• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

$130m Loss Expected for Epic Games Store Exclusives in First Wave

supernova8

Banned
Wait ... you're upset that some games went to Epic instead of Steam? Who the hell cares about which launcher a game is stored in?

Is this like the PC equivalent of "console wars"?

Personally I thought the benefit of everything being on Steam was that.... everything is on Steam. It's just easier to manage. You don't need to have 50 launchers running, switching back and forth between them.

Probably sounds weird but Steam has ended up with an almost-monopoly on PC gaming, yet nobody (including me) gives a shit because it seems to "just work".

As for how much of a cut Steam or EGS take, how many consumers really give a shit? How many people on this forum (where people are more likely to give shit) really give a shit?
 
I redeemed a couple of games but the only one I played is Total War: Troy, which I'm buying with the new expansion next month on Steam. Thanks for the demo, Tim.

The Shakedown Hawaii dev made like a bandit: 4 million dollars payout, less than 100k revenue on Epic and under 200 reviews on Steam 10 months after it launched there.
Hilarious numbers for Metro, WWZ and Ubisoft titles too. WWZ and Metro probably recovered their entire development budgets with this deal and Ubisoft gained a lot of UPlay customers.

rbAz0eK.png
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
This hate to Epic store had no sense on Resetera. Here on GAF is even more senseless.

Let's sum this up regarding Epic and all of that

Unreal Engine
+ It's a great of tools, period

Store, launcher, and contextual strategy
+ It runs
+ Some free games
- Inferior store experience
- Inferior launcher experience and features
- Senselessly dividing an open platform, buying exclusives
- Heavily loss driven
- Potentially reigniting parts of past piracy problems

Other
- Tencent
- Sweeney's "PC is doomed" mentality and wet dreams about consoles, taking it up the ass by Sony and lovin' it
- Sweeney publicly lying about the Sony/PS5/Epic UE5 demo, throwing his own employees under the bus, without even batting an eyelid
- Epic doesn't care about their own games anymore, unless cash cow Fortnite, hasn't released a proper game for PC in a decade or so

I wouldn't say there's no smoke in sight.
 
Last edited:
I love EGS for the free games. I've spent a ton of time playing their free offerings. I've also purchased a couple of games when they have the fantastic voucher offer going.

I couldn't care less about the lack of features compared to Steam. I'm happy both exist.
 

OmegaSupreme

advanced basic bitch
Personally I thought the benefit of everything being on Steam was that.... everything is on Steam. It's just easier to manage. You don't need to have 50 launchers running, switching back and forth between them.

Probably sounds weird but Steam has ended up with an almost-monopoly on PC gaming, yet nobody (including me) gives a shit because it seems to "just work".

As for how much of a cut Steam or EGS take, how many consumers really give a shit? How many people on this forum (where people are more likely to give shit) really give a shit?
Perfect summation. Bravo.
 
I redeemed a couple of games but the only one I played is Total War: Troy, which I'm buying with the new expansion next month on Steam. Thanks for the demo, Tim.

The Shakedown Hawaii dev made like a bandit: 4 million dollars payout, less than 100k revenue on Epic and under 200 reviews on Steam 10 months after it launched there.
Hilarious numbers for Metro, WWZ and Ubisoft titles too. WWZ and Metro probably recovered their entire development budgets with this deal and Ubisoft gained a lot of UPlay customers.

rbAz0eK.png
Lmao that Shakedown Hawaii payout. Wtf. Game sold maybe 10k copies on Steam. Dev got rich for free lmao.
 
Probably sounds weird but Steam has ended up with an almost-monopoly on PC gaming, yet nobody (including me) gives a shit because it seems to "just work".
I'll even add to that, it's not only that it "just works" - it's that it constantly improves, seemingly with no competition pressure, keeps rolling out new features and initiatives, and keeps listening for feedback, axing projects that meet backlash (like the paid mods), working to improve the store experience and increase the added value for all the games you have, and all that - all that, without a squeak of PR speak. No bombastic announcements on social media, no trumpeting their success from the highest 5G tower they can climb on - just simple blog posts, within the client, clearly stating what has been done, how to use it, and always requesting feedback.

