Epic Games General Thread - Its time to talk about what the AAA gaming industry does not understand about the PC console.

[KingofNothing]

I didn't realize the Halo collection was out already. I never had any of the Xbox's so this will be a good time to see what the fuss is with that franchise and hopefully the online community stays healthy. But Epic has to be kicking themselves for missing out on cashing in from one of Microsoft's star franchises because they couldn't play nice with one of the biggest publishers for 5 minutes since they were in a rush to take on Valve

I know Sweeney has plans to procure more exclusives, but hopefully any devs worth their salt knows that the backlash and the death of whatever goodwill they will generate is not worth the dosh.

I think the best way to avoid most of the harsh backlash is to be a small team that wasn't kickstarted and just outright admit you did it because the payout is really good and need the money to guarantee you don't shut down. Some people will still be mad, but most will accept that answer if not begrudgingly because everyone understands being one wrong step from being on the street. Shit out of luck if you're a big company or crowdfunded game though. Those groups just have to live with big black mark on their rep if they take these deals.

It's fucking dead. I was watching a streamer play it yesterday, but not for long, and when I went to watch him today, he was playing XCOM 2, and as people asked why he wasn't playing Phoenix Point, he said the game was bland, felt soulless, and was just plain shit.

Guess it was a good idea for them to take that payout then. I wonder how things are gonna be for them going forward now, backers won't forget getting sold out and they're probably be back to raise up hell again if the team tries to put out another game.

 

[Tanner Glass]

Guess it was a good idea for them to take that payout then. I wonder how things are gonna be for them going forward now, backers won't forget getting sold out and they're probably be back to raise up hell again if the team tries to put out another game.

Potential backers would also wonder why they would need to crowdfund after fully funding Phoenix Point + Sales from Phoenix Point + $5,000,000 cash from Epic. As Phoenix Point was made with $750,000 - they should be able to get out the next ~5 or 6 games just from PP profit alone.

People are going to be very skeptical and if the next game isn't good, it's going to be bad for the studio.

 

[Disc]

Also, Rocket League looks to be starting a shitstorm.

People actually think the new monetisation scheme is WORSE than the old one. The way it works is this:

When you’d previously get a chest, you’ll instead get a blueprint. This is essentially equivalent to them rolling the chest beforehand for you, so you know what you’re getting if you ‘open’ it. Building the blueprint, or buying things from the in-game store fortnite style, requires in-game currency bought with real world blah blah blah.

Of course, they promptly decided to see how much they could get away with, and started doing micro transaction scam routine no. 3, aka “the generous price discount”. Start with stupidly high prices, scam as long as you can, then peel back. The usual scumbag stuff.

 

[Disc]

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Okay, sorry for the doublepost, but this ABSOLUTELY deserves a post all it's own.

So, Shenmue 3 got a launch trailer. Now, if you looked at the views, you'd think it was doing really well. It's got 12.8m views - 4m more than Half Life Alyx's announcement trailer. Shenmue's launch trailer was posted on the 20th, Alyx on the 21st.

There's just one problem - there is less than 2k likes on the shenmue trailer, at time of writing. Half Life Alyx has 443k.

https://archive.li/y8SC0

HMMMMMMMMMMM.

While I'm at it, the Fortnite Chapter 2 trailer has a similar number of likes to Alyx, but has 5 times the number of views. Other Fortnite videos seem more-or-less proportional to Alyx.

Those are on Fortnite's page, which seems relatively popular. Meanwhile, the epic games store youtube page is all but dead. The only other notable video from them recently is them announcing a Stormtrooper skin for Fortnite. 2.7 million views... less than 5k likes. For reference, the same video posted to the main Fortnite channel got 5.8 million views and 145k likes... which isn't even close to matching Alyx's ratio UNTIL you subtract about 2.7 million views and 5k likes.

This is truly terrible astroturfing, Epic. I expected much better from you.

