New Epic Store Opened Up

[DrMrLordX]

I honestly do not understand why people are okay with digital storefront exclusives for PC. I can sort of understand Battle.net being the way it is, since it goes back to the days before Steam, but Origin? Cmon, EA isn't even trying to run their own competitor to Steam. Origin only exists to keep EA's content off Steam, period. You can't sell a game on both Steam and Origin and then let the consumer decide which storefront best meets their needs.

Now Epic and Giant Bomb games are moving off Steam to a new Epic storefront? Why? If they have to raise prices on Steam then so be it, at least let us choose where we want to buy our games. I already can't play two Assassin's Creed games I bought on Steam sale because I had to install uPlay to make them work (sorry, not gonna do it Ubisoft). So that series is dead for me. The only one you can play without uPlay is the very first game in the series.

I would support GoG more often if I could, but I find myself drifting back towards Steam instead. Sometimes I just can't find the games I want on GoG. For example, I'm looking at getting Sonic Mania; 20XX; and Dead Cells which are all on sale right now. Among those games, the only one available on GoG is Dead Cells, and it's a damn miracle you can get it there. Same price as on Steam, too. Is it really going to make my life that much better to get it on GoG than Steam? No, probably not. I guess if I were really paranoid about Steam's servers going kaput permanently, I could get it on GoG and have my own local copy backed up somewhere in perpetuity (or until my backups died/got corrupted).

I also have been playing the hell out of Dragon Quest XI for PC, and that isn't anywhere to be seen on GoG either.

In a perfect world, the storefronts would compete with one another on price and storefront features, and they wouldn't necessarily be run by publishers that produce games, either. If you buy a key to run a game, the key ought to work on any storefront where you choose to move it, so you can consolidate your collection instead of having to go to some other storefront to play games you've bought; alternatively, someone ought to be allowed to run an omnilauncher that can fire up games you have purchased on different storefronts, even if it's just a frontend for other frontends.

In the old days, when you had to buy boxes of software, everything you owned was right there in front of you, and you were responsible for all of it. Hell I remember having to patch games by hand. I remember when patching a game was a novelty. Anyone here try patching Quest for Glory 4? That was fun, let me tell you.

But of course, that is not the world we live in today. Maybe some of you think, "oh nobody's going to go without a game they might like to play just to avoid a storefront". Don't believe that for a second. At the present, if I can't get a game on Steam or GoG I generally will not touch it. If Epic's new store, Battle.net, and Origin started allowing publishers to sell anywhere and everywhere, I might change my tune. If I could get all my titles from all storefronts available in one omni-launcher then I would definitely start shopping around. As it stands, I do not buy games from EA or Ubisoft. Apparently now I will also be "boycotting" Epic and Giant Bomb.

Also, maybe Steam needs to start lowering their cut. Steam's 30% only looks good when you consider the 40% retail markup you'd get from distributors and retailers from back in the day. It's 2018, and most people don't go to Electronics Boutique, Software Etcetera, or Best Buy to get their games.

 

[ImpulsE69]

The comments to this video are interesting

 

[BSim500]

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand more compulsory clients isn't what most people want anymore than multiple subs for video streaming services for the same quantity of content as "Yesterday's Netflix". OTOH, you have to LOL at some rants to the mere concept of a little competition on the distribution side. Eg, Epic Games Store Launcher doesn't actually contain any platform level DRM. In fact the recent freebie Subnautica is confirmed to be DRM-Free, ie, aside from using it as a downloader for the first install, you don't actually need the launcher to play or even reinstall in future (if you zip up the game folder). So too is Ashen - a paid game. And people are arguing against these 'no client' games in favor of "their" platform (Steam) for which the same games require a client for Steamworks DRM then ironically claiming it's all down to "not wanting to be forced to use a client"...

The comments to this video are interesting

It's also quite amusing to revisit a 14 year old Slashdot thread and see just how many "No Steam = no Buy" posts are identical in tone to the "Steam = no Buy" comments from 2004:-
https://games.slashdot.org/story/04/10/23/0812224/half-life-2-retail-to-require-steam-activation

Point is, whilst no-one wants another forced client, if devs continue to be happy to put larger budget A / AAA games on Epic in exchange for a greater sales cut, and they remain DRM-Free, and if people (eventually) figure out you don't actually need the Epic Games Launcher to play a lot of games bought from the Epic Store (same way you don't "need" Galaxy for GOG), and if Epic start opening up on the gamer side (add reviews, discussion forums, etc), then that's certainly going to be something that "puts the cat amongst the pigeons".

 

[DrMrLordX]

I still say that if you want true competition, you let publishers put their game everywhere and then let the store costs dictate the price charged. I see no reason for titles to be store-exclusive. If I want to pay 20-30% more for a DRMed game on Steam then let me.

And let me hook Epic's store into Steams (and GoG and Origin and Battle.net too!) with an omniclient so I can browse all stores at once. Then they get to compete side-by-side on price. Consumer wins.

Right now if I want to buy, let's say, a harddrive, I can go someplace like pcpartpicker.com and see prices and availability from numerous vendors lined up next to each other. I can't really do that with Steam, Epic, Origin, etc. The level of obfuscation and superficial segmentation here is ridiculous.

