This seems like a strategy everyone can appreciate: Epic pays indie developers to update their old games
Seems like a better way to put it. They are buying IP left and right and pushing their unfinished, buggy client in a very unhealthy way.
[0] - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-05-01-epic-acquires-...
>thereafter it will continue to be supported on Steam for all existing purchasers
> Epic has offered an update on the confusingly worded statement issued to press earlier today regarding Rocket League's future status on Steam, now insisting that it has "not announced plans to stop selling the game there".
Even if they do pull future sales of Rocket League off of Steam why is that a problem? Valve has purchased game companies. I've never seen anyone complain that you can't buy Left 4 Dead on GoG.
If paying for exclusives is bad what viable alternative strategy should Epic be using to get users to their store?
Edit: I was being serious.
"what viable alternative strategy should Epic be using to get users to their store?"
What's preferable for the consumer? buying a monopoly, or competing on quality, price, customer service, etc, etc, etc.
What metric are you using to define quality and how would it make people use this store over Steam? How much cheaper would you need to sell games to get people to go to the Epic store? Would developers put there games on the Epic store if the price had to be so low that they made more per sale on Steam? Good customer service being a factor requires having customers to experience it. It helps long term but won't get your first wave of customers.
Price in this case would be margin. If Steam takes 10%, Epic could take 5%. Games makers could pass the savings on, or increase their own margins.
Yes good customer service requires customers. What's your point? Your first customer experiences good customer service, mentions it to their friends, who then shop with you, who then mention it to their friends. It's called word of mouth. It's a powerful marketing tool.
> Price in this case would be margin. If Steam takes 10%, Epic could take 5%. Games makers could pass the savings on, or increase their own margins.
Steam takes 30% and Epic takes 12%. Very few games have chosen to reduce their price to go with the increased percentage.
For a web based store customer service only matters when things go wrong. Most customers should get a fairly standard experience of paying money and receiving their product. Do you consider Steam's customer service bad? Would a marginal improvement in customer service convince you to deal with the hassle of installing another launcher, setting up a payment method on a new store, and splitting your game library?
All of these things don't happen instantly.
You asked for a viable strategy, this is it as evidenced by the fact they're already trying it. Is it guaranteed? No. But nothing in business, or life, is.
And they released L4D2 a year after L4D sparking a lot of community uproar, starting things like the L4D2Boycot groups.
Man, just talking about the game makes me want to play it again. That was such an addiction for me xD
Can't find them right now, and don't have the time to do a thorough comparison, but looking at the first three games on the Epic Store front page that also have Steam pages with prices seems to confirm this. That's "Oxygen not Included", "Vampire: The Masquerade® - Bloodlines™ 2" and "Outward", all of which are priced the same on both stores (€22.99, €59.99 and €39.99, respectively).
Offering the games DRM-free (the audience that GOG is aiming - though I am really concerned about what GOG is currently doing with GOG Galaxy and cloud synchronisation).
When EA pulled their games from Steam, Valve replied in kind.
One thing that irks me is that Valve seems way more committed to interoperability, open standards and its consumers' wellness than its competitors (likely as a result of being privately owned); while the competitors in question use every trick in the evil corporate playbook to try to increase their marketshare. We've seen how they play, and the friendly façade is likely to change to ad more value-extracting one once/if they gain marketshare.
Achieveemnts not popping up helps focus on the actual game.
Cloud save, family sharing etc. are of marginal use for me and I imagine 99% of consumers outside the vocal minority.
But I guess that makes me a vocal minority :P
It sucks for consumers.
Also after Epic bought 'Rocket League' and removed it - for new buyers - from Steam, I'm starting to loose a bit of sympathy for Epic.
After all, Epic and Valve are both making a huge amount of money, so there doesn't seem that much of a need for such aggressive strategies.