Serious The Epic Games Store is good for gaming, change my mind

[`impulse]

This is quite a hot topic nowadays with Epic's exclusives, so let's try and contain it in here and not flood every other new vidya thread

My own hot take:
Epic is pushing for something really good in gaming, but you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs - especially with the iron grip that Valve has had over PC gaming for decades.

• Timed exclusives are necessary to gain any traction in any store. Any games that do a multi-store release with Steam will just have an overwhelming majority of their sales go through Steam anyway.
  • Please note I mean timed exclusives through an agreement with Epic only - games that happen to release on one store and not another because they feel it's the better platform isn't something that Epic (or any platform for that matter) can do anything about, that's the nature of industry competition.
• Trying to "compete fairly with a better platform by having the better store" isn't going to work if all the games are on Steam anyway - feature parity isn't enough, and there aren't that many features that will be a big enough pull to get people away from Steam and onto another platform.
• Ignorance is playing a very large role - people don't understand why some things are done the way they are or what some things mean.
  • Epic isn't spying on your Steam friends(???), they're using it for importing existing friends. They don't use the Steam API for this info to retain privacy (yes, the Steam API tracks usage as most do), and to avoid dependency rot.
  • Epic is doing as much data collection as Steam is - collecting hardware info, installed programs, basic analytics.
  • Epic isn't "ran by the Chinese". I dislike the Chinese government and the way they do things as much the next guy, but Tencent being a shareholder doesn't mean they decide what Epic does with the company or their data.
  • If you're scared about Tencent owning a stake in Epic, then I sure hope you don't make use of any of these companies' products that Tencent also has a stake in. Tencent is an investment firm - they make money by going to companies and giving them short-term money (buying stake in the company/lump funding) in return for long-term money (profits from that company's sales).
• They are very reactive to the community - even the loud minority that cause the most issues. This was demonstrated in Fortnite's updates and even through the store itself.
  • Their old refund policy was a bit fucked, but they've changed it now since there has been quite a bit of backlash over it. Guess what? It's now identical to Steam's refund policy. That's the whole point of creating competition - it drives improvements.
  • They've updated their Steam account linking process to no longer read and cache your friend data. It wasn't being sent anywhere without you hitting the import button, but they decided to remove all doubt and change the functionality to avoid doing it in the first place (as they should have).
• The founder, CEO, and majority shareholder of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, has made it very clear his long-term goal with the Epic Games Store - unifying game purchases and pushing for open standards
  • This is further reinforced by the fact that Epic will be allowing sales of games that appear on their store, including exclusives to the Humble Store.

There's been a lot of outrage and people all over the internet are jumping the gun without doing their research, and it's showing. If you don't want to support Epic's practices, that's fine. However, you should at least get the full picture outside of just the angry reddit post you read.

 

[Knight]

didnt they just now add a search bar

 

[Aleks]

Also the die hard loyalty some people have to brands like Steam is just strange. Valve is so complacent now, why not let competition force them to jumpstart?

 

[Blackquill]

Also the die hard loyalty some people have to brand like Steam is just strange. Valve is so complacent now, why not let competition force them to jumpstart?

Worse than complacent

Apathetic.

They seem like they just don't care anymore

 

[Rabid]

Also the die hard loyalty some people have to brands like Steam is just strange. Valve is so complacent now, why not let competition force them to jumpstart?

I don't see it as "die hard loyalty" so much as it is literally everyone's shit is on Steam.

 

[Aleks]

I don't see it as "die hard loyalty" so much as it is literally everyone's shit is on Steam.

That's fair. But that also seems more like a complacent monopoly more than anything. "Why should I use brand B when I've been using brand A my entire life?"

 

[jooni]

Worse than complacent

Apathetic.

They seem like they just don't care anymore

more UI and chat updates!!!

 

[Knight]

Epic lacks basic community features and functionality that keep me from liking it

• Proper reviews
  
• Groups
• Inventory
• Group chats
• Forums
• Streaming
• Built-in modding
• Guides
• A decent in-game overlay.
• Community sharing.
• Customizable profiles (at least decent ones)

Imagine if Gmod was on the launcher and you had to manually install all of your addons. Being able to install a mod at the click of a button was the best thing to happen to Gmod, this is just one of the many examples.

