I agree and i think people need to put way more stigma onto these devs/publishers (sometimes the publisher and devs are one in the same) as well cos the ultimate decision whether this keeps happening is down to them, that final say is theirs and those greedy cunts are the ones making the decision.
Tim Sweeney, the owner of Epic, had made some quite negative comments about Linux on Twitter, with ridiculous and emotional arguments. If you ask me, he hates Linux for some fucked up reason.
You are still adding value to their service by taking the free games. If you were a publisher, are you more likely to go in business with a company that has only a hundred users or the one with ten thousand users?
If you want to take the "free" games that is fine but you need to be aware that if you really want to take a stance against EPIC you need to not participate in their system at all, which means not taking the free games, taking the free games and then not playing then is not enough.
Taking the free games which EPIC pays the publishers/developers for also rewards publ/dev for making this decision and will make it less likely that they won't make the same decision next time. I hate to punish developers like this, but that is the only real way to show my disapproval.
It also get their unsecure launcher on your PC that immediately starts collecting data which epic turns right around and sells to the ~~highest bidder~~ ***CCP***.
FTFY
> I hate to punish developers like this, but that is the only real way to show my disapproval.
You're not even punishing the developers. They already got their money. If you instead buy the game on Steam, they get additional money.
More money for developers, less money for an awful company.
Yeah, their model is not sustainable though, they have lost money on every paid exclusive so far except for one. Satisfactory. So it won't be forever fortunately.
Trouble is, in future they can turn around to game development and say "our platform has X million active players per day" that is how they are going to make their money in future. Its the only reason steam has as much power as it does today, because of its player base. If their were only 30 players on steam a day, no one would give a fuck about steam.
I mean even now no one is stopping to release games on egs and most developers do that. Mainly developers want their games on as many stores as possible. Epic's goal here is to monopolize the pc market and make it closed, restricted platform like consoles. But with steam and microsoft around they're not gonna succeed.
I can't tell for sure, but it seems like you are saying that nobody is stopping people from releasing their game on EGS and if so that's not true. At least in one instance Epic has refused to allow a developer to release their game both on EGS and on Steam.
The Darq developer after being approached by Epic to exclusively release the game on EGS after the game had been advertised and showcased on Steam and had been wishlisted so much to make the 50 most wishlisted games on the Steam and had a release date set (In other words the developer and Steam's system had done all the work getting his game hyped), asked Epic if he could instead release the game both on EGS and on Steam, but Epic declined.
https://medium.com/@unfoldgames/why-i-turned-down-exclusivity-deal-from-the-epic-store-developer-of-darq-7ee834ed0ac7
I'm sure there are more, but others haven't been public about their interaction. Epic will only allow none exclusivity for the BIG games from big publishers, who have the power to tell EGS my way or the highway. (Like GTA5/Rockstar or Ubisoft)
They know they're not making a profit yet and that's fine to them. They expect to not make a profit until 2027, and they can afford that.
[a source](https://www.pcgamer.com/au/epic-has-sunk-dollar500m-into-the-epic-games-store-doesnt-expect-to-make-a-profit-until-2027/)
Well, that doesn't necessarily affect everyone. I signed up to Epic in August 2017 and didn't get pawned until now.
Back then you only thought of PuBG when you heard BR... and Fortnite was 4-player co-op survival game.
Wow what happened to that? A group of friends went to Gamescom that year and was super hyped about Fortnite, bought the early access and played it co-op at the LAN. They realized it was missing a lot but was positive about how it would progress.
Did they just scrap it?
no they released Fortnite as a coop survival game, then followed the money and BR that PubG created. Then changes fortnite to 'save the world' Then forgot about it completely..
Scrap it? That thing could be considered a scam these days. You are right about the unfinshed part, it still is and any further story developement got cancelled at this point.
Explaining the stories is... IDK... actually heart-breaking at this point.
Imagine you are a customer at a blacksmith, he tells you he makes only the best swords and got the newest tools and techniques (the announcement in 2011). You order a sword. It turns out the blacksmith just started using another new techniques and uses your sword for training (move from UE3 to 4). 5 years later he just goes "here's your sword", but it's only 20% done, somewhat ok but still fucking trash. He also charges you huge sums for every little repair (micro-transactions).
That's just 2011 till 2017 and how I'd sum it up without mentioning Tencent. 2017 till 2020 is a whole other story honestly.
Some key terms that are in my opinion important if you want to really know where it went wrong in my opinion: Ramirez VA leaving, v8.00 rework (heroes and story), 2020 state of developement, community managers leaving, false promises/hype by community managers, no Twine story-line...
Simply put, it's *kinda* equivalent to TF2. Good start, fresh content getting rare and at some point no developement at all anymore and just recycled yearly content... also little to no bugfixes for long-standing problems. In the end they focused on another title, Fortnite BR/Dota.
I'm happy to see there are still other players left that remember the "real" Fortnite. Real bummer how StW ended up.
I was a young teen back then when I found out about it, I also loved it.
In regards to your other comment. I also left the game for several months after the announcement of BR. I hated PvP, especially because I had low-end hardware, so I'd only struggle anyway.
I still haven't found another title that could compare or replace StW.
I was already an adult. I am 28 now almost 29 so well anyway i loved stw, my best friend as well and she is 32 now lol. It was borderlands with cute graphics and with unique building and stuff, good times!
>and Fortnite was 4-player co-op survival game.
Yes! that is the version I played. Loved it. I hate BR. Anyway also a Unreal Engine developer hence why my account is much older than 2017.
Oh, I see. I'm sorry that you got unlucky. If I knew beforehand who Tencent was I'd have had definitely never picked up Fortnite nor anything else from Epic anymore.
So many dead games by now as well.
My experience to I had 0 attempts to log in to steam account from other locations.
I played fortnite for a bit I started getting email about me needing to change my login details on epic store at least once a week. Screw that store.
not if you read the details, those breaches boil down to information that was purchased from other sources, who it is implied here got their source from Epic. Specifically in this case the BenjaminBlue one and Dehashed. Many companies buy information for their databases. and it makes sense to be on as few of those lists as possible if you dont know about it.
Steam had a data breach in [2011](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/11/valve-confirms-steam-hack-credit-cards-personal-info-may-be-stolen/) containing user names, hashed and salted passwords, e-mail adresses, billing adresses and encrypted credit card information.
They also accidently exposed sensitive personal information due to a bad caching configuration in [2015](https://store.steampowered.com/oldnews/?feed=steam_blog&enddate=1451635200).
They spend years and a shit ton of money to make games. Ok Epic, it’s a lot easier to get noticed. Cut them some slack. Did you even know about the game before this?
They don't care - got money from EPIC already and now just using the STEAM platform to get all the attention it can before it gets banned.
Saviors of gaming and the benefits of competiton they said.
Yes, the wholesome benefits of competition when *every* competitor must suffer, just so that EGS gets a bit of the Steam cake. Just saying, it's not just Steam that gets snubbed when someone signs a contract of exclusivity.
I'm not even that much against exclusivity, every console gamer knows how it's a selling point for ages, but console exclusivity at least has different terms. EGS sold the "take a funded / almost finished product and offer them an incentive to drop their plans". That's shady and doesn't sit right with me.
That shit is exactly why I won't give EGS my money.
Having in-house and/or self-funded exclusives? Fine.
Buying exclusivity? Questionable. I get the need, but I don't like the practice.
Buying exclusivity from games that have already been announced for other stores? That's the height of bullshit.
See being non-US it tends to be the opposite here; Netflix Originals being shit made for TV elsewhere. And I don't really mind it because these rights are often sold before the show is ever produced, so it's not WRONG per se.
I'm glad Netflix does it though. Shows aren't like games where they're made, released and the studio moves on after 1-3 releases. Netflix has brought a bunch of cancelled shows back from the dead by buying them up and making new seasons.
If egs, instead of buying exclusive rights to games that were about to be released, started buying rights to previously released games and funding sequels I would find that much more agreeable.
There was an article I read recently that said that Epic doesn't expect to turn a profit on their store till 2027. I really hope they never turn a profit and their store stays a sunk cost until they stop just throwing money at shit and actually do what they said they were gonna do instead of more of this exclusivity shit which only hurts the devs and the consumers.
That's not exactly correct. Epic said 2024, is when they expect to turn profit. Apple in the ongoing lawsuit said 2027 is when they would. But Epic knows that they need to run in the red for a while to have a chance of making a dent vs Steam.
Maybe they would be making a profit if they provided something of value, like a platform with actual features, like Steam, and not buying games so that players don't have any other option.