They are the epitome of a good service provider. They're the kind of service provider you're happy to give money to, in this case by buying games rather than directly paying them. Everything else rather pales in comparison.
 

UnNamed

Banned
Let's sum this up regarding Epic and all of that

Unreal Engine
+ It's a great of tools, period

Store, launcher, and contextual strategy
+ It runs
+ Some free games
- Inferior store experience
- Inferior launcher experience and features
- Senselessly dividing an open platform, buying exclusives
- Heavily loss driven
- Potentially reigniting parts of past piracy problems

Other
- Tencent
- Sweeney's "PC is doomed" mentality and wet dreams about consoles, taking it up the ass by Sony and lovin' it
- Sweeney publicly lying about the Sony/PS5/Epic UE5 demo, throwing his own employees under the bus, without even batting an eyelid
- Epic doesn't care about their own games anymore, unless cash cow Fortnite, hasn't released a proper game for PC in a decade or so

I wouldn't say there's no smoke in sight.
Real issues indeed.
 
Logic dictates that, if you love a certain game developer, and that developer got paid to be Epic Store exclusive, that buying the game on Epic Store actually makes no sense.

You litterally are not supporting the developer, you are just paying back the money that Epic lost. The developer has already gotten paid and unless it becomes a literal smashing GotY success, they would never get more money from another gamer.

Save that money and use it to buy merchandise or some other game in another platform, where the money would actually get to the developer instead of being intercepted and taken away by Epic.
 

Kerotan

Member
Epic wasnt kidding when they said it was long term plan. For those who dont know, Epic is betting on the game, like netflix did.

Netflix announced Tuesday in its fourth-quarter earnings report that it would not “need to raise external financing for our day-to-day operations,” a significant move for the heavily indebted company.

In less than a decade, the streaming giant borrowed over $16 billion to feed its titanic appetite for content. The reason: It didn’t make enough money to cover both its entertainment productions and its business costs, like payroll and rent and marketing.

That fact has caused a longstanding gripe over Netflix’s business model, and it’s why some observers have long argued that Netflix is a debt-ridden house of cards that would eventually come tumbling down.

Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-chief executive and co-founder, expected Hollywood would soon catch up in the streaming market, and the company stockpiled content as quickly as possible. To finance the hefty licensing and production costs, it borrowed the money. And kept borrowing.

The risk was clear: If Netflix didn’t generate enough cash by the time the debts came due, it would be in serious trouble. Mr. Hastings was betting that the company could attract subscribers (and raise its prices) faster than the debt clock was ticking. (Netflix was surprised that Hollywood waited years to jump into digital television, giving it an even bigger lead.)

The gambit seems to have worked. The company will still have $10 billion to $15 billion in debt, but it said it now made enough revenue to pay back those loans while maintaining its immense content budget.

The company said it added 8.5 million customers in the fourth quarter, for a total of 203.6 million paying subscribers by the end of last year, as the coronavirus pandemic fueled a surge in streaming services. The company has about 66 million customers in the United States. Netflix anticipates adding six million total subscribers in the first three months of this year.

Getting to over 200 million subscribers allowed Netflix’s operating profit to expand significantly, jumping 76 percent in 2020 compared with 2019. The company also said it would consider buying back some stock, helping to lift the value of its shares. Netflix’s stock jumped more than 12 percent in after-hours trading.

The company made $542 million in profit on $6.64 billion in sales in the fourth quarter. Investors had been expecting $625 million in profit and $6.6 billion in revenue, according to S&P Capital IQ.



