Steam doesn’t care if a developer uses multiple store fronts.
Epic does care about exclusivity.
I like to to use the platform that gives me the most choice.
Yep lot of focus is on Steam, but GOG has been affected by exclusivity deals too. If that is lifted than other launchers like GOG benefit too with Control being available for it too.
I’m still waiting for the Half Life games to be released on GOG. I wonder why it will never happen…?
Steam is being sued for including a clause that games can’t be sold on other platforms for less than they’re sold for on Steam, guess they do care about games being sold on other platforms!
If you finance a project, it’s pretty much a given that you’ll expect something in return. Valve doesn’t finance third party project, Epic does, hence the exclusivity deals and it’s not as if we could blame devs for wanting to have guaranteed income instead of relying on word of mouth, good reviews and streamers to sell their game and recoup their investment. It’s basically choosing between having a job that pays you hourly vs day trading, sure you might make more day trading, but you might also end up losing everything because things don’t go your way.
Most Favored Nation: you can list anywhere else as long as the price isn’t lower then here
Vs
Exclusive: you can’t list anywhere else
I know which I prefer.
And I prefer that games actually get developed instead of the devs giving up because funding is an issue.
Also, how is it different if the game is only available on Steam anyway?
For a good review of the MFN case: https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=sjteil
If you want to say nobody’s allowed to have exclusivity deals, and nobody’s allowed to set most favorite nation pricing, I’m all for that. Let’s get that through the legislature
Let’s say games can list on both epic and steam at the same price. Epic could take a smaller commission, and the developers could bundle extra content, features, DLC with the game on epic. There’s a lot of room for innovation here
From a consumer protection point of view steam is saying you can’t rip our customers off. I.e. guaranteed low pricing. Just like Costco
What? How is saying “You can’t sell cheaper elsewhere” not ripping customers off and anti competitive?
Haven’t been affected by it. Got games like Nioh 2 and a bunch of other games during the last humble bundle choice for less than what Nioh 2 has gone on sale for by itself.
And games frequently see sales before launch and after launch at prices that Steam won’t see for months from places like Fanatical. Isthereanydeals provides historical data on it tracking prices of games from launch across various stores.
Regardless of the wording it hasn’t affected sales leading to most of my Steam games having been purchased outside of steam, and those sales are ones steam doesn’t get a cut of on top of that. Only steam purchases I usually make are ones where the publisher either doesn’t bother making keys, or it’s the only way to get the steam version of the game, or the rare occasion the it is actually the historical low on steam.
Quite simple really. As a customer you know if you buy a game from this platform you’re not getting ripped off with a higher price. Low price guarantee if you like
What?
That’s completely ridiculous
“You’re guaranteed to get the best price because the main platform prevents other from selling the same product for less.”
No buddy, it just means Valve’s influence leads to the same effect as a monopoly, they set the price for the whole market if people want to sell on their platform and their platform is the biggest so people want to sell on it.
Oh we know it’s there. Finding it isn’t the problem, giving epic any money, is.
I’m happy Epic spent their v-bucks on Remedy and let them use it to fund a masterpiece. But when it comes to distributing it, I think a quick visit to the pirate bay is a lot easier to stomach for a lot of people.
And for me it’s not even a principled issue. I just hate using their store. I’m not saying they need parity with the weird social media aspects of Steam (though I have come around to dropping comments on friends’ achievement notifications on the library page). But let me see reviews and let me refund and some other basic stuff I’m forgetting.
Yep, played the yar har edition, it was a pretty good experience up until a major bug prevented me from picking up a key in late game. It’s a good game notwithstanding that, I’d be happy to pay for it - on my platform of choice, where my library has been since before the Epic Game Store even existed.
I recently picked up Dead Island 2 legally because it released on Steam, and it had some bullshit Epic software trying to install in the background to verify your account. Thankfully you can disable it from config.ini, but it still asks you to log in every time you start the game. That’s some fucking shameful shit, and I would be more concerned about Steam’s near-monopoly status on PC gaming if they tried half the shit Epic did, but until that day comes, I’m happy to give steam my money because their platform puts the least bullshit between me and the game, by far.
EGS is terrible as a store. You can only give reviews only when it asks you to, even then, it is not a free-form review. Your reviews are not visible to the customers. The entire store is designed to bamboozle the customer into buying a shitty game. No wonder most people refuse to use the store to buy games.
If you’re unable to just read reviews on websites instead of in the launcher I think the issue is you buddy.
Saying dark patterns are the responsibility of the victims is a bold move when your also arguing EGS is better for consumers down the thread.