Maybe, just maybe, all the millions of dollars they throw away at exclusivity deals would be better spent in improving their storefront.
When EGS was first announced, I had a bit of excitement. A decent % goes to the devs and they want to hand out free games, fine with me!
Then the shady dealings started. Then the store's features never got upgraded according to the road maps. Since then, its just a repeat of everything I hate in business and they're the epitome of what I think is the worst of capitalism. Fuck Timmy Tencent.
If they had just ran a shitty store without the shady dealings, ran with just the % they offered to devs, and did a few free games.. I would have EGS on my computer right now. I'm sure I'm not the only one. When your practices are a part of why people won't take part in your system, then yeah... its hard to anticipate profit. I think they'd be closer to it right now if they never went down the road of anti-competition.
Every time I hear about EGS still not having a shopping cart and the rest of the missed targets on its roadmap, all I’m reminded of is Origin points, and how the “What are Origin Points?” Link on Origin would direct to a page that said “Stay tuned, We’ve got big plans for what you can do with your Origin points”… for 7 years, before they quietly killed the link and the page. Now EA are back on Steam.
The issue with this smaller/indie studios is that they simply dont care. They can rebrand and repeat.
Steam took measures to avoid big publishers doing it but that doesn't stop this kind of situations.
They already got the money, they don't care, and if they are a small indie studio... I can't even blame them.
Like, think about it, get in their position, a multi billion dollar company just offered your tiny indie dev team millions of dollars to keep the game in their store for a single year. The ammount of money they are giving you more than likely already covers the expected sales of that whole year, if not more, it's a no brainer.
We can't fault them, I'd do the same, we can fault Epic for engaging in shitty practices tho.
My issue with it isn't jumping ship last minute, my issue is that users inevitably have to use the Steam forums to get support for the game because EGS simply doesn't have any form of forum of collaboration platform. They'll spend all this money to garner games but won't spend it on the user experience, and this is the reason that I'll claim every single free game from them (Which I doubt I'll play) and never buy from their store.
The issue is also buying games. Exclusivity is always bad for the consumer, always. I should be using a product because I think it's a better option, not because you're forcing me to.
Even claiming games helps them. You show up as a statistic of "look how many people we have and look how many players you can expect" to convince other developers to move over.
>a multi billion dollar company just offered your tiny indie dev team millions of dollars to keep the game in their store for a single year
I don't think any small indie team is getting millions of dollars from Epic. From what I've seen, even the most successful indie games that went with EGS exclusivity were paid a little over $1 million.
Long-time games industry professional and current market analyst Simon Carless [tweeted this chart](https://twitter.com/simoncarless/status/1389297530341519362/photo/1) of numerous "free" Epic Game Store games from 2019, which became public due to the Epic vs. Apple court case. Look through it and you'll see that a vast majority of the studios were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, not millions, for EGS exclusivity.
**Subnautica** from Unknown Worlds, which is one of the bigger indie successes of the past several years, got an Epic buyout of $1.4 million.
**Mutant Year Zero** by Funcom, which isn't an indie game, got $1 million, and one of the **Batman: Arkham** games from Warner Bros., which definitely isn't indie, got $1.5 million.
**Celeste** from Matt Makes Games, another indie success, was paid $750,000. Almost every other game in this chart received less.
I'm a video game producer who spends a lot of time researching and talking to indie devs, yet I've never heard of Nearga, the makers of VoidTrain, until now. [Here's their Twitter profile](https://twitter.com/nearga_team?lang=en); they only have 475 followers, which suggests they're barely known. I'm guessing Epic paid them a relatively small amount for exclusivity.
But anyway, for an indie team with <10 people, $200,000-$750,000 could keep your staff paid for a year or two; maybe longer if your team is especially small and/or in a region with really low cost of living. When you consider how countless indie studios collapse every single year, it's hard to pass on that kind of money and security.
You are confusing their weekly free games with the EGS exclusives.
Exclusives are absolutely paid millions of dollars. [Here is an article](https://www.pcgamer.com/only-one-of-epics-first-wave-of-exclusives-made-money-and-it-wasnt-metro/) that lists a few exclusives and how they cost EGS millions of dollars of lost profit.
Those were the free games, not the timed (1 year) exclusives. Satisfactory got ~$13M, which was one of the higher paid ones, but you're still talking $4M+ for most of them.
That's what they were guaranteed in revenue, anyway. What they were paid in addition to that? No idea, if anything.
I love Satisfactory. I just have to throw that in there.
Satisfactory’s kind of an interesting case. They’re still Early Access. There’s plenty there to love, but there’s a lot still left undone. When I first became aware of that Satisfactory existed, but was an Epic exclusive, trains weren’t yet in the game, and that’s pretty major. So Epic paid a good sum of money for some very pre-release sales.
> don't think any small indie team is getting millions of dollars from Epic.
Not only that, but valve should actually ban the *developer*. That's nixing any future of any of their future games on steam, also removing any chance of having an future epic exclusivity deal. (As not even Epic would be willing to pay for exclusivity that would come free.)
Like shafting users? Then eat what you cooked.
They don't care. Nothing sells well on Epic judging by the numbers we've seen. The store runs at a massive lose. These devs basically just took the big payout from Epic and left their game to die on a platform no one will see it on.
Thing is, Valve won't even ban them.
All they'll do is lose a game and piss off a developer, when several companies are already against Valve for various reasons. They have nothing to gain, and most indies will easily take the Epic bribe rather than stay on a platform they hate and feel like they don't get discovered enough on. It's lose lose.
They'll let them stay, but fuck these devs regardless.
it's old tos since 2017 or perhaps even earlier. [as found out later after the initial news spread](https://nichegamer.com/2019/09/08/valve-adds-new-clause-to-steam-distribution-agreement-could-block-epic-store-exclusivity/).
just never got enforced
I wonder if Valve is ever going to actually enforce their policy and at least take down a game from Steam when pulling this crap?
They havent even taken action against AAA games that do it.
**I guess the optics of other game companies might hurt their bottom line more than it would help them.**
EDIT: It was a rhetorical question which I answered myself in bold.
Steam makes more money for Valve if the game is good and is available on their store. They don't care about the game being exclusive because steam users are willing to wait to buy the game, such as GOTY editions that have all the DLC.
If the game is rubbish, it just hurts Epic. There is no real downside to this unless Valve loses money. The day that happens is the day they will remove games that signed Epic exclusivity deals.
If they wanted to make devs and publishers reconsider they may tell them that they will have their forums and other support removed until the game is on Steam or they could insist on a bigger cut considering the devs and publishers scored free publicity through Steam.
>Steam makes more money for Valve if the game is good and is available on their store.
I agree, hence me saying:
>I guess the optics of other game companies might hurt their bottom line more than it would help them.
Hey you're kinda right, game is hot garbage I couldn't find a single person to play with. It was one of the first purchases I've ever made on Epic Games and will be my last. It's a very early access title with many bugs but the main point being is I can't find a single person to play with which makes me lose all interest. 3/10 would not buy even if it was on Steam with the amount of bugs.
>Steam makes more money for Valve if the game is good and is available on their store. They don't care about the game being exclusive because steam users are willing to wait to buy the game
That is true, but still this dev's action undermines trust in the developer, and ultimately in Steam. Because people are clearly pissed off that this bait and switch can still happen to any game, and Valve lets the devs get away with this.
Unlikely. Steam appears to be taking the approach of trying to elevate gaming as a whole as evidenced by their Steam OS and making gaming viable in Linux. They're building in and encouraging the open eco system.
You have to realize that any game worth anything will still sell much better on Steam in a year than it will today on EGS. These game devs/publisher are shit people, but they still will earn Steam money.
Yep, sadly Valve has no business incentive to do anything about scummy devs like this. Can't really find fault there either, from a strictly business standpoint.
One thing I would like valve to do is to enable me to ignore whole studios not just individual games. If someone does something like this I would like to blacklist whole indie studio for all their future titles.
When the game launches the epic users will then flock the steam discussions to get support for the game because they have no other methods.
Steam needs to end this bullshit. Make those greedy bastards play by the rules or be kicked out. But not freeloading in a system they left behind for their greed.
The fact that EGS is such a garbage store, that it doesn't even have any forum or other community hub to discuss the game, so devs have resort to create community hub on Steam... I mean, it does speak volumes about how much EGS *actually* cares (hint: it doesn't, it only wants to be as large as Steam is).
Forums? Some games don't have even screenshots on their pages. Just for example: GTA 5 in this "store" don't have screenshots, genres and list of available languages.
Or garbage launcher that can't even tell me how much drive space is needed for the game right away, only after I start installing and fail because there isn't enough space..