Here is what netflix did, to reach where they are. Epic is on that road. Once their store users gets expanded, and get more exclusive, they will start to make profit. This is why they are heavily investing it now. PC is a big nomand land. With steam being lazy, Epic wants to brand itself as the next steam. With UE5 on their helm, they will have enough resources to expand their epic store.
Good Post on Netflix and it sounds like Covid might have saved them. Epic obviously following a similar model while the overall company still makes bank. Will it work? Well if they buy exclusives long enough and improve their features it probably will.
 

kingfey

Banned
Good Post on Netflix and it sounds like Covid might have saved them. Epic obviously following a similar model while the overall company still makes bank. Will it work? Well if they buy exclusives long enough and improve their features it probably will.
Covid was like double edge sword. Improved their subscription, and halted their movie production.
Epic goal is to build enough library for their users. Like playstation is doing with ps+. Once people have enough library, they wont leave your system easily. Its why steam isnt losing that much users. Most users have a big library there.

Exclusive, and timed exclusive will hurt steam users in the long term process, like how Playstation is doing to Xbox. Only place to play FF7R and persona is playstation. Xbox doesnt have those 2.
 

Jetpac

Member
Wait ... you're upset that some games went to Epic instead of Steam? Who the hell cares about which launcher a game is stored in?

Is this like the PC equivalent of "console wars"?
Facts, like just go down load the epic launcher problem solved
 

FStubbs

Member
Yes we know. Personally I am all for competition on digital storefronts such as, better features, cooler social integration, better streaming, better chat, better multiplayer (simulated local coop for example) etc etc etc.

I can go on and on.

Free games and buying exclusives does nothing for me.

Make a better product is what I as a consumer demand.
Right, and the Epic/Tencent plan is to offer you a worse product, but leverage limitless money from Tencent, Fortnite, and Unreal to starve Steam of new content through exclusives and drive it out of business.
 
Last edited:

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
Right, and the Epic/Tencent plan is to offer you a worse product, but leverage limitless money from Tencent, Fortnite, and Unreal to starve Steam of new content through exclusives and drive it out of business.


Its a strategy. Its a legitmate strategy which will attract a lot of users. Wont attract me though becuase honestly PC games are cheap and I dont buy tons of games each year. So the idea of 4-5 GREAT free games per year doesnt really matter to me because to pay 10 bucks for a game on steam is not a big deal or I pay more for a GREAT game but thats rare.

Im not bagging on free games. Get them if you want, but it just doesnt do anything for me. The only time I considered was Borderlands 3 but in the end i just waited.
 

JCK75

Member
Wait ... you're upset that some games went to Epic instead of Steam? Who the hell cares about which launcher a game is stored in?

Is this like the PC equivalent of "console wars"?


I'm really sick of this argument.

I had an Epic Account because I was making stuff in Unreal Engine and they compomised my username and passwords to hackers no less than 5 times before Fortnite was even a thing.
It happened 2 more times after it become a major platform and I was pretty fed up.

Then all someone needed to make my life hell was to have my email address, they would fail to log in.. know what this would do? it would prevent me from signing in even with correct credentials.

I deleted my account and I'm never going back, this was BEFORE they started all of this exclusive EGS bullshit that I really, really oppose.
Who cares what storefront they have to use?

I mean why eat at a clean, well maintained restaurant when the bum in the alley will let you eat the same hamburger out of his ass?
 

FStubbs

Member
I'm really sick of this argument.

I had an Epic Account because I was making stuff in Unreal Engine and they compomised my username and passwords to hackers no less than 5 times before Fortnite was even a thing.
It happened 2 more times after it become a major platform and I was pretty fed up.

Then all someone needed to make my life hell was to have my email address, they would fail to log in.. know what this would do? it would prevent me from signing in even with correct credentials.

I deleted my account and I'm never going back, this was BEFORE they started all of this exclusive EGS bullshit that I really, really oppose.
Who cares what storefront they have to use?

I mean why eat at a clean, well maintained restaurant when the bum in the alley will let you eat the same hamburger out of his ass?
And to use this analogy, the drug dealer across the street has a deal with the bum in the alley and is trying to prevent any beef from entering the restaurant, so your only source of beef is the bum in the alley.
 

recursive

Member
Let me guess, you are a console gamer? Apparently many care. Sea of Thieves sold more than 2 million copies on Steam after being Windows Store and Gamepass exclusive for years, but Microsoft didn't work as hard as Epic to piss people off. Reddit even have their own fuckepic community with almost 40k members.
Totally read that multiple times as "fuckee pic" and wondered if it was another Blizzard nude scandal.
 

