Epic Games Is Acquiring Psyonix
rocketleague.com
rocketleague.com
Epic isn't making a marketplace where I want to spend my money by being better than Steam, they're just trying to make a place where I have to spend money if I want to play certain games. Good luck with that one.
Gamers rage a lot, but they don't do much or stick to their guns often, so this strategy will be fine so long as Epic is working to address some issues. A few updates and patches, a few more games people simply must have, and nobody will remember why they raged.
I'm not thrilled with this, but I'm not going to stop playing Rocket League. I'm going to buy Borderlands 3 (and so are all my friends that grumbled about it being a time exclusive, and they'll buy it from Epic because we all want to play right out the gate together). I still remember people raging against Origin - most of them use it for the EA games they swore they'd never play again.
All my friends and I (30+ crowd) are like "fuck that, I got other shit to play" for Borderlands 3 but we all grudgingly used Steam back when CS:Source came out. I wonder if it's an age thing. I know my backlog is years long as this point so waiting 6 months to play it isn't making me lose sleep.
Coming along with getting old is having more things to do instead of video games, like side projects, or board games, or hanging out in person. Personally, starting ~3 years ago much of my video game time started getting replaced with tabletop RPG's as a way to spend time with friends, even online ones. I hadn't ever played tabletop RPG's before that point.
So when several of these games came announced as "not on Steam", my reaction was also "it's ok I can wait."
Luckily my computer gaming friends still have time for a match here and there, and games that are part of series we really enjoyed(like Borderlands, or Diablo though that franchise doesn't really grab us the way it used to) can usually bring a few of us together at odd times in the evenings. And double luckily my wife loves Rocket League and we usually squeeze a few matches in before we wind down for the evening.
I'm a VR dev by trade and a gamer by (nearly exclusive) hobby. I'm well deep into Epic and always will be. And it makes me angry. They're intelligent guys and the Unreal engine is fantastic, but the anti-consumer decisions they've made over the last few years have been very frustrating.
The ability to search is a particular sore point. Unless you know the exact name of what you're looking for, you're going to be unsuccessful, and the community have been screaming about this for literal years.
A different streaming platform for Netflix, Hulu, Disney, Universal, HBO, Amazon
A different gaming platform for Steam, Epic, Origin, UPlay
The real loser is the consumer
Whereas I've basically been copying the same DooM 2 install from computer to computer for 20 years.
Citation needed.
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. By my account, Epic has been among the better game developers for consumers. I wish Fortnite et al didn't use microtransactions—as far as I'm concerned, they always make games worse by building a purchase incentive into the design of the game—but it is free to play, so there's a limit to how much I can complain.
The fact that it's "free but if you want you can gamble here and look we made it fun!" actually makes that worse, not better. First it draws you in, then when you're hooked you have more trouble stepping out.
It's so harmless that even the non-monetary "engagement hacking" by other services feels like a burden in comparison (e.g. Steam's incessant notifications about new crappy stickers - stop stealing my precious time!).
The transparent llamas certainly had nothing to do with events in Denmark and Belgium -_-.
If Disney doesn't make much content that I want to watch (and they don't), then I don't have to pay them a dime for anything. If HBO only makes one thing that I want to watch, then I can subscribe for a month and then pay them nothing after that. That's a significant improvement over the previous way of doing things.
Why would it be good for a single company to control distribution of all content?
I understand the vitriol from many gamers: the Epic Store is a worse experience as a consumer than Steam. But I think that a more-viable funding model for game development is pretty significant: there are plenty of games that just barely eke out enough to keep studios alive/independent, or that almost do but then result in the studio closing or being sold to a megacorp like EA. A 30% cut for what was effectively a hosting and payments processing service was ridiculous, monopolistic behavior, and needed to be shaken up. As such I support Epic's move into the store space: more money for devs means more, and more interesting, games getting made.
