Maybe less investment in trying to monopolise the market and more investment in developing their shopping platform so it’s not a smouldering turd.
This is the most asinine approach IMO.
“Let’s release a worse product. Hey, no one likes it. Okay, let’s spend money on games so THEY can essentially force people to use our software. Hey, still, no one really likes it. Okay, let’s try to give away stuff for free. Hey, people use our thing for the free stuff but still no one likes it for any other reason.”
They just keep spending money to up their numbers and their product is still missing features and inferior to competition. They spend big money on exclusivity, but that is only temporary - if that’s how you’re getting your customers, you’re going to have to keep doing it forever to retain them. If people only use you for free stuff, you’re just going to have to keep giving stuff away at a loss to retain them.
This model is not sustainable. You’re not doing anything that aligns value with your customers besides just throwing free stuff at them. That’s not a business.
What’s especially sad to me is they could literally have just spent that same money to improve their launcher and have an actual product. Instead they’ve invested in temporary stats. They’re essentially bankrolling other devs on games with temporary popularity instead of in their lifelong product.
Using other games exclusivity as sway into your ecosystem only works when you have a good product the person would be interested in but they haven’t seen it yet. EGS is currently something people are essentially coerced into using but no one really gets any real value out of it other than “well I couldn’t buy this game anywhere else”
Plus it’s not like there wasn’t room for a good shopping client, if you go smart about it.
Steam had at the time - and still has - tons of bad UI design, stemming for its very old layouts wrangling with newer client additions and changes. Plus Steam for the longest time until the new client solved it had serious issues with late boots and hanging closures. GOG had just tried to bring out their own client a few years before, but in the move to GOG Galaxy had gotten a lot of ire and fucked a lot of things up. All the per-developer clients were berated constantly.
There was room there. But Epic, hell, this is so not it. Your client is so much worse than even the bad competitors…
I think it just depends on how long they can do this. I think they are banking on getting the fortnite kiddies hooked on the store. They typically have far less disposable income (yet they still charge kids for 20$ skins), they will most likely not have a super large steam library (probably due to the aformentioned skins) so they are banking on the store being that kids default to Epic rather than steam. Its not terribly odd since Steam basically did the same thing, when it used to have those mega sales with the flash sales and the such. That is when the love for Steam basically exploded and its been cruising on that hypetrain for a while.
Yeah, if I’m reading that right they’re complaining that they’re stuck at phase one of enshitification - lose money on aquiring users. The reason behind that is they’re not able to monopolize the market for their games. “These damn mobile stores won’t let us turn the corner and put the clamps on our users. Fix it please.”
If you count all of Steam’s features (Steam Input, Big Picture Mode, Proton etc), then Epic has decades of catching up to do. The problem is that usually executives will choose the “easy way out” of problems, so let’s just give free games instead of making a good platform.
Well not to discourage them but I like Epic games because every Thursday they give me a free game sometimes two. Hell all the 100 games I own on their platform I gotten for free. So maybe that’s why it’s not profitable?
Beyond that I see no monopoly every game on their I can find on Steam and so far have had no issues with it.
They literally pay for exclusivity. It’s weird that people seem to selectively ignore that every time someone brings up their desire to get free games from them.
This is the main reason why I never made an account, despite the free games.
I mean, I get why people hate this, but some games would literally not exist if not for that exclusivity funding. For example, the newly released Alan Wake 2 is completely funded by Epic. I’d say at that point, the exclusivity is fair game.
I have not bought a single game from their store. I have over 300.
I also haven’t played any of the games I got for free. Maybe one day I will, but today is not that day.
every game on their [sic] I can find on Steam
Oh yeah? Find these:
3 out of 10
A Knight’s Quest
Alan Wake Remastered
Alan Wake 2
Assassin’s Creed Mirage
Battle Breakers
Binary Smoke
Castle Storm 2
Core
Corruption 2029
Crime Boss: Rockay City
Dangerous Driving
Dauntless
Dead Island 2
Diabotical
Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed
Goat Simulator 3
Grit
Infinitesimals
John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando
Kid A Mnesia Exhibition
Kingdom Hearts series
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria
Ooblets
PC Building Simulator 2
ReadySet Heroes
Rocket League
RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures
Salt and Sacrifice
Saturnalia
The Settlers: New Allies
Shoulders of Giants
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Space Punks
Star Trek: Resurgence
Tchia
The Crew Motorfest
The Expanse: A Telltale Series
Tortuga - A Pirate’s Tale
Touch Type Tale
Witchfire
The Wolf Among Us 2
I don’t know about any of the others, but at least Rocket League and Fall Guys are great examples here.
