Epic Games Store

[Radish]

Steam isn't bad for all developers though. I've heard a successful indie developer on a recent podcast state that Steam has been very good for them and they have no complaints about the 30% cut as they believe Steam has earned it.

[Broker]

Earned it by doing what? They have a monopoly on the market that means they have the most customers. They flood their marketplace with shit games, don’t check for viruses and graphic content and drag the standard and value down. Their contribution is having a lot of servers, having a lot of customers, and ignoring emails.

[Radish]

I don't know, I'm not the developer. I'm just stating that not all developers hate Steam or are dissatisfied with them.

[Broker]

Well yeah, they improved the revenue for giant triple a games recently so I’m pretty sure those devs are probably happy too. 

[Isaac]

15 hours ago, Radish said:

Steam isn't bad for all developers though. I've heard a successful indie developer on a recent podcast state that Steam has been very good for them and they have no complaints about the 30% cut as they believe Steam has earned it.

 

https://www.polygon.com/2019/1/24/18196154/steam-developers-revenue-epic-games-store

 

 

I guess that the developer was in the 6% who agree?

 

 

 

 

 

 

4

Quote

 

Valve is in a position where it’s going to need to start treating players and developers better if it wants to stay on top, and that’s a positive change for a service that often felt like it was coasting on the back of its massive profits and arguably unearned saintly reputation among many vocal PC gamers.

Developers aren’t even necessarily saying that they’re not willing to give up 30 percent of their revenue; they’re saying that, in Steam’s current state, they don’t feel as though Valve is earning it. Valve needs to see this for what it is: an opportunity to learn, do better, and make both its developers and customers happier.

 

 

Ultimately, the current deal for developers on Steam is pretty unanimously viewed as a bad deal, from their perspective. 

 

I'm not actually expecting Valve to react well to competition, given that it's a toxic workplace where everyone is only out for themselves.

[layten]

I’m all for competition. But that competition needs to offer the level of service and features of the already existing stores. Epic plainly does not and being forced to use it as they are buying up third party titles leaves a bad taste in many consumers mouths.

 

It’s great that “publishers” get an extra slice of the cake, but shit for everyone else. 

[layten]

I guess soon we will be getting hot takes on how Steam is killing PC gaming despite being what jumped started is cooling corpse in the previous decade. 

[RubberJohnny]

1 hour ago, PC Master Race said:

being forced to use it

 

No one is forced to use it. What overdramatic BS

[layten]

9 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

 

No one is forced to use it. What overdramatic BS

If you want to play any of the games they have money hatted onto their sub par store what choice do you have. I realise nobody is ‘forced’ to buy anything, but that’s an argument for pedantic arseholes. 

[Bojangle]

God I fucking hate the term money hatting so much. Sure use it to describe Ubisoft shifting Division 2 over there if you must, but there’s literally games out, or due for release on Epic store that got finished because of the money the developer got from Epic. Money that allowed them to do some final few months of polish rather than needing to rush it out and hope for the best on Steam. Money that allowed them to do some PR and marketing prior to release so they don’t just launch and then sink without a trace like literally hundreds of games do on Steam every single month. If that’s money hatting I’m all for it and Steam should also do it.

 

 

[layten]

So instead of selling out to a publisher, they sold out to a publisher.

 

and the store is still shit  

[layten]

Let's be honest, these days indie and small devs seem to have a lot more options on the table than selling out to a publisher. Short term gain for a likely long term lack of sales given the stores popularity.

 

Good for Epic I guess, but I'd still they sort out their store rather than just throw money at buying up everything in sight. When that Fortnite bubble bursts, if it's still barren and featureless they wont be able to go on like that.

[Bojangle]

12 minutes ago, PC Master Race said:

So instead of selling out to a publisher, they sold out to a publisher.

I mean, I don't know why I bother posting in here because you're always going to straw man some argument or another. But nope, getting a lump sum of money from Epic in this case isn't even remotely close to signing a publisher deal (unless you're getting an incredibly good deal from a publisher).

 

11 minutes ago, PC Master Race said:

Short term gain for a likely long term lack of sales given the stores popularity.

Citation needed, once again. You're conflating angry gamers on the internet to overall popularity of something, once again.
 

[layten]

8 minutes ago, Bojangle said:

I mean, I don't know why I bother posting in here because you're always going to straw man some argument or another. But nope, getting a lump sum of money from Epic in this case isn't even remotely close to signing a publisher deal (unless you're getting an incredibly good deal from a publisher).

 

Citation needed, once again. You're conflating angry gamers on the internet to overall popularity of something, once again.
 

They literally signed an exclusive publishing deal. If not, I expect to see it shortly appearing on other stores to maximise sales yes.

 

One of the Terraria devs doesn't seem to think it is as good as what they like you to think, but I'm sure he is just an angry gamer on the internet.

 

[Bojangle]

19 minutes ago, PC Master Race said:

They literally signed an exclusive publishing deal. If not, I expect to see it shortly appearing on other stores to maximise sales yes.