Steam is popular because it puts everything you want in one place. Or at least, nearly everything you want. If someone wants to compete, they need to offer me the same basic level of functionality for me to be interested. What we do not need are more walled gardens.

 

[BSim500]

I still say that if you want true competition, you let publishers put their game everywhere and then let the store costs dictate the price charged. I see no reason for titles to be store-exclusive. If I want to pay 20-30% more for a DRMed game on Steam then let me. And let me hook Epic's store into Steams (and GoG and Origin and Battle.net too!) with an omniclient so I can browse all stores at once. Then they get to compete side-by-side on price.

It's often the publisher who sets the price though. Eg, why does Morrowind & Oblivion have identical "fake competing" prices now twice as high on platforms like Steam & GOG as they were 10 years ago when they were actually competing with 2nd hand EBay discs and both with sales discounts limited to max 50%? It's not Steam / GOG that dictates the price, it's Bethesda who's contracted both to agree to set the same prices & discounts. Omniclients / price comparison tools won't change that. All the stores can do is take a smaller cut to the tune of a few percent (at the expense of something else, eg, underfunding customer services), otherwise the price the consumer sees remains the same and the publisher simply pockets the difference. (Like the 30% digital vs 40-50% physical 'savings' that consumers also never saw passed on). The really big post 2000 "modern digital evolution" involving account locking games, removing transferable resales, etc, from the publisher's point of view was never about piracy or "convenience" but rather aimed squarely at killing off the biggest competition of all - 2nd hand resales / EBay market that (unlike digital stores) previously resided outside of publisher's distribution control.

Steam is popular because it puts everything you want in one place. Or at least, nearly everything you want. If someone wants to compete, they need to offer me the same basic level of functionality for me to be interested. What we do not need are more walled gardens.

Circular problem though - "everything has ended up in one place because it's popular" and yet it's popular because Steam has become a virtual monopoly that also started as a walled garden itself ("Want HL2 / Counter Strike 1.6 Exclusives? Need Steam") and pretty much kickstarted locking 3rd party games to Steam "exclusively" en masse. As someone whose game collection spans everything from C64 / ZX Spectrum "tapes", backup zip files of old DOS games that came on floppy disk, 90's CD-ROM's, 2000's DVD-ROM's, through to today's Steam games, GOG & Humble DRM-Free, etc, installers I'll never, ever have everything in one place. Doubly so for "out of rights" games you can't even buy on Steam (eg, NOLF, Dune, etc), so I never did understand this "I want everything all in one place (eggs in one basket) but that place should be inside a vendor locked client", when ultimately for me the only place that accomplishes that for a large diverse game collection is my HDD and the "launcher" the Windows Start menu precisely because neither care where I bought them from...

Don't get me wrong I totally understand how much a PITA client locked exclusives are (games & movies). I'm just amazed so many people have been so habituated / desensitized into accepting Valve as a "compassionate monopoly" to the extent they can't see that every game that's sold on Steam but nowhere else going all the way back to HL2 is exactly the same "Walled Garden Steam Exclusive" they hate when "someone not Steam" does it, and the only real justification is a naive "they were first and thus that market shouldn't change from now until eternity". ie, "StoreFront Locked Exclusives" aren't new, people are simply now being "shocked" that someone is doing it in 2018 in addition to Valve who've been doing it continuously since 2004... I'm not saying gamers are wrong to find that annoying, I'm saying expecting a digital marketplace to be frozen in time and never change for millennia is a seriously abnormal expectation for any tech field and a lot of people seem to have been lulled into a 14 year sense of false security of coasting along on gamer apathy.

 

[ImpulsE69]

The simple answer is it worked for them because of 2 reasons: 1. It WAS the only place which simplified everything. 2. people started getting games much cheaper than they ever had before.

It isn't the same if 20 different places do it. Then it is no different than console wars making people decide where to get it which always impacts multiplayer.

 

[DrMrLordX]

It's often the publisher who sets the price though.

That's fine. I have no problem with that. All I'm saying is, make (or encourage) the publishers sell on all stores, period, at whatever price they like on a per-store basis within the bounds of what's legal. For example, if Giant Bomb doesn't like Steam's cut, let Giant Bomb charge 18% more for their games on Steam than they do Epic's store. Let EA charge 30% more for their games on Steam than they do Origin, etc. The point is to put those games out there and then show people the real cost differential. Then Steam be like, "hey manz why j00 charge so much on mah store" and let the chips fall where they may. Now if Valve BANS them for those practices, or tries other stupid things like forcing price parity as a term of their service, then we have a problem, and we'll all see Steam as a part of that problem.

I also want to be able to buy non-EA games on Origin and non-Epic/Giant Bomb games on Epic's store. To Epic's credit, it looks like they MAY be trying to attract other publishers, maybe, but I would be much more impressed if they did it without exclusives.

Circular problem though - "everything has ended up in one place because it's popular" and yet it's popular because Steam has become a virtual monopoly that also started as a walled garden itself ("Want HL2 / Counter Strike 1.6 Exclusives? Need Steam") and pretty much kickstarted locking 3rd party games to Steam "exclusively" en masse.

Steam was basically first-to-market, so it's not like they were locking people out of some other online store. It was Steam vs Box-o-Software. Steam's 30% cut was a bargain compared to what publishers had to pay under the old paradigm.

