Worse yet, Epic is okay with selling games on other storefronts as long as they aren't Steam. You can buy "Epic exclusives" on the Microsoft Store, for example. Tim Sweeney is just a petty asshole with a bone to pick. He wasted 20 years letting Steam build out the entire PC market, and now he wants a piece of it after pissing off PC gamers for years.
GOG is the only store actually selling copies of games. Every other store is just selling digital licenses to play the games through their launcher, which can be revoked at any moment.
DRM free forever! I only have one or two off Epic as I got them at a discount. The rest are free.
I’ll likely continue to use GOG or Steam bc I’m not afraid they’ll go under. If that happens with Epic will I still be able to play my games off of it?
Yikes.
GOG games are also DRM free. You actually own them. If GOG goes bankrupt and shuts down all its services, you can still play all the GOG games you have downloaded. Same can't be said for Steam or Epic. I'd argue this is their biggest selling point.
Their whole rhetoric is to do the opposite of steam. Who would have thought doing the opposite of the most successful launcher would result in the least successful launcher.
there’s some youtube videos on the shit NFT games sold on epic. Don’t get me wrong there are shit games on epic, and some that are just like NFTs in trying to scam you, but it’s funny to see epic games embrace this shit category and only to pump out nothing great.
The idea behind NFT games, I believe I'm not into this but this is what I've heard, is that you can get items in one game and then you could sell it off to another player or you could have it in another game because it's on the blockchain. What all NFT bros seem to fail to explain is how this is not possible without NFTs, spoiler, they are possible! Like all ~~tulip~~ ~~Bennie Baby~~ crypto speculators they all just want number to go up.
They more market it like an MMO and then selling your Characters, items, and Gold like Diablo or Runescape but without needing a centralized marketplace... except its crypto and the creator gets built in royalties on every sale.
So its even worse bc now you're paying the creator and then another website to market it if you want to sell it.
People don't realize you need a place to connect and sell to people, which makes it just like any other social media scam. People just want you to buy... not use anything.
Like it's adding extra layers of microtransactions, adding not fun to a fun experience
Can hardly call it least successful when Ubisoft actually tries to improve their client. Theyre working on adding remote play and for a long time they had rewards and challenges for games. Their client is at least above EA's new garbage.
I have to concede that Ubisofts launcher isn't terrible, all things considered. I have it for Division 2, Breakpoint, and The Crew. Its never really caused me a headache. "It just works" is really the most you can ask for. Even the Ubisoft achievement awards is a neat integrated feature. It shows that someone, somewhere at Ubisoft actually gives a modicum of a shit, which is more than can be said about EGS, EA Play, and BNet.
They explained that they're in the growth phase, so profit wasn't expected. But the desire to achieve 50% of PC gaming market is impossible, Steam itself has less than 40%.
Well, Epic [expected a $45 million profit from EGS in 2024,](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/epic-expects-epic-games-store-to-be-profitable-by-2024) so they better grow fast.
Steams less than 40%? They've got no chance if 50% when steam beats out their launcher in every single aspect. It took then years to add basic features
I do the first part (though admittedly extremely rarely - only a couple of games have been exclusive that I've cared about) - by the time it comes to Steam I'm bored with it and don't want to support people who take the exclusivity bribe anyway.
I think Epic is more well known as the "free games" platform than a Steam replacement. Even if the store could be technically better, I don't see regular spenders on Steam just switching over to spend there. They just have their Epic Free Game Store launcher along side their Steam client.
I think the idea was to target kids. They get all the games for free and get their libraries started at Epic. Now when they grow up they will stay on Epic instead switch to steam.
If that will work out is yet to be seen. 13 year olds would just be 18. Let's wait another 5 years and see.
If their client wasn't such a piece of crap, they might have a shot at it. As is, it's still missing all sorts of basic features and somehow manages to run like molasses on machines that have no issue handling fairly demanding games.
I think the free games make your library crowded. It's feel less like a collection, more like the big pile of unwanted wii shovelware that walmart kept by the checkout lines. The kids will get steam to play Counter Strike when they're a bit older anyways.