 

[Secret Asshole]

So remember when I said the MC collection curbed stomped Epic? Guess what game came to Steam today: Read Dead Redemption 2. Apparently its plagued by launch issues, but is the second best seller on Steam with 0 payment to Take2 so Steam has already made a profit on the game with no investment or capital diverged from other sources. Its mind boggling. Also, Steam Spy estimates that Halo: MC has sold between 1 to 2 million units. That's insane.

A failed zerg rush against an already fortified opponent.

I mean, basically they're spear men getting mowed down by heavy machine guns and .50 cals. Its just a slaughter.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Okay, sorry for the doublepost, but this ABSOLUTELY deserves a post all it's own.

So, Shenmue 3 got a launch trailer. Now, if you looked at the views, you'd think it was doing really well. It's got 12.8m views - 4m more than Half Life Alyx's announcement trailer. Shenmue's launch trailer was posted on the 20th, Alyx on the 21st.

There's just one problem - there is less than 2k likes on the shenmue trailer, at time of writing. Half Life Alyx has 443k.

https://archive.li/y8SC0

HMMMMMMMMMMM.

While I'm at it, the Fortnite Chapter 2 trailer has a similar number of likes to Alyx, but has 5 times the number of views. Other Fortnite videos seem more-or-less proportional to Alyx.

Those are on Fortnite's page, which seems relatively popular. Meanwhile, the epic games store youtube page is all but dead. The only other notable video from them recently is them announcing a Stormtrooper skin for Fortnite. 2.7 million views... less than 5k likes. For reference, the same video posted to the main Fortnite channel got 5.8 million views and 145k likes... which isn't even close to matching Alyx's ratio UNTIL you subtract about 2.7 million views and 5k likes.

This is truly terrible astroturfing, Epic. I expected much better from you.

That REEKS of fucking desperation. Sure, you can get those fake views to get it higher in the metrics, but if nobody is actually WATCHING the thing it doesn't matter, now does it? Also Half-Life Alyx for VR looks fucking SICK. Almost makes me want to buy a VR headset from Valve. Almost. Tony Todd in it too? Amazing.

Potential backers would also wonder why they would need to crowdfund after fully funding Phoenix Point + Sales from Phoenix Point + $5,000,000 cash from Epic. As Phoenix Point was made with $750,000 - they should be able to get out the next ~5 or 6 games just from PP profit alone.

People are going to be very skeptical and if the next game isn't good, it's going to be bad for the studio.

Oh, that stuido's name is dogshit. The reason AAA games can do this is that they're big enough. And if their game turns out to be trash? Wow, you done fucked up. Best quit the games industry and retire on that Epic money.

Of course, they promptly decided to see how much they could get away with, and started doing micro transaction scam routine no. 3, aka “the generous price discount”. Start with stupidly high prices, scam as long as you can, then peel back. The usual scumbag stuff.

This is the only way Epic knows how to survive, shit monetization schemes focused on children.

 

[Peasant]

In fairness, the MCC is pretty huge: a PC re-release of one of the biggest (mostly) console-exclusive franchises in history. Anyone with the slightest bit of interest in first-person shooters who isn't somehow sick to death of Halo would take that deal. Valve's inevitable victories probably won't all be this large.

 

[Secret Asshole]

In fairness, the MCC is pretty huge: a PC re-release of one of the biggest (mostly) console-exclusive franchises in history. Anyone with the slightest bit of interest in first-person shooters who isn't somehow sick to death of Halo would take that deal. Valve's inevitable victories probably won't all be this large.

I know. The problem is that basically you have a short amount of time to establish yourself over the competition. Epic has:

1) Alienated Microsoft to the point where they did not get the MCC on their store
2) Spent an increasing amount of money on exclusives, relying on starving Valve of income while basically taking out a long term loan. Any ground they might have gained has now been eliminated and they have even more ground to cover
3) Has now spent so much time trying to starve Vavle, it has failed and Valve has massively profited over Epic, but now Valve has a flagship VR game that was so enticing, within the week of its announcement, all of Valve Headsets in the US and Canada sold out within a week.