Realistically, exclusive deals were the only way Epic could've made that work. For most people, if they could buy a game on Steam, they would, rather than using yet another launcher, and that fact means that Steam would still have most of their monopoly intact. Multiple launchers (and fewer features) is annoying but IMO worth it to get Steam to give a bigger cut to devs (which they immediately started doing after the Epic Store launched, although the Epic Store is still often a better deal for devs).
> Multiple launchers (and fewer features) is annoying
You can't claim steam is just a glorified CDN and payment processor in one breath and then complain about the lack of features in other launchers/platforms in the next.
I agree that 30% was steep, but steam provides both devs and consumers a lot of features that everyone now takes for granted (like cloud saves, household licensing, workshop mod frameworks, friends and chat, and much more). The games that move to epic are either going to have to implement these features themselves, depend on epic to provide a framework for it (sentiment seems to be "don't hold your breath", or release without them.
FWIW, I agree with Epic's stance on chat: Discord is good, use Discord. Steam chat is awful; I effectively never use it, and all of my friends use Discord servers. Epic could build their own chat platform, but for what purpose?
I do agree that there are some sorely-missing other features from the Epic Store, though. But I'm fine with them shipping an MVP to force Steam to offer more-competitive pricing sooner rather than later — which is what happened.
> depend on epic to provide a framework for it (sentiment seems to be "don't hold your breath")
Sentiment amongst whom? Angry gamers? Epic released their 2019 roadmap, it seems fairly reasonable; cloud saves apparently are coming in the next 1-3 months: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/epic-games-store-cloud-sav...
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/why-valve-actually-ge...
> Those keys are often sold on other platforms that take their own cut, which sometimes amount to the same as Steam's (though platforms like Itch.io and Humble Bundle generally take much less).
And at the end of the day, devs are still at the mercy of Steam; you can't just sell your game through keys, because Steam controls key generation and doesn't let you do that. Again per the article:
> Steam also imposes some limits on key generation to prevent developers from essentially piggybacking off of Steam's services while solely selling games directly to consumers elsewhere.
That's why I think the anger re: the Epic Store misses some of the point. Epic's move into the store space almost incontrovertibly caused Steam to lower their take rate: two days after the Epic Store launch, Steam dropped their cut of revenue for games that sold over certain revenue thresholds. If Epic is successful, I imagine Steam's pricing will continue to become more competitive, which is better for devs and better for keeping smaller studios alive and independent.
Seems to be working ok for EA's Origin store, Battle.net and Mojang though.
Yes, yes they did. At the time HL2 forced Steam on everyone, it was hated and despised. People forget this. It's how I know Epic will win. Gamers are weak.
In one of those articles, they talk about Gabe and Valve employees giving encouraging words (and opportunities that no other indie site got), which also includes this interview with Gabe right before The Orange Box released: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/11/21/rps-exclusive-ga...
Valve has had a lot of issues since then. Steam went through horrible growing pains. Steam support is awful. Valve hasn't released a game in years. But, they are where they are because they had passion, and a cavalier DIY sensibility.
Whatever Epic is doing, I want no part of. Every press release I've seen from them since opening their store has given me the willies. Gamers can get really passionate about this stuff, but for me it just boils down to my gut reaction. Epic and any company that signs exclusivity deals with them do not get my money. And I bought Rocket League on three different platforms.
They've recently (this year or the last) released Artifact, a card game, which apparently didn't do very well.
Content platforms always compete on availability of content. Steam did the exact same thing early on with Half Life. Look at what's happening in the streaming video space. Look at console gaming.
Ultimately, people aren't making Steam accounts because of the Steam workshop or Steam forums or Steam chat or what have you—they're making Steam accounts because there's a game on Steam that they want to play.
If Epic's store had better features but the same games, existing Steam users would still continue to use Steam, because that's where their existing game libraries are. The only way Epic could compete on features alone is if it were possible to migrate Steam purchases to the Epic Store. Since Valve will never let that happen, Epic has to entice users with exclusive games.
And that could be great for everyone—if it caused games to be made that would otherwise never get developed. Consider how much great content the video streaming wars have produced. As annoying as it is to switch between subscriptions, I'd say TV viewers are winning right now.
