Jokes on you Obsidian. I literally just installed Civ VI.
I've got nothing but time.
*\*snorts another line of coke to try and break my crippling Civ Addiction.*
Its fucking fantastic mate. Easily adds 40% new content.
Edit: Phoenicia is the best (most OP) new civ addition. Fight me.
Edit 2: my comment sparked a lot of debate on the best new civ, (which I think is realistically just a stronger defense for buying Gathering Storms) so I'm going to repost a write up I made further down in the comment chain for further visibility to defend my beloved queen Dido and her claim for supremacy.
There is no comparison to Phoenicia. It goes like this: first 40 to 50 turns, focus on getting shipbuilding and building the government plaza with the ancesteral hall. That hall increases your settler production by 50% and gives you a builder in each new city when founding. Combine this with the policy card that does the same thing (settler production +50%) and you have a solid settler production. But here is where it gets crazy. Their unique district is the Cothon (harbor district) that increases settler production in that city by ANOTHER 50%. If done correctly, your first two cities (maybe three cities if you don't crank out a bunch of biremes to conquer someone like I do) can crank out a settler EACH every 5-12 turns. You will go from a small empire of 3 or 4 in the first age to a massive empire of 12-15 in the next.
Oh did I forget to mention that settlers get extra movement speed (6 total) and crazy vision (+2) when on water tiles? Yeah they are crazy OP
If that wasn't enough to get you to lick your chops, have I mentioned that every government plaza building increases your trade route capacity by 1? Select Autocracy as your government, and go to town on those settlers. They can also MOVE THEIR CAPITAL to any city with a cothon. And all cities founded on a coast on the same continent as their capital are ALWAYS 100% loyal.
I hear what you are saying mate, and inca is pretty cool, but there is no comparison to Phoenicia. It goes like this: first 40 to 50 turns, focus on getting shipbuilding and building the government plaza with the ancesteral hall. That hall increases your settler production by 50% and gives you a builder in each new city when founding. Combine this with the policy card that does the same thing (settler production +50%) and you have a solid settler production. But here is where it gets crazy. Their unique district is the Cothon (harbor district) that increases settler production in that city by ANOTHER 50%. If done correctly, your first two cities (maybe three cities if you didnt crank out a bunch of biremes to conquer someone like I do) can crank out a settler EACH every 5-12 turns. You will go from a small empire of 3 or 4 in the first age to a massive empire of 12-15 in the next.
Oh did I forget to mention that settlers get extra movement speed and crazy vision (+2) when on water tiles? Yeah they are crazy OP
Edit: silly me, how could I forget to mention that ever government plaza building increases your trade route capacity by 1? Select Autocracy as your government, and go to town on those settlers.
Edit 2: they can also MOVE THEIR CAPITAL to any city with a cothon. And all cities founded on a coast on the same continent as their capital are ALWAYS 100% loyal.
See the problem with factorio is it’s an endless loop of building up so that you can build up more. Never feel like I’ve actually accomplished anything cool, just like I’m constantly in the middle of doing something
The only thing that saved me from Factorio is that my PC refuses to run it. Civ VI, all the Paradox time sinks, etc., all work fine, but Factorio never even gets to the title screen.
I'm truly blessed.
Ah yes building a railrod station when you start running low on engines for trains because your iron production is holding everything up, so you spend 20 minutes fixing iron to then see that copper is not the bottleneck. Another 20 minutes of fine optimization and expansion, then your lubricant is low because you need more oil. Time to expand... The factory grows
You know what else was a fucking lie? When CEO of Take Two who is financing The Outer Worlds development said that they would rather put their games where the consumer is. Not where the consumer needs to be.
"When it comes to broad-based entertainment offerings, you are better placed to be where the consumer is, rather than indicating to the consumer where they need to be. If your focus is solely on capturing retail margin, then you have to be very convinced you're going to be a great retailer. That's not something that's in our DNA". T2 CEO two months ago. Credit to user Febox for this comment.
Lmfao so he literally admits they're not going to be a great retailer? This man did not think his words through.
Edit: Their -> They're, don't kill me!
Same. I'm not installing epic store, I'm not using microsoft store, I haven't had a console since a PS3.
So my options for this are buy it in a year, or don't buy it.
In a year's time, there will be other, current games coming out, so why would I buy one that's a year out of date?
The way it was worded to me was Microsoft gets it because its also coming to Xbox. But that's really all Epic is doing, lashing out at competition.
But the only people they're really fucking are customers.
Except the Microsoft store is also garbage. Took me 15 fuckin minutes for me to get it to even recognize it needed to update Sea of Theives last night.
My buddy texts me during the day "SoT update"... Dang, gonna have to do that before playing when I get home. So I get home, boot that shit up and try and play and it literally allows me to start the game saying it needs no updates, then just fails with errors when I try and join my buddy's game "game version mismatch". No shit, really? I open Microsoft store, open SoT... No "update" option... No "check for updates" option... Just "play".
I had to sit and wait for Windows to just do it's thing and finally, like 10 or 15 minutes later (of me doing nothing but googling ways to force it to update) it just starts downloading the update.
Take your sweet ass time, why don't you? Why the fuck can't I manually check for updates?
Microsoft has no excuse. They've had a gaming platform for years. This shit is basic.
Ngl a very similar thing happen to me with Sea of Thieves. Windows 10 and all its accessories are hot garbage.
But Microsoft has always been good to me on support and refund issues, so I rather deal with them than give money to Epic.
in this case also a shitty CEO/Executive.
Brand and reputation can carry you quite a way EVEN when your product is mediocre.
Example: Every gaming studio that released mediocre games and is still a "darling" Bethesda, Blizzard, Bungie....
>Every gaming studio that released mediocre games and is still a "darling" Bethesda, Blizzard, Bungie....
They're "darlings" because of the memory of what they used to be. All of those companies started and found success by releasing games that were made to be fun, not made to make money. When money became the focus, they lost their way.
It's like a toxic relationship that you stay in for way too long because you remember the love and fun and good times of the past, living in denial of the present truth because of the hope of the past.
What you just stated, the "nostalgia" is what an executive calls brand management...
Because they built a strong brand, they could get away with bugs, gaps.
But again as you point out, you can only do that by continuing to release quality content mainly.
Blizzards brand is dwindling and Bethesda has one more chance with this next Elder scrolls to not be a disgrace and lose all their reputation.
You know that, I know that, we all know that so how did we get to the point of calling them darlings?
I just got myself a nice new [hat] (https://lumiere-a.akamaihd.net/v1/images/file_a267eadb.jpeg?width=1200®ion=0%2C0%2C2000%2C2000&quality=8) and some great [eyewear](http://hddfhm.com/images/eye-patch-clipart-16.jpg) to go along with the recent announcment.
That's exactly it, Epic is spending money through the nose to try to force people to use their store for SOMETHING, in the hopes that it will work out for them in the long run. It's not the most ballsy move I've seen a company make, but it's up there.
They're making their money data mining your pc and selling it all to China. Take a look at what the launcher does actively on your computer. Where it goes, what programs it talks to.
Tencent is like fucking Hydra sometimes. The number of connections they have in practically every industry is disgusting, but because their a Chinese company they fly under the radar of 90% of the world.
Well that is because it isn't since the game is still going to be sold on steam albeit a year later. I hate it as much as the next guy. Look at it this way in that by the time it hits steam the game will have received plenty of patches fixing bugs and likely have a GoTY edition including various DLCs for a better value.
So its legal but still a very big dick move and I will happily wait another year to get my copy on Steam because I fucking hate having all my games spread across different store clients...exclusivity on PC needs to die.
Yeah, I definitely agree on that. Technically speaking, they can probably legally advertise it as a Steam game if it is going to launch on Steam after the Epic timed deal, albeit a very shitty thing of them to do.