Epic needs to be cogent of games like these and Sweeny completely flouted the danger of losing ground. What I'm also saying is that Valve's victories might just be starting. The success of Alyx and their VR might cause them to go hard into a source 2 Half-Life 3. This would be the game of the decade. Sweeny has nothing like this except his child gambling simulator and loot boxes. Source 2, if good enough, might actually compete with Unreal as well.

Sweeny has not planned for any of these contingencies and still insists on buying exclusives. His strategy has relied entirely on blitzkrieg Valve. It has not only failed, the offensive has plummeted into a slog. You can't afford to do this with the money Sweeny burned. He wanted to force Valve to negotiate. This was laughable when he suggested it, and now its utterly insane if he thinks they will talk to him about anything except telling the autistic faggot to go fuck himself. Sweeny has to adapt or die and he's chosen die. He will not admit his exclusive strategy failed. And it has. The games he's gotten are all mediocre, with the exception of RDR2, which is experiencing optimization and launch issues. He will not be able to profit from any of them in maybe several years, in that time they'll all be on Steam. The strategy has failed. And yes, one victory can totally obliterate this strategy. It has. And Valve has even more shells to launch at Sweeny. This was just the first barrage. What does Epic have to counter this? Breaking out a checkbook to get more games on its barebones, no feature store? It hasn't worked now and is only becoming increasingly expensive while Steam is spending nothing. Steam is like the United States and Epic is like Russia, Epic spending vast amounts of money, not even to surpass Steam, but just to attempt to keep even, which it has not done.

Epic has alienated consumers, is hated by the gaming community at large and has no exclusives that are enticing enough to steal users from Steam. He needs to change course and he refuses to do so.

 

[Peasant]

Source 2, if good enough, might actually compete with Unreal as well.

If Source 2 brought forth another huge wave of modding and indie games like the original did, that would be icing on the cake. I have no idea how it stacks up to Unreal, though.

 

[Kane Lives]

I know. The problem is that basically you have a short amount of time to establish yourself over the competition. Epic has:

1) Alienated Microsoft to the point where they did not get the MCC on their store
2) Spent an increasing amount of money on exclusives, relying on starving Valve of income while basically taking out a long term loan. Any ground they might have gained has now been eliminated and they have even more ground to cover
3) Has now spent so much time trying to starve Vavle, it has failed and Valve has massively profited over Epic, but now Valve has a flagship VR game that was so enticing, within the week of its announcement, all of Valve Headsets in the US and Canada sold out within a week.

Epic needs to be cogent of games like these and Sweeny completely flouted the danger of losing ground. What I'm also saying is that Valve's victories might just be starting. The success of Alyx and their VR might cause them to go hard into a source 2 Half-Life 3. This would be the game of the decade. Sweeny has nothing like this except his child gambling simulator and loot boxes. Source 2, if good enough, might actually compete with Unreal as well.

Sweeny has not planned for any of these contingencies and still insists on buying exclusives. His strategy has relied entirely on blitzkrieg Valve. It has not only failed, the offensive has plummeted into a slog. You can't afford to do this with the money Sweeny burned. He wanted to force Valve to negotiate. This was laughable when he suggested it, and now its utterly insane if he thinks they will talk to him about anything except telling the autistic faggot to go fuck himself. Sweeny has to adapt or die and he's chosen die. He will not admit his exclusive strategy failed. And it has. The games he's gotten are all mediocre, with the exception of RDR2, which is experiencing optimization and launch issues. He will not be able to profit from any of them in maybe several years, in that time they'll all be on Steam. The strategy has failed. And yes, one victory can totally obliterate this strategy. It has. And Valve has even more shells to launch at Sweeny. This was just the first barrage. What does Epic have to counter this? Breaking out a checkbook to get more games on its barebones, no feature store? It hasn't worked now and is only becoming increasingly expensive while Steam is spending nothing. Steam is like the United States and Epic is like Russia, Epic spending vast amounts of money, not even to surpass Steam, but just to attempt to keep even, which it has not done.

