30/70 isn't anywhere near as controversial as people make it out to be. And you arguably get more out of Steam with it than with traditional publisher/platform owner split. Below was made quite a while ago, but I somehow doubt much has changed.
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I'll grab the free games and see what my Epic library looks like by the end of 2019. I don't plan on switching over entirely but maybe they'll include some games I don't already own. I haven't bought anything on the new Discord store, but I did download a couple games that are included with my Discord Nitro subscription (Dandara and The End is Nigh)
I like having a consolidated library but it's nice to have options. The favorable split could lead to deeper discounts on that platform, but I wouldn't expect to see that for quite a while since there will probably be far fewer customers for a long time.
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you will get games like meat boy, which on sale costs few euros, do you win much?:)
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was on sale several times, with 75% even, and almost every gamer should have it already :)
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It was 50% off, not 75%. And it is among the top 100 games in the community wishlist. So it seems that quite many people should be able to appreciate getting a GOTY candidate for free.
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totally agree
1) no forums
2) no reviews
3) no any info about games, ( languages available etc)
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who needs useless steam reviews and toxic steam forums? I don't need it and I can leave without it. As for "info about games" - I believe they will add this
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I wanted to wishlist a game, couldn't even find the wishlist option.
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Satisfactory just got removed from Steam to become a Epic Game Store exclusive.
Journey is also coming to the Epic store.
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I used to hate Steam.
But ever since they introduced regional-pricing (which my region is now so much more cheaper), I can't find myself switching to other platforms unless they can beat Steam's price...
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Totally agree. I can't stand paying in USD when I'm not paid in USD. For occasional titles like Overwatch / Reforged it's fine, but I can't justify myself paying for my regular one-time complete game like Giana Sisters / Sanctum in USD.
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Well that depends where you are. I'm in Eastern Europe (not exaclty rich) and prices in euros are higher than those in USD.
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It seems like they're gonna have a few worthwhile exclusives that will justify having an account there, but it won't become my main store/client for games, just another one that I open every once in a while like Origin, Uplay, Battle net, etc.
That said, looking forward for Journey finally coming to PC.
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Agreed. Valve made so many changes I personally didn't agree with and saw as anti-consumer. Maybe now they will actually have to fight for us again, instead of just doing what they want.
I am sick of reading this "no steam, no buy" nonsense everywhere. If our main focus is truly the games themselves, we shouldn't care that much which launcher we need to run them. If Epic can pull this off, customers will benefit from it over time. Cheaper prices, better service, more options to choose from. I don't see the harm in that.
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The Game Awards 2018: Btw this game is available only on Epic's store for now!
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Someone tried to get a refund from Epic. They promise "no-questions-asked" refunds for 2 weeks.
Screenshot shows what Epic means by "no questions asked". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's not really a surprise that a new store has its issues and I'd expect them to improve this, it's still amusing though.
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good news, thanks for posting ^^ steam with their 2 hours ducks :)
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I kind of doubt that you checked the screenshot. Otherwise you wouldn't complain about Steam. ;)
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ofc I checked and I have no problems with providing those info - steam already collect ip and date of last login
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Why would they need my dynamic IP FFS
Also, don't they want my girlfriend phone number to see if I played the game with her :))
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I'm surprised they don't also ask for skin cell sample from the controller or keyboard you used when you played the game. Whereas steam is genuinely no questions asked if the playtime is less than 2 hours.
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Well I guess if they are offering free games I'll be creating an account and claiming them. Even if I have no intention of installing from there or spending a cent on it. But having a back up in case steam ever goes belly up might not be a bad thing...
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Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is also going to be an exclusive game.
There is a very interesting Q&A in this. They talk about regional pricing (including Brazil and Argentina, next year), refunds, adding achievements/stats and most importantly, the reason they chose to do that.
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I just logged in and found out that I have 15€ balance left on the Epic Store. From back when Unreal Engine 4 went free (from a subscription model). I completely forgot about that. Nice! Will probably use it on Hades.
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time zone - same as steam? so it starts in ~8 hours?
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PSA: The free Subnautica will be available in about 30 minutes, according to Twitter.
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One of the most expensive free game so far...
Ignore it, after refresh it become free, not the cleanest start, but at least delivered as promised.
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Watch out at the final stage, email subscription is OPT OUT not opt in.
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People are happy because they think prices will go down.
The reality is that if prices go down in the new store, the profits will decrease, so for the developer it would be the same 12% or 30%, because at the end of the day their profit would be the same.
On the other hand for this reduction to generate more profits, it would have to maintain prices, from the point of view of the consumer, if the price is the same, its better to stay with the known option or where all your friends are.