 

[Blackquill]

That's fair. But that also seems more like a complacent monopoly more than anything. "Why should I use brand B when I've been using Brand A my entire life?"

Easy answer would be because brand b offers things brand a doesn't

For developers that's a better cut and not having to pay a fee for their engine if they put it on the epic store.

And game exclusives is a divisive thing but the console market has been doing it for decades and the difference is the epic store is free, you don't have to shell out 499 just to play bloodborne
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more UI and chat updates!!!

MORE WEB BASED UI YES THANK YOU GABE

 

[Stalker]

My main gripe isn't really about epic games itself, it's just that I already have so many game stores and clients downloaded on my pc and i'd kill to have all the stuff I want in one place which obviously isn't going to happen any time soon. Just to name what I have right now, Uplay, origin, windows store by default, bethesda launcher, blizzard, steam.

It's a long shot but I'd honestly kill to have all these merged into one single store but it'd never happen at all.

tl;dr epic is fine i just wish we didnt need so many launchers

 

[Isuckatgaming]

Game available on Epic but not on Steam: ''Anti-consumer, shitty business practices, exclusives will ruin pc gaming''

Game available only on Steam: ''This is fine and consumer friendly, no problems there''


It's a good thing that there's actually a launcher that can do some serious competition with steam and isn't just there for the competing company's own games (U-Play, Origin, Battle.net). Steam is convenient and we're used to using it yes, but competition in a market that has been dominated by one giant for nearly two decades now is hopefully gonna spice things up a little

Epic lacks basic community features and functionality that keep me from liking it

• Proper reviews
  
• Groups
• Inventory
• Group chats
• Forums
• Streaming
• Built-in modding
• Guides
• A decent in-game overlay.
• Community sharing.
• Customizable profiles (at least decent ones)

Imagine if Gmod was on the launcher and you had to manually install all of your addons. Being able to install a mod at the click of a button was the best thing to happen to Gmod, this is just one of the many examples.

If I'm completely honest, I couldn't give two shits about half these features and I doubt more than 10% of all other steam users do either

The only one that's a big one for me is the workshop and the overlay, but it still isn't a deal breaker to me anyway.

 

[TinPan]

Worse than complacent

Apathetic.

They seem like they just don't care anymore

The moment that Valve realized that they were a dominant force, they became complacent in their practices and apathetic when it came to interaction between themselves and their customers.

Although I personally think that Epic Games locking exclusives behind its doors isn't something I'm comfortable with, I'm just personally happy that Steam is slowly realizing that it's been sitting on its hands for too long and now must actually take action to prevent itself from becoming irrelevant & dying. So long as the competition doesn't harm the actual games, then I'm happy; I don't want to see what happened with Consoles where you end up getting store exclusives and can only purchase a game through one store only. That flexibility is important.

 

[scrubmcnoob]

Steam needs competition, agreed.
However, exclusivity hurts the consumer and Epic Games is just an inferior platform. With all the money they got, you think they would actually build a better platform.

Epic also has plenty of security issues as of recent in the past.

I think most people who dislike epic is because they're locking major titles to their inferior store for a whole year. They really don't have any selling points over steam given their platform is underdeveloped and they're forcing people to move over if they want to play new titles. This will only make people bitter towards it.

e: they have a search bar now, truly revolutionary.

 

[Rabid]

There's been some games - particularly Phoenix Point - for whom buying exclusivity deals after having promised steam releases at launch have bothered me, admittedly.

I think pulling that shit sucks.

 

[Isuckatgaming]

There's been some games - particularly Phoenix Point - for whom buying exclusivity deals after having promised steam releases at launch have bothered me, admittedly.

I think pulling that shit sucks.

That isn't Epic's fault though, that's the fault of said games publisher/developer

 

[Blackquill]

There's been some games - particularly Phoenix Point - for whom buying exclusivity deals after having promised steam releases at launch have bothered me, admittedly.