Both games already existed and were extremely successful on Steam.
Both games got bought by Epic and we were told they were going to get continued support.
Both games were then REMOVED from Steam.
Both games then started suddenly having objectively worse monetization. Both communities grew a pretty negative opinion of the changes.
Both games are objectively less popular now, though at least some of this is just age/fads.
But both games are just objectively in a worse spot than they were before. All Epic did was make them objectively worse.
This list is just another argument against epic… artificial exclusives. For a FUCKING LAUNCHER. Even fucking Playstation, EA and Ubisoft opened up.
Fuck Epic.
Battle Breakers
This is a bad example to put down, can’t find that on the epic store either.
Okay, fair, there are some exclusives. But reading through these, wow, nothing of value is lost.
Most importantly because for the newest ones like AW2, they’re just on a 1 year Early Access release in a lot of ways. Every time someone I know bought a game there, I was grateful they did the paid (as in, they pay, not get paid) bug testing work for the poor devs. And then once it releases on other stores, you can buy a somewhat patched-up version, and usually for 25%-50% off.
Sure isn’t profitable from me, I haven’t bought shit from them.
That’s one interesting thing about this: They trained the players so hard to associate their store with the free weekly giveaways and only the free weekly giveaways, that’s all everyone uses the client for now, and never mentally considers it to be usable for anything else.
The effect is pervasive, too. Games factually have not released if they’re epic-exclusive. They’re not discoverable on PC, as nobody would ever imagine checking the Epic catalogue for a game they’re looking for. That’s not what you open Epic for, it’s those 1-2 free weekly games and nothing else.
In their bid to vie for developers not consumers they went so far too far that they have managed to alienate the concept of “selling games to players” in the consumers’ minds, therefor making their store automatically unable to compete at its main intent.
Mind you, there are far more problems with it. Among which is that despite having so little in there, discoverability and navigation are downright terrible! It’s an interesting lesson for frontend/UI design I imagine.
This. I visit the site every week to claim the free games. If a game is epic exclusive, I consider it not released yet.
Protip: isthereanydeal.com has an RSS feed which will also alert you to other givaways.
Won’t even take their free ‘gifts’, worse than Origin when it comes to spyware and data collecting. I can’t understand anyone who willingly puts EGS on their device but complains about advertisers on other platforms collecting info about them.
Free games be damned, I’m not using it while they pay for timed exclusives and limit consumer choice.
Right? Can you imagine what they could have been if they just sold the same games as Steam but tried really hard to just be a really good platform? lol
Probably people who understand how to make their computer do what they want it to? You control who your software talks to.
Well, at least at the application level.
I’m going to guess the majority are people that don’t care that much, rather than people with such good security knowledge that they can stop a games distribution platform from spying on them.
Also, Epic is inherently online. Like, it needs an internet connection to distribute the games. Is it even possible to use it for that whilst also stopping it from phoning home?
Hold on, a platform-agnostic solution to mod integration (mod.io being one example) is now a bad thing compared to the platform-exclusive one (Steam) we usually get? Isn’t it inherently better if I can get games wherever I want and still get mods instead of them being of course all locked to Steam after Steam Mod Downloader got disabled?
The free games are 80% shovelware not worth playing, 15% indie experiments that have the potential to become a full game with another development iteration, and 5% AAA games that can be bought on sale for a fiver anyway.
I doubt much of their Fortnite money is actually being spent on licenses for these games. They likely negotiate some kind of “do it for the exposure” deal with the smaller developers in order to keep the flow of free games going.
Chances are the games given out for free will end up in a Humble Bundle at some point anyway. Which is when you acquire a steam key anyway.
How exactly does paying for unreal games make the epic games store profitable? Epic would still be getting that money even if the store didn’t exist.
Yeah that’s the point… They said they never bought anything from epic games. I was wondering if they really never bought an unreal game. Why are people butthurt about that question?!
Oh what a suprise. Maybe… Just maybe…spend some bucks on developing the store to be viable(!) competition to steam. And not just a ghastly shit-shop, where people only exist because of the freebies and partially because of the exclusives (i pirate the exclusives. Fuck exclusives).