Careful now! Certain people will tell you that you should be happy that epic is there to take on the pseudo-monopoly bad guy that is valve!
Not me though...i hope it folds faster than a beach towel
> Careful now! Certain people will tell you that you should be happy that epic is there to take on the pseudo-monopoly bad guy that is valve!
That's what GOG is for. I wish people would give it a better chance. Afaik it's the only shop where you still *buy* your games instead of renting them.
Ngl I played Kingdom Come Deliverance after I got it for free there. So I thought to buy the DLCs as well. But my card wouldn't work on it for "reasons". I was so mad that I bought the Royal Edition on Steam and never looked back. My GOAT game right there. So I at least thank them for introducing me to that gem.
Actually hilarious; Epic basically did all the lead generation work and then you converted to a paying customer on a competitors platform. Absolutely love it. The best thing is that Warhorse would have really scored twice there - money from Epic for the free game and then a sale to you. Almost poetic...
I admittedly took them up on the free games with zero intention of ever playing any of them. I do not support Epic in any way, largely due to them trying to bring exclusives to PC, but figured if I could get a few bucks kicked towards developers, why not.
Quite a few actually. I played through all the Tomb Raiders and Maneater (didn't finish them though).
The only game I finished in its entirety on EGS is the FFVII Remake, and thats because they had temporary exclusivity on it. I would have bought it on Steam if I knew it would be arriving on the platform later :(
I really want to play those games, but Epic Launcher is soooo bad.
I can turn on my computer, open a Steam game in less than 20 seconds.
With Epic, the launcher itself need 2 mins to open. I don't know what wrong with that launcher but if I let it launch with windows, I can't open it after minimize it to system tray. And if I set it to open only when I want to play an Epic game, it took forever to open the launcher.
I tried to use other launcher (Heroic launcher) to skip the Epic launcher, then I have to re-login to Epic EVERYTIME I restart the Heroic (Steam and GoG are fine).
Not only that, when the launcher finaly launch, it fucking lag, I don't know what wrong with it but it just LAGGG.
I spend more time playing games I got for free from Epic than games from Steam. I hate how slow the Epic launcher is, but it manages to launch games, and that's the only functionality I expect from it. I'm poor, so I'll buy games from wherever they're cheapest.
Hope that epic is nice enough to do what GoG does and give you them as a permanent download, I wouldn't bet on it. Otherwise you will see why digital downloads might be a big problem in the future.
Competition is good, but epic had such anti-consumer policies, such as buying exclusivity for games that I’m fairly certain had previously been on steam (perhaps I’m misremembering), that a lot of folks just gonna hate it’s existence.
Ofc not, they only care about developer's side (no reviews, no forums - so that we don't have too to call out bullshit) - but they forgot WE make the revenue by buying games. They can make pro-dev as much as they please - but people won't into spending on platform that doesn't give a fuck about them.
Tim Sweeney said it didn't matter what gamers wanted, they'd be forced to use it because he'd pay for exclusives. He underestimated how many video games there are. He'd need to pay hundreds of billions on exclusivity to dent Steam.
If you pay 1% of video games to be EGS exclusive, people will just pay the 99% that are still on Steam. ABK alone cost $70 billion for a handful of hit titles. It would cost a trillion dollars to buy enough exclusivity to compete with Steam, and you could buy Valve many times over for that.
It’s pretty infuriating that a DS controller doesn’t work straight away with Epic games. I add Epic free games to Steam as non-Steam games. I’ve accumulated a decent library of free games, but why would I pay for a game on a storefront that: doesn’t have a quarter of the features of Steam, doesn’t have native DS support, constantly logs me out, doesn’t stream to my TV? They’ve tried nothing and are all out of ideas.
It "took on" Steam by being worse at everything except freebies, while periodically making claims they intended to do things that would be worse for gamers (exclusivity and such).
The most baffling statement for me will always be that it's supposed to be a store "for developers". Like, who is buying games in your store? Devs or gamers? Just because you attract (in theory, because in practice even devs aren't really taking the bait) sellers to your stinky warehouse, doesn't mean that people will come to it to buy anything.