You know exactly what I mean, and what she meant. "Selling out" in this case means saying to a publisher "Hey, I have this game, but I need help. How about you give or loan me some money now, and you'll get 50% of whatever profits we turn for x amount of years, once I've paid back the money you'll give me now (which is generally how a standard publishing deal works (Source - I've seen and been involved in some of these)). At this point maybe the publisher will start butting into the creative process and asking "But what if we do this?!" Great fun as an indie.

What she did was just a simple, "we give you some money now, you can keep this money, the game/IP is yours to keep forever, the only thing you'll pay us going forward is our cut for as long as the game sold on the Epic Store. You can release on other stores in x months (probably 6 or 12)."

But yeah sure, they're definitely the same.

[layten]

I've not been party to the deal so I'll have to take your word for it.

 

Also "she".

[Bojangle]

16 minutes ago, PC Master Race said:

One of the Terraria devs doesn't seem to think it is as good as what they like you to think, but I'm sure he is just an angry gamer on the internet.

 

 

I'm sure the Terraria devs are very happy with Steam, since they're one of the lucky ones who had a breakthrough hit on there before Valve opened the floodgates and decided to let the users and the algorithm do all the work. They've almost certainly crossed the revenue threshold to receive a bigger cut, too.

 

6 minutes ago, PC Master Race said:

Also "she".

Oops, my bad there. Internet point to you.

[Broker]

Hopefully we can have more examples of rich devs with popular games who like Steam as evidence that it’s a great marketplace for people who aren’t rich and aren’t already popular. 

[layten]

And back to ignoring or claiming they are of no importance, things that don’t fit your narrative. So that’s all features of Steam beyond the basic store and developers who are going to have far more of a clue than some random internet nobody.

 

And after all that. The Epic store is still shit.

[layten]

11 hours ago, Bojangle said:

Oops, my bad there. Internet point to you.

No worry’s I’m sure that’s the only thing you wrongly assumed. 

[Radish]

https://trello.com/b/GXLc34hk/epic-games-store-roadmap

 

The roadmap still isn't looking great. They've not released any of the planned updates for April or May, and the shopping cart is still 6 months out. Cloud saves originally were meant to be available in May but the target date is now July.

 

Don't get me wrong, I don't especially care about using another launcher (I've bought a few games in the recent sale and will most likely pick up Control), but there's no argument that the EGS is a downgrade from the other storefronts/launchers in every single way. Even the cheaper fees for development hasn't translated to cheaper game prices, so there's literally no benefit to using it over the likes of Steam and Uplay, only negatives.

[layten]

Epic are hardly a fly by night outfit either. They have been in the engine game for ever and are rolling in all that Fortnite money. The store should have at least attempted to match some of the features of the competition from the outset. And people call Valve lazy.

[Isaac]

Just now, PC Master Race said:

Epic are hardly a fly by night outfit either. They have been in the engine game for ever and are rolling in all that Fortnite money. The store should have at least attempted to match some of the features of the competition from the outset. And people call Valve lazy.

 

[Orbital2060]

Some of these entitled developer types make it sound like making games is a human right. If your game sucks, no amount of support will make it good but thats what I think is going on in some of the quoted cases here and elsewhere. They are blaming Steam for their lack of success but in reality their game is just a piece of shit and no one wants to touch it.

[Bojangle]

Fuck off with that shit. The idea that a "good" game will rightfully and naturally find it's audience is a huge myth in the current climate, there's a whole host of factors at play.
 

Some of these entitled gamer types make it sound like buying a game on Steam is a human right.

[Broker]

It’s the basic capitalist myth. Good people do well, nobody has any giant unfair advantages because they’re rich, if you fail it’s all your fault for not being good enough, poor people are just losers, all rich people deserve their money.

[layten]

So why is the store still a featureless shit fest then chaps? I mean well done for trying to move the conversation away from that, but you still have failed to explain why given Epic's resources they cant even match the basic features of other competing online stores. Even Sony would be ashamed with that offering.

[Broker]

I literally explained very clearly that only people like you who are posting on this subject care about the “essential features” that Steam has over the other store, thus making you and all the other people talking about this an insignificant fragment of the market who literally nobody at Steam or Epic are bothered about. Which is why your “essential features” aren’t there, and why nobody except you cares about this. Hope that helps.

[layten]

lol

[rafaqat]

2 hours ago, Broker said:

I literally explained very clearly that only people like you who are posting on this subject care about the “essential features” that Steam has over the other store, thus making you and all the other people talking about this an insignificant fragment of the market who literally nobody at Steam or Epic are bothered about. Which is why your “essential features” aren’t there, and why nobody except you cares about this. Hope that helps.

 

Oh come on.  If the people who cared about cloud saves and refunds were sooooooo small why did the likes of Steam spend money implementing it?   Why would they have done that while they effectively had a monopoly?   Could it be because they're actual useful features that most just take for granted as a standard thing nowadays.  I really think your assumption that barely anyone cares is way off the mark.