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

[The tired cat]

I've been pissed off at Epic ever since they poached Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1 + 2, Scott Pilgrim vs The World and the Kingdom hearts games.

Though in the Kingdom Hearts case, Square Enix are also at fault for keeping the games full price after the majority of the games are pretty much over a decade old at this point.

I mean, you can get Scott Pilgrim on Uplay, thus saving yourself time as you'll still need to launch it whenever you activate the game.

 

[Vaping Autist]

I mean, you can get Scott Pilgrim on Uplay, thus saving yourself time as you'll still need to launch it whenever you activate the game.

This is true, but I like to keep all of my PC games in one place if possible so I'll wait for the eventual Steam release.

I use this website to keep track of how long Epic exclusivity is for/left so I know when the best time to make my purchases are: https://kkkepic.com.br/en_US/exclusives/

 

[Takayuki Yagami]

China wants something that it can control. Steam is something that it can't. Funnily enough, most Steam users are in China. I know Steam China was just released, but that shit is going to flop.

Epic not having community functions or forums or a workshop or anything like Steam is a huge plus for China. Because China blocks all of those features on Steam. So having Epic barebones as fuck actually suits the Chinese, because they have a Western storefront that: 1) Curates. Epic curates a TON of shit, while Valve allows porno games, albeit haphazardly and in an oddly selective matter that no one fully understands. 2) Lack of features and community. This is a plus for China. China does not want the Chinese talking to each other online in an environment where they can't control. Epic they can. 3) Lack of a shopping cart. China wants to cut down on people playing games. This is a plus.

The Epic Storefront is just being groomed for use in the CCP to try and usurp Steam as something that they can control. They don't care if it loses money. To us, its a complete useless detriment. To the Chinese, its an asset.


They bought them, but is the market really there? I think everyone who bought Fall Guys already owns it and Epic is betting that it won't just be a one hit wonder.

Also lol, Epic lost 1/3rd of its yearly revenue to control. And god only knows how much it fucking paid to devs to be exclusive, plus the cost of all the free games they hand out. Can you really be a loss leader if you're not leading anything? I mean, Jesus Christ. Steam is constantly improving and they've yet to add a shopping cart and just sinking money to try and entice people to their platform when most people treat it as 'get a free game' launcher. Also there is NO fucking way they made 30 million in profit while keeping Red Dead 2 an exclusive in 2020, even for six months. That was 30 million, at fucking least. No way Rockstar would shell out less than fucking Control for an exclusive. It knows the majority of its audience is on Steam and the money that it would lose from being on Epic. They could have easily lost that entire 30 million from that one exclusivity contract. So what, they're maybe 100 mil in the fucking hole? Good fucking christ. Even Good Old Games, a superior storefront, is dangerously close to being in the red. And that has far more games or users than Epic.

Sweeny is just throwing money at this shit and praying investors don't notice. He probably has 3 people working on it so he doesn't have to lay them off. But I think in reality, Tencent is just keeping Epic Gamestore around until they can move it to China, where it will be more exclusive to the Chinese market. I still think they're dreaming. Most of the Chinese market uses Steam and that's not going to stop.

So I really don't know what Epic is hoping to fucking accomplish honestly.

Wait, just Control? I like Remedy’s games but goddamn. How much must they have spent on BL3, Metro, and Hitman then? Never mind outright buying studios like they’ve done a few times since starting their crusade. Even with Unreal Engine’s ubiquity theres no way they have the capital for all this. They’re not Microsoft.

 

[Vaping Autist]

Epic gamer pranks are apparently now super draining laptop battery lives on laptops. This is PC Gamer so take with a grain of salt, but I could still see this as being a major concern down the line if true. Who even games on laptops nowadays?

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-epic-games-stores-could-be-draining-your-gaming-laptops-battery-life/
https://archive.ph/Mxv6U

Oh and Rocket League is releasing a mobile game. With the lawsuit still ongoing, it'll be interesting to see which mobile marketplaces it will release on, as I'm sure Timmy's influence could make this go terribly wrong.

 

[iceteayo]

Would any of you have played Diabotical if it wasn’t on epic. I genuinely don’t care about the stores I just was sad another arena shooter everyone said they wanted died.

I still have unreal 4 back when the store was called epic launcher too.

 

[AnOminous]

Epic gamer pranks are apparently now super draining laptop battery lives on laptops. This is PC Gamer so take with a grain of salt, but I could still see this as being a major concern down the line if true. Who even games on laptops nowadays?

Why would it do that? Is it just shockingly shitty incompetence from this band of morons, or are they running a miner?

 

[Dom Cruise]

Does anyone else think the original Gears trilogy is underrated?

Replayed them in 2017 and had a blast, they're pretty much the most "video game" video games ever made.

Pretentious "games as art" types liked to take potshots at the series, but while I always liked it, it was more of a guilty pleasure and I was more sympathetic to the "games as art" crowd, but I feel the games have aged very well, it's downright refreshing to play a "video game" video game from back then when compared to today's Woke video games.