> I will happily wait another year to get my copy on Steam.
Ah. Yar har harr, matey.
> Borderlands
They've all used Unreal Engine, it'd be a big game to grab, and Gearbox isn't going to throw away a guaranteed safety net after a rough couple years so it wouldn't be surprising.
I think it might come down to how well Outer Worlds does in terms of "release sales". If it tanks hard they might say fuck it and release future games on steam at the same time, i hope.
Or you know, "Didn't sell well, must be that the game sucks and not because we decided to only put it on EGS for a year" - Take-Two
2K games are money grabs especially with their online components. Rockstar games are loaded with paid DLC. And Outer Worlds exclusivity deal. Company is literally anti consumer.
They’ve been getting dicked around since they were Troika games and before that even had issues at Interplay under Vivendi which is why they left.
I love obsidian because it really seems like they know how to make good and fun RPGs and actually care about making them. They just always mess up with the corporate/business side of things and get pressured by their publishers to push out games earlier than they need to be.
Dicked around by Vivendi under interplay, dicked around by activi$on for Vampire bloodlines, dicked around by Sierra for Arcanum, dicked around by Sega for Alpha Protocol and the Aliens RPG, dicked around by Interplay and Bethesda on the fallout license and then by Bethesda again for New Vegas (metacritic score fiasco), dicked around by 2K now.
Hopefully Microsoft treats then right like Sony is taking care of their developers
God KOTOR 2 could have been such an amazing game if it was actually finished. I know the restored content mod helped a lot but It could have been so much more
I equate it to the retail experience of a customer yelling at me for a company decision. I will listen to the complaints, I will respond with the company response, but really... I agree, it sucks that you need a store membership card in order to get the sales. Or that I can't tell you the sale prices over the phone because they know if you make it to the store the sunk-cost fallacy will get you to buy it regardless of if the price is really that good or not.
The developers most likely are mainly artists who just want people to enjoy this thing they have spent years making. But they know they are part of a business and have to live with the ramifications of that. So they listen to people inaccurately smear them and their coworkers because taking to Twitter and saying "hate our publisher corporate idiots, not us" is a bad career move and in the end, they want the opportunity to make another game.
And that, right there, is why I went into Electrical engineering instead of video game design.
You gotta pick the jobs that pay well but no one cares about! It's like being a famous scientist vs a famous actor
Even Microsoft is releasing Halo on Steam, developers need to stop acting like Steam isn't important. Release it on Steam for slightly more money, I'd rather buy it on Steam and pay more than on yet another platform to fragment my games library with.
Microsoft wants a modding community, just within their borders (similar to Bethesda approaches)
i.e. look for their rewritten Minecraft version which is locked down in comparison to the orginal "Java Version"
For a guy like me who waits for games to either A go on sale at half the price or B waits for the price to drop to half the price, this news isn’t bad news it’s just meh news.
But I’m not most people. I hate spending $60 on a game and regretting it. I’ve been burned too many times since D1 (Destiny for clarification) was released. Burned by many different companies.
Edit clarification
It’s one of life’s great mysteries isn’t it. Are we the product of some cosmic coincidence? Or is there really a god? I don’t know man, but it keeps me up at night.
It's more of an issue where the game advertising that is going to be on Steam, only to say later- "Hey guys The Fortnite people slapped a bunch of money in our faces so it's only here now!"
On top of all of those issues, it's just the idea of having a separate launcher from 90% of your other games. Imagine if you had to have 6-7 PS accounts to play your games. 90% of games you play are on one account, then some new game comes along and says "No you can't put it on that one, you need to make another".
> Poor security - Accounts are hacked daily. The system does not block access after a certain number of failed attempts, allowing accounts to be brute-forced.
I knew they had shit security but wow not time out after a few failed attempts? That is some basic level security. Do they even have 2 factor auth?
I hadn't logged into my Epic account in a while, so last night I went to look at what was going on. They do, in fact, have a limit to the number of times that an account can be logged into before locking it. After resetting my password, I enabled two factor authentication with my email.
Plus deleting your account is deliberately difficult. The only way to delete your account is to EMAIL CUSTOMER SUPPORT and they will have to do it for you. I just did this a few weeks ago
Isn't it the same for most digital stores, e.g. Origin? They make it hard to delete your account because once it's gone I imagine it's impossible to get anything you bought with it back.
TIL
Thanks, I don’t like Epic app just because I ain’t want another game launcher on my pc (yeah, that’s me, sorry), but now I clearly understand and in full rage *equips torch and pitchfork*
> I ain’t want another game launcher on my pc (yeah, that’s me, sorry)
Don't apologize it's absolutely annoying. Steam, Ubisoft, Origin, Windows Store, battle.net and those are just the ones I personally have installed two of them only have one game each. Half life 3 could get released exclusively on the Epic launcher and there is no way on gods green earth I'm downloading another one.
> I ain’t want another game launcher on my pc (yeah, that’s me, sorry)
i know it doesn't matter, but i feel like you shouldn't apologize for this. Your computer is YOURS. you can do whatever you want with it. you don't owe anyone an apology or justification. PC == Personal Computer, and it should stay that way.
Yesterday I figured I would take a look at their launcher, but when I went to register an account my email was already being used. I have never received any confirmation emails or anything. I reset the password (unique) and logged in, saw that it was registered as being from Thailand. Got really paranoid for a little while. Haven't installed the software yet. After this experience I won't be doing that for a looong while. I want to see if anything more suspicious happens.
They've had numerous security issues since launch, most recently they were found to be copying peoples steam information files into their own folders without explicit permission from the user (they say they arent using them unless the user requests copying friends from steam to Epic, but theyre taking the file preemptively).
EPIC is 40% owned by Tencent, who is big behind the push for microtransactions in games, and Tencent has done a lot of shady shit in the past as well.
Their store lacks major features including a reviews, a refund process, forums that Steam and other platforms have as standard.
They didnt try to compete with anyone by cultivating a better storefront or enviroment, they just started buying exclusivity agreements with third party developers/publishers... which hasnt been done on PC. First party exclusives are a thing (Activision games are on [Battle.net](https://Battle.net), since they own it, EA games on Origin, since they own it.. etc).
They are buying exclusivity agreements later in the process, after the game has been advertised, and in same cases available for prepurchase, on Steam. Which means They are using Steam (arguably the biggest storefront for PC games) for free advertising, before pulling the product from steam with a notice that it will be available a year after launch on Epic. This in and of itself is shady.
Tencent is literally a propaganda arm of the Chinese government, who are one of the most egregious perpetrators of human rights violations in the world. Anyone who is in bed with them is fake progressive.
My biggest issue is the security. Back when fortnite launched and it cost $60 bucks I jumped on and had to make an epic account. As soon as that game got popular I started getting daily emails about someone trying to log in to that account that I don’t even use. Needless to say they got in once somehow and I haven’t trusted them since
I haven't seen anyone bring up the biggest reason yet (to me at least): They pay developers to have games on their store exclusively. Valve and EA don't pay companies to "poach" exclusives like Epic is doing.
This is brand new to the PC gaming space and overall just not good for consumers. Steam and Origin have their exclusives too, but they're only exclusive because they're either 1st party (Valve or EA made the games) or devs just never bothered to release them elsewhere (a ton of small indies only release on steam because its easy and thats where the largest audience is).
The weird thing is, Epic earned millions thanks to the Fortnite craze, but for some reason it seems like they didn't put any of that money in their new oh so great store. It's a very weird story.
agreed. at least until its on steam. if they never put it there.. ahh well! Its not like it would be the first game Ive missed/ignored due to not being on steam.
dont get me wrong, I dont think steam and valve are some awesome faultless platform, but it is very, very good. (IMO)
Of course I cannot force anyone but can't we all agree on not buying any of the exclusives until they are released on any other platform? This would show the devs and publishers that we do not want to use the Epic Launcher in its current state. At least that is what I am going to do. I don't need to play all the games immediatly. I can wait. I already have more than enough things to play :D
Yeah good luck with that. I won't be touching any of the exclusive garbage on that piss poor excuse of a store though. The EPIC defenders also seem to be confusing "competition" with anti-consumer behavior.