Interfectum

Member
Wait ... you're upset that some games went to Epic instead of Steam? Who the hell cares about which launcher a game is stored in?

Is this like the PC equivalent of "console wars"?
What's confusing about it? If people enjoy Steam achievements, the Steam community, streaming games via Steam Link, activity feeds, etc when a game is pulled off of that ecosystem and put on to another of course people will be pissed off. Even with the upcoming Steam Deck you'll have to side load Windows to play any games on EGS instead of just sticking with Steam OS. You may be cool with that but there are plenty of people that will effect.

These aren't just 'launchers' anymore when said launchers have built communities and feature sets around it.
 
Last edited:
What's confusing about it? If people enjoy Steam achievements, the Steam community, streaming games via Steam Link, activity feeds, etc when a game is pulled off of that ecosystem and put on to another of course people will be pissed off. Even with the upcoming Steam Deck you'll have to side load Windows to play any games on EGS instead of just sticking with Steam OS. You may be cool with that but there are plenty of people that will effect.

These aren't just 'launchers' anymore when said launchers have built communities and feature sets around it.
Well, more like you have to sideload the Legendary app that acts as the opensource EGS client on Linux, but yeah.

You can't make an argument that "it's all the same PC platform, just different storefronts" when playing the same game bought on each of these different storefronts makes for such a drastically different experience in some cases. Like you can't invite some other random people, who have neither the same game nor an account with the store, to play together with you, on EGS. Getting controllers to work right on EGS can be hit and miss depending on what controller you have and what game you're playing. And so on and so forth, with modding, broadcasts, Linux support, screenshot hosting and community engagement, etc. Even GOG gets in on the action, although its features are more on the side of installing and preserving your games. EGS just has... nothing.
 

Hari Seldon

Member
The problem with Epic is that it is a corporation owned 40% by the Chinese Government. I already question having such a huge investment into Steam as some day Gaben is unfortunately no longer going to be with us and what happens to Steam? But investing such a huge digital library into the control of a single corporation is even worse. They can just shut that down at any point and use the Chinese-owned corp as a shield against any legal recourse.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but I get the impression that you "don't get it" because you're coming at this from the angle of a console gamer who is unfamiliar with the PC gaming landscape?

There is no lock that Steam has on the platform. They don't force developers to only release on their storefront, if that's the case then it's a choice a developer has made. Steam are so open (along with Epic's own incompetence to not have a similar function on their platform) that it got to the point where developers use the steam forums as a support page for their epic exclusive games. I've referenced one example there but the same thing has happened with a lot of games.

Epic have not innovated, they have not been competitive and they most certainly haven't ensured developers getting a larger cut has resulted in better prices for consumers.

There are several ways to compete - you can compete on price, you can compete on quality, you can compete on utility, etc - and when we look across the board Epic do not stand out in a single area. The only way their have sought to gain market share from Valve (and GOG) is by force. As a result people have rightly told them where to go.

This is a bit out of date but you get the picture:

vR1c2iz.jpg


Until all these other so called storefronts start actually competing then Steam will continue to dominate and nobody else has a right to complain.
I could give 2 shits about all the extra fluff, I'm hear to play games. Discord is my chat and universal friends list.
 

Gamezone

Gold Member
The problem with Epic is that it is a corporation owned 40% by the Chinese Government. I already question having such a huge investment into Steam as some day Gaben is unfortunately no longer going to be with us and what happens to Steam? But investing such a huge digital library into the control of a single corporation is even worse. They can just shut that down at any point and use the Chinese-owned corp as a shield against any legal recourse.
Do people really believe that the end og Gabe would be the end of Steam? His son is also working there as far as I know.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Uhh ... why?