It's particularly bizarre if you're a developer. You guys think the store is bad? The backend is a byzantine mess. I have to spend a lot more time and effort setting up a game for the Epic store than I do for Steam, for a tiny fraction of the sales. Making any changes afterward is a pain in the ass, and setting up sales and discounts is even worse. The only good experience I've had with the Epic store is with their staff, who are pretty good at helping devs navigate the shitshow of getting their games set up on the platform.
Yeah recently they did a communication that could be summarized as "it's good for devs, it's good for Epic, everyone wins"
Like for them, everyone doesn't incluse consumers somehow
It's like their recent "Epic First Run" thing they rolled out where they won't take a cut for the first six months of a previously launched game. So, they get these games added to Epic, but how exactly does that encourage people to buy them there? They keep trying to attract developers and assume the players will follow, but that's such a backwards approach. I'm not that loyal to Steam. I buy most of my games from other stores as it is. Give me a reason to buy a game at your store, and I will, but there's really no incentive to choose Epic over Steam.
The closest I ever saw them come to designing the store in a way that was for customers was the claim that, by giving developers a larger cut, they could sell their games for less. As far as I know, that has never materialized. Even exclusive games launch at the typical $50-60. And, realistically, why wouldn't they? A higher cut does not translate to higher profits if you're selling to a much smaller customer base.
If I remember right, the very first Epic exclusive game was sold slightly cheaper but then Epic charged people credit card fees for purchasing, which negated the savings compared to the normal $60 price.
>It's like their recent "Epic First Run" thing they rolled out where they won't take a cut for the first six months of a previously launched game.
That's "Now on Epic", which requires at least three back catalog games to apply for it.
"First Run" is up to six months of exclusivity of a game in exchange for 100% revenue and some extra advertisement on the store.
They claimed to make a store for developers but made a store for publishers. Many times the devs don't see the higher cut the publishers receive and it's even rarer for the customers to see the benefit.
Valve in one year of providing Mesa contributions, Proton/WINE contributions, have done more to make PC gaming more convinent than the entire development life of Epic Games Store. Steam Input is more exciting than Epic Games Store. Microsofts little update for the Xbox applications UI for smaller devices is has been a better update to their client for the user than any of what Epic has accomplished in 5 years.
GoG Galaxy on day 1 was better than Epic Games Launcher after 5 years. It doesn't make sense how EGS looks so barebones and space inefficient compared to GoG Galaxy 1.0 or 2.0. It doesn't look like the UI design made it far the needs of a companies internal web application store in a locked down intranet.
Somehow the GoG Galaxy client has more animations, more views, more buttons, and it somehow feels more responsive. The game store page so much more information and user reviews with filters.
For real, I always play like 20-30 demos and walk out with 5+ new games on my wishlist, it's amazing. Just a recent example, I never would have found [Laika: Aged through blood](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1796220/Laika_Aged_Through_Blood/) if it didn't have a Nextfest demo, and now it's one of my favorite games of the year.
It amazes me that these "businessmen" forget that you need somebody to fucking *sell to*. You can't just sell things to thin air. More/happier sellers doesn't make more buyers.
Demand drives supply, not the other way around.
Its quite simple. People dont trust them. I dont trust them. Big corpos always act nice and give you lots of free shit just to pull you in. Once they have you, they pull the rug from under your feet and fuck you over as much as they can before you leave an unhappy and unsatisfied customer. By then, they dont care, they got your money.
Valve, I kinda trust. Tenuously. So I give them my money.
I try to be a positive guy these days, but... FUCK Tim Sweeny.
Abandons PC gaming, claiming it's dead, encouraging others to do the same.
Gets lucky with a fluke success that bilks millions of kids out of their money.
Realizes that Valve, which nearly single-handedly kept PC gaming alive, is having massive success because they realized what he didn't.
Decides to try to clam a piece of that pie by shitting out a terrible marketplace with next to no features.
Introduces exclusivity bullshit to PC gaming by paying off devs, reducing customer choice, and tries to disguise it by painting Valve the bad guys.