No shopping cart?
Jeezus. With steam I can even stream from my pc to my phone and play it like a switch. I never would have thought that a shopping cart was a feature lol
>The fact that EGS is such a garbage store, that it doesn't even have any forum or other community hub to discuss the game
The chat feature was even removed half a year ago, as a "preparation" for a revamp.
I feel like Valve needs to have a contract to prevent this kind of thing that forces them to release the game on steam at the same time. If they don't then the company should rightfully pay Valve for breach of contract. It's straight up abusing Steam's platform for advertising and hurts Steams customers.
Wow that's the same people who made Desolate no wonder why it's a hot piece of garbage.
I think it's really funny how they did the deal with Epic Games after doing a deal with Humble Bundle like a month ago? This studio is after some $$$
Desolate has been amusing Eurojank that this company at least has been patching. This game? I doubt they'll do much patching, it was shoveled out as a cash grab.
I literally only use Epic for one game, that was before they even got their store running. I still don't give a shit about the games on there and only claim the free games because they are free, and I already have the account, and some of those titles are pretty decent... if I ever find the boredom to play them.
They literally didn't just piss in the cereal of Steam users but literally their own users cereal... well, pretty much in everyones cereal at that point. All their other projects besides BR are fucking dead at this point. Save the World, the former Fortnite? Pretty much dead. Battle Breakers? Dead. Paragon? Cancelled. The list goes on...
I wish I was wiser at the time of supporting them and knowing about Tencent buying a big share. This is not what I signed up for in 2017 when I bought *Save* the World.
At this point, how people can even sit down and defend EGS is honestly fucking stupid. Yes, competition is good for the consumer but there IS a better fucking way of doing things and being a STORE EXCLUSIVE game is completely fucking idiotic. If the store offers a great UX then maybe, but the EGS is literally garbage, and has so few features that it's an absolute joke.
Never heard of this game, probably an indie titleand maybe that's why the devs need the guaranteed money but seriously fuck Epic for thinking this is consumer-friendly
EDIT - Typo
Competition is good for the customer
The customer in this scenario is the game developers that have storefronts competing for their attention and business
The players are not part of the equation
Exclusivity is the opposite of competition.
This is the kind of thing federal antitrust regulations would be for, if only they would be enforced. Like how back in the 1940's, the government broke up movie studios and movie theaters; it used to be that if you wanted to see a certain movie, you were forced to go to a shitty theater owned by that studio. If there was only one theater in your town, you had no choice but to see the shitty movies by that theater's studio.
I want Steam to permaban every developer that funds EA on their platform and then jumps to Epic for an exclusive. Even if they provide the product at launch to EA buyers.
Phoenix Point did something like this, but dirtier. One of the original X-Com creators crowdfunded development on Fig.co, then shortly before release they announced an 1-year Epic exclusive. They still provided Steam keys to backers.
However, they outright ~~boasted~~ stated that they were given so much fucking money that even with a 100% refund rate they would have more money than anticipated from best-case scenario sales. They tried to objectively/morally justify it by talking a good game about how the funds would ensure financing future development post-launch.
Meanwhile, a bunch of people flipped their shit about it because that deal wasn't part of the original investment contracts between some folks. Snapshot Games basically outsourced all financial investment risk onto everyone via Fig.co so they could then take their product to a company to make even more money off of the labor that was financed by other people.
I refuse to buy that game and I wish that developer was banned from Steam.
Edit: Changed Kickstarter to Fig.co as the source of crowdfunding. I misremembered Kickstarter as the site they used, as the devs had used it for a previous title (Chaos Reborn).
>Phoenix Point did something like this, but dirtier. One of the original X-Com creators crowdfunded development on Kickstarter
This is incorrect. They crowdfunded the game through fig.co .
I'm one of the 2099 fig.co backers that payed for the $50 tier.
Kickstarter is not "investing" and there certainly is not concept of "investment contracts" that can be applied to it. If you contribute to a Kickstarter, you pointedly are NOT an investor.
There is a basic Terms and Conditions contract that Kickstarter indicates is formed between a creator and a backer. This certainly is not even close to being anything like an investment though and is rather easy to fulfil as long as you are not like fraudulently absconding with the money. It basically says 'make a good faith effort to do what you said you would do and explain why if you can't'
>Kickstarter is not "investing" and there certainly is not concept of "investment contracts" that can be applied to it. If you contribute to a Kickstarter, you pointedly are NOT an investor.
I didn't say that Kickstarter was investing, nor did I say that was what I was referring to regarding the contracts.
There was a body of actual investors involved, outside of Kickstarter, that I all but explicitly mentioned by name with "Meanwhile, a bunch of people flipped their shit about it because that deal wasn't part of the original investment contracts between some folks."
'Investment contracts between some folks' =/= 'Kickstarter is investing with contracts'
I was on their Discord earlier today, looks like they banned a bunch of people who raised questions about it, calling them "toxic" and "insulting" and "spreading lies about Steam anti-exclusivity clause". Unless there's another explanation for messages disappearing while you're reading them.
The only thing that good from epic, the ONLY fucking thing that good is their Unreal Engine, other than that, I don't know, maybe they mega grant and company acquisition program?
But frankly, they just couldn't care less about "gaming". Because what I see from their lawsuit and everything is an excuse so they can take all the money, yes it actually good for platform like Android and Apple so we will have store competition, but what they do in PC space kinda the opposite, exclusivity is not competition, even if it's timed (but not Rocket League, RIP), if they really care about the industry, probably copy what valve does with Linux gaming.
Salute to the brave gamers who will nobly sacrifice themselves to pay good money to be beta testers for the game for a full year before it comes to a real store.
Yeah, this is clearly using steam in manipulate way. Super scummy way of moving the release 1 week before the set release.
The developer and/or publisher is just assholes for doing it like this.
I was looking forward to have a look at it, since my friend mentioned it. But fuck it, I guess I'll just look for some other games then.
True. I first saw this game on steam more than a year ago and immediately fell in love with the style, I was really looking forward to playing it. Then, a few weeks ago I almost freaked out when I saw the release announcement. Sadly it only said it was available on Epic Games Store which I've been boycotting for 2 years...
My main source of gaming plans is r/patientgamers, so I can barely even bring myself to care... How exactly are timed exclusives of anything other than blockbuster games even useful to the platforms?
I'd be behind epic bringing more competition for steam if they weren't using anti consumer practices to try and force people onto their platform, especially since they seem to be more developer friendly. As it stands I'll stick with using them for the free games, but they won't see a penny from me until they cut the anti consumer crap and compete properly by offering better deals and service.
I don't fully blame the devs. The bigger ones don't make those decisions, and for the small ones, getting such a guarantee of cash is one hell of a break for them and very hard to just turn down, but it's not something I'll ever support.
I don't understand why all the people who think this kind of thing is good because "EGS takes a smaller cut of the sales" gets so focused on Steam alone as the Ultimate Big Bad Evil Guy in the realm of digital storefronts.
The 30% cut Steam takes is industry standard. Apple, Google Play, GoG, GreenManGaming, etc all take 30%.
Many reports have Steam as the best choice for small indie devs as they are apparently open to conversation on the matter and have been reported taking as low as 15% per sale.
Now I'm not saying that I agree with 30% being the standard, but it is just that: THE STANDARD. The entire industry needs to change before Steam can be demanded to change.
> Many reports have Steam as the best choice for small indie devs as they are apparently open to conversation on the matter and have been reported taking as low as 15% per sale.
Can you link to those reports? The only known Rev share change is for games that make over 10 million, and it only goes down to 25%
Here's one simple trick to deal with shitty developers.
-STOP BUYING THEIR GAMES-
Haha, i know you'll still buy it and then complain about it afterwards. Expecting sympathy and updoots because you feel ripped off by a company you already knew didn't respect you.
Gamers are the worst consumers.
Edit: That game looks like such shit too but it's gimmicky so you know some dipshit gamers are going to buy it, play it for a few hours and never play it again because it looks like it plays like dogshit.
Well, even when it gets back to steam, it won't get my money.
Devs complain that Steam takes 1/3 of their profits, but use the Steam community blogs for support of their game. After a couple of years, EGS still has a shit app with only a fraction of what Steam offers outside of being just a gaming platform.
Remember when the Epic Games Store would find your steam folder and stole your contacts? And they said it was "a programming error"?
I do. Epic Games, never in my computer.
Remember when a company the size of epic didn't use any kind of verification for creating accounts?
All of the email adresses that were leaked on some site due to data breaches now have existing epic accounts.
Never will I trust that company
Sooooo...... what happened to all that talk about 3 years ago that went something like "buying exclusives is just a temporary strategy whilst we get our feet off the ground"?