But you know this kind of loss leader activity is part of their current strategy right?
why?
Beause they expanded the exclusivity shitshow on pc.
They TOOK games from other stores and paid to not release there. It would be other thing if only exclusive games were their own products
 

chixdiggit

Member
Buying a game on Epic storefront:
  1. Game looks interesting on Epic, Wonder if it's good? No user reviews.
  2. Go to Steam to read reviews.
  3. I think I will buy game along with it's sequel and I might as well get some free games too. Let's add to shopping cart. No shopping cart.
  4. Purchase everything individually. On last purchase the card is declined.
  5. Get fraud alert from credit card for making a bunch of purchases in a small amount of time. Contact them to confirm purchases.
  6. Make last purchase to finally download game. Return the next day because download times are insanely slow.
  7. Finally play the game! Hmmm, I have a question about the settings. No forum.
  8. Go to Steam to read forum. Find answer.
  9. Restart the game with said settings. Get stuck on the second puzzle. I'll just check a guide. No user guides.
  10. Go to Steam to see guide. Find what I was looking for.
  11. Would like to play some multiplayer but game is not very popular. I'll just join a group and see if I can join some other players. No group pages.
  12. Go to Steam to join group.
  13. etc
 

Graciaus

Member
I'm not sure why anyone continues to reply to console players who don't understand the well documented reasons why Epic is awful.

Epic's current strategy is not working and trying to ride this out isn't going to change that. They aren't a legitimate competitor and until that changes they will continue to be irrelevant. No growth in a pandemic year where sales for everything exploded says all you need to know.
 
I could give 2 shits about all the extra fluff, I'm hear to play games. Discord is my chat and universal friends list.
That's great for you. You're the exception, though, and the numbers prove it.

Just a reminder: between 2019 and 2020 the number of registered users on the EGS increased from 100 million to 160 million. The number of daily active users nearly doubled, as did the number of concurrent users. The total number of games on the store more than doubled, too. But revenue only went up by a paltry 3%. And that's during the first year of the pandemic, a period where Valve reported a 20% year-over-year increase in user spending on Steam.

A large majority of PC gamers are more than happy to head on over to the EGS to grab some free games, but when it's time to get out their wallets they'd rather wait for a Steam release, turn to piracy, or even miss out on a game than give Epic their money.
 
That's great for you. You're the exception, though, and the numbers prove it.

Just a reminder: between 2019 and 2020 the number of registered users on the EGS increased from 100 million to 160 million. The number of daily active users nearly doubled, as did the number of concurrent users. The total number of games on the store more than doubled, too. But revenue only went up by a paltry 3%. And that's during the first year of the pandemic, a period where Valve reported a 20% year-over-year increase in user spending on Steam.

A large majority of PC gamers are more than happy to head on over to the EGS to grab some free games, but when it's time to get out their wallets they'd rather wait for a Steam release, turn to piracy, or even miss out on a game than give Epic their money.
And you could probably write it off as expected if they were talking about profit, for instance, but no. That was numbers for raw income, without accounting for any deductions for exclusivity payouts, upfront payouts for making games available for free, losses from sales events, or even coupons.
 
Last edited:
Enlight us please.

This thread, abridged version:

They are treating the PC gaming ecosystem as if it's a console one.

If you only sell software there is no need for a loss leader strategy, people will go wherever they see value. They should have spent that money creating value instead of going around moneyhatting a bunch of games thinking people would take kindly to it.
Exclusives were never okay on PC. More than that, they were hardly ever practiced, with maybe a couple examples in the whole history since the start of digital distribution on PC. And one could argue even before that.

What is okay on PC, is self-publishing. It everyone's common ground, you can take your game and sell it yourself, wherever and however you can. That's what all of the publisher-owned storefronts, like UPlay, Origin, Battle.net, the Rockstar and Bethsoft launchers, are. Their 'exclusives' are just those companies' games. Even on GOG is still applies, as the vast majority of titles 'exclusive' to GOG, are games that CDP or CDPR actually made, or made possible/published, themselves.