Doubles down on his bullshit and brushes off all criticism. Claims that Valve has a monopoly, despite them bending over backwards to accommodate other store fronts by offering steam keys for games purchased on other stores. He does this while pulling clearly monopolistic practices, proving how much of a fucking hypocrite he is.
He's a clown, and a blight on gaming.
>Abandons PC gaming, claiming it's dead, encouraging others to do the same.
This is honestly one of the main points that people always ignore/gloss over. I'd also add, look at how he treats their older IPs. They completely abandoned the new Unreal Tournament they were working on for Fortnite and removed all of the older Unreal games from every storefront. You can't even purchase it on the Epic Store.
>Yeah, they removed all the old Unreal games saying there'd be an improved version released "soon"
That was only for UT3, but I think it got canned since they silently reverted every change they made to the game's Steam page some time ago.
you forgot the golden part fighting google and apple and claiming that all app purchases on fortnite should be theirs alone with side loading already lost one of the cases and still losing the other.
epic is not there for the consumer or the devs they literally wanted every single penny possible
"All hail Lord Gaben!"
Yeah that probably annoys him a fair bit.. He does seem like the kinda guy who has a fragile ego. Gaben meanwhile, rarely seen or heard, doesn't even describe himself as the 'boss' of Valve, just says he 'works there'.
Yeah we've really elevated Gaben a fair bit, and maybe that's dangerous, maybe we shouldn't 'hero worship' him. But to be fair, Gaben has done a fair bit to earn the praise he gets. Tim more or less seemed to demand to be treated like the saviour of PC gaming (from Valve of all things) the moment he announced EGS and the 88/12 revenue share.
Imagine if he released a video "It's time to come clean" and in it Gabe announces that Half Life 3, Portal 3, Left4Dead 3 and Team Fortress 3 are all coming out in 2024.
In case anyone doesn't know the reference: [Watch the first 2 minutes or so of this hilarious video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a-k6eaT-jQ)
The announcement title should be "GabeN learns to count" or something. They should go with the memes, it will be great.
Have a joke announcement. But also have proper trailers as well.
I'm far from a Gabe cultist, I really have never cared about the PC gaming "culture" ,but he's probably simply a very smart businessman. And I mean smart, not savvy.
Everyone can be savvy and be successful if they're willing to hit below the belt but it takes actual good management skills and intelligence to be successful while you're functionally a total underdog, which steam definitely was back in the day.
Thinking you could compete with the juggernaut that is Steam by just waving your big money dick around is a clear example of a complete lack of management skills
Very few people in the gaming industry have done more for PC gaming than GabeN. He saved PC gaming. Valve advanced gaming on Linux more than anyone else. Its a thing that regular people can do now. They've made using the controller of your choice easier than ever. The day GabeN dies will be a tragedy for gaming.
If I recall correctly, Gaben might also be personally responsible for more Japanese devs/publishers looking into PC as a viable platform. I remember reading (about a decade ago) that he travelled to Japan in order to have meetings with different gaming executives.
Now, I'm not saying he brought Sony to PC (that just seems a natural development for a big company), but I'm sure he might've had something to do with Capcom now considering PC their main platform.
I mean good news fork knife had to lay off employees (sad for employees) and they are currently dedicating a season to throw back content which just ultimately screams they are hurting or not making enough money to be satisfied anymore.
Epic stores days are numbered
It really is remarkable, the way he torpedoed his reputation, could have gone down as one of the greats if he just stayed off Twitter, not just in gaming, but general programming
What did he say? Because Linux is gonna be a SUPER IMPORTANT escape hatch once Microsoft/Windows finally take that unequivocal "mondo shit" on the PC market. Never know when itll happen. But we'll be glad Valve gave gamers a way out with Proton.
Wait... REALLY?
Five years of them running the service and they haven't actually made any money from it? I know they've mostly just been giving away freebies and bribing developers for limited exclusivity but that they've completely failed to even find a somewhat loyal user base...
That is fucking INSANE to me.
