n Gog usually earned my purchases because of sales n shit, I had net gain to make as a consumer. Epic hasn't done shit for me, so why do I give a ****?

Steam has been a shit show already for a while and people defending steam while attack epic are simple clowns.

Steam pushed itself aggressive into the market, did a shit ton of damage to the community while at it.

The only ones that should be praised ever are GOG and even they push there shit show of a galaxy client on brute force forwards at this point. so yea.

At the end epic has the games + free games. steam gives me nothing and lacks exclusives i like to play. So there you go.

I don't even have an Epic store account and iv never used ES so I can't comment on how good or bad their service is. I just don't agree with how they are doing their business, it isn't consumer-friendly at all. A business that uses practice like this don't usually get better they get worse.

Valve's current plan with Steam seems to be "let's do the exact same think we've been doing, and hope Epic doesn't grow more". Pretty sure that's not the best plan ever.

Yeah Valve has gotten too passive and hands-off. While Valve's work with Steam made PC gaming relevant again they haven't done much outside of providing a good service to push PC gaming further. The Steam controllers, Steam Link, HTC Vive and Steam Proton are all good things but it's not really pushing PC gaming into the successful direction most want which is another golden age of PC games. While Steam has made PC gaming highly profitable again not many are willing to invest in making AAA-AA PC exclusives that aren't strategy or MMO/online titles due to the fact that it is simply more profitable to be multiplatform and porting to consoles this generation is a whole lot easier than previous gens. The sheer amount of crowdfunding Star Citizen gets proves that there is market for high end AAA PC games but multiplatform development has become the norm. Epic actually has been giving money out to developers with potential games long before the Epic Store existed. The games Valve has made in recent years lack heart as they're really just following trends of money printing games that are low maintenance (Artifact & DOTA Underlords).

It's a kinda sad that Epic whom has the vastly inferior product and abandoned PC gaming for consoles are the ones that funded the E3 PC Gaming Show and even though their exclusivity deals suck the money does help out small studios in need of funding. Epic are being proactive in seeking out developers and publishers and forming deals and partnerships with them while Valve just sits on their butt expecting these companies to bring their games to PC on their platform by default. But not any more now that Epic is constantly looking for games to nab whether they're crowdfunded titles that promised Steam releases or AAA titles that don't need the money but will take it anyway. You could even say that Epic are camping out the Steam Top Wishlist section to decide on what to get next.

The Epic Store had given Ubisoft an opportunity to take their games off Steam while making money at the same time with Epic stupidly paying for "exclusivity" when nearly everyone is just going to buy their games directly through Uplay instead of the Epic Store. So that is one less major publisher releasing their games on Steam at all.

Not only Epic but Tencent is also getting aggressive with obtaining exclusivity. Tencent have already made exclusivity deals for several Chinese and foreign games for their WeGame platform. Even if the game is on Steam it won't be available for Chinese players and Chinese players are the biggest if not second biggest demographic of gamers on Steam now. Even with obtaining a new demographic that is potentially much more profitable than the USA Valve don't seize the moment. They should be helping Western developers translate their games to Chinese and even helping Chinese developers translate their games to English and other languages. But other than make Steam China they've barely gotten involved with Chinese developers. Sony at this point is doing a much job in help funding Chinese developers and translating their games into other languages and they don't really any reason to be doing it since consoles make up an incredibly small market in China and nearly every game they're helping is also going to be on PC.

Wait, what,both steam and epic stores are available on every gaming pc right?

Bit like arguing over Netflix or amazon prime HaH

And I thought 1 system console fanboys calling themselves gamers was SAD

@NoodleFighter: I understand your point about steam in china and how they should have been more pro active, but given that they can be blocked at any point and without reason, they probably consider it too China is probably the largest market right now, but it can all dissapear in the blink of an eye if they are blocked.

For epic/ tencent is different they are Chinese company so they would denifitly be allowed to operate in china and the US has never blocked Chinese software providers do they can be assured to operate in both markets without problems.

Valve as a US company know they can operate well in the west, but also know that in china they can invest a lot and then be blocked like google, Facebook, WhatsApp, Skype, Instagram etc

I have not spent any money on the Epic store. But yet have 28 games in my library they have given me for nothing.

