youtu.be
Lets face facts, Steam has been a monopoly for a while and their lack of concern for their own storefront is what is bringing this on.
People cheer on Steam as being pro-consumer, but Steam made most of their changes because they were forced to. They are used to operating as a Monopoly. Monopolies are not in the interest of the consumer, period.
That being said, at this point, I don't think anyone should download the epic launcher unless they want to play Fortnite. It is a terrible launcher, it has had extensive security issues, and I don't think anyone should trust it. Epic to me is a one hit wonder at this point. Fortnite Battle Royale was an experiment to entice people to get into its real game: Fortnite Save the World. It turned out what was supposed to be a side show turned into the main game. Epic up until this point has been awash with cash from a product that wasn't supposed to be this successful. Tim Sweeney to me seems like a guy who won the lottery more than a business genius.
The fact is that this exclusives thing has come with a cost:
https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/03/epic-to-continue-game-store-exclusives/
To those of you wanting Epic to implode, it is no longer outside of the realm of possibility. It really never was. It was always a fluke that they were this successful, never was it an inevitability.
This section of a recent Laymen Gaming Video towards the end though does ask a very rational question that most Steam defenders are not asking:
Negative Reviews, Piracy and Boycotts: Epic Still Doesn't Care
Lamon Gamon!!! We all suspected Borderlands 3 would be an Epic exclusive.. and yep.. it's an Epic Exclusive.
Where is Valve right now? Are they fighting as hard for their playerbase as their playerbase is fighting for them?
There are lots of reasons why Valve could be quiet, but I wonder if they are quiet because they are hoping to just go back to the status quo from before and don't think that fighting for their players or developers is really worth it. Valve is talking about maybe using some tools to curtail the review bomb issues, but they are not working on developer percentages. They are not doing much until their is an outcry about clearing out garbage titles. All the other issues that made people upset with them will still be there and likely at the end of it, Valve may very well change nothing at all.
Could the reason for Valve's silence be that they simply take their customers and third party developers for granted?
At this point, maybe the consumer should be accepting of multiple launchers for the games they want to ensure they always have a choice and are not taken for granted. Right now it really looks like Valve takes it customers for granted. At this point, maybe all of us should be looking for a 3rd option in this Epic vs Steam fight. That may mean separating our social gaming aspects from our gaming commerce aspects. It may mean multiple launchers. It may mean having to accept some inconvenience for the ability to never be taken for granted. Is that worth something?
I feel as if this is A copypasta for some reason ?Lets face facts, Steam has been a monopoly for a while and their lack of concern for their own storefront is what is bringing this on.
People cheer on Steam as being pro-consumer, but Steam made most of their changes because they were forced to. They are used to operating as a Monopoly. Monopolies are not in the interest of the consumer, period.
That being said, at this point, I don't think anyone should download the epic launcher unless they want to play Fortnite. It is a terrible launcher, it has had extensive security issues, and I don't think anyone should trust it. Epic to me is a one hit wonder at this point. Fortnite Battle Royale was an experiment to entice people to get into its real game: Fortnite Save the World. It turned out what was supposed to be a side show turned into the main game. Epic up until this point has been awash with cash from a product that wasn't supposed to be this successful. Tim Sweeney to me seems like a guy who won the lottery more than a business genius.
The fact is that this exclusives thing has come with a cost:
https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/03/epic-to-continue-game-store-exclusives/
To those of you wanting Epic to implode, it is no longer outside of the realm of possibility. It really never was. It was always a fluke that they were this successful, never was it an inevitability.
This section of a recent Laymen Gaming Video towards the end though does ask a very rational question that most Steam defenders are not asking:
Negative Reviews, Piracy and Boycotts: Epic Still Doesn't Care
Lamon Gamon!!! We all suspected Borderlands 3 would be an Epic exclusive.. and yep.. it's an Epic Exclusive.
Where is Valve right now? Are they fighting as hard for their playerbase as their playerbase is fighting for them?
There are lots of reasons why Valve could be quiet, but I wonder if they are quiet because they are hoping to just go back to the status quo from before and don't think that fighting for their players or developers is really worth it. Valve is talking about maybe using some tools to curtail the review bomb issues, but they are not working on developer percentages. They are not doing much until their is an outcry about clearing out garbage titles. All the other issues that made people upset with them will still be there and likely at the end of it, Valve may very well change nothing at all.
Could the reason for Valve's silence be that they simply take their customers and third party developers for granted?
At this point, maybe the consumer should be accepting of multiple launchers for the games they want to ensure they always have a choice and are not taken for granted. Right now it really looks like Valve takes it customers for granted. At this point, maybe all of us should be looking for a 3rd option in this Epic vs Steam fight. That may mean separating our social gaming aspects from our gaming commerce aspects. It may mean multiple launchers. It may mean having to accept some inconvenience for the ability to never be taken for granted. Is that worth something?
I feel that epic is worth a chance, I'm also not confident about their future, but if the people making the decisions over there have two brain cells to rub together they'll start addressing the major issues people have with the platform before 2021 and we'll end up with something better out of it. The thing about Uplay and GFWL etc. is that there's really no incentive for consumers to use them over steam. Yes people should encourage competition, but I think the only way for that to happen is to do pretty much what Epic is doing and aggressively pursue business relations with big players in the market, exclusivity, free games, etc. Nobody uses Uplay or Origin for anything but their publishers' respective first party titles. Your platform has to have something over Steam to be an actual equal competitor rather than just a sideshow where you don't have to give Valve a cut of your profits from first party titles. I was big on GOG Galaxy when it first came out but it really has very little to offer over Steam, I still buy games from GOG but it obviously isn't on equal footing competitively with Steam.
You have serious issues with reading comprehension, friend.
You're talking about Fallout 76, right? I don't really think 76's failures can be put down to the launcher they decided to ship it on. I promise you TESVI will only be on Bethesda's own platform.
Supply doesn't apply to digital downloads. Demand won't change because of more clients on the computers of a finite number of PC gamers. The competition thing is true enough but irrelevant to anyone but shareholders.
If fucking profitability actually made games cheaper or better in quality explain the output of any of major publishers in the last 6 month. Fallout 76 is a masterpiece because of all the versions of Skyrim us gamers consumed, right? Maybe you should take Econ 102 or just stop trying to apply an overly simplified model of the market economy to the real world.
I misspoke on supply and demand. I agree with you that the cost of the development doesn't make games good, I only play cheap ass games like OSU or counter strike source. But mainstream audiences care about the production value of these singleplayer cinematic experiences like metro exodus which is why they are so expensive to make. Since the companies that make these mainstream titles are competing against eachother they will have to put more money into the games if less of the money from the sales go to the launcher. Obviously in the dream world all games would be free and developed collaboratively as a hobby like mods are, but the real world doesn't look like that and you can still play cheap ass games like OSU or Touhou Project if you want to. The competition that the epic launcher brings positively impacts the mainstream gamer, it's kindof hilarious how they are shooting themselves in the foot because of blind fanboyism towards steam.Supply doesn't apply to digital downloads. Demand won't change because of more clients on the computers of a finite number of PC gamers. The competition thing is true enough but irrelevant to anyone but shareholders.
"Even if the platforms only compete for publishing rights and therefore give devs more money the devs are still competing with eachother which will inevitably lead to higher cost higher quality games or cheaper games "