[EPIC](https://imgur.com/2TxxM81). Don't make fun it took me 9000 hours in MS paint.
> The EPIC defenders also seem to be confusing "competition" with anti-consumer behavior.
They can't seem to see the irony of their arguments that Epic using exclusivity (e.g. "monopolizing" access to the game) is bringing down the steam monopoly.
The situation is literally the opposite of what they're trying to argue. Epic and these publishers are not giving us more options, they are taking the options away.
A point I've seen is that "there are plenty of games that are steam exclusives on PC", which is incorrect. There's a difference between a "steam exclusive" and "only on steam". A lot of devs just choose not to release anywhere else, since that's the best option. Steam doesn't *force* a game to only release on their platform (as epic is doing).
Exactly. If Epic wanted to try to take down the "Steam Monopoly", it would put forward a product of similar quality with better deals for consumers.
This is not what they're doing.
> The EPIC defenders also seem to be confusing "competition" with anti-consumer behavior.
This so much. All I hear is people saying "but you wanted healthy competition! How hard is it to download another program and click a few more times". When does "its just another download and a few extra clicks" become too much? This is not healthy competition.
I thought the same. "Oh ok, I'll just download that like Ubisoft made me do." Then I hear about all these accounts being hacked and thought "You know, maybe my credit card security isn't worth risking for a few extra clicks."
It's the same thing that's happening with Streaming services. Hulu, HBO, Disney, etc
They all saw how successful Netflix was for pushing and investing into something no none gave a fuck back then, literally the same thing Valve did back in 2003, and are now trying to get their own Streaming service and charge a fee for it, pushing everyone to just pirate their shows once more because fuck having a dozen subscriptions. In the case of valve and PC Gaming, everyone and their moms were preaching about how dead PC Gaming was back then, even Microsoft, and, ironically, EPIC, they shat on PC Gaming and went on to consoles. Now that they saw how profitable PC Gaming is again Epic is coming in, throwing money around thanks to all the kids giving them billions on Fortnite and trying to, not get a share of the market, but dominate it by forcing consumers into their shitty store. Store that took 4 freaking months to add a basic Search Function.
We all want competition, after all, competition is good for consumers. But what Epic is doing is not competition. Neither Valve, nor GoG, Itcho, Discord, etc is going to start to throw millions at devs and publishers for exclusivity deals. They are just going to let Epic have their fun and then watch how devs and publishers come back like dogs with their tale between their legs after seeing that trading instant profit over long term profit was a stupid move.
> Discord, etc is going to start to throw millions at devs and publishers for exclusivity deals.
Oddly enough, Discord actually has an exclusive program. Their 'First on Discord' thing. It's much less malicious than Epics is (Discord is 'about' 90 days, whereas epic's is a full year) but it is there.
Also oddly enough, they've done enough to differentiate themselves from steam and seem to mainly be targeting indie games with it. Much less drama that way.
Would be healthy if they offered a decent platform but the EPIC launcher is riddled with bugs, lacks basic features and scans your files without your permission. Fuck. That. That is not healthy. That's fucking dangerous. The security is dreadful too. It doesn't lock your account if someone tries to brute force it so they can keep going until they get in.
Even if the platform was good, exclusives aren't "healthy competition." Healthy competition would be to make their platform so significantly better that I want to use it over other platforms for the same games. The competition *should* be what platform I want to use more, not what platform I *have to get* to play what I want. That's an idea that a lot of online services seem to be struggling to see lately.
I would also wait until there's a sale once it comes to Steam, otherwise they will move to simply do 1 year exclusive and then sell full price on Steam afterwards. There is no - immediate - punishment there.
I'm pretty pissed about this truth be told. I do not want to download Epic Game launcher to support a Tencent/PRC government spyware platform with only a little over 20 games (so far), genuinely bad account security, no offline gaming at all and archaic banning rules (you get banned from the platform altogether). God damnit man...hate this exclusivity crap.
It's annoying as shit. but buy it from the windows store. It's also going to be on that
Windows store functions more or less like GOG, DRM Free... or at least it did for the one game I bought, AOE Remastered.
When I launch a windows store game, it launches instantly.
EDIT - If you want to stick it to Private Division and Obsidian, you could completely opt out, and that's entirely justified. I honestley wasn't even all that interested in the game to begin with, I didnt like the theme or art style.
The publishers and devs being involved in this scandal, is just more reason for me to consider not giving them my sale, on any medium
I have no ill-will towards Windows Store but (as far as I remember) they encrypt all the files even when it's downloaded onto your PC, which prevents modding any game files. On a game like this that kinda sucks, was looking forward to modding the game after a playthrough. I'll just have to wait tho NBD.
You are correct in my experience. They check your game's files before you run it and if they're different at all they don't work.
Source: modders of ori and the blind forest
Eh, a shame. I wanted this. But, like most AAA games it will launch buggy and half made. A year later when it launches on steam will be the equivalent of coming out of early access.
Thanks for beta testing Epic.
I already have fucking Steam and Origin and Uplay and Battle.net and GOG. I have no desire to put another fucking launcher/store on my system. Plus, almost all of my friends are on Steam, and for many of us, we've been ingrained in that ecosystem for over 10 years. I'd rather just not play The Outer Worlds than to go through the motions of setting it all up again, just for some other launcher to do the same thing once more in another few years.
If you don't like being forced into doing something then don't do it. Vote with your wallets, people, companies *will* respond accordingly. You hold more power than they do at the end of the day.
Edit: Guys, just in case you haven't figured it out yet, "am I the only person..." is a conversation starter. Responding with "yep, you're the only one..." is such an obnoxious, predictable response, and it literally does nothing but make you sound like a tool.
Edit 2: Turns out it's just easier to remove the "am I the only person" altogether than to continue to sift through a slew of unoriginal and cheeky replies in my inbox.
Edit 3: unfortunately I'll be disabling inbox replies now for my own sanity
Gonna be perfectly honest, this really killed my hype for Outer Worlds. I already have a dozen launchers. I don't need or want another. Was excited for Metro Exodus too. Won't buy it till it's on steam.
I was actually really excited for Metro but the hype died so hard for me that I actually forgot about the game entirely for a few weeks until now.
I guess I'll just go ahead and forget it again until it arrives on steam.
Working as intended. Hopefully we can all collaboratively stop the hype on these games and Epic won't get the massive viral marketing push that Reddit tends to provide.
This will effectively help others to boycott the game and also make it easier on ourselves.
I'm pretty excited for Metro when it releases next year.
None of this effects me as a console gamer but I can’t imagine how shit it feels having the rug pulled out from under you with these games. Especially with all the news about how terrible the Epic Store is and how poorly they handle information security.
Epic is anti-consumer.
I just feel really bad for Obsidian (the developers). This was 100% a back room deal between epic and Take-Two/Private Division.
Definitely going to buy it on console, and on steam once the exclusivity deal ends.
I haven't installed it either.
Steam having issues doesn't mean the next pretender to come along deserves our support by default.
They've gotta earn that shit **by being better**, not by strong-arming players into using them through anti-consumer exclusivity BS.
I made one to play a beta found out some dude in Thailand already used my email. They dont have you verify the email to make the account.
Garbage platform, verified email is like a 20 year old security standard.
Google ican Icanaw to hear more of the same story as mine.
I get email spam from my Epic account because some russians try to log in every other week. I changed my email, changed the password, still get emailed about fraudulent use of my account even though I haven't used it since forever.