They guarantee some games see the light of day when they wouldn’t otherwise, that’s good for the consumers.
Not having reviews on the same platform is a non issue when reviews are all over the place, available from places that don’t have a financial incentive to get you to purchase said games.
It’s not as if there wasn’t any controversies around Steam reviews either, like deleting reviews from people who asked for a refund because a game was shit.
Reviews on third party platforms that are easily manipulated, shilled? No, thanks.
And you think that doesn’t happen on Steam? Come on buddy, you can do better than that.
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/3758852882963274771/
https://gamerant.com/diablo-4-steam-reviews-manipulation/
And you can also check reviews from trusted sources (on gaming media websites but also from streamers and reviewers on YouTube and do on) instead of random anonymous people on Steam
I’ve found steamers and reviewers not useful when it comes to PC ports, since they tend to review it more like console games. Most don’t even bother to try playing with a mouse and keyboard that sometimes stuff like negative acceleration is completely missed. Or ignore stuff like Fov or if the game has good remapping. Totalbiscuit was one of the few that focused on that stuff back in the day. Even digital foundry ignores stuff like that focusing more on performance.
Even that thread you provided is a nice example of how even when manipulation takes place anonymous people have ability to make it known. I’ll take user driven input over youtubers or streamers and especially official review outlets.
You appeared so condescending I didn’t read any of what you wrote
Thanks for sharing ♥️
I get what you’re saying when we’re talking about physical boxes being sold back in the before times. In stores you didn’t have direct access to reviews. It was the cover art that drove the sale for most people unlisted heard the name before.
In the digital age, in store reviews are often used as the most basic level of quality assurance. Manipulating them from the platform perspective, or removing them, etc is anti-consumer given the current expectations around the purchasing experience.
I see the game with mixed reviews, I can try it, but I know I’m rolling the dice, and I’m relying on the two-hour return window for that roll.
I know epic paid for it and that’s why it’s exclusive to their storefront.
That’s also why I haven’t played it. They made a choice, I’m respecting that choice. I don’t want to support epic, despite me wanting to play this game. So I just won’t play it. Not like gamers are starved for content.
I’m on the same boat and just watched a playthrough. The story is still wacky and pretty good. Unfortunately the SBI and DEI influence is very noticeable.
My pet peeve is people using obscure acronyms without defining them first.
DEI is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Not sure on SBI
But unless the game is late-seasons Glee levels of pandering, I assume it having some people who are not straight white men won’t feel that out of place.
Sweet baby inc is a company that offers services to game companies to make their games more diverse and inclusive. Their influence is really noticeable unfortunately.
I’m literally playing through Alan Wake 2 right now and there’s been no forced diversity or tokenism whatsoever.
Are you just saying that because one of the main characters is a black woman?
No thats not the reason. It actually fits into the story. The main thing is this scene: https://youtube.com/shorts/hcOoREvW3lE?si=TZfV4uDugt_Ez8Yr And some other things. Don’t get me wrong. I really like the story and how the game intertwines with control and the remedy multiverse. I just think the SBI influence is noticeable which is a shame in my honest opinion.
Most of my gaming friends refuse to buy games from Epic or use their launcher.
They’d rather wait for the timed exclusive to expire and buy the game on their platform of choice.
I’ve bought maybe 2 games on Epic because a friend wanted to play it with me at launch. It was Borderlands 3.
But never again, I finished BL3 solo seeing as my friend played with me about 3 times and he never touched it again.
I do collect their free game every week, my Epic library is quite big now and I may play a game from there time to time but I hate the idea of a platform exclusive.
I’d like to know if they are making more money with timed exclusives seeing as nearly nobody I game with wants to buy from them.
I’d like to know if they are making more money with timed exclusives seeing as nearly nobody I game with wants to buy from them.
no, it’s reported that they are working on full loss right now
I remember reading somewhere that they are not making money on their store, losing it.
Wondering if a timed exclusive brings in more cash compared to their normal sales, even if it’s still a loss.
The free games can’t be helping out either.
I remember reading somewhere that they are not making money on their store, losing it.
exactly what i read
Yes I’ve been interested in a few EGS exclusives but by the time they are available on Steam I don’t care about them any more.
You know what it’s the worst part of releasing a game in an exclusive store? When the time comes to release it elsewhere, a year or more later, nobody wants to pay full price for a year or more old game and thus they most probably wait for a discount that properly fit older games.
You bring up a great point. When a game is exclusive to a different store, I can’t wish listed on steam. So when it does eventually roll around the steam it’s a real crapshoot if I’m even aware of it.