PD: Like Uplay or Origin, maybe I'll install it for free games and then it will be gathering "dust" on my desk
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Pls stop support DRM with exclusive game on PC
u want later square enix, capcom or other big publisher create their own DRM for exclusive game? pls this not console! stop this bullsh!t before it's too late
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It's my understanding that Devs won't be able to generate 'Epic keys' for resale on third party stores (at least initially), so at this point it's actually even worse than consoles. Because even on console you at least have a choice of retailer. For now these exclusive games may only be purchasable on the Epic store, which is total monopoly as far as those games go.
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Shhh you'll wake the Epic white knights! Steam's the cool thing to hate now, didn't you get the memo? Get on with the times man. :P
In all seriousness though, fuck exclusives. I didn't mind the Epic store initially since competition is good yada yada yada. But these kind of moves like locking in games for exclusives, or "timed exclusives" and getting games publisher to remove their games from Steam altogether are just a dick move.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QacBMgEQGEQ <--- Laymen summed up the whole thing nicely for me.
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Yeah good video. People are all like "epic is great for consumers" without seeing the anti-consumer nature of forcing consumers to use a certain platform. They'll call steam a monopoly but valve has never paid to secure exclusive rights for a third party game. I think it's bad for consumers as if you can just pay to own rights to all the games, there's no competition. Oh well, the epic store is severely undercooked at this point, so I'll stick with steam for now thanks.
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So I was curious about the idea that the Epic store is much better for developers because of the lower split, and I do think it would be good for everyone if valve did adjust. But let's look at some actual numbers. For a $20 indie game that isn't using unreal engine, they will make $70 selling 5 games on Steam. They will need to sell 4 games on Epic store to make a few cents more. So the simple reality is that the Epic store will need 80% of the market penetration of Steam to make exclusivity worthwhile. And I'm just not seeing that happening. Especially when they have such a bare bones client.
People and developers take for granted how many little features come with Steamworks which devs can just plug in to their games. Epic isn't offering features like that, so there'll be an extra cost of development for devs that want to add some of those kind of features in. And as much as we all hate DRM, a lot of developers do want at least a basic DRM for digital purchases, and I saw in an interview that Tim Sweeney said they won't be offering that at all with the Epic Store. Which means devs that want DRM will need to pay for or develop a system of their own. (Again DRM can jump in a pit of fire for all I care, I'm just pointing out these hidden costs devs might not be considering)
So yeah it is a bit strange to me that so much hype is being created about this rather bare bones and backwards game store, when we already have a lot of other Steam competitors out there, some of which at least do the basics better than the Epic store does now.
I really do think these devs who are signing up for exclusivity deals may just be hurting themselves in the long run. They already had options for lower splits via third party steam key sales and DRM free downloads, but in locking themselves to Epic they may well find themselves in trouble, but I guess time will tell. A competitor for Steam might be good just for some healthy competition, but the epic store is not that at the moment. If anything they are trying for a monopoly. I guess tencent has been teaching them some valuable lessons.
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You need to revisit what a monopoly is.
Having some games be exclusive to a retailer isn't a monopoly. You should look into what kind of good a video game is.
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A monopoly is where there's only one place you can get a specific product. In this case a specific game. So yes I do know what a monopoly is. I'm not saying they will have a monopoly on all games, just those they've secured exclusive rights for. With Epic there's no third party stores, therefore the only place I can get these exclusives is their store, therefore for those games it is a monopoly.
Console exclusives? not a monopoly. I can go into a dozen different stores and buy those games, which can all compete on price. They can have sales, they can sell at a loss to drive traffic. Choice = competition.
Steam keys? Not a monopoly, even if the platform is the same, valve gets zero money from steam key sales. Other stores can sell and compete on price. I can even buy Half life 2 on a number of other stores. Valve will get their cut as developer in that case, but none as the retailer.
Epic exclusives? One place to buy, one choice of price. Monopoly. Sorry if you feel that doesn't match the definition, but it seems pretty text book to me. Maybe you should do the revisiting? :-)
Anyway, before this turns into an essay length fight about the meaning of a single word, as these things tend to do, the point of my post was more questioning the wiseness of the decision developers are making.
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No. That's not a monopoly.
Simply put, monopoly is when the good in question has no replacements or constitutes the only in one in its "category".
As I said, you should look into it since you evidently don't understand the concept.
A particular video game can't be monopolized any more than a particular version of an ice cream flavor can be.
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Well Satisfactory is the only factory building game made by Coffee stain studios. And I will only be able to buy it on one store in the whole entire world. There is no replacement for it, because it's hopefully offering gameplay unique to it. Unlike a chocolate ice cream, which will still taste like a chocolate ice cream. And if me and my friends all want chocolate ice cream, it won't matter if we're eating a different brand. We can't all buy different games and play together.
What you're saying essentially is all games in the same genre are the same, so you can just choose another one and that's where the competition is coming in. But I'm saying, that if I want that one, there is only one place to buy it. So yes, that is a monopoly on that game. There's more than one way to run a monopoly.