Epic has alienated consumers, is hated by the gaming community at large and has no exclusives that are enticing enough to steal users from Steam. He needs to change course and he refuses to do so.

I mostly agree with this except for one thing: Source 2. Thus far, Valve has been very secretive about the actual engine itself, and while they had been using DOTA 2 as a testbed, it hasn't really impressed. Even if Source 2 were to be released now and go free (very unlikely, it'd probably have a licensing fee involved), they'd have a hill to climb in the form of the utter dominance of Unreal Engine and Unity, both of which has completely monopolised the middleware market.

That said, Valve doesn't need Source 2 to be a success the way Epic does, since Steam prints money for free. It's probably a loss-leader for them anyway, and any profit they get would just be cherry on top. But for now, Epic isn't going to be knocked off its throne of game engine any time soon, in the same way Steam is in no danger of being knocked aside by EGS. But at least we can be assured that Steam won't be a faggot with Source 2.

 

[Secret Asshole]

I mostly agree with this except for one thing: Source 2. Thus far, Valve has been very secretive about the actual engine itself, and while they had been using DOTA 2 as a testbed, it hasn't really impressed. Even if Source 2 were to be released now and go free (very unlikely, it'd probably have a licensing fee involved), they'd have a hill to climb in the form of the utter dominance of Unreal Engine and Unity, both of which has completely monopolised the middleware market.

That said, Valve doesn't need Source 2 to be a success the way Epic does, since Steam prints money for free. It's probably a loss-leader for them anyway, and any profit they get would just be cherry on top. But for now, Epic isn't going to be knocked off its throne of game engine any time soon, in the same way Steam is in no danger of being knocked aside by EGS. But at least we can be assured that Steam won't be a faggot with Source 2.

Truth. Alyx will be the big test for source 2. And yeah, you're right. I'm just saying that Valve has another thing yet there. Valve also needs source, since it does make games, even rarely. And it doesn't at all.

And....possibly. Steam REALLY fucked over Vampire: Bloodlines by giving it a gimped Source engine because it was going to come out before Half-Life 2 because at the time the Source engine was really good with lip-synching. But that was dumb on their part for licensing an engine that hadn't yet come out.

I just think EGS has nothing right now and I don't see a strategy of it moving forward. The exclusives thing was supposed to establish it quickly, but it hasn't. So I don't know what else they could do, since now the exclusive plan has failed, their launcher and store is so far behind Valve right now it'd take them putting all their exclusive money into the launcher just to make it palatable. And I think its too little too late.

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

Honestly I'm hoping MCC will be the death knell for epic. I mean, Microsoft just made some bank on their old games, instantly selling millions of copies. That's some fucking incentive right there.
I wouldn't be surprised if some day real soon the suits at Sony decide that just maybe it's about time to port those old God of War games onto PC. Can you imagine the sales they'd make rereleasing just the first 3 GoW titles on PC?

 

[BrunoMattei]

Sony would never port to PC. Closest we got to that is their streaming service where you can play Bloodborne o. PC through that service

 

[Marissa Moira]

Honestly I'm hoping MCC will be the death knell for epic. I mean, Microsoft just made some bank on their old games, instantly selling millions of copies. That's some fucking incentive right there.
I wouldn't be surprised if some day real soon the suits at Sony decide that just maybe it's about time to port those old God of War games onto PC. Can you imagine the sales they'd make rereleasing just the first 3 GoW titles on PC?

God of War is too much of a big deal now after the last game rocketed the series to unimagined heights. If the series stopped at Ascension(which was utter ass) I would say the chances would be high, but the main trilogy ties into the PS4 game and that just leaves you with Ascension and the two PSP Prequel games which are nothing spectacular.

 

[Pissmaster]

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Okay, sorry for the doublepost, but this ABSOLUTELY deserves a post all it's own.

So, Shenmue 3 got a launch trailer. Now, if you looked at the views, you'd think it was doing really well. It's got 12.8m views - 4m more than Half Life Alyx's announcement trailer. Shenmue's launch trailer was posted on the 20th, Alyx on the 21st.

