this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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My biggest problem with Epic store is their push for exclusives. I understand exclusives on platforms (PS vs XBox) - those are physically different hardware and are closed platforms. But we are talking about PC games, it is the same platform. I want to chose the best product (best delivery system - STEAM or Epic Store, or whatever), and not being forced by the power of monopoly to use a particular launcher.
It would be extra cool to separate licenses from delivery. So I could buy a license from Rockstar directly or through my service if choice, and then play it on another delivery service if I wanted. That way, if Steam or EGS goes under, I can move my games elsewhere, just like I can today with stocks at a brokerage. In other words, I'd have a Rockstar key, not a Steam key.
I imagine store fronts would then charge some fee for access to their network to download games or whatever, and that would trigger price competition on the delivery end. I imagine stores would end up with a "free service if you spend $X/year" or whatever.
I can do that occasionally, but it's far from the norm. For example, I bought Factorio directly from the devs, and they provided me a free Steam key as well. So I could download it from them directly or through Steam, at my option. I want more of that.
Just an FYI, Steam allows all Devs to do that as long as their pricing is on-par with steam, AFAIK Steam is the only store to do this, which is yet another reason I keep buying from them.
True.
My point was that I didn't get a Steam key right away and just played with the download they provided from their website. I've done the same with GOG games, and it works fine. The main problem is with library management, but that wasn't an issue when my selection was limited. Now I have >500 games on Steam, so remembering what games I even have is an issue that Steam solves. Also, finding new games was an issue because I had to go to individual sites, and Steam solved that with their store (could filter by only Linux games).
Ideally, we could go back to buying games directly from devs and only using a client to make managing that easier. That way you'd stay with a service because it's better, not because that's where all your games are. Currently, I'm with Steam for both reasons, but maybe Steam will make poor choices in the future and I'll only stay because I feel stuck with my library.
I would happily use epic if it wasn't for the exclusive garbage they pull. They are a garbage platform.
I don't see the problem with exclusives considering it's a guarantee for the devs that they'll have an income instead of playing the popularity with influencers lottery by releasing on all platforms.
After that I've got a link on my desktop so I don't give a crap what launcher is running in the background.
OK, your choice is different than mine. You see how good to have a choice?
I'm just pointing out that being mad about exclusivity when it can actually be what keeps devs afloat is a pretty bad argument.
Do you have a job or do you beg for money and spend it on lottery tickets?
I do get your point, I'd rather have an exclusive game than no game at all, but that isn't what's happening with Epic exclusives a lot of the time. Most of the time they just buy exclusive rights to games that were going to come to PC anyway, sometimes right before release date.
It's still the devs that agree to it in exchange for guaranteed income instead of releasing at large and hoping for success, Epic is just playing the game... Heck, in my mind it's the devs that should take the flak in this situation!
They've also confirmed they wouldn't do it for games where the devs promised to release on other launchers after the backlash with one of the games they bought exclusivity rights to.
I do not understand this point. If market can not support the game, then there should be no such game. There are many publishers and venture capitalists that invest into game making and only like one of them (Epic) requires exclusivity on PC space.
That would work if all quality games were successful (it isn't the case at all) and if devs didn't need to eat or pay rent (it isn't the case either).
Exclusives aren't exclusive (lulz) to Epic either, you see them on other launchers even for very successful games (you can only get Minecraft from Microsoft for example and it's not a game that was originally developed by them). Sure some people invest in developers in exchange for a share of the profit made, these people are in the investment business, not in the publishing business.
It's funny how people agree to give their employer exclusive use of whatever they produce for them in exchange for money, but if a developer does the equivalent then the same people are angry at the "employer"...
I say good for the devs if it guarantees that their studio will stay open and they're able to produce more games instead of spending years on a project only for it to lead them to bankruptcy when it releases to little interest from the public.
All other “exclusives” are simply companies selling games by themselves. Your example of Mojang (creator of Minecraft) only confirms that since Microsoft purchased Mojang. There is no exclusivity of Microsoft with … Microsoft.
Again, I do not understand your argument about devs paying rent, etc. Majority of games are not exclusives on Epic (or any other store, except if they sell it themselves). Thus, there must be a way to do so without being exclusives. And if you are talking about support in terms of investments and advancements - publishers do that. They did it forever for PC games, nothing was broken to fix it by exclusivity.
publishers do thatYes, and the game's publisher has an exclusivity deal in place and the devs can't turn around and decide to give their game to another publisher.
Exclusivity deals has been part of art history (and employment in general) forever. There's nothing new about what Epic is doing. You see it for music composers, visual artists, poets, even writers! But somehow PC game devs are in a different category and are supposed to just hope for the best and release on platforms that doesn't give them a guaranteed compensation for their work... Well I say good for them if both systems exist now!
nothing was broken to fix it by exclusivityIf it was the case, devs wouldn't sign those deals. They're not new and there's nothing to be happy about that the biggest distributor on the market doesn't have to give any income guarantees to the people that put in the hours to create the product that they sell.
How hard is it to understand that it's guaranteed income and that is important to some people? There's a whole lot of things that the majority of people do that a minority isn't comfortable with, that argument is extremely weak.
Go check /r/gamedev and you'll find tons of discussions of people that thought they were releasing something that would financially compensate for all the time they spent on it and for having to leave their job to work full time on their project only to see it fail miserably because no one paid attention to it no matter the quality while they saw another product of similar quality get picked up by a steamer and it just exploded in popularity.
You never answered the question, do you have a job or expect to make it by winning the lottery?
This is not the exclusivity that I am talking about. Publishers as a rule still publish games through multiple channels. I am talking about exclusivity of the storefront. Not publishers’.
Imagine if all storefronts had only exclusive games. Then they would have nearly zero incentives to have a good storefronts that users like and instead just hunt for the best games. The users would not have a choice which storefront they like - the market is totally broken and not working in this case.
Man... Are you buying games to play them or to spend time looking at the storefront?
I spend noticeable amount of time choosing games, reading reviews, participating in forums, plus having convenient library is important too. Reading news, plans about games, updates… yes all of that is important to me and how well it is implemented matters.
Reviews, forums, news... All things you shouldn't depend on a storefront to do because the store has an incentive not to be neutral...
That’s user reviews, game news provided by game making companies. The storefront is a platform where those are posted. Storefront is a place where you search for product and having them in the storefront is very convenient and is something users want. But you are right, they should not be controlled and manipulated by storefront. And they are not in case of STEAM, for example. Storefronts should compete how good they can give this ecosystem to user, not how much games they can lock out from other stores. That, and the cost of games.
"and they are not in case of Steam"
Let me introduce you to reviews on Steam and their forums!
You're also the one who pointed out that you prefer Steam because it's got them but now it suddenly doesn't? You're hard to follow buddy! Unless you're saying they don't have control over their own forums and the user reviews posted on their storefront???
Steam controller support is so far ahead of everybody else I find myself launching other games/launchers through Steam just to get it.
Tried to get my controller to register in Jedi Fallen Order and the solution was not to add the game but the EA launcher itself as non-steam game.