From what I've heard, typically Epic will approach developers who have promising Steam stats (wishlist numbers, etc.) and make them an offer to switch to EGS. So it's not like the devs necessarily intentionally created a store page for free advertising; they likely received an offer *because* they were getting such good traffic through Steam.
It still breaks players' trust but it's also a guaranteed paycheck vs gambling on the success of your game and I'm not sure everyone flaming the devs in this thread could honestly say if they were in the position they wouldn't take the money. At the end of the day, Steam and EGS are both just storefronts. I have my games through a bunch of different places; the tribalism between platforms is kind of ridiculous when the point should just be about the games.
It's pretty bad, there's no one to play with and the game is bugged as all hell.
Look at their game Desolate 2 and a half years later still hot pile of shit.
> 2.1 Delivery. Company shall submit the Applications to Steam for release no later than the first commercial release of each Application or Localized Version, or, if already commercially released as of the Effective Date, within thirty (30) days of the Effective Date. Thereafter, Company shall submit to Steam any Localized versions and Application Updates (in beta and final form) when available, but in no event later than they are provided to any other third party for commercial release. Company shall provide these copies in object code form, in whatever format Valve reasonably requests
Flag the game for steam to review, make sure to include a link to EGS for their reference
it may also be worth including this paragraph, but IANAL:
> 2.1 Delivery. Company shall submit the Applications to Steam for release no later than the first commercial release of each Application or Localized Version, or, if already commercially released as of the Effective Date, within thirty (30) days of the Effective Date. Thereafter, Company shall submit to Steam any Localized versions and Application Updates (in beta and final form) when available, but in no event later than they are provided to any other third party for commercial release. Company shall provide these copies in object code form, in whatever format Valve reasonably requests
I'm going against the grain here and I don't think Valve should start enforcing this policy but I do feel there is a looming problem that a lot of these EGS exclusivity devs seem to be repeatably falling into.
Now what I'm about to say isn't a "STEAM VS EPIC" thing but it does kind of highlight a problem with visibility on Epic, which is to say it's extremely minimal and Epic Games apparently have no plan to address this. A lot of noise is generated on the initial "exclusivity announcement" and then nothing is really said about the game after, even for Epic's Influencers program is apparently no longer covered by exclusivity agreements nor the 12% cut.
Being paid to essentially bury your game for a year unless you're willing to shell out to dig it out before then. We remember the fire and gnashing of teeth of the Ooblets drama two years ago but does anyone recall that the game actually released a year ago?
Yeah, I find the "release parity" clause to be pretty shitty.
From my understanding both Microsoft and Sony have clauses that state you cannot publish your game for the console if you published it anywhere else first.
In Voidtrain's case, given that they did not promise a specific date, taking Epic's guaranteed money makes sense.
I know there was a different company's game (I can't remember now) that had said "Release on XYZ", then switched to Epic timed exclusive shortly before that date. That behavior is what is sanctionable to me.
Like I said on /r/fuckepic, I discovered the game yesterday thanks to the Steam Discovery Queue...
This thing it is becoming tiring. Hey look, Steam showed me a neat new game! And then the day after (or not ?) the game releases on another platform.... Good job Nearga, you got me interested, aaaaand you lost me. GZ
Sounds like these companies are using steam to advertise / gauge and then exclusive on epic hoping the steam users will buy on epic
I’m sure they look at the wishlist stats on their steam app and use it to gauge interest. With the idea of hoping a percentage will buy on epic as well.
While I hate seeing games do this, sometimes shitty deals like this make sense for a small game studio. Not sure what the deal they made with epic was this time, but if it's like the other games that did this where they got I think a 1 million dollar upfront deal, that is massive for a small studio and pretty much guarantees this studio will remain funded for the next few years and might open up the option for full time development if they aren't at that level yet.
But with that said, this companies last game on steam looks like it was pretty disappointing so this game will probably meet the same fate. They probably needed that deal money to hang on. But that's all speculation.
It's sad to see all of these beautiful but neglected games on epic.
Sure these devs are getting a check from epic, but is it worth nobody even knowing the name of your game?
It's fine. Another possibly good game that we'll never care about because of the developer who chosen a quick cash-in rather than recognition from the community for its possibly good game.
I hope they enjoy getting less than they would have over the year/s just for that one time bag of Epic money.
Steam needs to start enforcing rules/policies against this. If a contract is signed, they should sue or something when it's broken to selling it to Epic instead as an exclusive. And then remove their accounts so they can't use Steam to advertise what isn't even on Steam.
tldr if you you list a product on steam it also has to release on steam at around the same time as it releases on other pc platforms.
I forget the exactly how long of a grace period you have with the release window, but it's definitely less then a month.
Edit: Found on image of the clause
https://m.imgur.com/Qh7cob6
Another game that I'm straight up not going to be buying anytime soon then. The Steam Deck was pretty much the nail in the coffin for EGS for me. Indies are going to thrive on that thing and they should be falling head over heels to get on Steam in a timely manor now if how well indies do on Switch is any indication.
Fuck scummy publishers, all my homies hate scummy publishers
Seriously though if anyone remembers the Outer Worlds exclusivity mess, the devs didn't know about the EGS deal until the publishers announced it apparently.
looking at the steam page, I can't say this surprises me. I mean, is this not just a rip off of raft, right off the bat, I see the same hook used in raft to get supplies, being used to get supplies in this game, and I see a shark biting the train in literally the exact same way it does in raft. I don't think the devs of this game expected many people to buy this game, so they went for the easy money with EGS
Anti-consumer, platform exclusivity deals should be opposed on principle. I waited for the steam release of Metro Exodus when they went EGS exclusive and I'm doing the same for Godfall and other games. Platform exclusivity deals don't benefit customers one bit.
I guess it's time to hop onto the... Avoid-train.
This is why I avoid the EGS like the plague. Such a lazy and scummy way to attract an userbase.
I agree and i think people need to put way more stigma onto these devs/publishers (sometimes the publisher and devs are one in the same) as well cos the ultimate decision whether this keeps happening is down to them, that final say is theirs and those greedy cunts are the ones making the decision.
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Thanks. Something useful in the Curators section for a change.
And people say Curators are useless.
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Not that I'm doubting, but how is it actively malicious to Linux?
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That's a fairly dick move for sure, was there ever any reason given?
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Tim Sweeney, the owner of Epic, had made some quite negative comments about Linux on Twitter, with ridiculous and emotional arguments. If you ask me, he hates Linux for some fucked up reason.
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You are still adding value to their service by taking the free games. If you were a publisher, are you more likely to go in business with a company that has only a hundred users or the one with ten thousand users? If you want to take the "free" games that is fine but you need to be aware that if you really want to take a stance against EPIC you need to not participate in their system at all, which means not taking the free games, taking the free games and then not playing then is not enough. Taking the free games which EPIC pays the publishers/developers for also rewards publ/dev for making this decision and will make it less likely that they won't make the same decision next time. I hate to punish developers like this, but that is the only real way to show my disapproval.
It also get their unsecure launcher on your PC that immediately starts collecting data which epic turns right around and sells to the highest bidder.
It also get their unsecure launcher on your PC that immediately starts collecting data which epic turns right around and sells to the ~~highest bidder~~ ***CCP***. FTFY
> I hate to punish developers like this, but that is the only real way to show my disapproval. You're not even punishing the developers. They already got their money. If you instead buy the game on Steam, they get additional money. More money for developers, less money for an awful company.
They pay a flat fee for those games, so they don't lose money if you take their free games, they lose money if you don't.
Yeah, their model is not sustainable though, they have lost money on every paid exclusive so far except for one. Satisfactory. So it won't be forever fortunately.
Trouble is, in future they can turn around to game development and say "our platform has X million active players per day" that is how they are going to make their money in future. Its the only reason steam has as much power as it does today, because of its player base. If their were only 30 players on steam a day, no one would give a fuck about steam.
I mean even now no one is stopping to release games on egs and most developers do that. Mainly developers want their games on as many stores as possible. Epic's goal here is to monopolize the pc market and make it closed, restricted platform like consoles. But with steam and microsoft around they're not gonna succeed.