The problem, of course, is that Epic isn't developing original content—they're paying for existing content to be removed from Steam. My great hope is that this will change in time. Original games take several years to develop, so if any are under way, we wouldn't have heard about them yet. In the meantime, we're getting PC ports of Journey and Detroit, so that's pretty neat!
And Valve is?
I'm not into games myself, but Valve has done tremendous work for gaming on Linux. That alone is enough reason for me to support them.
You get no rewards for playing the game. If you want new cards, you have to spend money on packs or spend money to enter drafts.
This old fashioned "just play the game because it's fun" mentality is dogma to Valve, but nowadays users want and require the Pavlovian reward systems.
Speaking to the choir I suspect, but god do I hate progression systems.
Haven't played Artifact, but I'm really not convinced by the narrative that Valve is removed from this stuff. TF2 and Counter Strike all have loot and inventory systems of their own. They're basically required in any free to play game.
There's also SteamVR
Anyway, I wonder how many people are in that position, where they have a giant Steam "library" that's mostly bundle titles and stuff bought on special, that they feel some sense of attachment to, but in reality wouldn't really miss when using a different launcher.
For what it's worth, I think your memory is mistaken here, it's actually kind of the opposite—early on, Humble Bundles always offered DRM-free downloads (in addition to Steam keys), and it was only later on that they began selling some games as keys only. As someone who greatly prefers getting naked executables, I was really sad when this happened.
Check out the page for the second-ever Humble Bundle in 2010 (the first doesn't appear to be in the Internet Archive). DRM-Free downloads are listed as a major selling point. Also, you'll note they advertise Linux support, which wasn't supported by Steam at the time. https://web.archive.org/web/20101215101427/http://www.humble...
As an aside, I actually have Steam keys of all the early Humble Bundle games sitting in my account, unredeemed after all these years. I've been thinking I could sell them if I ever needed emergency cash for some reason, but even though it's a common practice, it feels kind of wrong... I have downloaded and played these games, just not on Steam.
I'm skeptical that those unused Steam keys would have much value, given routine Steam sales. I've compiled a list of my Humble Bundle games with unredeemed keys (game names only, not the keys themselves) into a spreadsheet for friends.
Spotify appears to be positioning itself as an destination for exclusive, original audio programs, but those aren't music.
This is just false. Steam has evolved beyond just a marketplace, and I go there because I enjoy the tools they provide. From VR, to family sharing, home streaming, and more.
What's relevant to this discussion isn't what features you like about Steam, but what features cause people to make Steam accounts. In other words, is it actually possible for another player to compete on features alone?
Exclusives of any kind are anti-consumer, whether it is steam doing it or epic.
It depends on how you're defining "original content". I mean, yes they are paying for games to be Epic exclusive, however Epic released Fortnite, so they do have their own big releases
As a broad generalisation this is baldly wrong. I use a Steam account and buy things there because the platform has the things that you mention (on top of a multiplayer API that generally works pretty well). If it didn't have those things, I wouldn't use it anywhere close to how often I use it now. A very high percentage of the games on it are also available on other platforms (publisher-specific, GoG, the dev) and those are not materially worse than Steam if you only consider distribution.
Not necessarily migrate, but offer (for free) the same game on Epic if you already have it on Steam; GOG did this for a few games (not that it helped GOG).
Edit: You can insert some EA keys from Steam into Origin: https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_Origin-redeemable_game...
Not hard to see similar limited appeal moves to amass popularity with a particular type of eyeball.
The irony in this statement is kind of ridiculous. You can't play many games without owning a Steam account right now. How is that any different in principle?
Overall, I recognize the Epic Store has some large issues and it definitely deserves criticism, but I just don't see why this shift is such a big deal in the long run. It's a good thing that Valve is getting competition, whose customer support has been a complete joke since its inception and monopoly allowed them to take huge bites from studio profits for years.