And I think the "games as art" crowd were too harsh on them, the amazing thing about Gears today is while yes, the stories could be goofy, the fact that they really did expect you to care about the story and characters is remarkable today in the AAA scene where story is increasingly going back to "the President has been kidnaped by ninjas" style perfunctoriness, does Fortnite even bother with giving you a reason why any of this is happening? Why Master Chief, The Terminator, the Alien, Captain America and Chun Li are fighting one another?

Gears of War Judgement is also very underrated, while the weird arcade like additions are strange and unnecessary, it must be said that the added color really makes the game pop and there's some really great atmospheric moments like wandering through a deserted victory parade.

I've not yet bothered with Gear 4 and Gears 5 though because let's be frank, love him or hate him Cliffy B was clearly the mastermind behind the series and Gears without Cliffy just doesn't sound right to me.

 

[DrearyDoomguy]

Pretentious "games as art" types liked to take potshots at the series, but while I always liked it, it was more of a guilty pleasure and I was more sympathetic to the "games as art" crowd, but I feel the games have aged very well, it's downright refreshing to play a "video game" video game from back then when compared to today's Woke video games.

the criticism I always saw of the series was that it was a cover based shooter with regenerating health where you moved slow as molasses. It did cover based shooter about as well as you could from what I heard, but a substantial portion of the FPS community didn’t like the Post-Halo FPS industry. I remember the omnipresent meme of convenient chest-high walls.

It’s why Doom 2016 was such a smash hit, you moved lightning fast, utilized your movement as a substitute for any cover, didn’t have to reload, and generally relied on killing enemies to regain health and ammo. Now that we have an entire subgenre of boomer shooters to satisfy that audience, both fans of classic fast paced shooters and fans of slower cover based shooters can have their preference satisfied. Hence, each game can be enjoyed for the genre it is by people who like that genre.

 

[Snekposter]

as I'm sure Timmy's influence could make this go terribly wrong

Will make this go terribly wrong, you mean. It isn't like things are going well right now thanks to him, so why assume he'll not continue fucking up?

(Edited for actual sense, d'oh!)

 

[Disc]

Fortnite has now been cited in more than 200 divorce proceedings
https://news.avclub.com/fortnite-has-now-been-cited-in-more-than-200-divorce-pr-1829084255

Every few years, an obsession comes along in the gaming world that sweeps everything else off the board. Coverage of games like World Of Warcraft and Minecraft frequently takes on the tone of some kind of epidemic thriller, as reports spread of hooked kids, infuriated parents, and shattered relationships. Now, Fortnite—the massively popular, free-to-play online shooter that boils the current battle royale game craze down into its most efficient and addictive form—is the latest vector of infection, and it’s reached a new milestone in its “video games as pox upon society” career.

Because while the game itself has graduated in the last year from “plucky, extremely ubiquitous knock-off” to “goddamn omnipresent elder statesman of the genre,” Epic Games’ massively popular title has just achieved the real brass ring in the supposedly life-destroying video game addiction stakes. Specifically, said honor comes in the form of a report stating that more than 200 divorce proceedings have cited the game in their complaints. (And that’s just in the U.K., and only in 2018!)

Admittedly, this is per a press release from online divorce service Divorce Online, who presumably have a vested interest in making divorce seem sexy and cool in a way that only “You walked in front of the screen and a 10-year-old in Wyoming shot me dead so now I’m taking the house” truly can. Still, even with a healthy dose of salt being taken, it’s an impressive number, supposedly representing something like 5 percent of all British divorces in the last year. Congratulations are in order to Epic Games, and to every couple who worked hard to make this achievement possible.

 

[The tired cat]

https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-games-store-exclusives-apple-lawsuit/
So Epic is fine with blowing all this money on exclusives and having a lawsuit with apple. Seriously, who is running this clown show?

 

[OTView]

https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-games-store-exclusives-apple-lawsuit/
So Epic is fine with blowing all this money on exclusives and having a lawsuit with apple. Seriously, who is running this clown show?

Thanks to Epic's big legal fight with Apple, we learned this week that Epic committed around $444 million to Epic Game Store exclusivity deals in 2020 alone.

according to Apple's learnings, Epic is going to eat "at least $330 million in unrecouped costs from minimum guarantees alone" if you consider 2019's deals, too.

In its end-of-year report, Epic said that players spent $700 million on the Epic Store in 2020, but third-party game sales only accounted for $265 million of that spending.

Citing depositions from Epic Games Store VP and GM Steve Allison and Epic VP of business development Joe Kreiner, Apple says that Epic lost $181 million on the Epic Games Store in 2019, projected a loss of $273 million last year, and projects another loss of $139 million this year. Added up, that's an estimated $600 million that the Epic Games Store will need to recoup before it'll be profitable on the whole.

Such an embarrassing, money-burning pile of shit the egs is.

 

[Cubanodun]

Imagine being called a waste of money by Apple

 

[KingofNothing]

Probably should have spent some of that money on a making a store that wasn't shit.