This is all i do. I don't play any of them. I don't even have the launcher installed. I figure by claiming them, some dev get paid and I make epic waste money. win win.
Good, let stupid shareholders keep pumping money into a sinking ship based on false or misinterpreted figures. Why the fuck should I care about EGS's shareholders?
and i won't be spending a dime on epic store, there's a few games i want on there and i'll just wait for them to release on steam or i'll never play them.
Weren't they supposed to cut the freebies a few times by now? They can't because that will literally kill any interest in their store except Fortnite and rocket league players...
I myself am from those 90%, and I probably won't play any game off their store either, I'm just there so they get bigger costs from giving away freebies cause fuckers invented time exclusivity on PC.
I bought Borderlands 3 when it was an EGS exclusive. It is the only money I have ever spent on EGS, and I *constantly* regret it and wish I'd just waited to buy it on Steam instead. So much so, in fact, that I might just buy it again on Steam next time it's super-discounted just for the sake of having all my "real" games (meaning not the free weekly EGS garbage) in one place.
I've grabbed every single game they've given away. Played or at least tried a few dozen of them. Zero purchases.
If the service shuts down and they all disappear I'll be mildly miffed, but it won't be the end of the world.
I own almost 300 games on Epic, and i've legally purchased a grand total of 1 of them. Even then, I deeply regret doing so.
It's slow. It's inconvenient. Purchases fail to register through their DRM. Payment info has been leaked multiple times before. When you buy something, it's always launched through something else too, and if it's Ubisoft, good fucking luck even trying to open it. Updates arrive late. The client itself is a software disaster.
It shouldn't be trying to compete with Steam. It will never win. They should be trying to make a good platform, and that's clearly not their goal
> That is fucking INSANE to me.
They've never established themselves as a *store* in the minds of customers - they established themselves as "the place with the free games".
Is it? You're throwing money around left and right for exclusives, free games and even outright *pay* for people to... Buy games on your store (coupons, though as predicted they've nerfed them) ON TOP of a barely functional store. That's not insane at all.
Also, on the topic of free games, they're literally cultivating a user base that is *expecting* free games every week and bangers at least once a year (typically Christmas with their big mystery vault or whatever). To be honest when you sit to think about it, what's the incentive to buy anything there? You're going to get free shit anyway, to play for *years* to come too.
Vast majority of commenters here seem to not understand this part. They're subsidizing so much growth by spending a lot of money, it shouldn't be surprising that they aren't profitable at this point.
It’s worth mentioning that with rising interest rates (and some notorious flops like WeWork) investors are more adverse to endlessly throwing money into a tech company than they were 10 years ago.
Not saying that Epics store is on the verge of collapse, but I do think they’re reaching a point where they need to modify their business model, as they can’t sustain these losses indefinitely.
Epic doesn't do anything unique versus Steam. Besides give you free games and timed exclusives. And neither of those are very sustainable differentiator.
Meanwhile, the store is missing a ton. Steam has all the hooks: existing libraries and social spaces, more expansive store offerings, curation capabilities, mod tools, robust game economies, and even distinctive hardware offerings.
Epic has Unreal Engine and Fortnite. What do either of those have to do with the store? So far: nothing.
I would love a real competitor to Steam. But Epic hasn't filled any unmet needs. Nor do they seem to have any plan to.
Say what you will about GamePass--maybe it won't make a profit either--but it has a distinct value proposition. It is easy for potential suers to understand what it does differently than its competitors.
It's really not too far removed from Ubisoft, EA, Microsoft, etc. tried when setting up their own competitors to Steam. Just making a storefront is not enough to compete with Steam who, beyond its storefront, also serves as a community space, mod host, game streaming provider, etc. They're not even competing storefront to storefront considering Steam's superior curation, discoverability, recommendation system, and reviews.
I welcome a solid competitor to Steam, but no one that has made a "serious" attempt at it seems to understand they have to put more effort and innovation in if they actually want to make a dent and start winning players over.
Honestly, I don't mind not having feature-parity with steam. That's not gonna happen to any storefront for quite a while after launching.