Even GOG galaxy is a better client/store and they don’t have the same budget.
Epic sucks sweaty, hairy monkeyballs. And i would welcome competition for the apex.
Did they get a shopping cart yet? I remember not being able to buy multiple games at once, but I just gave up on that store so no idea how it is now
I get the free games via the site but I dont use windows so I’ve never even tried to play them. I’d rather support valve who have really went all in on Linux gaming.
I know it is possible to get some of epic ones working via lutris but I’m not that bothered to be honest.
What? I’ve never heard of this? I have prime, where do I get my free shit?
You can also log into your Epic/Gog/Origin/Ubisoft accounts via Lutris and install the games via that.
Using dishonest tactics to claw away market share won’t work with gamers. Steam got to where it is by good will, good prices and good features.
Steam got to where it is by good will, good prices and good features.
Well, eventually.
When Steam was first released, the running joke was “steaming pile of shit”. It was slow, unreliable and only a couple of shades of green away from the worst color in the world. People complained about the birth of “always online” games and about paying full price but not even getting a box with it.
It’s not exactly unassailable now either. It’s my platform of choice as a user but for indie developers, the 30% cut is brutal and last I used it, the Steamworks SDK was pretty rough. The app itself also has a lot of legacy bloat like a built in MP3 player.
It’s ahead of the rest but I think “good will, good prices and good features” might be an overly romantic take on “it’s where all my games already are”.
the 30% cut is brutal
This part always confuses me. When Steam started allowing non-Valve games on their storefront, 30% was considered a bargain compared to selling your games at retail. In fact, PC versions of games were often $10 cheaper than their console counterparts specifically because distribution and platform fees were lower. It wasn’t until MW2 came out that PC prices started reflecting console prices.
It’s confusing to you that manufacturing, shipping, and selling physical copies of a game was more expensive than digital distribution? The world is very different today. Digital distribution is the norm and everybody knows you don’t need 30% to make it sustainable.
I still remember being annoyed I suddenly needed to get a separate app just to continue playing counter strike.
Ah yeah, I was a bit of a hold out going to 1.6, but eventually all the servers started disappearing. That was like ~8 years ago… right?
Valve is constantly looking for ways to help the customer, just in their own weird ass way. Having linux as a competitive option to windows and being able to refund/return digital games, as well as a built in mod searcher and loader being some of the things they brought to the platform because Valve employees themselves are gamers and want their platform to be useful towards gamers needs
I think they do hell the consumer. And agree it’s weird. But would argue against that being their goal with the caveat that what I’m about to say makes no real difference to anything.
I think they’re looking to increase profits first and foremost. However, because they’re not answerable to shareholders, they understand that the best way to do this is by building loyalty and ensuring “stickiness” loyalty. ¹
It’s still about money. They just understand that the safest way to make it is by having a long term view and not burning people.
the 30% cut is brutal
Reportedly Epic’s 12% barely covers costs and would not if they included transaction fees. 20% seems to be the bare minimum if you want a store to actually have good service, and then I’m giving Valve additional credit for sinking boatloads of money into general infrastructure, in the long term Proton alone is worth those 10%. Much unlike the rest of the stores (exception GOG) which take the same 30% and are run by humongous multinationals.
…and then there’s itch.io. If you’re a small and scrappy indie very much an option: They’re also small and scrappy. And they’ll probably shout at you if you try to upload a 20G game I very much doubt their servers would survive an AAA launch. OTOH, reportedly their average revenue split is 8% (customers can choose).
The difference is that Steam sells a ton of copies every single day. The vast majority of Valve’s fortune has come from that fee. People jump to defend Steam but it’s already been established by lawsuits against other major corporations that a 30% cut is mostly driven by greed.
“it’s where all my games already are.”
My pet theory is this was realized by epic and so the only reason they give games away is to “help” users build a library they won’t want to “leave behind” for another store platform. Once they reach the market share they were aiming for I fully expect the practice to stop.
Didn’t EA shut down Origin or at least make it optional?
Remember Valve is the company and Steam is the storefront/launcher.
Epic is the company, EGS is the storefront/launcher.
EA is the company, Origin is (was?) the storefront/launcher.
Yeah, making it a requirement for playing your physical copy of Half-Life definitely looks like good will to me.
And in turn diminished the industry’s piracy problm for many years, making PC Games market a stable ecosystem instead of letting all of PC gaming die.