Indeed, I missed Outer Worlds launch for similar reasons, it just listed it on Steam and I’m like “That’s out?” and the only one of my friends who even knew was the one guy with a PS4 who still plays consoles (To be fair he’s not that computer literate and has pr oblems reading off of computer screen so he has decent excuses not to be)
Dead Island 2 actually released on steam after the exclusive period with a rather generous discount for the main game and the dlcs.
No thanks, I’ll wait for a Steam or GOG release.
Release on Steam or we don’t buy it.
Sony has been releasing their games on Steam. Microsoft gave up on exclusivity to their store ages ago and have even started releasing Xbox exclusives like Hi-Fi Rush on PlayStation.
For a lot of games, usually ones with Denuvo, I pick up the PlayStation version and either play it in my living room or stream to a PC or the Deck. Perhaps I’ll end up doing that with Wake 2. I’m kind of reluctant to give support to exclusivity at all though.
I think I’ve seen Alan Wake 2 on Epic while I go and claim the free games.
For some reason I can’t find my credit card when I’m using the Epic Games Store app. I wonder why. Could it have anything to do with Tim Sweeney having a grudge against Linux gamers?
As a wannabe game developer, I plan to use UE5 and take advantage of the deals that Epic offers for selling on their store, but not the exclusivity. I would actually like to launch there, so that my first sales get me as much money as possible, instead of some storefront, but it’s basically game-suicide to do that.
I wish Epic would smarten up about all the complaints about their stores and exclusivity practices and realize that gamers would use their store if it just had the features it needs. They aren’t as entrenched in Steam’s store as Epic believes. Especially after all the free games that Epic has given away already.
As for “Alan Wake 2 dev”… Wake up! Trying to frame this as a “woe is me” situation is ridiculous. That game had a ton of hype before it was even announced, and failing to capitalize on that is the dev’s and publisher’s fault, not the consumer. A Kickstarter would have been nuts if money was what was needed.
Nope no one will find it on the epic game store but good luck with your shitty decision.
it was a rational decision. Every developer knows what they are giving up by being a EGS exclusive, so they price in that opportunity cost into their EGS pay package. They were not even complaining about it in the quote, they simply said “we hope people find our game here” which could be them just being diplomatic. Eventually the exclusive window will end, and they will have a steam release announcement.
I don’t like EGS exclusives, but I don’t ever think a developer is stupid for taking the money.
My 2¢ on the issue.
- Epic pays you, ever though what are they actually buying from you as Dev/publisher. Epic store don’t make the mony Epic is spending… that’s because sales on the Epic store aren’t even their goal. EGS is basically a huge advertising for Fortnite, games published over there are accessory to the ever present/default Fortnite’s events/promotions. On steam page for GTAV you see ads for Saints Rows, on Saints Row’s Steam page you see ads for GTAV. On EGS Fortnite is always omnipresent: the goal over there is not gamers buy as much games possible, but rather yell “hey! Free stuff? We have free things… Also Fortnite!”. It’s a black hole where wallets are swallowed by Fortnite.
- “EGS vs. Steam-monopoly” is a totally faked presumption. What we see is that quite the opposite is happening. Exclusivity damages more all small and big competition around Steam: itch.io, GoG… but also bigger stores from Ubisoft and EA (which saw fair amount of investment in their own PC store in the pre-EGS era and now are mostly forgotten). Basically EGS is digging a more monopolistic trajectory for Steam. Indie are wondering “why should I publish on itch/GoG if Epic pays me?”
“I hope they’ll find my diamond ring in the dumpster out back”
i will use epic the Moment they drop their exklusivity crap. before that Not a chance even if the exklusives are great
Is the difference between them and Steam really that great in practice though? This link has 30583 games that seem to only exist on Steam. But yeah, there’s probably no paid deals involved. Still not a huge difference in practice IMO.
I do think people get caught up in hating Epic, but the difference is that if any of those developers felt like releasing on another platform, they could. The “exclusivity”, such as it is, is just happenstance. Whereas Epic’s exclusives are largely actual contracts.
99% of the games on that list are small-time indie games that only release on Steam because that’s where the market share is, and they probably only have the dev capacity to support a single platform. Steam also has a lot of API support for devs. Those games exist on Epic too, but when people complain about Epic they aren’t complaining about those games, they’re complaining about bigger games that are artificial exclusives, timed or otherwise.
Steam offers the better customer experience, and Epic can’t compete with it, so instead they just buy exclusivity rights to games. It’s arguably anti-consumer, and definitely different from those games that just happen to only be available on one platform or another.