As someone whose game collection spans everything from C64 / ZX Spectrum "tapes", backup zip files of old DOS games that came on floppy disk, 90's CD-ROM's, 2000's DVD-ROM's, through to today's Steam games, GOG & Humble DRM-Free, etc, installers I'll never, ever have everything in one place.

Oldwarez will never be as accessible, I know. I'm a little surprised nobody has tried a universal client for managing Steam and GoG assets though. GoG can't do it themselves (I don't think) and Steam probably doesn't want 3rd-party integration with their store, but it would be doable so long as you were willing to let a 3rd-party piece of software launch both clients for you after you supply the credentials (and you'd have to use GoG's client I guess). You'd really have to trust that software though.

Doubly so for "out of rights" games you can't even buy on Steam (eg, NOLF, Dune, etc), so I never did understand this "I want everything all in one place (eggs in one basket) but that place should be inside a vendor locked client", when ultimately for me the only place that accomplishes that for a large diverse game collection is my HDD and the "launcher" the Windows Start menu precisely because neither care where I bought them from...

Where did you get that people want everything to be in a vendor-locked client?

Don't get me wrong I totally understand how much a PITA client locked exclusives are (games & movies). I'm just amazed so many people have been so habituated / desensitized into accepting Valve as a "compassionate monopoly" to the extent they can't see that every game that's sold on Steam but nowhere else going all the way back to HL2 is exactly the same "Walled Garden Steam Exclusive" they hate when "someone not Steam" does it, and the only real justification is a naive "they were first and thus that market shouldn't change from now until eternity". ie, "StoreFront Locked Exclusives" aren't new, people are simply now being "shocked" that someone is doing it in 2018 in addition to Valve who've been doing it continuously since 2004...

Tsk. Sorry to burst your argument's bubble, but very very few things on Steam are really exclusive, except some Valve titles. I can get a lot of stuff on Steam, GoG, or elsewhere. Not everything but a lot of stuff. Valve goes to very little trouble to keep 3rd-party publishers using their platform from using other platforms. Look at all the duplication between Steam and GoG. That is what we need between every online games store, period. That's what we want. Why is that so hard to understand?

The only thing Steam really needs to change is their 30% cut. It isn't the 1990s anymore, we don't have publishers paying 40% of their take to retailors/distributors, so 30% is no longer a bargain. Epic's 12% (or whatever) seems more reasonable.

I'm not saying gamers are wrong to find that annoying, I'm saying expecting a digital marketplace to be frozen in time and never change for millennia is a seriously abnormal expectation for any tech field and a lot of people seem to have been lulled into a 14 year sense of false security of coasting along on gamer apathy.

None of us wanted it to get worse!

The simple answer is it worked for them because of 2 reasons: 1. It WAS the only place which simplified everything. 2. people started getting games much cheaper than they ever had before.

It isn't the same if 20 different places do it. Then it is no different than console wars making people decide where to get it which always impacts multiplayer.

Even the console wars never split you between more than three camps (four if you count Sega, which has not been the case since the Dreamcast).

 

[BSim500]

All I'm saying is, make (or encourage) the publishers sell on all stores, period, at whatever price they like on a per-store basis within the bounds of what's legal. For example, if Giant Bomb doesn't like Steam's cut, let Giant Bomb charge 18% more for their games on Steam than they do Epic's store. Let EA charge 30% more for their games on Steam than they do Origin, etc.

Whilst I agree with you in principle, who's going to "force" them all to do this? If they wanted to do it voluntarily, they'd be doing it already. Part of it's also laziness at updating, ie, unlike the old days where it didn't matter which store you bought your disc-based games from, they only needed to put one patch on the site for all of them. With digital clients however, each one needs its own API-specific update path, ie, one for Steam, one for Galaxy, one for Origin, etc. You only have to a read a few complaints in GOG forums to see that delayed / non-existent updates are down to persistent developer laziness of "It's SO much effort to support even two stores for regular patching" (even though it technically isn't - they just don't want to do it).

"Valve goes to very little trouble to keep 3rd-party publishers using their platform from using other platforms"

On the contrary, that's actually what things like locking level editors and modding to the Steam Workshop are really all about - discouraging 3rd-party publishers from using other platforms and vendor neutral mod sites like Nexus or ModDB under the guise of "but our platform lock in is more convenient!". If you could buy Fallout 5 on Steam and yet the game was hard locked to accept mods only from the Bethesda's store (ie, you'd have to buy the Bethesda Store specific version to get mods to work), Steam fans would be raising holy hell. And yet that's exactly what Steam has already been doing with their Workshop (and a perfect example why simply having the base game on GOG and calling that "competition" isn't the whole story...)

very very few things on Steam are really exclusive, except some Valve titles.