There's just one problem - there is less than 2k likes on the shenmue trailer, at time of writing. Half Life Alyx has 443k.

https://archive.li/y8SC0

HMMMMMMMMMMM.

While I'm at it, the Fortnite Chapter 2 trailer has a similar number of likes to Alyx, but has 5 times the number of views. Other Fortnite videos seem more-or-less proportional to Alyx.

Those are on Fortnite's page, which seems relatively popular. Meanwhile, the epic games store youtube page is all but dead. The only other notable video from them recently is them announcing a Stormtrooper skin for Fortnite. 2.7 million views... less than 5k likes. For reference, the same video posted to the main Fortnite channel got 5.8 million views and 145k likes... which isn't even close to matching Alyx's ratio UNTIL you subtract about 2.7 million views and 5k likes.

This is truly terrible astroturfing, Epic. I expected much better from you.

2k likes? Looks like they've been dropped down to 200 now:



1.3k dislikes, though, hahahahaha. Shenmue 3 got plenty of hype at launch, and didn't really have any bad press until Epic showed up.

Just a reminder: there was an 18 year gap between Shenmue 2 and 3, and that was hot off the heels of Shenmue 2 being well-reviewed. Shenmue 3 apparently also ends on a cliffhanger.

 

[Floop]

2k likes? Looks like they've been dropped down to 200 now:

View attachment 1041627

1.3k dislikes, though, hahahahaha. Shenmue 3 got plenty of hype at launch, and didn't really have any bad press until Epic showed up.

Just a reminder: there was an 18 year gap between Shenmue 2 and 3, and that was hot off the heels of Shenmue 2 being well-reviewed. Shenmue 3 apparently also ends on a cliffhanger.

The fucking thing has more views than the Half Life Alyx trailer.

 

[Marissa Moira]

The number of dislikes is still higher than number of Nintendo Faggots who actually knew who Terry is and what series he is originally from.

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

God of War is too much of a big deal now after the last game rocketed the series to unimagined heights. If the series stopped at Ascension(which was utter ass) I would say the chances would be high, but the main trilogy ties into the PS4 game and that just leaves you with Ascension and the two PSP Prequel games which are nothing spectacular.

Unless they're selling them through the PSS then it's a solid idea. Release 1-3 and Ascension on PC, but keep GoW4 on PS4. That way if the PC players want more they need to fork up for a PS4 and the game. Then once they have the PS4 they're inevitably going to buy more games.
It's kinda stupid to NOT try to maximize profits, and this would definitely bring profits. But it WOULD be smart to sit back and wait a bit and see how things go with the MCC. Still, I'd be seriously tempted to do a port seeing those millions of copies sold nearly overnight.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Unless they're selling them through the PSS then it's a solid idea. Release 1-3 and Ascension on PC, but keep GoW4 on PS4. That way if the PC players want more they need to fork up for a PS4 and the game. Then once they have the PS4 they're inevitably going to buy more games.
It's kinda stupid to NOT try to maximize profits, and this would definitely bring profits. But it WOULD be smart to sit back and wait a bit and see how things go with the MCC. Still, I'd be seriously tempted to do a port seeing those millions of copies sold nearly overnight.

PS5 is backwards compatible. GOW3 is on the PS4 but 1 and 2 are not(those are on the PS3). They might just pull another collection before the next game is announced as some super mega ultra collection.

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

2k likes? Looks like they've been dropped down to 200 now:

View attachment 1041627

1.3k dislikes, though, hahahahaha. Shenmue 3 got plenty of hype at launch, and didn't really have any bad press until Epic showed up.

Just a reminder: there was an 18 year gap between Shenmue 2 and 3, and that was hot off the heels of Shenmue 2 being well-reviewed. Shenmue 3 apparently also ends on a cliffhanger.

Over 12 million views for fucking Shenmue? Total BS.

 

[Colloid]

Over 12 million views for fucking Shenmue? Total BS.

I think that's also counting ad views too. I got that trailer as an ad a couple times myself when trying to watch other videos.