I think pulling that shit sucks.

This I can agree with

Metro was probably the worst one of the two, The devs of phoenix point admitted epic made them a deal that was so good to them that most people could refund and they'd still break even atm
[doublepost=1553205065][/doublepost]

That isn't Epic's fault though, that's the fault of said games publisher/developer

This as well.

 

[Aleks]

I'd agree pulling out of releasing on a certain platform after you have announced you would release there due to an exclusivity deal is scummy. But how can Epic expect their launcher to succeed without having an incentive for people to use it? If all of their games were on steam nobody would use it. They're thinking as what they are, a business whose main goal is to maximize their profits and this is how they believe that can be achieved.

 

[Kafe]

on the downside, Epic has to catch up to a decade of dev time steam's had.
On the upside, that is Valve-time, so it's actually about a year of catching up to do.

 

[Akula]

me no like new thing
me support old thing despite old thing being actually kinda awful

 

[`impulse]

Epic lacks basic community features and functionality that keep me from liking it

• Proper reviews
  
• Groups
• Inventory
• Group chats
• Forums
• Streaming
• Built-in modding
• Guides
• A decent in-game overlay.
• Community sharing.
• Customizable profiles (at least decent ones)

Imagine if Gmod was on the launcher and you had to manually install all of your addons. Being able to install a mod at the click of a button was the best thing to happen to Gmod, this is just one of the many examples.

EGS is lacking a lot of features that we'd consider essential now, but they're just starting out. Dealing with financial stuff (payment systems, regional pricing, refunds, etc) is their main priority - they're a store after all. They'll need time to implement features and pass them through QA to make sure it works well. They have their public roadmap, and if my own anecdotes with their work on Unreal Engine are worth anything, they hit their targets most of the time. Let's not forget that Steam didn't have refunds until just a few years ago - different priorities for different platforms.

My main gripe isn't really about epic games itself, it's just that I already have so many game stores and clients downloaded on my pc and i'd kill to have all the stuff I want in one place which obviously isn't going to happen any time soon. Just to name what I have right now, Uplay, origin, windows store by default, bethesda launcher, blizzard, steam.

It's a long shot but I'd honestly kill to have all these merged into one single store but it'd never happen at all.

tl;dr epic is fine i just wish we didnt need so many launchers

I feel it, but hopefully the end result is that you can choose which launcher/store you want and use that instead; open standards are the solution to this issue.

Another point is that Origin/Battle.net/Uplay/Bethesda.net were made so that publishers can sell their games on their own platform to pull in all of the profit since they deemed a 30% cut from Valve was too much. They aren't really a general store like Steam/EGS/GOG, so the only real competition for a general PC gaming store is coming from EGS and GOG.

Steam needs competition, agreed.
However, exclusivity hurts the consumer and Epic Games is just an inferior platform. With all the money they got, you think they would actually build a better platform.

Epic also has plenty of security issues as of recent in the past.

I think most people who dislike epic is because they're locking major titles to their inferior store for a whole year. They really don't have any selling points over steam given their platform is underdeveloped and they're forcing people to move over if they want to play new titles. This will only make people bitter towards it.

e: they have a search bar now, truly revolutionary.

Building a battle-hardened platform takes lots of time. They can use profits from sales now to pour into their platform and speed up development. Exclusivity sucks, but that's basically what Steam has had for years. Timed exclusives aren't nearly as bad since you do get the choice to not buy it from EGS and just wait until it pops up onto another store. They are necessary to get it off the ground.

I don't know what security issues they've had, but I'd like to read about them if you can provide some sources

There's been some games - particularly Phoenix Point - for whom buying exclusivity deals after having promised steam releases at launch have bothered me, admittedly.

I think pulling that shit sucks.

I know the Steam keys have been honoured in the case of Metro, but it's down to the developer/publisher to decide how to deal with an exclusivity proposal. This was going to happen since they kind of just appeared out of nowhere - surely in the midst/end of a game's development cycle.