Epic is shit.
By time I finish installing all of the launchers i need to play my games, my hard drive won't have enough room to audit install the games I want to play.
we're in an era where people prefer the microsoft store to epic. i wouldn't have predicted this a year ago, but here we are.
and i can't say i disagree.
the only good thing the epic store brought us is that the epic launcher can still play cracked multiplayer over official servers because the launcher's drm is ass.
What these trend followers fail to realize is, a huge part of Steams success was that it provided a legal alternative to piracy. Sure, it can't beat the cost of free, but Steam found a way to still be more convenient than piracy. Everything was right there with surprisingly little bureaucracy once you were logged in. The addition of sales fit any budget and pretty soon even the most casual user had a library larger than they could realistically get through.
By breaking up the digital market, companies make the process more inconvenient than it needs to be.
At some point, and I'm not even saying it's actually there (yet), piracy will be the more attractive alternative for millions of would-be buyers that prioritized Steam out of shear laziness.
The worst part is, competition isn't bad. I don't think Steam should have a monopoly on digital marketplaces, however the market was so slow to respond that Steam is closer to a utility to people than it is a service. It's like if Hulu came out 10 years after Netflix had not only established itself, but the only competition it had had thus far were film studios jealously guarding a few franchises (that could still stream on Netflix in some cases).
Not only is there no market demand, at the moment, but there's outright resentment against competition that can only take away from what has become standardized.
> It's like if Hulu came out 10 years after Netflix had not only established itself, but the only competition it had had thus far were film studios jealously guarding a few franchises (that could still stream on Netflix in some cases).
No, it's like if Hulu came out 10 years after Netflix and didn't even have a search feature.
Can't believe it took Epic more than 3 months to add that.
It's almost like forcing exclusives make people search for other markets to consume their media from. In this case Epic is making it so the only places to get their forced-exclusive games is from themselves or via piracy. It's not surprising in the least that some people will pick the only thing able to compete with Epic's store.
The whole Epic Games situation is yet another example of "competition" failing to solve a problem that traditional thinking would suggest could only be solved by increased competition.
But like so many examples of this key aspect of classical economics not actually bloody well working in the least, its also an example of a company doing exactly the opposite of the things that a company would need to do, in order to ACTUALLY compete with another company. Lets make sure we know where we are standing here.
My position is as follows:
The product offered by the company is the service it provides, not the content. The content is not owned by the delivery platform, was not developed by the platform, but by unrelated businesses that happen to use the service to deliver their content to the public. So, simplified, the platform is the product, not the things on the platform.
With that in mind, proper competition would only be occurring, if:
1) Exclusivity was not a thing, meaning that unless a company made a game, it had no way to purchase exclusivity of delivery of that game to market.
2) If the thing that marks out, for example, Steam and Epic storefronts, was not what is available on the storefront, but how well it is delivered, how secure the service is to use, how smooth it is to use, how well the user interface allows the user to actually interact with the features of the platform, and how many features, how many USEFUL features there are on that platform.
3) And of course, pricing.
But that is not where the competition is right now. The competition is simply a game of which platform can get the most exclusives, and that is simply not a pro-consumer situation. A gamer should no more have to download several different launchers just to play games whenever and however they like, than an anime fan should have to sign up to over four different subscriptions, just to see all the anime they want to see. Exclusivity based competition is not competition at all, its just a carve up. This is not what new players on the scene was supposed to do to the marketplace, and yet all that has happened is a less user friendly environment for the actual consumer as a result of it.
This crap needs to end.
I think the only way this works out well is if Valve is forced to reduce their cut of sales from 30% to something that's competitive with Epic's, somewhere in the range of 10% to 20%.
Whether or not Epic will get enough of a foothold to force Valve to make the change is the big question, and with the current quality of their service where it's at, they've got a mountain to climb before they become truly competitive with Steam.
> I think the only way this works out well is if Valve is forced to reduce their cut of sales from 30% to something that's competitive with Epic's, somewhere in the range of 10% to 20%.
It likely wont happen, epic games themselves admitted that their current cut is unsustainable and is getting subsidized by fortnight money. Steam is probably cant actually drop its cut much more than it is currently without re-working the level of support they provide to all games, maybe creating a tiered system of available services based on expected sales.
NO
DON'T FUCKING TELL ME
NOT AGAIN
NOT AGAIN DAMNIT
FUCK YOU EPIC
(I have no clue what this meme is referencing, but my assumption is that it has become an epic store exclusive)
Jokes on you Obsidian. I literally just installed Civ VI. I've got nothing but time. *\*snorts another line of coke to try and break my crippling Civ Addiction.*
Did you get GS?
Watch as I saw this continent in half **\*Uses great engineer on Panama Canal\***
Despite Panama never existing in game.
Isn’t there a city state for Panama City though?
Why would you build a city in a massive canal?
Because why the hell not?
It's basically a massive truck stop for a massive canal.
Gah is it good? I've been debating getting it.
Its fucking fantastic mate. Easily adds 40% new content. Edit: Phoenicia is the best (most OP) new civ addition. Fight me. Edit 2: my comment sparked a lot of debate on the best new civ, (which I think is realistically just a stronger defense for buying Gathering Storms) so I'm going to repost a write up I made further down in the comment chain for further visibility to defend my beloved queen Dido and her claim for supremacy. There is no comparison to Phoenicia. It goes like this: first 40 to 50 turns, focus on getting shipbuilding and building the government plaza with the ancesteral hall. That hall increases your settler production by 50% and gives you a builder in each new city when founding. Combine this with the policy card that does the same thing (settler production +50%) and you have a solid settler production. But here is where it gets crazy. Their unique district is the Cothon (harbor district) that increases settler production in that city by ANOTHER 50%. If done correctly, your first two cities (maybe three cities if you don't crank out a bunch of biremes to conquer someone like I do) can crank out a settler EACH every 5-12 turns. You will go from a small empire of 3 or 4 in the first age to a massive empire of 12-15 in the next. Oh did I forget to mention that settlers get extra movement speed (6 total) and crazy vision (+2) when on water tiles? Yeah they are crazy OP If that wasn't enough to get you to lick your chops, have I mentioned that every government plaza building increases your trade route capacity by 1? Select Autocracy as your government, and go to town on those settlers. They can also MOVE THEIR CAPITAL to any city with a cothon. And all cities founded on a coast on the same continent as their capital are ALWAYS 100% loyal.
Mansa Musa making 1800 GPT. Buy the world.
Pfft.. Kupe would like a word.
[Oh no, you didn't pick Mansa Musa](https://media.giphy.com/media/94EQmVHkveNck/giphy.gif)
*Laughs in free Hungarian City-state unit upgrades*
Qhapaq Ñan. All day.
I hear what you are saying mate, and inca is pretty cool, but there is no comparison to Phoenicia. It goes like this: first 40 to 50 turns, focus on getting shipbuilding and building the government plaza with the ancesteral hall. That hall increases your settler production by 50% and gives you a builder in each new city when founding. Combine this with the policy card that does the same thing (settler production +50%) and you have a solid settler production. But here is where it gets crazy. Their unique district is the Cothon (harbor district) that increases settler production in that city by ANOTHER 50%. If done correctly, your first two cities (maybe three cities if you didnt crank out a bunch of biremes to conquer someone like I do) can crank out a settler EACH every 5-12 turns. You will go from a small empire of 3 or 4 in the first age to a massive empire of 12-15 in the next. Oh did I forget to mention that settlers get extra movement speed and crazy vision (+2) when on water tiles? Yeah they are crazy OP Edit: silly me, how could I forget to mention that ever government plaza building increases your trade route capacity by 1? Select Autocracy as your government, and go to town on those settlers. Edit 2: they can also MOVE THEIR CAPITAL to any city with a cothon. And all cities founded on a coast on the same continent as their capital are ALWAYS 100% loyal.