I can understand your confusion in regards to Steam, as many games are indeed available only on Steam. But you might want to consider that the vast majority of developers just don't have the resources to self-publish. They can't, or don't have the skills or money, to have their own site to sell their game and market it. To these people, Steam gives everything they need, for just $100 and next to no review process. Hosting, marketing and visibility tools, a massive customer base to appeal to, all kinds of additional developer benefits. Compared to GOG, where you have to pass a heavy manual review process (since it's a curated store) and risk being denied, or to Itch that has a very limited audience and can't sell to the majority of the developing world (since it only accepts like two payment methods, one of which is PayPal), Steam is a natural first choice. And since their resources are limited, and the benefits of turning to other storefronts are slim (unless people really ask for it), many developers choose to remain on Steam alone.

That's the key part. Choose. Steam does not prevent them from going elsewhere. Steam does not prevent them from selling freely generated keys on other sites, for 100% of what profit they can muster. Developers and publishers are free to choose to use everything that Steam provides, or nothing of it. Same with Itch, same with GOG once the game has passed curation. None of these stores impugn on the concept of choice, developers and publishers go to these stores willingly.

With EGS's market approach, there is no 'choice'. By the power of money, EGS is exerting control over both the developers'/publishers', and the customers' ability to choose where they can put, or buy their games. This, is effectively anathema to PC gaming as an open, free platform. It's the marketing approach of console platform holders, and it brings the same console-war mindset with it - to PC, where nobody sane wants to have it.
Buying a game on Epic storefront:
  1. Game looks interesting on Epic, Wonder if it's good? No user reviews.
  2. Go to Steam to read reviews.
  3. I think I will buy game along with it's sequel and I might as well get some free games too. Let's add to shopping cart. No shopping cart.
  4. Purchase everything individually. On last purchase the card is declined.
  5. Get fraud alert from credit card for making a bunch of purchases in a small amount of time. Contact them to confirm purchases.
  6. Make last purchase to finally download game. Return the next day because download times are insanely slow.
  7. Finally play the game! Hmmm, I have a question about the settings. No forum.
  8. Go to Steam to read forum. Find answer.
  9. Restart the game with said settings. Get stuck on the second puzzle. I'll just check a guide. No user guides.
  10. Go to Steam to see guide. Find what I was looking for.
  11. Would like to play some multiplayer but game is not very popular. I'll just join a group and see if I can join some other players. No group pages.
  12. Go to Steam to join group.
  13. etc
 

GHG

Gold Member
I could give 2 shits about all the extra fluff, I'm hear to play games. Discord is my chat and universal friends list.

Good for you, do what you want, nobody is stopping you. The facts are the facts though and every other storefront faces an uphill battle until they get their shit together and realise why Steam has become so popular and maintained it's dominance over the years.
 

kingfey

Banned
Good for you, do what you want, nobody is stopping you. The facts are the facts though and every other storefront faces an uphill battle until they get their shit together and realise why Steam has become so popular and maintained it's dominance over the years.
Steam is same as Playstation. It has games, other platforms don't have.

You cant get persona, on other store front, aside of steam for pc. Or Playstation for Console.

That is why steam is dominant. As long as its gets exclusive games, they win.

This is why epic is needed. To make sure, steam doesn't get complicit.
Epic might be a joke now, but honestly they are much better than steam lately. We don't even have valve games these days, aside of VR game.
 

Interfectum

Member
Buying a game on Epic storefront:
  1. Game looks interesting on Epic, Wonder if it's good? No user reviews.
  2. Go to Steam to read reviews.
  3. I think I will buy game along with it's sequel and I might as well get some free games too. Let's add to shopping cart. No shopping cart.
  4. Purchase everything individually. On last purchase the card is declined.
  5. Get fraud alert from credit card for making a bunch of purchases in a small amount of time. Contact them to confirm purchases.
  6. Make last purchase to finally download game. Return the next day because download times are insanely slow.
  7. Finally play the game! Hmmm, I have a question about the settings. No forum.
  8. Go to Steam to read forum. Find answer.
  9. Restart the game with said settings. Get stuck on the second puzzle. I'll just check a guide. No user guides.
  10. Go to Steam to see guide. Find what I was looking for.
  11. Would like to play some multiplayer but game is not very popular. I'll just join a group and see if I can join some other players. No group pages.
  12. Go to Steam to join group.
  13. etc
This. Also this when buying console games that you know are on Steam. Achievement guides, trouble shooting, reviews, etc.
 