That's simply not true. The vast majority of non EA / Ubisoft games on Steam are Steam platform only and not obscure titles either, eg, Betrayer, Bioshock Infinite, DX:HR, Dishonored, Endless Space / Legend, Grey Goo, Prey (2017), Quantum Conundrum, Skyrim, Styx, The Talos Principle, The Turing Test, etc, thousands of them (too many to list). That you can buy Doom (2016) Steam keys from Bethesda Store, Humble or Green Man doesn't make them "competing" with Steam when they're simply glorified affiliates not providing an actual alternative distribution path. Exclude Steam keys, and there's absolutely no question well over half the games, possibly up to 70% of games on Steam AAA and Indie alike can't be bought elsewhere. As mentioned, people have become so habituated over the past 14 years to not seeing Steam-only games as Exclusives "because convenience", 99% of arguments really just boil down to "I don't like anything which isn't Steam because it's not Steam" which isn't really a call for more competition, it's simply a brand addiction affirmation.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Whilst I agree with you in principle, who's going to "force" them all to do this?

In the end, only consumers can do this. Unless the practice is somehow found to be anticompetitive. But good luck explaining the situation to a bunch of 60+ year-old Senators. And that only covers one country.

If they wanted to do it voluntarily, they'd be doing it already.

I don't believe that, at all. EA has shown no interest in selling games on Steam. You used to be able to buy EA games there (and you can still get DA: Origins) but they stopped releasing in favor of their own store. Instead of trying to duplicate Steam and compete with it, they just walled off their own products and said "nyeh!" to everyone who does not like it. Bethesda is poised to do the same, as is Giant Bomb (courtesy of Epic).

Part of it's also laziness at updating, ie, unlike the old days where it didn't matter which store you bought your disc-based games from, they only needed to put one patch on the site for all of them. With digital clients however, each one needs its own API-specific update path, ie, one for Steam, one for Galaxy, one for Origin, etc. You only have to a read a few complaints in GOG forums to see that delayed / non-existent updates are down to persistent developer laziness of "It's SO much effort to support even two stores for regular patching" (even though it technically isn't - they just don't want to do it).

Why am I not surprised?

On the contrary, that's actually what things like locking level editors and modding to the Steam Workshop are really all about

Stop right there. That's a separate issue, and honestly I don't think you're being . . . entirely honest here. There are Steam games with Steam Workshop mods that also appear on Nexus and ModDB. Skyrim, for example. Then there are games on Steam (like Dragon Quest XI) with no Workshop mods at all, but plenty of support on Nexus. So I don't see the problem. Steam isn't making people use the Workshop, and the Workshop isn't preventing people from releasing mods on independent sites.

Honestly I think the issue of level editors and the Workshop should be dealt with separately. There are plenty of people out there that play unmodded games that also do not use level editors or anything of the ilk who would be better-served if they could shop for the game that they wanted at the store that they liked, kind of like in the old days. I could buy Daggerfall at Best Buy, CompUSA, Software Etc., Electronics Boutique, and other locations. Why can I only buy Skyrim on Steam or Fallout76 at Bethesda.net? And I always thought it was weird that I could get Oblivion on GoG but not Skyrim? Wtf Bethesda?

That's simply not true. The vast majority of non EA / Ubisoft games on Steam are Steam platform only and not obscure titles either, eg, Betrayer, Bioshock Infinite, DX:HR, Dishonored, Endless Space / Legend, Grey Goo, Prey (2017), Quantum Conundrum, Skyrim, Styx, The Talos Principle, The Turing Test, etc, thousands of them (too many to list).

Did Valve threaten or coerce them into such behavior? Not that I'm aware. The publishers chose one distribution point. Probably because they are lazy (see above). Who wants to patch their game on Origin, Steam, AND GoG? Apparently, nobody. Too bad it is the consumer that loses in the end. What if I like Origin's interface better than Steam? Why can't I buy Skyrim there? All I hear are crickets.

 

[BSim500]

I don't believe that, at all. EA has shown no interest in selling games on Steam. You used to be able to buy EA games there (and you can still get DA: Origins) but they stopped releasing in favor of their own store.

If you mean publisher exclusives rather than 3rd parties, we've also never had Half Life or Portal on Origin / uPlay / GOG. When HL2 came out back in 2004 it was an almost alien concept to require a store-locked client to run a disc you bought in the High Street, and yet you could still buy non vendor locked retail discs made by everyone except Valve for another few years (eg, Oblivion (2006), Bioshock (2007), etc. Even EA released Dragon Age Origins and The Saboteur retail discs that still weren't locked to themselves or anyone as late as 2009 but I don't recall a 2007 retail disc equivalent for Portal 1 that ran outside of Steam...) Given that history, personally I call that "Steam vs The World exclusivity" the same way my Granny would - "It's six of one and half a dozen of the other". People are just letting their "fondness for the first-born" cloud their objectivity when it comes to "Who refused to let their own games run outside of their own store-front first". A few Blizzard titles aside, it really started in 2004 with that one "must have" Valve game (HL2) that took the whole thing mainstream 5 years before other publishers stopped making discs that didn't need clients (which was actually as late as 2009). Valve both lead the way for digital distribution yet at the same time also set the same "publisher-storefront lock in" precedence that some people are acting like Epic Games invented in 2018...

Stop right there. That's a separate issue, and honestly I don't think you're being . . . entirely honest here. There are Steam games with Steam Workshop mods that also appear on Nexus and ModDB. Skyrim, for example.