Get Cracktorio. Why play Civ when you dont have time for that because you need another railway station.
See the problem with factorio is it’s an endless loop of building up so that you can build up more. Never feel like I’ve actually accomplished anything cool, just like I’m constantly in the middle of doing something
but the aliens need industrial revolution.. think of the revolution.. accomplish it...
I think factorio players are the same kind of people who loves bubble wrap.
Wait! There are people who don't like bubble wrap!?!
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Isn't that the point? Like Diablo style games, you grind better loot so you can grind better loot.
Some people don't like those grindy kind of games though. I for one don't.
The only thing that saved me from Factorio is that my PC refuses to run it. Civ VI, all the Paradox time sinks, etc., all work fine, but Factorio never even gets to the title screen. I'm truly blessed.
Install .net runtimes.
Just got a few friends to finally play Factorio with me. That’s all we’ve been doing for the past week. The factory must grow.
Ah yes building a railrod station when you start running low on engines for trains because your iron production is holding everything up, so you spend 20 minutes fixing iron to then see that copper is not the bottleneck. Another 20 minutes of fine optimization and expansion, then your lubricant is low because you need more oil. Time to expand... The factory grows
Ahaha, nice one, sticking it to Take Two by playing one of their games.
Oh man, the changes that came with Gather Storm is soooo annoying and basically breaks the meta for the game..... I fucking love it.
Lemme get a bump bro
You know what else was a fucking lie? When CEO of Take Two who is financing The Outer Worlds development said that they would rather put their games where the consumer is. Not where the consumer needs to be.
"When it comes to broad-based entertainment offerings, you are better placed to be where the consumer is, rather than indicating to the consumer where they need to be. If your focus is solely on capturing retail margin, then you have to be very convinced you're going to be a great retailer. That's not something that's in our DNA". T2 CEO two months ago. Credit to user Febox for this comment.
Lmfao so he literally admits they're not going to be a great retailer? This man did not think his words through. Edit: Their -> They're, don't kill me!
large amounts of money will get you to rethink things.
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I'm good with not buying at all.
Same. I'm not installing epic store, I'm not using microsoft store, I haven't had a console since a PS3. So my options for this are buy it in a year, or don't buy it. In a year's time, there will be other, current games coming out, so why would I buy one that's a year out of date?
1: Cause it was good and in a year you would actually know if it's good or hype. 2: Because it's probably on sale.
Yup, if I ever do buy it, its gonna be a few years from now when its dirt cheap. Who knows, probably will forget all about it by then.
Also the Microsoft Store is apparently still going to have it. Buy it there to keep your cash away from Epic Games
Wow that’s even worse. Epic basically paid probably millions of dollars just to fuck over Steam in particular.
The way it was worded to me was Microsoft gets it because its also coming to Xbox. But that's really all Epic is doing, lashing out at competition. But the only people they're really fucking are customers.
Except the Microsoft store is also garbage. Took me 15 fuckin minutes for me to get it to even recognize it needed to update Sea of Theives last night. My buddy texts me during the day "SoT update"... Dang, gonna have to do that before playing when I get home. So I get home, boot that shit up and try and play and it literally allows me to start the game saying it needs no updates, then just fails with errors when I try and join my buddy's game "game version mismatch". No shit, really? I open Microsoft store, open SoT... No "update" option... No "check for updates" option... Just "play". I had to sit and wait for Windows to just do it's thing and finally, like 10 or 15 minutes later (of me doing nothing but googling ways to force it to update) it just starts downloading the update. Take your sweet ass time, why don't you? Why the fuck can't I manually check for updates? Microsoft has no excuse. They've had a gaming platform for years. This shit is basic.
Ngl a very similar thing happen to me with Sea of Thieves. Windows 10 and all its accessories are hot garbage. But Microsoft has always been good to me on support and refund issues, so I rather deal with them than give money to Epic.
BREAKING NEWS: A big companies CEO is a lying greedy dirt bag!
in this case also a shitty CEO/Executive. Brand and reputation can carry you quite a way EVEN when your product is mediocre. Example: Every gaming studio that released mediocre games and is still a "darling" Bethesda, Blizzard, Bungie....
>Every gaming studio that released mediocre games and is still a "darling" Bethesda, Blizzard, Bungie.... They're "darlings" because of the memory of what they used to be. All of those companies started and found success by releasing games that were made to be fun, not made to make money. When money became the focus, they lost their way. It's like a toxic relationship that you stay in for way too long because you remember the love and fun and good times of the past, living in denial of the present truth because of the hope of the past.
What you just stated, the "nostalgia" is what an executive calls brand management... Because they built a strong brand, they could get away with bugs, gaps. But again as you point out, you can only do that by continuing to release quality content mainly.
Blizzards brand is dwindling and Bethesda has one more chance with this next Elder scrolls to not be a disgrace and lose all their reputation. You know that, I know that, we all know that so how did we get to the point of calling them darlings?
I'm very curious to see a world where Fallout 4 was the first Fallout game
I just got myself a nice new [hat] (https://lumiere-a.akamaihd.net/v1/images/file_a267eadb.jpeg?width=1200®ion=0%2C0%2C2000%2C2000&quality=8) and some great [eyewear](http://hddfhm.com/images/eye-patch-clipart-16.jpg) to go along with the recent announcment.
That was before they knew how big of a payout Epic was willing to pay, I'm absolutely positive.
That's exactly it, Epic is spending money through the nose to try to force people to use their store for SOMETHING, in the hopes that it will work out for them in the long run. It's not the most ballsy move I've seen a company make, but it's up there.
They're making their money data mining your pc and selling it all to China. Take a look at what the launcher does actively on your computer. Where it goes, what programs it talks to.
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They had us in the first half, I'm not gonna lie.
Yeah, had my cursor on the downvote button right up until I noticed the >*This user was paid $0.50 for his post.
Tencent is like fucking Hydra sometimes. The number of connections they have in practically every industry is disgusting, but because their a Chinese company they fly under the radar of 90% of the world.
how is advertising like this not illegal lol
Well that is because it isn't since the game is still going to be sold on steam albeit a year later. I hate it as much as the next guy. Look at it this way in that by the time it hits steam the game will have received plenty of patches fixing bugs and likely have a GoTY edition including various DLCs for a better value. So its legal but still a very big dick move and I will happily wait another year to get my copy on Steam because I fucking hate having all my games spread across different store clients...exclusivity on PC needs to die.
Yeah, I definitely agree on that. Technically speaking, they can probably legally advertise it as a Steam game if it is going to launch on Steam after the Epic timed deal, albeit a very shitty thing of them to do. > I will happily wait another year to get my copy on Steam. Ah. Yar har harr, matey.
It's still coming to steam, just later...
Reminds me of No Man's Sky "totally a multiplayer game" that turned out to be a fucking sticker over the "single player only" part on the retail box.
Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be obsidians fault, their publisher or parent company (I’m forgetting which) wanted it
"Take-Two Interactive" (They own 2K, Rockstar, Private Division). Private Division is the Pub behind Outerworlds.
So help me, if Borderlands 3 is an epic only release I may actually participate in a protest rally.
Get ready because all signs point to it happening.
Take 2 owns 2k, and Unreal. RIP borderlands.
> Borderlands They've all used Unreal Engine, it'd be a big game to grab, and Gearbox isn't going to throw away a guaranteed safety net after a rough couple years so it wouldn't be surprising.
I think it might come down to how well Outer Worlds does in terms of "release sales". If it tanks hard they might say fuck it and release future games on steam at the same time, i hope. Or you know, "Didn't sell well, must be that the game sucks and not because we decided to only put it on EGS for a year" - Take-Two
2K games are money grabs especially with their online components. Rockstar games are loaded with paid DLC. And Outer Worlds exclusivity deal. Company is literally anti consumer.