And please stop talking down to my intelligence with every post, that's a pretty shitty way to have a conversation. I 'don't understand the concept", and then you give an bad analogy with ice cream flavours. Fine if you don't agree, but let's stay civil.
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Of course I disagree when you misuse the term and are too stubborn to see how meaningless it is when you use it in a way that results in every company being a monopoly unless they have multiple avenues of distribution for their every product... and ignore most of what the definition requires. Monopolies take place at a market level, (an industry if you want a synonym), not on a single product level.
If you think correcting your misconceptions and suggesting you google some economics terms so you don't use terms incorrectly is condescending, I'm sorry but I can't help you with that, I'm just trying to help.
There isn't an "Ashen" monopoly any more than there is a "limited edition Crocs" or a [insert your nearest single-location restaurant here] monopoly.
Exclusive licensing and distribution deals are not monopolies.
I don't know why you insist on it rather than just using an appropriate word for it.
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Right, even though I didn't want to be drawn into a discussion on one word in my whole post let me do this once. So at the risk of exposing your ignorance let's go,
You are getting hung up on 1 particular kind of monopoly. Like I say, there is more than one way to run a monopoly. Also note I didn't say that what Epic had now was a monopoly, simply that they are ' trying for a monopoly' and I'll explain why in a minute.
You are right to say monopolies happen on a market level and it's clear to me this is what you think I mean. If there was only one big manufacturer of cell phones, then of course that's a monopoly. In the same if there was only one creator of a certain type of video games they would have a monopoly. I'm not talking about that at all, and this is where you are wrong to assume and then correct in a condescending tone. Of course I am not forced to buy any 1 particular game. Although I hope for your sake whoever buys your Christmas present doesn't think all games in a particular genre are roughly equal. ("I know you wanted Red dead redemption 2, but look, I got you 'Gun' instead, see it's also got cowboys")
The type of monopoly I'm referring to in this case is a 'retail monopoly'. In a normal healthy environment, there are several places you can buy different versions of competing products. This is healthy for consumers because it leads to competition amongst stores, much like we have at the moment with games. But if there was one particular store that started signing up manufacturers of cell phones for exclusive deals to the point that the only place you could effectively get most cell phones was that one store, I'm pretty sure you could at least agree, this was a monopoly. And it's bad for consumers because even if this shop was in the bad part of town where the hobos pissed on the walls and the tellers were grumpy and insulting, and the price mark ups were high, if you wanted a cell phone, you would have to go there. Bad for customers, because you have no choice and the service they give is what you have to settle for.
So to revisit my statement, I say Epic is 'trying for a monopoly', because if they keep on signing exclusive deals there may come a point where so many new 3rd party games are only available on their store, that it becomes a monopoly. It's exactly the kind of thing tencent did in China with the help of the Chinese government. But again this was not the main thrust of my post, but rather the potential negatives for developers.
"Exclusive licensing and distribution deals are not monopolies." In many countries the competition laws would disagree with you there, if there was one store buying out distribution on a large number of products..
Anyway, if you still think my understanding of the concept of a monopoly is wrong, you are welcome to do so. The feeling at this point is pretty mutual, based on your unwillingness to see anything than a single way a monopoly can exist. So you are also welcome to google 'types of monopoly' if you'd like to find out more. If you would like to continue to call me ignorant I am just going blacklist you and move on, because I did say I didn't want this to turn into an essay fight over 1 word in my whole post. Otherwise if you have something meaningful to contribute to the actual point I was trying to make please do so.
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Yeah, I disagree, but seem to have failed in my attempt to convey to you that a company with zero weight or market share shouldn't be called a monopoly and address the closest thing to the "monopoly" you seemed to be referring to. But now you do seem to be saying something more sensible. Though again, there's a difference between anti-competitive practices/measures and monopolies (this not being a blanket term), so I still think you are amalgamating terms to the detriment of what you'd like to convey.
If at all possible, please share where you learned that a "retail monopoly" is a kind of monopoly, rather than a description of what industry the monopoly is taking place in as I've never seen that as a "type of monopoly". If there's a misconception/ignorance on my end, I'd like the opportunity to correct it. If I'm shown to be ignorant of something, I see it as a learning opportunity.
Painting a company entering a new market where it is unimportant and someone else is already exerting a monopolistic pressure over it, as "trying for a monopoly" sounds comedic to me. There is little reason to think they'll do all that well so taking it to the extreme of thinking they can aim to take over the market is quite "optimistic".
They are vying for a way to penetrate into a market dominated by Steam and having some exclusives might help with that; I don't see any reason to extrapolate that they could get much of a market share or how they will handle future exclusives (some deals are already 1 year timed exclusives). People are being way too quick to think it's going to be negative and note that the store is not as feature rich as Steam when they are just starting out.