 

[Cubanodun]

Probably should have spent some of that money on a making a store that wasn't shit.

Is a INVESTMENT DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDD it will get profits, someday!

 

[KingofNothing]

Is a INVESTMENT DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDD it will get profits, someday!

View attachment 2077294

He does have a point about investments being a present loss for future profit, but I'm pressing X on him actually growing his audience when PC players can get a better service right now from Steam, GoG, or even the Microsoft store. People aren't sticking around in large number for free games, they're grabbing their free shit and going right back to their store of choice. Hell I grabbed Subnautica from Epic and proceeded to set it up so it boots from steam without even opening the Epic Store.

When Steam sales continue to blow Epic exclusives out of the water despite the year headstart, I doubt many people are bothering to shop there

 

[Cubanodun]

When Steam sales continue to blow Epic exclusives out of the water despite the year headstart, I doubt many people are bothering to shop there

Epic exclusive is a joke in Crackwatch it means "so its pirated in a day less"

 

[Rotollo 2]

Fortnite has now been cited in more than 200 divorce proceedings
https://news.avclub.com/fortnite-has-now-been-cited-in-more-than-200-divorce-pr-1829084255

Every few years, an obsession comes along in the gaming world that sweeps everything else off the board. Coverage of games like World Of Warcraft and Minecraft frequently takes on the tone of some kind of epidemic thriller, as reports spread of hooked kids, infuriated parents, and shattered relationships. Now, Fortnite—the massively popular, free-to-play online shooter that boils the current battle royale game craze down into its most efficient and addictive form—is the latest vector of infection, and it’s reached a new milestone in its “video games as pox upon society” career.

Because while the game itself has graduated in the last year from “plucky, extremely ubiquitous knock-off” to “goddamn omnipresent elder statesman of the genre,” Epic Games’ massively popular title has just achieved the real brass ring in the supposedly life-destroying video game addiction stakes. Specifically, said honor comes in the form of a report stating that more than 200 divorce proceedings have cited the game in their complaints. (And that’s just in the U.K., and only in 2018!)

Admittedly, this is per a press release from online divorce service Divorce Online, who presumably have a vested interest in making divorce seem sexy and cool in a way that only “You walked in front of the screen and a 10-year-old in Wyoming shot me dead so now I’m taking the house” truly can. Still, even with a healthy dose of salt being taken, it’s an impressive number, supposedly representing something like 5 percent of all British divorces in the last year. Congratulations are in order to Epic Games, and to every couple who worked hard to make this achievement possible.

Tim Sweeny: Home Wreaker

He does have a point about investments being a present loss for future profit, but I'm pressing X on him actually growing his audience when PC players can get a better service right now from Steam, GoG, or even the Microsoft store. People aren't sticking around in large number for free games, they're grabbing their free shit and going right back to their store of choice. Hell I grabbed Subnautica from Epic and proceeded to set it up so it boots from steam without even opening the Epic Store.

When Steam sales continue to blow Epic exclusives out of the water despite the year headstart, I doubt many people are bothering to shop there

100% this, I'm fine with competition in the storefront space but aside from buying up exclusives and free shit Ebin brings nothing new to the table. GoG brings DRM free plus older games platforms like steam can't give a rat ass to fix up like blade runner or the MGS PC ports, Microsoft has gamepass/paying for PC ports without the exclusivity strings attached (aside from nier but I caulk that up to Sqeuenix being fags more than anything they did since you can by Microsofts games on steam as well) meanwhile steam has stuff like its massive feature list (controller support, communites, workshop, ect.) meanwhile Epic can't even get a working shopping cart. If Fortnite ever dies down EGS is fucked because you can't keep pumping money like that into a stagnating platform.

 

[The tired cat]

Tim Sweeny: Home Wreaker

100% this, I'm fine with competition in the storefront space but aside from buying up exclusives and free shit Ebin brings nothing new to the table. GoG brings DRM free plus older games platforms like steam can't give a rat ass to fix up like blade runner or the MGS PC ports, Microsoft has gamepass/paying for PC ports without the exclusivity strings attached (aside from nier but I caulk that up to Sqeuenix being fags more than anything they did since you can by Microsofts games on steam as well) meanwhile steam has stuff like its massive feature list (controller support, communites, workshop, ect.) meanwhile Epic can't even get a working shopping cart. If Fortnite ever dies down EGS is fucked because you can't keep pumping money like that into a stagnating platform.

Just an FYI but GoG didnt really fix the MGS PC ports, you still need the fan patches to get em to run properly.

 

[BrokenWokenBespoken]

This is true, but I like to keep all of my PC games in one place if possible so I'll wait for the eventual Steam release.

I use this website to keep track of how long Epic exclusivity is for/left so I know when the best time to make my purchases are: https://kkkepic.com.br/en_US/exclusives/

Ubisoft has pretty much waved bye bye to Steam and focus on Uplay/EGS, there hasn't been a Steam release for Ubisoft game since 2019 with Anno 1800.