I don't believe anyone should be tied to one company's products like we have with Steam and there should never be a monopoly over this kind of stuff; Valve's dominance of the PC gaming marketplace is plain scary. I'm fine with Valve having to prove that people should use their product over the newcomers.
Right now the most frustrating thing will definitely be the split among ecosystems (chat, etc) and feature parity for things like Steam Workshop. That will smooth out over time, but yeah for now that's definitely an annoyance. I think we'll see an intermediary app like Discord fill the social space, just like how XFire used to dominate in the 2000's.
Be mad at the dev for making the choice to host only on Epic Store if you're upset about it - they're aware of the consequences and could have easily gone with Steam instead.
Splitting the install base effectively across another platform just spits in the eye of people who've bought RL and want to make it easy to see/join their friends. They've had years of problems getting a unified platform going, and its still not nearly as simple and straightforward as using steam friends.
Probably going to ask for a refund on Steam when this game is no longer for sale.
$20 for years of play time and server resource consumption. Thumbs down!
2,000 hours played? Thumbs down! (see Steam reviews for many examples of this)
Ridiculous.
Does it matter how much I paid or how many hours I have played? If I pay for a game, I'm sorry if I feel "entitled" to play it.
Is this "gamer entitlement"? I paid full purchase price and supported the devs by buying cosmetics - and they take away my favorite game mode, rendering the game useless to me?
Fuck that. There are so many other great games to play, and life is too short to waste on video games anyway.
HN up in arms about how you bought your product and it shouldn't be disabled in such a fashion.
Gamers complain about gamebreaking changes / purchase-driving features being removed:
"Gamers are entitled"
Yeah, games seem to be the field where even people who are typically pro-consumer go completely anti-consumer.
However, if you want to break your game after I purchased it and change the rules of how that license works and dont expect me to possibly change my mind about my decision, think again.
All the money I spent buying decryptors and getting wins/losses/placements and having an account where I could easily tell where all my friends are playing in one place also counts.
When its likely that EGS will get features that I wont (even though I funded the original building of all this) it grinds my gears - the vague announcement from a corporate aquihire is a klaxon shouting about the changes that are in the pipeline.
If Psy wants to say "hey, we'd be glad to move all your stuff over without a hassle" I actually wouldn't really be miffed, but that's not what they came to us with.
What other goods or services do you expect to use for years and then get your money back? If Spotify removes your favorite artist, do you expect to get money back for the years you already payed for while you listened to that artist?
The initial price of rocket league is what I am talking about - and yes, that's where I believe that the contract of violations were broken.
If you change your car's firmware 5 years after its released so it behaves in a way that I cant use it as I have always used it, I might have changed my purchase decision - and in the car example I usually get to accept or decline the change - I cant (obviously) because this has a service component.
What happens when amazon kills the last book publisher and then decides to dynamically increase the price of series that people like to read - the next GRRM book is coming out! but it's only on amazon kindle and it's a 100 bucks! chapters are streamed to your device in real time so no taking notes there you pesky pirate.
this is only the beginning, i can see why people are having knee jerk reactions to it
Pulling it from steam is reason enough for me.
The PC version of Rocket League will come to the Epic Games store in late 2019. In the meantime, it will continue to be available for purchase on Steam; thereafter it will continue to be supported on Steam for all existing purchasers."
Furthermore, Epic clarified that support for Rocket League on Steam will continue even after the game is released on the Epic Games Store and players "will still be able to play Rocket League on Steam with all of the content they've previously purchased, same as always."
https://www.usgamer.net/articles/epic-promises-support-for-r...
So you're saying if you bought a car with smart electronics, then suddenly the manufacturer updates it so that the electronics no longer work properly, you wouldn't take issue? Or how about a credit card with rewards you work toward amassing, then another company buys the company that makes the card and wipes your rewards?
I wouldnt say my speculation is wild - its pretty bog standard for video game companies or software companies in general changing hands.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/1/18525842/epic-games-psyoni...