It's entirely related. Skyrim (2011), Oblivion (2006), Morrowind (2002), etc, all predated when Steam Workshop opened up to games other than Team Fortress (2012), so yes there will be a lot of content elsewhere. For new games however, the earlier link gave quite a few examples of toolkits / level editors missing on non-Steam versions, and lets not pretend for one second Valve aren't aware of the "value" of Steam-Exclusive "walled garden" mods...

I could buy Daggerfall at Best Buy, CompUSA, Software Etc., Electronics Boutique, and other locations. Why can I only buy Skyrim on Steam or Fallout76 at Bethesda.net? And I always thought it was weird that I could get Oblivion on GoG but not Skyrim? Wtf Bethesda? Did Valve threaten or coerce them into such behavior? Not that I'm aware. The publishers chose one distribution point. Probably because they are lazy (see above). Who wants to patch their game on Origin, Steam, AND GoG? Apparently, nobody. Too bad it is the consumer that loses in the end. What if I like Origin's interface better than Steam? Why can't I buy Skyrim there? All I hear are crickets.

I do agree with you. I don't have any real-world answer as to "But why can't everyone sell everything everywhere", any more than I do for the increased fragmentation of video streaming. Sometimes it seems for every advantage account / store-locked digital has over physical, there's a negative. Eg, in theory auto-patching has made things easier - but only for consumers. Having to support store-front specific patch paths is a new negative they never had with discs, so they've actually made it harder for themselves to have everything everywhere via increased logistical update complexity that was ironically something digital was supposed to cure of physical discs, but has somehow ended up even worse...

 

[DrMrLordX]

If you mean publisher exclusives rather than 3rd parties, we've also never had Half Life or Portal on Origin / uPlay / GOG. When HL2 came out back in 2004 it was an almost alien concept to require a store-locked client to run a disc you bought in the High Street, and yet you could still buy non vendor locked retail discs made by everyone except Valve for another few years (eg, Oblivion (2006), Bioshock (2007), etc. Even EA released Dragon Age Origins and The Saboteur retail discs that still weren't locked to themselves or anyone as late as 2009 but I don't recall a 2007 retail disc equivalent for Portal 1 that ran outside of Steam...) Given that history, personally I call that "Steam vs The World exclusivity" the same way my Granny would - "It's six of one and half a dozen of the other". People are just letting their "fondness for the first-born" cloud their objectivity when it comes to "Who refused to let their own games run outside of their own store-front first". A few Blizzard titles aside, it really started in 2004 with that one "must have" Valve game (HL2) that took the whole thing mainstream 5 years before other publishers stopped making discs that didn't need clients (which was actually as late as 2009). Valve both lead the way for digital distribution yet at the same time also set the same "publisher-storefront lock in" precedence that some people are acting like Epic Games invented in 2018...

And how many Valve titles are there like that? Valve basically did what Blizzard had already done, lock their box o' software (Orange Box, what have you) to an online service. Everything else on Steam that isn't published by Valve directly has been able to sell on Steam or GoG or pretty much anyplace else that will offer the title. Everything. That's thousands of titles. How much Valve software is there, really? Two dozen titles or less?

It's entirely related. Skyrim (2011), Oblivion (2006), Morrowind (2002), etc, all predated when Steam Workshop opened up to games other than Team Fortress (2012), so yes there will be a lot of content elsewhere. For new games however, the earlier link gave quite a few examples of toolkits / level editors missing on non-Steam versions, and lets not pretend for one second Valve aren't aware of the "value" of Steam-Exclusive "walled garden" mods...

I'd like to see some evidence that Steam has made it impossible for modding to work in non-Steam versions then, because I see mods for new games (like Dragon Quest XI) showing up on ModDB . . . even when it's a Steam title. It's not just the old stuff.

I do agree with you. I don't have any real-world answer as to "But why can't everyone sell everything everywhere", any more than I do for the increased fragmentation of video streaming. Sometimes it seems for every advantage account / store-locked digital has over physical, there's a negative. Eg, in theory auto-patching has made things easier - but only for consumers. Having to support store-front specific patch paths is a new negative they never had with discs, so they've actually made it harder for themselves to have everything everywhere via increased logistical update complexity that was ironically something digital was supposed to cure of physical discs, but has somehow ended up even worse...

Honestly I don't see how patching on different storefronts is so damn hard. Directory structure and data structure between releases ought to be close enough that any meaningful patch would run on all distributions. Somebody's screwing something up somewhere.

 

[BSim500]

Honestly I don't see how patching on different storefronts is so damn hard. Directory structure and data structure between releases ought to be close enough that any meaningful patch would run on all distributions. Somebody's screwing something up somewhere.

I meant on the "up-stream channel", ie, what the developer sends to the distributor who then "re-package" it in a custom way for the "down-stream channel" (specific to Steam / Galaxy / Origin client to customer). Previously, when devs self-hosted patches as downloadable .exe's there was no "up channel" only a direct to consumer down channel (and that worked as you said). The clients that have simplified things for consumers have also added extra layers of complexity for developers when it comes to selling on more than one store-front. That's why a lot of devs don't want "every game on every platform".

And how many Valve titles are there like that?