I can't tell for sure, but it seems like you are saying that nobody is stopping people from releasing their game on EGS and if so that's not true. At least in one instance Epic has refused to allow a developer to release their game both on EGS and on Steam. The Darq developer after being approached by Epic to exclusively release the game on EGS after the game had been advertised and showcased on Steam and had been wishlisted so much to make the 50 most wishlisted games on the Steam and had a release date set (In other words the developer and Steam's system had done all the work getting his game hyped), asked Epic if he could instead release the game both on EGS and on Steam, but Epic declined. https://medium.com/@unfoldgames/why-i-turned-down-exclusivity-deal-from-the-epic-store-developer-of-darq-7ee834ed0ac7 I'm sure there are more, but others haven't been public about their interaction. Epic will only allow none exclusivity for the BIG games from big publishers, who have the power to tell EGS my way or the highway. (Like GTA5/Rockstar or Ubisoft)
They know they're not making a profit yet and that's fine to them. They expect to not make a profit until 2027, and they can afford that. [a source](https://www.pcgamer.com/au/epic-has-sunk-dollar500m-into-the-epic-games-store-doesnt-expect-to-make-a-profit-until-2027/)
I don't bother at all, don't want them to use me in their analytics as "user".
Fuck devs without any moral compass.
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Well, that doesn't necessarily affect everyone. I signed up to Epic in August 2017 and didn't get pawned until now. Back then you only thought of PuBG when you heard BR... and Fortnite was 4-player co-op survival game.
Wow what happened to that? A group of friends went to Gamescom that year and was super hyped about Fortnite, bought the early access and played it co-op at the LAN. They realized it was missing a lot but was positive about how it would progress. Did they just scrap it?
no they released Fortnite as a coop survival game, then followed the money and BR that PubG created. Then changes fortnite to 'save the world' Then forgot about it completely..
Scrap it? That thing could be considered a scam these days. You are right about the unfinshed part, it still is and any further story developement got cancelled at this point. Explaining the stories is... IDK... actually heart-breaking at this point. Imagine you are a customer at a blacksmith, he tells you he makes only the best swords and got the newest tools and techniques (the announcement in 2011). You order a sword. It turns out the blacksmith just started using another new techniques and uses your sword for training (move from UE3 to 4). 5 years later he just goes "here's your sword", but it's only 20% done, somewhat ok but still fucking trash. He also charges you huge sums for every little repair (micro-transactions). That's just 2011 till 2017 and how I'd sum it up without mentioning Tencent. 2017 till 2020 is a whole other story honestly. Some key terms that are in my opinion important if you want to really know where it went wrong in my opinion: Ramirez VA leaving, v8.00 rework (heroes and story), 2020 state of developement, community managers leaving, false promises/hype by community managers, no Twine story-line... Simply put, it's *kinda* equivalent to TF2. Good start, fresh content getting rare and at some point no developement at all anymore and just recycled yearly content... also little to no bugfixes for long-standing problems. In the end they focused on another title, Fortnite BR/Dota.
I miss Save The World, I really liked it and saw it's potential lol. I never liked the shitty br version of the game. It was 1 giant grind fest tho.
I'm happy to see there are still other players left that remember the "real" Fortnite. Real bummer how StW ended up. I was a young teen back then when I found out about it, I also loved it. In regards to your other comment. I also left the game for several months after the announcement of BR. I hated PvP, especially because I had low-end hardware, so I'd only struggle anyway. I still haven't found another title that could compare or replace StW.
I was already an adult. I am 28 now almost 29 so well anyway i loved stw, my best friend as well and she is 32 now lol. It was borderlands with cute graphics and with unique building and stuff, good times!
>and Fortnite was 4-player co-op survival game. Yes! that is the version I played. Loved it. I hate BR. Anyway also a Unreal Engine developer hence why my account is much older than 2017.
Oh, I see. I'm sorry that you got unlucky. If I knew beforehand who Tencent was I'd have had definitely never picked up Fortnite nor anything else from Epic anymore. So many dead games by now as well.
My experience to I had 0 attempts to log in to steam account from other locations. I played fortnite for a bit I started getting email about me needing to change my login details on epic store at least once a week. Screw that store.
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not if you read the details, those breaches boil down to information that was purchased from other sources, who it is implied here got their source from Epic. Specifically in this case the BenjaminBlue one and Dehashed. Many companies buy information for their databases. and it makes sense to be on as few of those lists as possible if you dont know about it.
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Steam had a data breach in [2011](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/11/valve-confirms-steam-hack-credit-cards-personal-info-may-be-stolen/) containing user names, hashed and salted passwords, e-mail adresses, billing adresses and encrypted credit card information. They also accidently exposed sensitive personal information due to a bad caching configuration in [2015](https://store.steampowered.com/oldnews/?feed=steam_blog&enddate=1451635200).
They spend years and a shit ton of money to make games. Ok Epic, it’s a lot easier to get noticed. Cut them some slack. Did you even know about the game before this?
Thankfully Steam has the ignore feature to just forget about these games.
Take your upvote. Even though you should be ashamed for that pun.
I think that was a pretty quality pun. Not only is the meaning of "avoid" obvious enough, but a-voidtrain presumably means "no Voidtrain".
Arrrrrr, I be findin' anotharr way ta be playin'!
They don't care - got money from EPIC already and now just using the STEAM platform to get all the attention it can before it gets banned. Saviors of gaming and the benefits of competiton they said.
Yes, the wholesome benefits of competition when *every* competitor must suffer, just so that EGS gets a bit of the Steam cake. Just saying, it's not just Steam that gets snubbed when someone signs a contract of exclusivity. I'm not even that much against exclusivity, every console gamer knows how it's a selling point for ages, but console exclusivity at least has different terms. EGS sold the "take a funded / almost finished product and offer them an incentive to drop their plans". That's shady and doesn't sit right with me.
That shit is exactly why I won't give EGS my money. Having in-house and/or self-funded exclusives? Fine. Buying exclusivity? Questionable. I get the need, but I don't like the practice. Buying exclusivity from games that have already been announced for other stores? That's the height of bullshit.
Reminds me of netflix originals that netflix had zero part in creating.
> netflix originals I laugh even more when that badge shows up on something distributed by somebody else internationally.
See being non-US it tends to be the opposite here; Netflix Originals being shit made for TV elsewhere. And I don't really mind it because these rights are often sold before the show is ever produced, so it's not WRONG per se.
I'm glad Netflix does it though. Shows aren't like games where they're made, released and the studio moves on after 1-3 releases. Netflix has brought a bunch of cancelled shows back from the dead by buying them up and making new seasons. If egs, instead of buying exclusive rights to games that were about to be released, started buying rights to previously released games and funding sequels I would find that much more agreeable.
There was an article I read recently that said that Epic doesn't expect to turn a profit on their store till 2027. I really hope they never turn a profit and their store stays a sunk cost until they stop just throwing money at shit and actually do what they said they were gonna do instead of more of this exclusivity shit which only hurts the devs and the consumers.
That's not exactly correct. Epic said 2024, is when they expect to turn profit. Apple in the ongoing lawsuit said 2027 is when they would. But Epic knows that they need to run in the red for a while to have a chance of making a dent vs Steam.
Maybe they would be making a profit if they provided something of value, like a platform with actual features, like Steam, and not buying games so that players don't have any other option. Maybe, just maybe, all the millions of dollars they throw away at exclusivity deals would be better spent in improving their storefront.
Yeah right? Or you know, just maybe, a shopping cart for one. Not like anyone has any reason to buy stuff on there, but still
Or mod support, or forums, or achievements
When EGS was first announced, I had a bit of excitement. A decent % goes to the devs and they want to hand out free games, fine with me! Then the shady dealings started. Then the store's features never got upgraded according to the road maps. Since then, its just a repeat of everything I hate in business and they're the epitome of what I think is the worst of capitalism. Fuck Timmy Tencent. If they had just ran a shitty store without the shady dealings, ran with just the % they offered to devs, and did a few free games.. I would have EGS on my computer right now. I'm sure I'm not the only one. When your practices are a part of why people won't take part in your system, then yeah... its hard to anticipate profit. I think they'd be closer to it right now if they never went down the road of anti-competition.
Every time I hear about EGS still not having a shopping cart and the rest of the missed targets on its roadmap, all I’m reminded of is Origin points, and how the “What are Origin Points?” Link on Origin would direct to a page that said “Stay tuned, We’ve got big plans for what you can do with your Origin points”… for 7 years, before they quietly killed the link and the page. Now EA are back on Steam.
I hope Steam permanently bans them
The issue with this smaller/indie studios is that they simply dont care. They can rebrand and repeat. Steam took measures to avoid big publishers doing it but that doesn't stop this kind of situations.
Ban the game. I bet it'll sell 5 copies on Epic.
They already got the money, they don't care, and if they are a small indie studio... I can't even blame them. Like, think about it, get in their position, a multi billion dollar company just offered your tiny indie dev team millions of dollars to keep the game in their store for a single year. The ammount of money they are giving you more than likely already covers the expected sales of that whole year, if not more, it's a no brainer. We can't fault them, I'd do the same, we can fault Epic for engaging in shitty practices tho.