I'd rather just see where it goes.
PS: I don't BL people I disagree with, but you do you.
PPS: I can see how with a different demeanor on my part you could have been more receptive rather than being pushed to the defensive, so I should work on that.
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Thank you, that was a much better response. Read the wikipedia entry on Wikipedia to see where I could get the idea that the path is taking with buying up exclusives could be deemed to be a monopoly. I know wikipedia has it's disadvantages, but in this case it does a good enough job of explaining the same sort of things that were in my financial textbooks years ago. And yes, retail monopoly is just a term I made up to make it easier to understand and distinguish it from a 'manufacturing' monopoly, which seemed to be what you were referring to. There's various other more technical terms for the different ways a company can be said to have a monopoly, and a lot of other types of monopoly not relevant to the games industry at all. Even technically in the days before online shopping, if you lived in a small town with one shop, economists would say that shop had a kind of monopoly because people might not be able to travel to a competing shop. And of course that's not illegal.
Neither is what Epic is doing breaking any laws. It's just not very pro consumer ultimately. But if you feel it's better to refer to this as anti-competitive, that's fine and yes, at this point that's all it is, I just happen to think that taken to it's nth degree it will be monopolistic, and so I use that word to convey that it has potential to get that serious. If all platforms followed Epics current model, there would be no humble bundle, no fanatical, no steamgifts and a lot more sadness. But don't worry if Epic change some of their ideas, and it turns out to be good for everyone, then I'll be happy to change my opinion on them and even support them. My loyalty to Steam is based purely on the advantages they currently give me.
And don't worry, I don't blacklist for differing opinions, or my blacklist would be way bigger than the 19 it is now. But I do if I feel someone is taking the approach of attack first and accusing me of ignorance, in a way that shows to me they don't understand what I mean, then I take the stance that they are just being a jerk, and don't really need to win anything from me. However in this case of course, I'm not going to do that, because your response was much more measured now and I do appreciate that. Yes maybe a less attack first, ask questions later, approach might suit you well, but I appreciate that you had the ability to turn it off and I think there's always value and knowledge to be gained in civil discussions, even if you don't agree with the person. So genuinely, thank you for that.
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There's various other more technical terms for the different ways a company can be said to have a monopoly, and a lot of other types of monopoly not relevant to the games industry at all.
Yeah, those are the various types of monopolies like natural, geographic, governmental/public, etc. I didn't see the point of using retailers to illustrate the point when it seems easier to understand with a production+retail company.
Anticonsumer or less-than-competitive measures are understandable to a point when they have to go against the behemoth that Steam is and how fervently its user base rejects new platforms. I'm not a fan of exclusives in the least. I'd rather just buy the strongest platform, but I also want devs to get a fair share and I want Steam to be pushed through competition into more consumer-friendly practices. Right now, the 2-weeks limit to refunds is pretty shit IMO. And i understand that many games wouldn't have been made if it wasn't through the platform developer funding the development, being console games or some other kind of exclusives.
I also know that having to juggle multiple digital platforms is a pain in the dick and that the community features, market and so on make Steam really tempting, though the cut they take seems way too high for digital goods, considering the upkeep, and the level of moderation and validation they do to help consumers and devs.
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Look if all that comes out of this is that Valve gets a bit of a wake up call and devs get a bit more of a share for their hard work then that is still fine. The market has definitely changed from when they first started opening the platform to smaller developers, thanks in a big part to the ease of use and convenience they've given consumers and developers. But they have so many more users and are selling so much more content, that a cut reduction is almost certainly in order.
But yeah, I really don't want single store exclusivity to become too popular, because it would definitely be worse for us in many ways, starting with the death of many of my favourite third party stores. So I would prefer for Epic to be able to offer some good features and competitive pricing, then we as consumers will have a real choice. And I say the first step that would change that is if they opened an option for even their exclusive developers to sell in other digital stores. Then they would just be like the other platforms and consoles, where the game might be tied to that platform, but retailers can have different sales at different times, and pricing can be more competitive. I mean I'm not crazy about having a dozen launchers on my computer, but at least on PC those don't cost anything, unlike consoles which have a few hundred dollar hardware paygate.
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all this exclusives reminds me of console sometimes....
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Discord announce a 90/10 revenue split.
Discord blog
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I guess most people, just like me, are mostly confused why a Voice chat company is trying to sell games now.
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The announcement
By far the most interesting part is the split they'll demand, though that topic is naturally more the concern of developers than gamers.
Seems the guy behind Steamspy had been working on this project for some years.
Edit:
So Epic has something nice to convince customers too: Free games!
Source: This interview.
Edit 2:
Another interview with some interesting insights. Namely how Epic calculates the costs.
Edit 3:
You can download the launcher here
Free games list:
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