I definitely don't think Valve/Steam should have a lock on the PC space though.
Nobody is saying Valve should have a lock. When has anyone said a game should only release on Steam? Nobody wants that - not Valve and not your average PC gamer. It can release on Steam and EGS, and nobody would have a problem. This business practice of locking in exclusives represents something PC gamers do not want. Why is this so hard to understand?
 

chixdiggit

Member
Steam is same as Playstation. It has games, other platforms don't have.

You cant get persona, on other store front, aside of steam for pc. Or Playstation for Console.

That is why steam is dominant. As long as its gets exclusive games, they win.

This is why epic is needed. To make sure, steam doesn't get complicit.
Epic might be a joke now, but honestly they are much better than steam lately. We don't even have valve games these days, aside of VR game.
Games only being sold on Steam is not the same as games being exclusive. Any publisher on Steam is allowed to sell their games anywhere. Some just choose to only sell on Steam.

Explain to us how Epic has been "honestly much better than Steam lately"?
 

Game Filter

Neo Member
Say what you will about Epic, but they are a good thing for the consumer. We get tons of free games from them and they charge developers more fairly. I am generally an enemy of all digital stores - to me it's all bloatware except GOG who actually sell DRM-free games and thus what you buy is really yours.
But still, Steam needs more competition and now that Epic have pretty much stopped buying exclusive privileges, they are not a thorn in my side. And again - the free games are really nice too.
 
Good Post on Netflix and it sounds like Covid might have saved them. Epic obviously following a similar model while the overall company still makes bank. Will it work? Well if they buy exclusives long enough and improve their features it probably will.

It doesn't - we already had EGS 2020 numbers and they barely had any growth in a year where whole industry boomed due to lockdowns. Despite throwing hundreds of millions on giving free games.
 

GHG

Gold Member
Steam is same as Playstation. It has games, other platforms don't have.

You cant get persona, on other store front, aside of steam for pc. Or Playstation for Console.

That is why steam is dominant. As long as its gets exclusive games, they win.

This is why epic is needed. To make sure, steam doesn't get complicit.
Epic might be a joke now, but honestly they are much better than steam lately. We don't even have valve games these days, aside of VR game.

The games on Steam are not exclusive. Read the thread.

What exactly is Epic doing that is better than Steam in your opinion? What functionality are you getting on the EGS that Steam doesn't have?
 

supernova8

Banned
I'll even add to that, it's not only that it "just works" - it's that it constantly improves, seemingly with no competition pressure, keeps rolling out new features and initiatives, and keeps listening for feedback, axing projects that meet backlash (like the paid mods), working to improve the store experience and increase the added value for all the games you have, and all that - all that, without a squeak of PR speak. No bombastic announcements on social media, no trumpeting their success from the highest 5G tower they can climb on - just simple blog posts, within the client, clearly stating what has been done, how to use it, and always requesting feedback.

They are the epitome of a good service provider. They're the kind of service provider you're happy to give money to, in this case by buying games rather than directly paying them. Everything else rather pales in comparison.

Yeah you're right. Companies constantly improving with little to zero exterior pressure are definitely in the minority.

I reckon part of it is that they are a private company of only about 400 employees (according to Wikipedia). Considering how massive their operations are, they probably could've ballooned into a gigantic company if they wanted to. They clearly made a conscious choice to keep it simple and it seems to have worked.

Sure we don't get that many games from Valve anymore but when we do they are almost always great.
 
Has the Epic Store gotten any better?

I don't mind Epic giving Steam competition, but the Apple lawsuit and "poor us at Epic, we're just trying to champion the little guy" soured me on the whole thing since it reeked of greed, plain and simple.
 
Top Bottom