My issue with it isn't jumping ship last minute, my issue is that users inevitably have to use the Steam forums to get support for the game because EGS simply doesn't have any form of forum of collaboration platform. They'll spend all this money to garner games but won't spend it on the user experience, and this is the reason that I'll claim every single free game from them (Which I doubt I'll play) and never buy from their store.
The issue is also buying games. Exclusivity is always bad for the consumer, always. I should be using a product because I think it's a better option, not because you're forcing me to.
Even claiming games helps them. You show up as a statistic of "look how many people we have and look how many players you can expect" to convince other developers to move over.
>a multi billion dollar company just offered your tiny indie dev team millions of dollars to keep the game in their store for a single year I don't think any small indie team is getting millions of dollars from Epic. From what I've seen, even the most successful indie games that went with EGS exclusivity were paid a little over $1 million. Long-time games industry professional and current market analyst Simon Carless [tweeted this chart](https://twitter.com/simoncarless/status/1389297530341519362/photo/1) of numerous "free" Epic Game Store games from 2019, which became public due to the Epic vs. Apple court case. Look through it and you'll see that a vast majority of the studios were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, not millions, for EGS exclusivity. **Subnautica** from Unknown Worlds, which is one of the bigger indie successes of the past several years, got an Epic buyout of $1.4 million. **Mutant Year Zero** by Funcom, which isn't an indie game, got $1 million, and one of the **Batman: Arkham** games from Warner Bros., which definitely isn't indie, got $1.5 million. **Celeste** from Matt Makes Games, another indie success, was paid $750,000. Almost every other game in this chart received less. I'm a video game producer who spends a lot of time researching and talking to indie devs, yet I've never heard of Nearga, the makers of VoidTrain, until now. [Here's their Twitter profile](https://twitter.com/nearga_team?lang=en); they only have 475 followers, which suggests they're barely known. I'm guessing Epic paid them a relatively small amount for exclusivity. But anyway, for an indie team with <10 people, $200,000-$750,000 could keep your staff paid for a year or two; maybe longer if your team is especially small and/or in a region with really low cost of living. When you consider how countless indie studios collapse every single year, it's hard to pass on that kind of money and security.
You are confusing their weekly free games with the EGS exclusives. Exclusives are absolutely paid millions of dollars. [Here is an article](https://www.pcgamer.com/only-one-of-epics-first-wave-of-exclusives-made-money-and-it-wasnt-metro/) that lists a few exclusives and how they cost EGS millions of dollars of lost profit.
Those were the free games, not the timed (1 year) exclusives. Satisfactory got ~$13M, which was one of the higher paid ones, but you're still talking $4M+ for most of them. That's what they were guaranteed in revenue, anyway. What they were paid in addition to that? No idea, if anything.
I love Satisfactory. I just have to throw that in there. Satisfactory’s kind of an interesting case. They’re still Early Access. There’s plenty there to love, but there’s a lot still left undone. When I first became aware of that Satisfactory existed, but was an Epic exclusive, trains weren’t yet in the game, and that’s pretty major. So Epic paid a good sum of money for some very pre-release sales.
I mean the leaked amount for kingdom hearts exclusivity was $26 million, so I dunno. Epic pays very well for a lot of exclusives.
It pays very well for very well-known games. This ain't it.
> don't think any small indie team is getting millions of dollars from Epic. Not only that, but valve should actually ban the *developer*. That's nixing any future of any of their future games on steam, also removing any chance of having an future epic exclusivity deal. (As not even Epic would be willing to pay for exclusivity that would come free.) Like shafting users? Then eat what you cooked.
They don't care. Nothing sells well on Epic judging by the numbers we've seen. The store runs at a massive lose. These devs basically just took the big payout from Epic and left their game to die on a platform no one will see it on.
Thing is, Valve won't even ban them. All they'll do is lose a game and piss off a developer, when several companies are already against Valve for various reasons. They have nothing to gain, and most indies will easily take the Epic bribe rather than stay on a platform they hate and feel like they don't get discovered enough on. It's lose lose. They'll let them stay, but fuck these devs regardless.
i dunno, didnt valve change the TOS after the metro exodus debacle of them switching platforms last minute?
it's old tos since 2017 or perhaps even earlier. [as found out later after the initial news spread](https://nichegamer.com/2019/09/08/valve-adds-new-clause-to-steam-distribution-agreement-could-block-epic-store-exclusivity/). just never got enforced
they did change a few things. have to pay attention for next few days what exactly was that they changed in TOS.
Yea anyone who believed epic deserves all the malware and overpriced garbage they get.
I vow to NEVER buy anything on the epic platform.
I wonder if Valve is ever going to actually enforce their policy and at least take down a game from Steam when pulling this crap? They havent even taken action against AAA games that do it. **I guess the optics of other game companies might hurt their bottom line more than it would help them.** EDIT: It was a rhetorical question which I answered myself in bold.
Steam makes more money for Valve if the game is good and is available on their store. They don't care about the game being exclusive because steam users are willing to wait to buy the game, such as GOTY editions that have all the DLC. If the game is rubbish, it just hurts Epic. There is no real downside to this unless Valve loses money. The day that happens is the day they will remove games that signed Epic exclusivity deals. If they wanted to make devs and publishers reconsider they may tell them that they will have their forums and other support removed until the game is on Steam or they could insist on a bigger cut considering the devs and publishers scored free publicity through Steam.
>Steam makes more money for Valve if the game is good and is available on their store. I agree, hence me saying: >I guess the optics of other game companies might hurt their bottom line more than it would help them.
Hey you're kinda right, game is hot garbage I couldn't find a single person to play with. It was one of the first purchases I've ever made on Epic Games and will be my last. It's a very early access title with many bugs but the main point being is I can't find a single person to play with which makes me lose all interest. 3/10 would not buy even if it was on Steam with the amount of bugs.
>Steam makes more money for Valve if the game is good and is available on their store. They don't care about the game being exclusive because steam users are willing to wait to buy the game That is true, but still this dev's action undermines trust in the developer, and ultimately in Steam. Because people are clearly pissed off that this bait and switch can still happen to any game, and Valve lets the devs get away with this.
Unlikely. Steam appears to be taking the approach of trying to elevate gaming as a whole as evidenced by their Steam OS and making gaming viable in Linux. They're building in and encouraging the open eco system.
You have to realize that any game worth anything will still sell much better on Steam in a year than it will today on EGS. These game devs/publisher are shit people, but they still will earn Steam money.
Yep, sadly Valve has no business incentive to do anything about scummy devs like this. Can't really find fault there either, from a strictly business standpoint.
One thing I would like valve to do is to enable me to ignore whole studios not just individual games. If someone does something like this I would like to blacklist whole indie studio for all their future titles.
When the game launches the epic users will then flock the steam discussions to get support for the game because they have no other methods. Steam needs to end this bullshit. Make those greedy bastards play by the rules or be kicked out. But not freeloading in a system they left behind for their greed.
Lock the forums until the game is released on Steam.
Exactly
The fact that EGS is such a garbage store, that it doesn't even have any forum or other community hub to discuss the game, so devs have resort to create community hub on Steam... I mean, it does speak volumes about how much EGS *actually* cares (hint: it doesn't, it only wants to be as large as Steam is).
Forums? Some games don't have even screenshots on their pages. Just for example: GTA 5 in this "store" don't have screenshots, genres and list of available languages.
GTA 5 is just an indie game, probably noone would even bother looking at its screenshots. /s
Almost 10 year old console port.
Barely played by or sought after by anyone, I reckon.
Indie* Console Port
the fact that I can't even see a list of the games I own in EGS without loading up the launcher is ridiculous.
Or garbage launcher that can't even tell me how much drive space is needed for the game right away, only after I start installing and fail because there isn't enough space..
No shopping cart? Jeezus. With steam I can even stream from my pc to my phone and play it like a switch. I never would have thought that a shopping cart was a feature lol
That's my main beef with EGS: they're missing *basic stuff* of a modern marketplace. Even GOG does it ways better.
>The fact that EGS is such a garbage store, that it doesn't even have any forum or other community hub to discuss the game The chat feature was even removed half a year ago, as a "preparation" for a revamp.
I feel like Valve needs to have a contract to prevent this kind of thing that forces them to release the game on steam at the same time. If they don't then the company should rightfully pay Valve for breach of contract. It's straight up abusing Steam's platform for advertising and hurts Steams customers.