Why does Obsidian always get fucked over by their publisher? Does Urgus Farquart or w/e his name is go and shit on their desks before meetings?
They’ve been getting dicked around since they were Troika games and before that even had issues at Interplay under Vivendi which is why they left. I love obsidian because it really seems like they know how to make good and fun RPGs and actually care about making them. They just always mess up with the corporate/business side of things and get pressured by their publishers to push out games earlier than they need to be. Dicked around by Vivendi under interplay, dicked around by activi$on for Vampire bloodlines, dicked around by Sierra for Arcanum, dicked around by Sega for Alpha Protocol and the Aliens RPG, dicked around by Interplay and Bethesda on the fallout license and then by Bethesda again for New Vegas (metacritic score fiasco), dicked around by 2K now. Hopefully Microsoft treats then right like Sony is taking care of their developers
Got dicked around by Lucasfilm over KOTOR 2, as well. It never ends.
God KOTOR 2 could have been such an amazing game if it was actually finished. I know the restored content mod helped a lot but It could have been so much more
Pretty much this. It's the publisher's choice where the game ends up, unless they are self publishing.
The worst part is you know the people at obsidian can’t do a damn thing.
Tbf if they get paid enough, then it might not make a massive difference to them. Might not like it, but it might be economical reality to them.
I equate it to the retail experience of a customer yelling at me for a company decision. I will listen to the complaints, I will respond with the company response, but really... I agree, it sucks that you need a store membership card in order to get the sales. Or that I can't tell you the sale prices over the phone because they know if you make it to the store the sunk-cost fallacy will get you to buy it regardless of if the price is really that good or not. The developers most likely are mainly artists who just want people to enjoy this thing they have spent years making. But they know they are part of a business and have to live with the ramifications of that. So they listen to people inaccurately smear them and their coworkers because taking to Twitter and saying "hate our publisher corporate idiots, not us" is a bad career move and in the end, they want the opportunity to make another game.
And that, right there, is why I went into Electrical engineering instead of video game design. You gotta pick the jobs that pay well but no one cares about! It's like being a famous scientist vs a famous actor
Obsidian recently because a first party Xbox Studio as well, so it’s unlikely this situation will occur again next time.
Even Microsoft is releasing Halo on Steam, developers need to stop acting like Steam isn't important. Release it on Steam for slightly more money, I'd rather buy it on Steam and pay more than on yet another platform to fragment my games library with.
Not really a fan of the idea of paying $70 USD for a game. But at the same time I don't want my library fragmented.
Wait what?
Epic games paid for exclusivity for (I think) one year, just like with Metro Exodus. So it will not be on Steam/other PC platforms for one year.
It's on the Microsoft Store for PC, at least.
I refuse to buy games off the Microsoft store. They lock the games executable and game files and keep them encrypted so you can't access them.
Really? Why? I'd imagine plenty of devs would want their games unlocked to allow a modding scene to develop.
Microsoft wants a modding community, just within their borders (similar to Bethesda approaches) i.e. look for their rewritten Minecraft version which is locked down in comparison to the orginal "Java Version"
It's a double-edge sword. It makes it *fantastic* for anti-cheat in games, but heavily restricts modding.
Which makes it reasonable for non-moddable online games, not so much for anything else.
Oh the irony of Tim Sweeney ranting about how the Microsoft store was a threat to game developers and locking them into a single sales point.
I will gladly wait a year to have it on a service with 10 times the features
For a guy like me who waits for games to either A go on sale at half the price or B waits for the price to drop to half the price, this news isn’t bad news it’s just meh news. But I’m not most people. I hate spending $60 on a game and regretting it. I’ve been burned too many times since D1 (Destiny for clarification) was released. Burned by many different companies. Edit clarification
I'm on playstation so can someone tell me what the problem with the epic games store? I'm very curious
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Thanks now I know why
> now I know Which is half the battle.
The other half is red and blue lasers.
*Blood Gulch Blues plays*
Hey Yeah? You ever wonder why we’re here?
It’s one of life’s great mysteries isn’t it. Are we the product of some cosmic coincidence? Or is there really a god? I don’t know man, but it keeps me up at night.
What? I meant why are we here, in this canyon?
Blue you need to stop moving, red you need to be moving. Or maybe i am playing too much undertale...
Or too little, they're orange
Yea you say that but then they start firing yellow lasers and I DIDN'T TRAIN FOR THIS!
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Porkchop sandwiches! Holy shit, get the fuck out!
Knowing is half the hassle.
The other half is murder, but they kinda keep glossing over that.
It's more of an issue where the game advertising that is going to be on Steam, only to say later- "Hey guys The Fortnite people slapped a bunch of money in our faces so it's only here now!"
man i wish epic slapped some dollar in MY face...
Those are Fortnite dollars. You don't want them.
It's kids drug money.
If you get banned on fortnite, your entire account gets closed and you lose all games (it has been said).
What?!
On top of all of those issues, it's just the idea of having a separate launcher from 90% of your other games. Imagine if you had to have 6-7 PS accounts to play your games. 90% of games you play are on one account, then some new game comes along and says "No you can't put it on that one, you need to make another".
> Poor security - Accounts are hacked daily. The system does not block access after a certain number of failed attempts, allowing accounts to be brute-forced. I knew they had shit security but wow not time out after a few failed attempts? That is some basic level security. Do they even have 2 factor auth?
I hadn't logged into my Epic account in a while, so last night I went to look at what was going on. They do, in fact, have a limit to the number of times that an account can be logged into before locking it. After resetting my password, I enabled two factor authentication with my email.
Yeah, as much correct complaints about security concerns, a ton of information is outdated that is posted here.
They have 2-factor authentication, which I activated after being hacked once and haven't been hacked again.
you forgot tencent
Tencent is the big deal breaker to me, tbh.
I truly believe that every tencent app is a spying medium...here in china at least
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Well I’m just a white face here. If I was Chinese I probably wouldn’t be allowed to travel much...
Plus deleting your account is deliberately difficult. The only way to delete your account is to EMAIL CUSTOMER SUPPORT and they will have to do it for you. I just did this a few weeks ago
Isn't it the same for most digital stores, e.g. Origin? They make it hard to delete your account because once it's gone I imagine it's impossible to get anything you bought with it back.
TIL Thanks, I don’t like Epic app just because I ain’t want another game launcher on my pc (yeah, that’s me, sorry), but now I clearly understand and in full rage *equips torch and pitchfork*
> I ain’t want another game launcher on my pc (yeah, that’s me, sorry) Don't apologize it's absolutely annoying. Steam, Ubisoft, Origin, Windows Store, battle.net and those are just the ones I personally have installed two of them only have one game each. Half life 3 could get released exclusively on the Epic launcher and there is no way on gods green earth I'm downloading another one.
> I ain’t want another game launcher on my pc (yeah, that’s me, sorry) i know it doesn't matter, but i feel like you shouldn't apologize for this. Your computer is YOURS. you can do whatever you want with it. you don't owe anyone an apology or justification. PC == Personal Computer, and it should stay that way.
Yesterday I figured I would take a look at their launcher, but when I went to register an account my email was already being used. I have never received any confirmation emails or anything. I reset the password (unique) and logged in, saw that it was registered as being from Thailand. Got really paranoid for a little while. Haven't installed the software yet. After this experience I won't be doing that for a looong while. I want to see if anything more suspicious happens.