"As a result of the deal, Psyonix says it will have access to more resources to support Rocket League’s competitive e-sports league and, by late 2019, will bring the game to Epic’s PC storefront. After that, Rocket League will no longer be available on Valve’s competing Steam store, though buyers of the Steam version will continue to receive support, which Variety is reporting includes downloadable content, patches, and all other future content. Terms of the deal, including how much money Epic paid to acquire Psyonix, were not made public.
“The PC version of Rocket League will come to the Epic Games store in late 2019. In the meantime, it will continue to be available for purchase on Steam; thereafter it will continue to be supported on Steam for all existing purchasers,” reads a press release issued to media at the time of deal’s announcement."
> After that, it sounds like Rocket League will no longer be available on Valve’s competing Steam store...
> Here’s the bit that makes it sound like Rocket League’s days on Steam are numbered (bolding ours):
While you're likely right, I haven't seen an official press release that say's it going to be pulled from steam, just that it would only continue to be supported. It's not explicitly called out, so it's left to people to speculate.
My interpretation is Epics PR team purposefully did not explicitly say one way or the other as to Rocket Leagues fate on Steam to
1. Gauge the communities reaction.
2. Allow Epic the ability to make the decision further down the line, including reversing course on the internal decision.
For better or worse, Steam is the game store of choice for the PCMR.
0 - https://store.steampowered.com/app/8980/Borderlands_Game_of_...
It kinda reminds me how Sony crippled the PS3 otherOS feature after the console was sold. It was deemed a major feature which was stripped away artificially and I understand how someone could be pissed.
And if they push out a DVD player firmware so it only works on a brand of DVD player I don't own, I would consider it the same thing.
Breaking something I paid for after the fact means I'm not getting what we agreed upon, and I should get my money back, regardless of whether it was a physical good broken/taken or a digital one.
Did you get free DVDs for all each VHS you owned when stores stopped selling VHS tapes?
I really wish the gaming community in general would cool it with the aggressive hyperbole. In no way is a developer being acquired equivalent to someone spitting in your eye.
Psyonix has done a fantastic job and created an amazing game and I think most people are happy for them and hope this works out, but it's hard to see the bright side of this as an avid Rocket League fan.
2. If you played the game for years you cannot get a refund from Stream
> In the meantime, it will continue to be available for purchase on Steam; thereafter it will continue to be supported on Steam for all existing purchasers.
So it sounds like nothing will suddenly stop working?
[0] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/05/epic-acquires-rocket-...
If Epic can use its reach and resources to promote larger tournaments and higher stakes for Rocket League as an esport, I think that'd be a win for the game.
If they overrun it with more loot crate/f2p stuff and make the game all about the meta, and just use it as an exclusive for their own platform, that will suck.
Congrats to the Psyonix team though. They seem like genuinely great, passionate devs.
Haha
Meanwhile I can’t even update my NVIDIA driver without loging into whatever their GeForce platform thing is now called.
Can’t remember your password? Stuck on old driver
Yes there are work arounds, but that doesn't excuse this kind of behavior in what I'd imagine is their main update delivery mechanism.
https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
and download the driver any time you want, just like it always was. GeForce Experience is mostly for the convenience of receiving automatic notifications and download when a new driver version is released.
That said, if someone made an account using your email, can't you trivially "recover" that account and change the password?
Thousands of developers rely on Steam, Epic, GOG, etc. for multiplayer networking/matchmaking features (all digital stores offer this type of service, AFAIK, but it's not the same service). In Steam's case this isn't limited to services provided in-game, but also inviting people or joining people directly through the Steam interface, which is invaluable.
Achievements are not unimportant. Millions of players play for the achievement; they are an essential part of their entertainment. In addition, they provide important metrics for developers, players and researchers.
The Steam Workshop is the best system out there for players to publish and obtain custom content and mods for games integrated with Steam. It's an essential part of several games; they literally couldn't exist in their current form without it.
The Steam Inventory can be used for holding a collection of meta-items provided by games to other games or for trading with other players who own the same game. It's not just used for trading cards. It would for example allow a Pokemon game to exist on Steam with tradeable Pokemon. It's used by SteamVR for allowing games to provide assets for SteamVR homes (not very important, but still quite interesting).