@ivangrozny:

Epic-Tencent store is at the buttom of my list due to Tencent being partly Chinese state owned enterprise.

WTF is going on here. So Sony buys exclusives and everyone celebrates but epic dose it and everyone freaks out. I don't understand gamers anymore

So much this.

Also, if any PC launcher was anywhere near as slow as the entire console OS/Store experience.......... LOL

I don't buy consoles so I don't celebrate Sony. PC is an open platform that is being split down the middle by Epic store, Playstations is not.

You don't understand, because you don't understand.

This is why publishers would absolutely love the idea of no user-feedback.

You know what f*** Epic. Bring the whole exclusivity BS consoles have to pc. We dont need that. And why us the consumers should care how much money a dev/publisher makes. Why dont people cry about Sony and MS and their percentage cut from a game been on their platform ( which is similar to steam )? What has Epic done for Pc gaming other than shitting on us back in 2005 when everyone were proclaiming pc gaming is dead and all of a sudden after steam took off everyone wants on the bandwagon

Oh and Steam has competition and if people want competition can buy games from GOG which honestly is a better alternative than Steam . Hell i will buy something on EA origin or Uplay before i buy anything on EPIC

Let alone Epic prices at least here in EU are s***t

"I would argue we dont make any money off of fornite" -Epic Weasel

If Epic Store is the reason why so many games including Death Stranding are expected to hit PC, I'd say bring it on.

I'm on same page.

I dislike that some games force us to use epic games store (like Metro Exodus)

After watching death stranding gameplay. i rather want it to stay as sony exclusive. console can keep it up.

Haha yea, I don't think I've ever gave less of a shit about a game since whatever the last Assassins Creed was. Although watching how people respond to is interesting.

As long as they're in bed with Tencent, Epic doesn't get my money, or get their spyware installed on my computer. If they get exclusive rights to any game that I simply can't miss, I'm pirating it.

You are more whiny and moody than a woman on her periods. And since you love Steam so much, can you share your Steam account? We all would love to play some games together.

come on my friend, its a hideo kojami game. its a game full of false marketing and false promise.

just like how trailer indicate MGS5 to be deep story driven game but yet turn out to be third person far cry with no story and bland protagonist. while trailers were so amazing that anyone can get hype.

I don't give a shit what storefront a game is on. But I do understand one thing. The NO, I Won't by anything that is not on Steam mentality is getting old. Cry, babies the whole lot of you are

Only games going to EGS are the ones that know their game isn't going to sell that well on Steam anyway. It's mainly new IP's not the established franchises on PC.

The interface for Control is better than the one for Rage 2, at least. Rage 2 makes you use the arrow keys to move to the upgrades on the guns. You cannot click with your mouse even though you can hover over the boxes. But, then again, Bethesda is pretty shit, so there's that.

You then do not understand the issues then....

They have terrible security and support. Make you pay the transaction fee when purchasing games, no regional pricing etc

They pay for exclusive rights to 3rd party games to try and force you to use their store, its one thing to create and promote your own content and have 3rd party titles from the start on your platform. Its another to bribe some weeks or months right before release their release on multiple storefronts to do a timed exclusive or just plain exclusive that were going to be else where to begin with.

So in doing so your being forced to use an inferior and shady platform.

Interesting I have not bought anything on Epic store as of yet. But they did give away 30 games I have on the account. But this transaction fee I had no idea about. I agree that is not cool at all. I will have to rethink my stance on this issue

Gaben sold out years ago, steam is greedy, they ruined thier own legacy, this was apparent with how they treated valve, which was the only reason I ever cared about them in the first place. Igaf about Epic either, both Steam and Epic game stores are just corporations.

At this point just go with whichever launcher offers the game cheaper, there is no honor with these companies so just look out for yourself.

Meant the epic store, lol.

Oh yeah, I agree with that. Epic store interface is garbage. Even worse than Bethesda's store.

But you do otherwise you wouldn't have assumed I celebrate Sony for buying exclusives and gone through the effort of posting that gormless reply.

PC gamers (including the people that don't buy from EGS: "cry, babies" as you like to call them...) have been using competing storefronts for years before EGS.