Perhaps I didn't word it well but my point was, there's zero difference in lack of choice for +70% of 3rd party games on Steam that are Steam Exclusives (eg, Bioshock Infinite) than if they were Valve self-made Exclusives like HL2. That 3rd parties could go elsewhere is irrelevant if most don't as it highlights an industry level tendency for publishers to not want everything everywhere which shatters the illusion of any real "everything on every store" practical competition you were calling for. Gamers are also partly to blame as every time they argue with "In theory I'm against industry fragmentation caused by exclusives by EA & Epic, however, in practise I wouldn't complain about Half Life 3 or Portal 3 being Steam Exclusive", at which point they're sending publishers the message that "exclusives are wrong!" is a remarkably flexible and entirely relative non-universal belief, hence the mess we're in now...

 

[DrMrLordX]

I meant on the "up-stream channel", ie, what the developer sends to the distributor who then "re-package" it in a custom way for the "down-stream channel" (specific to Steam / Galaxy / Origin client to customer). Previously, when devs self-hosted patches as downloadable .exe's there was no "up channel" only a direct to consumer down channel (and that worked as you said). The clients that have simplified things for consumers have also added extra layers of complexity for developers when it comes to selling on more than one store-front. That's why a lot of devs don't want "every game on every platform".

See that's what's broken. Devs should be able to provide one patch .exe and the store ought to be able to quickly containerize it. If they aren't (and apparently they aren't) then the whole system is broken.

Perhaps I didn't word it well but my point was, there's zero difference in lack of choice for +70% of 3rd party games on Steam that are Steam Exclusives (eg, Bioshock Infinite) than if they were Valve self-made Exclusives like HL2. That 3rd parties could go elsewhere is irrelevant if most don't as it highlights an industry level tendency for publishers to not want everything everywhere which shatters the illusion of any real "everything on every store" practical competition you were calling for. Gamers are also partly to blame as every time they argue with "In theory I'm against industry fragmentation caused by exclusives by EA & Epic, however, in practise I wouldn't complain about Half Life 3 or Portal 3 being Steam Exclusive", at which point they're sending publishers the message that "exclusives are wrong!" is a remarkably flexible and entirely relative non-universal belief, hence the mess we're in now...

But at this point you're basically saying, "well it's the same thing for publishers to choose Steam exclusivity on their own as it is for EA and Epic to just wall off their titles from other stores". Which it isn't. At all. And if I wanted to sell my title on Origin instead of Steam, do you think EA would go along with it? If I were an indie developer? Unless I had already developed a large user base, the answer would be, "no". Publishers get to choose, and anyone (besides Valve!) on Steam gets to replicate on at least GoG if they want. Do EA titles replicate on GoG? I'm thinking, "no.". Blizzard titles certainly don't. Epic titles probably won't either.

Also, there is no Half Life 3 or Portal 3. There won't be. The last thing Valve came out with is Artifact, and I'm not sure how many people really care about Artifact (compared to Dota2 or CS:GO). Valve has maybe 4 active pieces of software remaining: Dota2, CS:GO, Artifact, and moribund old TF2. That's it. That's 4 titles you might actually care about that you definitely won't see on GoG.

 

[zink77]

I honestly do not understand why people are okay with digital storefront exclusives for PC.

These stores exist because the gaming masses are dumb. It all began when PC RPG's were rebranded mmo's in the 90's for recurrent revenue. It was when companies figured out they could steal control of the software by just calling it drm/mmo.

Once companies saw how stupid the average gamer was, Steam was inevitable. By all rights steam and mmo's shouldn't even exist. The fact that they do means too many people on our planet are too stupid to participate in the market.

PC RPG's --> Add drm and a subscription --> It becomes an "MMO".

Take a game --> add drm --> Propagandize social features to confuse gaming masses --> It becomes an "online game"

The average gamer is so illiterate that's why the gaming landscape is as it is.

 

[sweenish]

I mean, do YOU not know how Movies Anywhere works? You can buy from anywhere. You, as a consumer, have choice. With exclusives, there is no choice. You either buy it from the one storefront or don't buy it at all. That storefront no longer has to compete with others with fair pricing, because they know you'll come to them if you want it. And when you buy it, you have to use that platform to play it; you can't buy from Epic and play through Steam. Yet here you are, saying exclusives don't matter. That's cognitive dissonance at its finest.

So you agree that no other studio besides Disney publishes Disney movies? You agree that Movies Anywhere works, even though it's literally NOTHING BUT EXCLUSIVES? You agree with me that what we need (I never said we had it) is a Movies Anywhere type solution? You're literally arguing for my point now. I obviously understand that there needs to be an abstraction between publishers and storefronts, that all falls under the whole "there needs to be a Movies Anywhere type solution" that I keep saying. We might have arrived there civilly, and I can admit that I share part of that blame, but I'm pretty sure we're arguing for the exact same thing.

Dude's drank the kool-aid, it doesn't matter what you say to him. His responses are exactly the brainwashed 'as long as I can get my favorite 30th verison of a game I'll do whatever bending over they want'.

So, because I don't agree with numbers you literally made up to suit your point, I drank the kool aid. There's literally nothing else to say about that.

Also, at what point have I stated that I'm into any long-running franchise? You make a lot of assumptions about my character. I don't think I've done that about you. I've told you you're literally making up data to suit a point, but the fact that you don't see a problem there speaks more to you than to me.

You can't sell a game on both Steam and Origin and then let the consumer decide which storefront best meets their needs.