Steam's categorization, organization and search features are not excessive but insufficient. I want more of those, not fewer.
Family sharing is important for me to share some of my games with a small number of people from my family or close friends. GOG also allows me to share my games in this manner, since they are DRM-free.
Steam community pages/forums are often nowadays the best place to interact with developers and find important information regarding issues, upcoming patches, difficult bits of gameplay, and generally other people talking about that problem you just had.
I'm not saying Epic can't do all of this, and do it well. But saying that "all you need in a game store is to buy games" is incredibly naive. Any digital retailer that requires all of these services to be nonstandard and dispersed is doomed to lose.
Exclusivity arrangements certainly seem like potential trust issues, but Steam is a de facto monopoly, as is Amazon, and NetFlix is the clear leader in it's domain.
For example, NetFlix France is a joke, you couldn't watch any netflix shows because they're not available, they sublicensed to canal (the main paid TV service) with exclusively and are left unable to serve their own TV shows.
The Epic Store (and Steam) are global. That's more than 200 jurisdictions with different rules on anti competitive behavior. They are preventing competition globally and systematically, this has to be breaking some rules somewhere.
Either that or there is some (justifiable) brand confusion, as there are brands/companies spelled like that: "iPhone", "eBay", "FedEx", "DreamWorks", "HarperCollins", etc.
That said, the DoJ has in more recent times taken the opinion that anything that lowers prices for consumers is implicitly good and anything that raises prices is implicitly bad and used this as the basis for leveraging antitrust complaints against companies that were not in fact the monopoly. In particular I'm thinking about how the monopoly player in ebooks (Amazon) successfully convinced the DoJ to sue the brand new entrant (Apple) because what Apple was doing was causing problems for Amazon's strategy of artificially pricing books lower than they should be in a fair market (even though what Amazon was doing is literally a monopolistic tactic intended to cement a monopoly and prevent anyone from competing, which leads to raising prices down the road once you're sure the competition is gone, i.e. Amazon successfully convinced the DoJ to use antitrust laws to help Amazon cement their monopoly). But since Epic isn't raising prices for games, that doesn't really apply here.
To be fair I have basically zero trust of digital storefronts - for example, Steam will no longer run on my still-very-recent MacBook (OS X 10.10), so I can't play any of the hundreds of games I "own" on there anymore.
Unless the cost of their server infrastructure got wildly out of control, why would a company that is raking in cash sell out?
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/news/how-tencent-changed-fortni...
Epic needs users.
Epic bought publisher of a highly popular game their users.
Psyonix sold out, because at everything is has its price.
Expect Epic to forcibly migrate Rocket League Steam users. They will turn RL Steam into an Epic launcher and all current RL Steam users are suddenly Epic users.
For Psyonix and Epic there is no real downside. If you care about this decision, you're not in their demographic, and probably didn't help them generate their F-You Money.
I've bought their game in three different platforms.
Unless of course you are referring to the paid version of Fortnite, but I don't think that's clear from your comment.
Steam needs to halve its 30% commission to 15% for all games, and increase the Steam Direct fee to $2,000 to increase average quality. Developers aren't just leaving because of the high commission, they are leaving because of the deluge of junk launching on the store daily.
EDIT2: "Epic clarified to Variety that continued patches, DLC and all other content that hits the PC version of the game through the Epic Game Store will also appear on Steam for those who already own the game."
I'm not a fan of Epic's store feature and usability-wise already, and I don't feel good about Epic's decision to remove RL from the store on Steam.
This will kill off the Steam Workshop and community pages I'm sure, from which Rocket League benefited heartily.
Just, bad. Bad.
I used to be sympathetic to Epic games back when they were developing UE4 as a source available engine and were working on UT in the Linux space. But whatever mindshare begot those intentions seems to have totally dried up - thats not to say Epic was ever a particularly ethical business... from the first Unreal they were pretty run of the mill proprietary games maker selling proprietary engines and running the full gamut of games as a service, exclusives, manipulative game design (loot boxes, achievements, skinner boxes, etc) for over a decade.