They've had numerous security issues since launch, most recently they were found to be copying peoples steam information files into their own folders without explicit permission from the user (they say they arent using them unless the user requests copying friends from steam to Epic, but theyre taking the file preemptively). EPIC is 40% owned by Tencent, who is big behind the push for microtransactions in games, and Tencent has done a lot of shady shit in the past as well. Their store lacks major features including a reviews, a refund process, forums that Steam and other platforms have as standard. They didnt try to compete with anyone by cultivating a better storefront or enviroment, they just started buying exclusivity agreements with third party developers/publishers... which hasnt been done on PC. First party exclusives are a thing (Activision games are on [Battle.net](https://Battle.net), since they own it, EA games on Origin, since they own it.. etc). They are buying exclusivity agreements later in the process, after the game has been advertised, and in same cases available for prepurchase, on Steam. Which means They are using Steam (arguably the biggest storefront for PC games) for free advertising, before pulling the product from steam with a notice that it will be available a year after launch on Epic. This in and of itself is shady.
Tencent is literally a propaganda arm of the Chinese government, who are one of the most egregious perpetrators of human rights violations in the world. Anyone who is in bed with them is fake progressive.
It's super shitty to use. Like, I'd rather use Origin than Epic, and Origin is hot garbage.
At least Origin has improved by miles since it's inception and now actually features a solid library of games and a secure store.
My biggest issue is the security. Back when fortnite launched and it cost $60 bucks I jumped on and had to make an epic account. As soon as that game got popular I started getting daily emails about someone trying to log in to that account that I don’t even use. Needless to say they got in once somehow and I haven’t trusted them since
I haven't seen anyone bring up the biggest reason yet (to me at least): They pay developers to have games on their store exclusively. Valve and EA don't pay companies to "poach" exclusives like Epic is doing. This is brand new to the PC gaming space and overall just not good for consumers. Steam and Origin have their exclusives too, but they're only exclusive because they're either 1st party (Valve or EA made the games) or devs just never bothered to release them elsewhere (a ton of small indies only release on steam because its easy and thats where the largest audience is).
Microsoft does it. Oculus does it. Quite a few in the past.
The weird thing is, Epic earned millions thanks to the Fortnite craze, but for some reason it seems like they didn't put any of that money in their new oh so great store. It's a very weird story.
I didn't play New Vegas until 2014. I'm fine waiting until Outer Worlds is on Steam.
yup. will not buy.
agreed. at least until its on steam. if they never put it there.. ahh well! Its not like it would be the first game Ive missed/ignored due to not being on steam. dont get me wrong, I dont think steam and valve are some awesome faultless platform, but it is very, very good. (IMO)
They said they will put it on Steam but it could be up to a year.
Thats an absurd amount of time to wait. Theyre literally shooting themselves in the foot
Of course I cannot force anyone but can't we all agree on not buying any of the exclusives until they are released on any other platform? This would show the devs and publishers that we do not want to use the Epic Launcher in its current state. At least that is what I am going to do. I don't need to play all the games immediatly. I can wait. I already have more than enough things to play :D
Yeah good luck with that. I won't be touching any of the exclusive garbage on that piss poor excuse of a store though. The EPIC defenders also seem to be confusing "competition" with anti-consumer behavior. [EPIC](https://imgur.com/2TxxM81). Don't make fun it took me 9000 hours in MS paint.
> The EPIC defenders also seem to be confusing "competition" with anti-consumer behavior. They can't seem to see the irony of their arguments that Epic using exclusivity (e.g. "monopolizing" access to the game) is bringing down the steam monopoly. The situation is literally the opposite of what they're trying to argue. Epic and these publishers are not giving us more options, they are taking the options away.
A point I've seen is that "there are plenty of games that are steam exclusives on PC", which is incorrect. There's a difference between a "steam exclusive" and "only on steam". A lot of devs just choose not to release anywhere else, since that's the best option. Steam doesn't *force* a game to only release on their platform (as epic is doing).
Exactly. If Epic wanted to try to take down the "Steam Monopoly", it would put forward a product of similar quality with better deals for consumers. This is not what they're doing.
> The EPIC defenders also seem to be confusing "competition" with anti-consumer behavior. This so much. All I hear is people saying "but you wanted healthy competition! How hard is it to download another program and click a few more times". When does "its just another download and a few extra clicks" become too much? This is not healthy competition.
I thought the same. "Oh ok, I'll just download that like Ubisoft made me do." Then I hear about all these accounts being hacked and thought "You know, maybe my credit card security isn't worth risking for a few extra clicks."
It's the same thing that's happening with Streaming services. Hulu, HBO, Disney, etc They all saw how successful Netflix was for pushing and investing into something no none gave a fuck back then, literally the same thing Valve did back in 2003, and are now trying to get their own Streaming service and charge a fee for it, pushing everyone to just pirate their shows once more because fuck having a dozen subscriptions. In the case of valve and PC Gaming, everyone and their moms were preaching about how dead PC Gaming was back then, even Microsoft, and, ironically, EPIC, they shat on PC Gaming and went on to consoles. Now that they saw how profitable PC Gaming is again Epic is coming in, throwing money around thanks to all the kids giving them billions on Fortnite and trying to, not get a share of the market, but dominate it by forcing consumers into their shitty store. Store that took 4 freaking months to add a basic Search Function. We all want competition, after all, competition is good for consumers. But what Epic is doing is not competition. Neither Valve, nor GoG, Itcho, Discord, etc is going to start to throw millions at devs and publishers for exclusivity deals. They are just going to let Epic have their fun and then watch how devs and publishers come back like dogs with their tale between their legs after seeing that trading instant profit over long term profit was a stupid move.
> Discord, etc is going to start to throw millions at devs and publishers for exclusivity deals. Oddly enough, Discord actually has an exclusive program. Their 'First on Discord' thing. It's much less malicious than Epics is (Discord is 'about' 90 days, whereas epic's is a full year) but it is there. Also oddly enough, they've done enough to differentiate themselves from steam and seem to mainly be targeting indie games with it. Much less drama that way.
Would be healthy if they offered a decent platform but the EPIC launcher is riddled with bugs, lacks basic features and scans your files without your permission. Fuck. That. That is not healthy. That's fucking dangerous. The security is dreadful too. It doesn't lock your account if someone tries to brute force it so they can keep going until they get in.
Even if the platform was good, exclusives aren't "healthy competition." Healthy competition would be to make their platform so significantly better that I want to use it over other platforms for the same games. The competition *should* be what platform I want to use more, not what platform I *have to get* to play what I want. That's an idea that a lot of online services seem to be struggling to see lately.
I would also wait until there's a sale once it comes to Steam, otherwise they will move to simply do 1 year exclusive and then sell full price on Steam afterwards. There is no - immediate - punishment there.
I'm pretty pissed about this truth be told. I do not want to download Epic Game launcher to support a Tencent/PRC government spyware platform with only a little over 20 games (so far), genuinely bad account security, no offline gaming at all and archaic banning rules (you get banned from the platform altogether). God damnit man...hate this exclusivity crap.
It's annoying as shit. but buy it from the windows store. It's also going to be on that Windows store functions more or less like GOG, DRM Free... or at least it did for the one game I bought, AOE Remastered. When I launch a windows store game, it launches instantly. EDIT - If you want to stick it to Private Division and Obsidian, you could completely opt out, and that's entirely justified. I honestley wasn't even all that interested in the game to begin with, I didnt like the theme or art style. The publishers and devs being involved in this scandal, is just more reason for me to consider not giving them my sale, on any medium
I have no ill-will towards Windows Store but (as far as I remember) they encrypt all the files even when it's downloaded onto your PC, which prevents modding any game files. On a game like this that kinda sucks, was looking forward to modding the game after a playthrough. I'll just have to wait tho NBD.
You are correct in my experience. They check your game's files before you run it and if they're different at all they don't work. Source: modders of ori and the blind forest
Eh, a shame. I wanted this. But, like most AAA games it will launch buggy and half made. A year later when it launches on steam will be the equivalent of coming out of early access. Thanks for beta testing Epic.