Yes, you can. You can sell on as many storefronts as you like. Except maybe Epic, because they seem determined (for now) to provide a curated experience.

These stores exist because the gaming masses are dumb. It all began when PC RPG's were rebranded mmo's in the 90's for recurrent revenue. It was when companies figured out they could steal control of the software by just calling it drm/mmo.

Once companies saw how stupid the average gamer was, Steam was inevitable. By all rights steam and mmo's shouldn't even exist. The fact that they do means too many people on our planet are too stupid to participate in the market.

PC RPG's --> Add drm and a subscription --> It becomes an "MMO".

Take a game --> add drm --> Propagandize social features to confuse gaming masses --> It becomes an "online game"

The average gamer is so illiterate that's why the gaming landscape is as it is.

You can't even differentiate between an RPG and an MMO, but it's "the masses" that are the dumb ones? Come on. I didn't realize that Skyrim and Witcher 3 were MMOs.

Nobody is even trying to make a cogent point anymore. I get you have your feelings on a matter, but stop pretending like made up numbers and full on ignorance counts as an argument. I've at least acknowledged my opinions as just that. I think the Epic store can succeed. I think serious competition to Steam will force Valve to actually be pro-active. I think that competition is better for both developers and consmers. I think the dread so many are losing sleep over another storefront is a moot thing at this point. I think the next eventual step is a Movies Anywhere type situation (and storefront exclusives don't hamper this, nor do I think it's a permanent or long term tactic by Epic anyway) or at least a universal launcher where the Movies Anywhere juice is just interfacing with the storefronts.

Those are my thoughts, and the counters I get are "Here's some data I made up to refute you; also here's my tinfoil theory for fun" and "RPG == MMO now; masses be stupid." And gamers wonder why they're still not taken seriously.

 

[JujuFish]

So you agree that no other studio besides Disney publishes Disney movies? You agree that Movies Anywhere works, even though it's literally NOTHING BUT EXCLUSIVES? You agree with me that what we need (I never said we had it) is a Movies Anywhere type solution? You're literally arguing for my point now. I obviously understand that there needs to be an abstraction between publishers and storefronts, that all falls under the whole "there needs to be a Movies Anywhere type solution" that I keep saying. We might have arrived there civilly, and I can admit that I share part of that blame, but I'm pretty sure we're arguing for the exact same thing.

I never said we don't need a Movies Anywhere solution. I have only argued against your having no problem with store exclusives, and you continue to argue that two plus two equals four because grass is green. You have failed to provide a single reason that makes store exclusives even remotely a good thing for the consumer, or how it doesn't directly contradict a Movies Anywhere solution.

 

[zink77]

You can't even differentiate between an RPG and an MMO, but it's "the masses" that are the dumb ones? Come on. I didn't realize that Skyrim and Witcher 3 were MMOs.

MMO is a marketing term, ANY Game (software) can be made an "MMO" just by server locking the game, it's all in how the game is coded. Also note private servers for Ultima online and world of warcraft prove you incorrect. AKA mmo's were just the big scam to rebrand PC RPG's to get you to pay monthly for a game you don't own and lose control of the game.

Go look at diablo 2 vs diablo 3, quake 3 vs quake champions. Any game that has "champion packs" like smite or is "f2p" is a game you don't own or control, any money you give it, is wasted, they are scam games. Because the game disappears because companies now control the damn software. We saw the same thing begin to happen with Assassins creed 2 as Ubisoft tried to server lock the game but couldn't do it in a sophisticated way so was eventually cracked. Any game can be "made an mmo" like that, all it means is server locking the software and sticking an mmo badge on it. Note how Ultima RPG's on the PC stopped once "ultima online" hit.

Sorry to tell ya, I can tell you the facts and you won't reason to the right conclusion, see the science:

 

[DrMrLordX]

Yes, you can. You can sell on as many storefronts as you like. Except maybe Epic, because they seem determined (for now) to provide a curated experience.

No 3rd party sells on Origin. Not a single one. And EA won't sell on anything but their own store. So what gives? If EA would let 3rd parties on Origin, don't you think someone would have taken advantage of it by now?

Also "curated experience", ha ha ha. Okay Epic, that's a good one!

edit: that account has been deactivated? Hmmm.

These stores exist because the gaming masses are dumb. It all began when PC RPG's were rebranded mmo's in the 90's for recurrent revenue. It was when companies figured out they could steal control of the software by just calling it drm/mmo.

Once companies saw how stupid the average gamer was, Steam was inevitable. By all rights steam and mmo's shouldn't even exist. The fact that they do means too many people on our planet are too stupid to participate in the market.

PC RPG's --> Add drm and a subscription --> It becomes an "MMO".

Take a game --> add drm --> Propagandize social features to confuse gaming masses --> It becomes an "online game"

The average gamer is so illiterate that's why the gaming landscape is as it is.

No, sorry. You are wrong. I played some of the original MMOs in beta (actually played UO pre-alpha) and I completely understand the difference between a single player CRPG, a small multiplayer RPG with non-persistent world state (Diablo -> Fallout 76) and an MMORPG with thousands of players in a persistent world state. You don't get an account because you're an idiot, you do it to join a persistent world state, just the same as you did with Gemstone 3 and NWN (the original NWN) back in the day.