Now they are half owned by China, overwork their developers horrifically, and are trying to use mountains of 10 year old kids money to coup the PC game space because the suits want that sweet sweet rent seeking 30% cut of game sales that requires no effort or investment by them through market capture in the long run.
> Editor’s Note: We wanted to clarify something for you after today’s news: Rocket League is and remains available on Steam. Anyone who owns Rocket League through Steam can still play it and can look forward to continued support. Thanks!
Sadly RL has been very good about not trying to milk it’s users. Crates suck but whatever. They give free keys with seasonal stuff. Hope it doesn’t change too much.
People had the same reaction to Uplay (No exclusive games but you still need to have an account) and Origin (Only way to play EA Games) and while the services still don't compare to Steam they were absolutely hated when they came out and now people mostly tolerate them to get access to the big AAA games (Apex Legends came and went but few people complained about Origin Exclusivity).
I'm pretty ambivalent when it comes to Steam, the client has become quite bloated with tons of unused / deprecated features and Steam Marketplace feels super scammy full of bots and phishing attempts, and their Chat leaves a lot to be desired but I still use it daily.
Only other services I can think of that has exclusive games and people have a positive / non negative reaction to is the Blizzard one but that has like 8 games in total.
I have read that Epic has no plans to remove the game from Steam so we shall see about that, but I for one am fine with more competition if it means that:
A) Exclusivity deals result in more stability for the devs in terms of receiving large cash inflow
B) Forces both parties to improve their services
Epic gets a lot of flack for being a fairly simple store at the moment, but Steam's had ten years to get where it is. Competition was sorely needed and we're finally getting it.
The CEO of Epic is a big fan of open platforms and cross-platform gaming and a loud and outspoken opponent of walled gardens. If there's anyone who will move us out of this model as much as possible, it's probably him. But exclusives is the only way to fight the Stockholm Syndrome people seem to have with Steam.
Perhaps you're thinking of CD Projekt Red, who have actually been fighting exclusives and walled gardens for quite some time.
Epic has stated it will put it's games on Steam if Valve drops their cut down to 12%. Epic probably is a little more pragmatic than GOG on ensuring they operate profitably, with willingness to offer compensation for exclusive launches, allowing DRM (although not offering any of their own), etc. but if you've followed Tim Sweeney or read things he's said going back for years, it's obvious he's one of the good guys. He's a CEO of a large business and has to make moves to actually be successful and profitable, but he is strongly opinionated about what's "right" and pushes Epic in that direction where possible.
Bear in mind, even if Epic wasn't offering incentives for exclusives, it would still be silly for game developers to release on both: Sales on Steam would hurt their sales on Epic, and they profit vastly more from Epic sales.
Epic does not allow for that level of distribution. It also doesn’t seem like they will.
Your argument about walled gardens also falls apart as soon as you realize that Epic is pushing for exclusivity.
https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/03/20/epic-is-bringing-its...
So while it's not 100% the same, it's progression far faster than Steam did when Valve pissed the gaming community off by forcing HL2 players to install Steam.
That's clearly not the case yet, otherwise Epic wouldn't be investing so much effort into pulling exclusives, including games that already have started taking pre-orders on other platforms (to be fair, it seems like those are being honored)
Making their platform a bit less shit for users might help too. It's not like Steam is a pinnacle of good UX that's impossible to beat. Winning through quality and good support would certainly feel better than the impression of "We can burn money getting into this market, so let's buy stuff people want" they're leaving now.
I feel people often underestimate the difficulty of going against a monopoly that's been king for over a decade. Multiple avenues are the only way to succeed. I think Epic Store would be DOA without exclusives, regardless of the quality of their launcher.
I somehow doubt they're on the side of angels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Knights#Silicon_Knight...
I don't like monopolies, but I like even less having a dozen game launchers/store/accounts.