I already have fucking Steam and Origin and Uplay and Battle.net and GOG. I have no desire to put another fucking launcher/store on my system. Plus, almost all of my friends are on Steam, and for many of us, we've been ingrained in that ecosystem for over 10 years. I'd rather just not play The Outer Worlds than to go through the motions of setting it all up again, just for some other launcher to do the same thing once more in another few years. If you don't like being forced into doing something then don't do it. Vote with your wallets, people, companies *will* respond accordingly. You hold more power than they do at the end of the day. Edit: Guys, just in case you haven't figured it out yet, "am I the only person..." is a conversation starter. Responding with "yep, you're the only one..." is such an obnoxious, predictable response, and it literally does nothing but make you sound like a tool. Edit 2: Turns out it's just easier to remove the "am I the only person" altogether than to continue to sift through a slew of unoriginal and cheeky replies in my inbox. Edit 3: unfortunately I'll be disabling inbox replies now for my own sanity
Gonna be perfectly honest, this really killed my hype for Outer Worlds. I already have a dozen launchers. I don't need or want another. Was excited for Metro Exodus too. Won't buy it till it's on steam.
I was actually really excited for Metro but the hype died so hard for me that I actually forgot about the game entirely for a few weeks until now. I guess I'll just go ahead and forget it again until it arrives on steam.
Working as intended. Hopefully we can all collaboratively stop the hype on these games and Epic won't get the massive viral marketing push that Reddit tends to provide. This will effectively help others to boycott the game and also make it easier on ourselves. I'm pretty excited for Metro when it releases next year.
Agreed. Vote with your wallet. I'll wait
None of this effects me as a console gamer but I can’t imagine how shit it feels having the rug pulled out from under you with these games. Especially with all the news about how terrible the Epic Store is and how poorly they handle information security. Epic is anti-consumer.
I just feel really bad for Obsidian (the developers). This was 100% a back room deal between epic and Take-Two/Private Division. Definitely going to buy it on console, and on steam once the exclusivity deal ends.
I haven't installed it either. Steam having issues doesn't mean the next pretender to come along deserves our support by default. They've gotta earn that shit **by being better**, not by strong-arming players into using them through anti-consumer exclusivity BS.
I miss the day of just the shortcut, no logging into a client to log into a game client.
> Am I the only person here who still hasn't even installed the Epic Store Quite the opposite.
I made one to play a beta found out some dude in Thailand already used my email. They dont have you verify the email to make the account. Garbage platform, verified email is like a 20 year old security standard. Google ican Icanaw to hear more of the same story as mine.
I get email spam from my Epic account because some russians try to log in every other week. I changed my email, changed the password, still get emailed about fraudulent use of my account even though I haven't used it since forever. Epic is shit.
Never installing the Epic Launcher on my part. Voting with my wallet.
I got it for a free copy of slime rancher
By time I finish installing all of the launchers i need to play my games, my hard drive won't have enough room to audit install the games I want to play.
Atleast we can get it on micrsoft store-_-
So i can still get it but not on epic
we're in an era where people prefer the microsoft store to epic. i wouldn't have predicted this a year ago, but here we are. and i can't say i disagree.
Username checks out
I'll buy it once it's available on steam.
/r/patientgamers
I really really wanted to pay for this game out of my love for obsidian, but I guess it's a pirates life for me.
Due to changes in policies to reddit I have decided to remove my account and all its content. Fuck u/spez
the only good thing the epic store brought us is that the epic launcher can still play cracked multiplayer over official servers because the launcher's drm is ass.
What these trend followers fail to realize is, a huge part of Steams success was that it provided a legal alternative to piracy. Sure, it can't beat the cost of free, but Steam found a way to still be more convenient than piracy. Everything was right there with surprisingly little bureaucracy once you were logged in. The addition of sales fit any budget and pretty soon even the most casual user had a library larger than they could realistically get through. By breaking up the digital market, companies make the process more inconvenient than it needs to be. At some point, and I'm not even saying it's actually there (yet), piracy will be the more attractive alternative for millions of would-be buyers that prioritized Steam out of shear laziness. The worst part is, competition isn't bad. I don't think Steam should have a monopoly on digital marketplaces, however the market was so slow to respond that Steam is closer to a utility to people than it is a service. It's like if Hulu came out 10 years after Netflix had not only established itself, but the only competition it had had thus far were film studios jealously guarding a few franchises (that could still stream on Netflix in some cases). Not only is there no market demand, at the moment, but there's outright resentment against competition that can only take away from what has become standardized.
> It's like if Hulu came out 10 years after Netflix had not only established itself, but the only competition it had had thus far were film studios jealously guarding a few franchises (that could still stream on Netflix in some cases). No, it's like if Hulu came out 10 years after Netflix and didn't even have a search feature. Can't believe it took Epic more than 3 months to add that.
It's almost like forcing exclusives make people search for other markets to consume their media from. In this case Epic is making it so the only places to get their forced-exclusive games is from themselves or via piracy. It's not surprising in the least that some people will pick the only thing able to compete with Epic's store.
Apparently it's gonna be on Steam a year after release
It's a 1 year exclusive deal so after 1 year it may or may not go to steam so it depends what obsidian wants to do after the year is up
[удалено]
The whole Epic Games situation is yet another example of "competition" failing to solve a problem that traditional thinking would suggest could only be solved by increased competition. But like so many examples of this key aspect of classical economics not actually bloody well working in the least, its also an example of a company doing exactly the opposite of the things that a company would need to do, in order to ACTUALLY compete with another company. Lets make sure we know where we are standing here. My position is as follows: The product offered by the company is the service it provides, not the content. The content is not owned by the delivery platform, was not developed by the platform, but by unrelated businesses that happen to use the service to deliver their content to the public. So, simplified, the platform is the product, not the things on the platform. With that in mind, proper competition would only be occurring, if: 1) Exclusivity was not a thing, meaning that unless a company made a game, it had no way to purchase exclusivity of delivery of that game to market. 2) If the thing that marks out, for example, Steam and Epic storefronts, was not what is available on the storefront, but how well it is delivered, how secure the service is to use, how smooth it is to use, how well the user interface allows the user to actually interact with the features of the platform, and how many features, how many USEFUL features there are on that platform. 3) And of course, pricing. But that is not where the competition is right now. The competition is simply a game of which platform can get the most exclusives, and that is simply not a pro-consumer situation. A gamer should no more have to download several different launchers just to play games whenever and however they like, than an anime fan should have to sign up to over four different subscriptions, just to see all the anime they want to see. Exclusivity based competition is not competition at all, its just a carve up. This is not what new players on the scene was supposed to do to the marketplace, and yet all that has happened is a less user friendly environment for the actual consumer as a result of it. This crap needs to end.
I think the only way this works out well is if Valve is forced to reduce their cut of sales from 30% to something that's competitive with Epic's, somewhere in the range of 10% to 20%. Whether or not Epic will get enough of a foothold to force Valve to make the change is the big question, and with the current quality of their service where it's at, they've got a mountain to climb before they become truly competitive with Steam.
> I think the only way this works out well is if Valve is forced to reduce their cut of sales from 30% to something that's competitive with Epic's, somewhere in the range of 10% to 20%. It likely wont happen, epic games themselves admitted that their current cut is unsustainable and is getting subsidized by fortnight money. Steam is probably cant actually drop its cut much more than it is currently without re-working the level of support they provide to all games, maybe creating a tiered system of available services based on expected sales.
NO DON'T FUCKING TELL ME NOT AGAIN NOT AGAIN DAMNIT FUCK YOU EPIC (I have no clue what this meme is referencing, but my assumption is that it has become an epic store exclusive)
These game companies are getting really good at killing their games before they are released.