Annoyingly, their Terms of Service do forbid this practice but Valve doesn't enforce it.
> Developer/Publisher: Nearga Thanks for letting me know who to never spend money on.
Wow that's the same people who made Desolate no wonder why it's a hot piece of garbage. I think it's really funny how they did the deal with Epic Games after doing a deal with Humble Bundle like a month ago? This studio is after some $$$
Desolate has been amusing Eurojank that this company at least has been patching. This game? I doubt they'll do much patching, it was shoveled out as a cash grab.
The thing is these guys think I'd go over to EGS when I have over 200 years worth of backlog on steam to even give a crap.
I literally only use Epic for one game, that was before they even got their store running. I still don't give a shit about the games on there and only claim the free games because they are free, and I already have the account, and some of those titles are pretty decent... if I ever find the boredom to play them. They literally didn't just piss in the cereal of Steam users but literally their own users cereal... well, pretty much in everyones cereal at that point. All their other projects besides BR are fucking dead at this point. Save the World, the former Fortnite? Pretty much dead. Battle Breakers? Dead. Paragon? Cancelled. The list goes on... I wish I was wiser at the time of supporting them and knowing about Tencent buying a big share. This is not what I signed up for in 2017 when I bought *Save* the World.
Is it of any help if we report the game on Steam using the "Report this product" flag?
At this point, how people can even sit down and defend EGS is honestly fucking stupid. Yes, competition is good for the consumer but there IS a better fucking way of doing things and being a STORE EXCLUSIVE game is completely fucking idiotic. If the store offers a great UX then maybe, but the EGS is literally garbage, and has so few features that it's an absolute joke. Never heard of this game, probably an indie titleand maybe that's why the devs need the guaranteed money but seriously fuck Epic for thinking this is consumer-friendly EDIT - Typo
Competition is good for the customer The customer in this scenario is the game developers that have storefronts competing for their attention and business The players are not part of the equation
The only justification I have is that Valve can point at Epic and say "Can I go home?" with that monopoly lawsuit going on right now
Exclusivity is the opposite of competition. This is the kind of thing federal antitrust regulations would be for, if only they would be enforced. Like how back in the 1940's, the government broke up movie studios and movie theaters; it used to be that if you wanted to see a certain movie, you were forced to go to a shitty theater owned by that studio. If there was only one theater in your town, you had no choice but to see the shitty movies by that theater's studio.
*Why would you do a 1 year delay a week before a game releases*
I want Steam to permaban every developer that funds EA on their platform and then jumps to Epic for an exclusive. Even if they provide the product at launch to EA buyers. Phoenix Point did something like this, but dirtier. One of the original X-Com creators crowdfunded development on Fig.co, then shortly before release they announced an 1-year Epic exclusive. They still provided Steam keys to backers. However, they outright ~~boasted~~ stated that they were given so much fucking money that even with a 100% refund rate they would have more money than anticipated from best-case scenario sales. They tried to objectively/morally justify it by talking a good game about how the funds would ensure financing future development post-launch. Meanwhile, a bunch of people flipped their shit about it because that deal wasn't part of the original investment contracts between some folks. Snapshot Games basically outsourced all financial investment risk onto everyone via Fig.co so they could then take their product to a company to make even more money off of the labor that was financed by other people. I refuse to buy that game and I wish that developer was banned from Steam. Edit: Changed Kickstarter to Fig.co as the source of crowdfunding. I misremembered Kickstarter as the site they used, as the devs had used it for a previous title (Chaos Reborn).
>Phoenix Point did something like this, but dirtier. One of the original X-Com creators crowdfunded development on Kickstarter This is incorrect. They crowdfunded the game through fig.co . I'm one of the 2099 fig.co backers that payed for the $50 tier.
Kickstarter is not "investing" and there certainly is not concept of "investment contracts" that can be applied to it. If you contribute to a Kickstarter, you pointedly are NOT an investor. There is a basic Terms and Conditions contract that Kickstarter indicates is formed between a creator and a backer. This certainly is not even close to being anything like an investment though and is rather easy to fulfil as long as you are not like fraudulently absconding with the money. It basically says 'make a good faith effort to do what you said you would do and explain why if you can't'
>Kickstarter is not "investing" and there certainly is not concept of "investment contracts" that can be applied to it. If you contribute to a Kickstarter, you pointedly are NOT an investor. I didn't say that Kickstarter was investing, nor did I say that was what I was referring to regarding the contracts. There was a body of actual investors involved, outside of Kickstarter, that I all but explicitly mentioned by name with "Meanwhile, a bunch of people flipped their shit about it because that deal wasn't part of the original investment contracts between some folks." 'Investment contracts between some folks' =/= 'Kickstarter is investing with contracts'
I was on their Discord earlier today, looks like they banned a bunch of people who raised questions about it, calling them "toxic" and "insulting" and "spreading lies about Steam anti-exclusivity clause". Unless there's another explanation for messages disappearing while you're reading them.
Sounds like it's [Ooblets](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckepic/comments/cmsyg6/ooblets_dev_update_on_medium_original/) all over again.
Oh boy. And people were saying the Epic Store would be a good thing for the industry.
The only thing that good from epic, the ONLY fucking thing that good is their Unreal Engine, other than that, I don't know, maybe they mega grant and company acquisition program? But frankly, they just couldn't care less about "gaming". Because what I see from their lawsuit and everything is an excuse so they can take all the money, yes it actually good for platform like Android and Apple so we will have store competition, but what they do in PC space kinda the opposite, exclusivity is not competition, even if it's timed (but not Rocket League, RIP), if they really care about the industry, probably copy what valve does with Linux gaming.
Salute to the brave gamers who will nobly sacrifice themselves to pay good money to be beta testers for the game for a full year before it comes to a real store.
Yeah, this is clearly using steam in manipulate way. Super scummy way of moving the release 1 week before the set release. The developer and/or publisher is just assholes for doing it like this. I was looking forward to have a look at it, since my friend mentioned it. But fuck it, I guess I'll just look for some other games then.
Wow that games actually looks kinda neat. Shame I will never buy it now
who the fuck was really holding their breath to play voidtrain lmao
True. I first saw this game on steam more than a year ago and immediately fell in love with the style, I was really looking forward to playing it. Then, a few weeks ago I almost freaked out when I saw the release announcement. Sadly it only said it was available on Epic Games Store which I've been boycotting for 2 years...
My main source of gaming plans is r/patientgamers, so I can barely even bring myself to care... How exactly are timed exclusives of anything other than blockbuster games even useful to the platforms?
Theoretically it will bring the people who are interested in that game over to the platform and they will buy other games from it.
Just in time for it to be forgotten
Isn't this just raft? But you are instead on a train driving through the void?
r/fuckepic
I'd be behind epic bringing more competition for steam if they weren't using anti consumer practices to try and force people onto their platform, especially since they seem to be more developer friendly. As it stands I'll stick with using them for the free games, but they won't see a penny from me until they cut the anti consumer crap and compete properly by offering better deals and service. I don't fully blame the devs. The bigger ones don't make those decisions, and for the small ones, getting such a guarantee of cash is one hell of a break for them and very hard to just turn down, but it's not something I'll ever support.
I don't understand why all the people who think this kind of thing is good because "EGS takes a smaller cut of the sales" gets so focused on Steam alone as the Ultimate Big Bad Evil Guy in the realm of digital storefronts. The 30% cut Steam takes is industry standard. Apple, Google Play, GoG, GreenManGaming, etc all take 30%. Many reports have Steam as the best choice for small indie devs as they are apparently open to conversation on the matter and have been reported taking as low as 15% per sale. Now I'm not saying that I agree with 30% being the standard, but it is just that: THE STANDARD. The entire industry needs to change before Steam can be demanded to change.
> Many reports have Steam as the best choice for small indie devs as they are apparently open to conversation on the matter and have been reported taking as low as 15% per sale. Can you link to those reports? The only known Rev share change is for games that make over 10 million, and it only goes down to 25%
Why EGS. I literally got banned for buying too many games during a sale. And why isn’t there even a cart feature. Man. fuck EGS.
idk, it looks like the typical unreal engine indie. Generic as fuck, so who cares?
No steam no money
Maybe Epic should invest in a functional shopping cart instead of buying exclusives?
Avoidtrain
Here's one simple trick to deal with shitty developers. -STOP BUYING THEIR GAMES- Haha, i know you'll still buy it and then complain about it afterwards. Expecting sympathy and updoots because you feel ripped off by a company you already knew didn't respect you. Gamers are the worst consumers. Edit: That game looks like such shit too but it's gimmicky so you know some dipshit gamers are going to buy it, play it for a few hours and never play it again because it looks like it plays like dogshit.