In respect to which platforms are objectively less evil, comparing features and actual interaction with community and developers...
The ONLY way I see Epic as being better is paying developers a larger cut (and as a result some titles selling for slightly less).
Steam is doing more to support /my/ platform (a competitor to Windows), and has done more to further competition in other aspects.
I don't want Discord to be the federation method either, and XMPP ended up failing due to several mistakes and not requiring full Federation and transparent (un-modified, future / client side extension enabling) message passing between end users of different platforms.
Absolutely absurd. Steam fundamentally is less of a walled garden than the EGS feature-wise. All you need to do is look at CD-key activation on the steam store. Both Steam and EGS come with the app-requirement constraint, but only one allows you to redeem games purchased offsite.
Besides "He's a good person and will do good things", what actions show this.
That is fundamentally opposed to exclusivity contracts with publishers including when games have already been listed and sold on other stores.
>But exclusives is the only way to fight the Stockholm Syndrome people seem to have with Steam.
It's also a way to insure that some people will never touch Epic.
Stockholm syndrome?
Epic competed for developers on a more competitive split, but have done little to entice users; their platform didn't have even the barest of (edit:) feature* parity with Steam at launch (or even today), and rather than, say, fund new titles for their platform, they've largely paid for existing or in production titles to not appear on their competitor.
They're competing based on attacking their competitor (and/or users of their competitor's platform) rather than by bolstering the merits of their own platform.
It's a shallow distinction but a fair one for consumers to make. "We have helped create this thing for our users" is different than "We paid to prevent their users from having a thing."
I don't need forums or screen shot galleries or any of that junk from my store. I just want games.
If I want to talk about a game or interact with other people who play the same game, I'll go on reddit.
Many people use any enjoy the features that steam provides. For example, I enjoy the ability to go to someone's profile and be able to instantly join their game. I enjoy the ability to organize events through events in steam groups. Many people I know use the Steam Workshop to share their fan-made content or the Marketplace to sell their items.
It's not just those features in the client though. Steam also has a number of integrations that developers can make in their games, such as achievements, integrating their multiplayer with steam (allowing for the aforementioned joining via profile), cloud saves, controller support, etc.
Right now Epic is missing many of these features and more. With that being said, what reason do I have to use Epic over Steam besides the fact that Epic has a few exclusives?
I've used Steam chat and voice comms all of about 3 times. Discord is better.
Profile pages and achievements? Couldn't care less.
Streaming? There's Twitch for that.
What I really care about from a platform are the games that are available for it. Valve waved the white flag on that a while ago when they abandoned first party game development.
Competition is two stores offering incentives to users to come buy the product from them as opposed to the competitor.
This is anti-competitive and anti-consumer. If Steam were doing similar things, no one would stand for it, and I find it really odd that Epic gets a pass from some people.
As the consumer, I want to be able to choose which store I buy from based on the merits of the store and the deals offered.
87.5% of Steam's sales in Asia are from over 90 non-standard payment methods (outside of Visa, MasterCard, American Express, PayPal, PaySafe), and Steam Retail Cards cost Valve 10-15% of the sale. Epic either just don't support them, or charge the customer extra. I don't think it's fair to say Valve are "taxing game developers so hard".
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/appmgmt/gdc2019/slides/gdc_2... (search "Steam Retail Cards") or https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/resources/gdc2019 (full presentation; 35:40)
Rocket league is a finished and established product. They also don't seem to have any big plans in the near future. They are totally fine with selling season pass and crats/keys. They don't seem to care about new content in form of gameplay changes, or fixing month old bugs for that matter.
I'd argue that it's the perfect time to 'sell out'. They already won, it is now a good point in time to move on and do something else.
Being acquired by Epic could reduce headaches in these areas:
- Logistics behind eSports leagues.
- Managing server scale, stability and performance.
- Managing platform cross-play.
- Managing publishing across multiple platforms.
I think that the logistical overhead of keeping the lights on is at the expense of Psyonix's ability to provide meaningful content updates and keep the core gameplay fresh.