Your attitude towards gamers in general is pretty nasty.

We will not go back to buying boxes of software without any DRM, sorry to tell you. Too many publishers and their backers are paranoid about the effects. They can't all have a relationship like CD Projekt Red and GoG. It would be nice if they could, but they can't. Or won't anyway. The best-case scenario we can get now is to hope that they'll actually give us our choice of which store to use, and make it easier for us to access all our titles without the hassle of having to run multiple launchers in the background. That may be difficult since each store seems to want their own version of "social features" linked to the launcher, along with ads/splash screens. Maybe someday, if enough people reject Denuvo we can get rid of it too. Most of the other invasive DRM schemes have fallen by the wayside. Denuvo will go away someday. Then we have to wonder, what will replace it?

 

[zink77]

I completely understand the difference between a single player CRPG, a small multiplayer RPG with non-persistent world state (Diablo -> Fallout 76

You see that word salad above, it is ALL disproven by private servers. So no you are definitely irrational. The fact that private servers exist for "mmo" games proved the mmo was a scam. Game companies love people like you, you're irrational and unaware you are irrational.

 

[DrMrLordX]

You see that word salad above, it is ALL disproven by private servers. So no you are definitely irrational. The fact that private servers exist for "mmo" games proved the mmo was a scam. Game companies love people like you, you're irrational and unaware you are irrational.

That is not "word salad". You're being obtuse and combative. A single-player game is something like Final Fantasy 10. Diablo is a multiplayer non-persistent game. Everquest is an MMO. There are crossover titles that blur the lines between them, and clever hacks to get around normal limitations of the software (example: NWN Persistent Worlds, aka PWs, and I'm talking the Bioware product). If you still refuse to understand the difference, then there is no helping you.

Personally I have sunk a fair amount of time (either in betas or in release form) into UO, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Final Fantasy XI, World of Warcraft, and some lesser titles. The things those games let me do would never have been possible in traditional single-player CRPGs. That was the appeal. Giving up rights or ownership was never part of the equation. You paid up front for the box o' software and paid monthly for the chance to have those multiplayer co-op PvE battles that people had been dreaming of since their first MUD. You have heard of those, haven't you? And in case you hadn't noticed, that general trend is essentially dead. Nobody wants to pay $15 per month to help keep the servers running and the update patches rolling out, so they play stuff like Elder Scrolls Online for a one-time cost or they try their hand as a scammy Free-To-Play title. MMOs are mostly old hat. Not sure why you're raising hell about them.

And none of this REALLY has anything to do with the Epic store. They aren't pushing any MMOs. MMOs didn't make people want to use Steam or to accept SaaS models.

 

[paperfist]

The comments to this video are interesting

Interesting. Toward the end of that video he said Epic won't have game forums like on Steam, but a ticketing system so you can message a game company directly. I don't see that working in the unicorn way it sounds. He also said in 2019 if you get on the Epic platform they'll be giving you a bunch of free games.

I dunno, love/hate. I love how easy Steam makes everything, but hate how I don't own my own damn games and worse now I have to pay sales tax on **** I lease.

Epic is a bit of an odd company. We used to get cool games like Unreal, now we get Fortnight that made them $3 billion dollars last year.

 

[JujuFish]

Interesting. Toward the end of that video he said Epic won't have game forums like on Steam, but a ticketing system so you can message a game company directly. I don't see that working in the unicorn way it sounds. He also said in 2019 if you get on the Epic platform they'll be giving you a bunch of free games.

I dunno, love/hate. I love how easy Steam makes everything, but hate how I don't own my own damn games and worse now I have to pay sales tax on **** I lease.

Epic is a bit of an odd company. We used to get cool games like Unreal, now we get Fortnight that made them $3 billion dollars last year.

You do know you owe that tax regardless, right? Every state with sales tax also has use tax.

 

[paperfist]

You do know you owe that tax regardless, right? Every state with sales tax also has use tax.

I owe NY a big tea party.

It’s a new tax they implemented, never paid that before on digital media or in states the company has no representation.

You don’t pay tax on leased vehicles, right?

 

[JujuFish]

I owe NY a big tea party.

It’s a new tax they implemented, never paid that before on digital media or in states the company has no representation.

You don’t pay tax on leased vehicles, right?

It's not new. Use taxes have existed right along with sales tax. It has nothing to do with the company you purchase from and whether or not they have representation. If you don't pay sales tax on an item (say, by literally visiting a state such as Delaware that doesn't charge sales tax), you owe it in use tax instead.

 

[SMOGZINN]

MMO is a marketing term, ANY Game (software) can be made an "MMO" just by server locking the game, it's all in how the game is coded. Also note private servers for Ultima online and world of warcraft prove you incorrect.

MMO is not just a marketing term, it is a type of game. There are massive differences between how a single player RPG, a limited multiplayer non-persistent world RPG, and a MMO play. Your ignorance is astounding on this matter. They are not even similar games.

Also, have you ever played any of those 'private servers' for Ultima or WoW? That was a rhetorical question, I know you didn't. Why? Because they are/were terrible. If you had ever played on one you would know that they prove pretty conclusively why there was real consumer value to publisher controlled servers.