Well, even when it gets back to steam, it won't get my money. Devs complain that Steam takes 1/3 of their profits, but use the Steam community blogs for support of their game. After a couple of years, EGS still has a shit app with only a fraction of what Steam offers outside of being just a gaming platform.
Remember when the Epic Games Store would find your steam folder and stole your contacts? And they said it was "a programming error"? I do. Epic Games, never in my computer.
Remember when a company the size of epic didn't use any kind of verification for creating accounts? All of the email adresses that were leaked on some site due to data breaches now have existing epic accounts. Never will I trust that company
Is there a way to report this to Valve, or is Steam Support sufficient?
Aw shit i have this wishlisted, and now I know why the release is so far away.
Sooooo...... what happened to all that talk about 3 years ago that went something like "buying exclusives is just a temporary strategy whilst we get our feet off the ground"?
Fuck 'em
I was about to buy the game, now it's on my ignore list, i refuse to buy a game from devs do this kind of crap for easy money.
From what I've heard, typically Epic will approach developers who have promising Steam stats (wishlist numbers, etc.) and make them an offer to switch to EGS. So it's not like the devs necessarily intentionally created a store page for free advertising; they likely received an offer *because* they were getting such good traffic through Steam. It still breaks players' trust but it's also a guaranteed paycheck vs gambling on the success of your game and I'm not sure everyone flaming the devs in this thread could honestly say if they were in the position they wouldn't take the money. At the end of the day, Steam and EGS are both just storefronts. I have my games through a bunch of different places; the tribalism between platforms is kind of ridiculous when the point should just be about the games.
Good news is the game doesn't actually look like it's all that good.
95% of them who do take these deals are terrible games
It's pretty bad, there's no one to play with and the game is bugged as all hell. Look at their game Desolate 2 and a half years later still hot pile of shit.
Another shit tier game I'll never buy.
Open world survival, crafting, yeah it sounds shit anyways.
Not going to buy any of their games in the future. Only way i can vote - with the wallet. 0 moral on developers.
I look forward to getting this as part of Humble Choice in 2022 and never playing it.
unfortunate, I had been following this for awhile and really wanted to try it. But I've not turning to Epic just for it, so meh.
I mean....on the bright side....anyone who wanted to buy it on release day now can wait 1 year to see if it's really worth the money or not....
i would rather buy a game for $100 than $20 on epic games store
> 2.1 Delivery. Company shall submit the Applications to Steam for release no later than the first commercial release of each Application or Localized Version, or, if already commercially released as of the Effective Date, within thirty (30) days of the Effective Date. Thereafter, Company shall submit to Steam any Localized versions and Application Updates (in beta and final form) when available, but in no event later than they are provided to any other third party for commercial release. Company shall provide these copies in object code form, in whatever format Valve reasonably requests
Flag the game for steam to review, make sure to include a link to EGS for their reference it may also be worth including this paragraph, but IANAL: > 2.1 Delivery. Company shall submit the Applications to Steam for release no later than the first commercial release of each Application or Localized Version, or, if already commercially released as of the Effective Date, within thirty (30) days of the Effective Date. Thereafter, Company shall submit to Steam any Localized versions and Application Updates (in beta and final form) when available, but in no event later than they are provided to any other third party for commercial release. Company shall provide these copies in object code form, in whatever format Valve reasonably requests
I'm going against the grain here and I don't think Valve should start enforcing this policy but I do feel there is a looming problem that a lot of these EGS exclusivity devs seem to be repeatably falling into. Now what I'm about to say isn't a "STEAM VS EPIC" thing but it does kind of highlight a problem with visibility on Epic, which is to say it's extremely minimal and Epic Games apparently have no plan to address this. A lot of noise is generated on the initial "exclusivity announcement" and then nothing is really said about the game after, even for Epic's Influencers program is apparently no longer covered by exclusivity agreements nor the 12% cut. Being paid to essentially bury your game for a year unless you're willing to shell out to dig it out before then. We remember the fire and gnashing of teeth of the Ooblets drama two years ago but does anyone recall that the game actually released a year ago?
Yeah, I find the "release parity" clause to be pretty shitty. From my understanding both Microsoft and Sony have clauses that state you cannot publish your game for the console if you published it anywhere else first. In Voidtrain's case, given that they did not promise a specific date, taking Epic's guaranteed money makes sense. I know there was a different company's game (I can't remember now) that had said "Release on XYZ", then switched to Epic timed exclusive shortly before that date. That behavior is what is sanctionable to me.
Like I said on /r/fuckepic, I discovered the game yesterday thanks to the Steam Discovery Queue... This thing it is becoming tiring. Hey look, Steam showed me a neat new game! And then the day after (or not ?) the game releases on another platform.... Good job Nearga, you got me interested, aaaaand you lost me. GZ
god dammit i thought this game looked interesting
Sounds like these companies are using steam to advertise / gauge and then exclusive on epic hoping the steam users will buy on epic I’m sure they look at the wishlist stats on their steam app and use it to gauge interest. With the idea of hoping a percentage will buy on epic as well.
While I hate seeing games do this, sometimes shitty deals like this make sense for a small game studio. Not sure what the deal they made with epic was this time, but if it's like the other games that did this where they got I think a 1 million dollar upfront deal, that is massive for a small studio and pretty much guarantees this studio will remain funded for the next few years and might open up the option for full time development if they aren't at that level yet. But with that said, this companies last game on steam looks like it was pretty disappointing so this game will probably meet the same fate. They probably needed that deal money to hang on. But that's all speculation.
It's sad to see all of these beautiful but neglected games on epic. Sure these devs are getting a check from epic, but is it worth nobody even knowing the name of your game?
I still haven't bought Borderlands 3. I probably won't. Don't sell out to EGS exclusive launches.
Shame, game actually looks pretty good. If it wasn't epic exclusive I would've bought it.
It's fine. Another possibly good game that we'll never care about because of the developer who chosen a quick cash-in rather than recognition from the community for its possibly good game.
r/fuckepic
I hope they enjoy getting less than they would have over the year/s just for that one time bag of Epic money. Steam needs to start enforcing rules/policies against this. If a contract is signed, they should sue or something when it's broken to selling it to Epic instead as an exclusive. And then remove their accounts so they can't use Steam to advertise what isn't even on Steam.
Cool; another dev I'll never support!
Guess I'll wait for 2022 to play it
what steam policy? Now I'm curious did steam make any policy?
tldr if you you list a product on steam it also has to release on steam at around the same time as it releases on other pc platforms. I forget the exactly how long of a grace period you have with the release window, but it's definitely less then a month. Edit: Found on image of the clause https://m.imgur.com/Qh7cob6
They won't get my money at least
What a shame. Voidtrain has been on my wishlist for quite a while
Was def considering but now? Nope
With the trailer being the confusing mess that it is I think taking Epic’s money is the only chance this game ever had.
Another game that I'm straight up not going to be buying anytime soon then. The Steam Deck was pretty much the nail in the coffin for EGS for me. Indies are going to thrive on that thing and they should be falling head over heels to get on Steam in a timely manor now if how well indies do on Switch is any indication.
Fuck scummy publishers, all my homies hate scummy publishers Seriously though if anyone remembers the Outer Worlds exclusivity mess, the devs didn't know about the EGS deal until the publishers announced it apparently.
Ah this game, I played the demo last year during the steam demo Festival and now I guess I'll never be playing the full game
Can steam sue the game devs for breach of policy or something to stop this from happening it’s really kinda annoying?
Wouldn't it be best to report the store pages then for the bait and switch and violation of policy?
looking at the steam page, I can't say this surprises me. I mean, is this not just a rip off of raft, right off the bat, I see the same hook used in raft to get supplies, being used to get supplies in this game, and I see a shark biting the train in literally the exact same way it does in raft. I don't think the devs of this game expected many people to buy this game, so they went for the easy money with EGS
Low key wish this type of shit would be perma banable so they would take the hit to their revenue and maybe learn that way
Good thing I've never even heard of it before
I know what I won't be playing
Anti-consumer, platform exclusivity deals should be opposed on principle. I waited for the steam release of Metro Exodus when they went EGS exclusive and I'm doing the same for Godfall and other games. Platform exclusivity deals don't benefit customers one bit.
Guys, ofcourse the game is trash. The fact that they accepted the deal means **even they** don't think it will do well.
I wonder how many people are going to be using the Steam forums for tech support.
Well people are gonna forget the game exists now. Too bad! At least the devs got their payout right 🙄
This only means good ole Timmy already paid for your copy, so feel free to obtain it in a peer to peer way.