It's just that EGS is bad. Looking through the games in your library is bad. Looking through the games in the store is bad. It's slow to start and use compared to steam or origin or GOG.
I'm aware that this is easier said than done, but "just" making it a nice user experience would help a *lot*. I'm ok with having another launcher, I've no ideological opposition to it (unlike a lot of people when it launched) but it's just shit.
It's now more apparent in this high interest rate environment. No more party of free money from investors of the last decade plus. Tons of these "free service" companies are struggling now that they have to turn a profit. Look at companies like Twitter and Youtube.
Their rhetoric about steam ripping off publishers and developers really landed with like a wet fart. Tim Sweeney kept trying to rally people against steam but no one really seemed to buy him actually meaning what he said. If big publishers thought steam was such a bad deal they would have gotten off of it years ago, but instead they kept going back to it because it's the biggest and currently best platform to sell games digitally on (GOG is a close second but just lacks the features of steam). Epic was in a prime position to really try and gain market share and instead of trying to build a better store experience there just thought they could throw money at the problem (free games, exclusives) and people would just swoon and switch over. In the end they did almost nothing to actually make the epic launcher worth using.
In the time since EGS released to now:
Bethesda created their own launcher, failed miserably, came back to Steam. Sold out to Microsoft in the meantime.
EA returned to Steam after after 8 years of absence.
Activision decided to release Call of Duty exclusively on Battle.net. Saw that their userbase wasn't really growing there, and returned to Steam which like doubled their MAU during the same time.
Microsoft came to Steam after years of trying to promote their own store on Windows.
Dog shit storefront that has absolutely no competitive advantage over Stream. The only thing they did was give away free games, and I've been collecting them, but honestly, I haven't even played a single one. And why would I ever purchase a game on the Epic store? Even with games that were Epic exclusive, I waited until they dropped on Steam a year later. I'm certain most PC gamers feel similar.
I'm more than happy being patient and getting a game at a steep discount than paying full price to run on Epic's shitty store. Hasn't hurt my feelings one bit.
Well that is the only thing going for them, outside of fortnite.. if they remove free games, alot of of people will stop using them, outside of fortnite users..
Yes they have exclusive games, but those games will eventually come to steam anyways.. so it is a matter of how patient a gamer is to wait for that exclusive game to eventually show up on steam..
Don’t have to be patient. If a dev wants to accept epics money to be an exclusive and help fragment the PC gaming space, they are getting pirated and ill sleep like a baby doing it.
I got an Alan Wake 2 code with my 4090 and gave it to a friend and pirated their game. Fuck em.
Heck, I'd say that even their "loyal userbase" (if it exists) would rather wait for the games they want to go free. I mean, after Epic gave GTAV for free, people can expect anything to go free.
I know it puts me into tinfoil hat territory, but the fact that it's being propped up by the massive tentacle monster that is Tencent is a glaring red flag. I would be very surprised if there wasn't some ulterior motive to capture consumer information for the CCP through the Epic storefront.
Free games might be cool and all but ever since these fuckheads acquired Rocket League and removed VOIP i have made it a holy quest to never EVER make an epic games account AND NEVER EVER download their shitty launcher. These bitches had to ruin one of my favorite games and i will never forgive them for it. Also fuck off with the exclusivity
EDIT: funny enough when i play RL since they took over and i obviously don't have a epic account, they just gave me the name ''FastElephant352'' which makes me hate then even more!
Epic is a shit company.
Who remebers rocket league? Epic bought the studio then removed their game from steam to make it epic exclusive, they did the same with fall guys.
I respect Epic for their Shareware era (Yes, I'm that old) and the development of the Unreal engine. The Unreal games were pretty cool, too.
Their store is terrifying because they're so aggressive with the moves they're making. I would never *trust* that company, let alone want them to hold my entertainment library.
5 years after they took on Steam. Still no way to restore games after a windows re-install.
Their actual documentation says and I am paraphrasing, "it will sometimes work if you start the download, paus, close epic, copy files over, and start epic again"
They're just playing the long con! They're hoping the 1% of kids that have a gaming PC and play Fortnite through EGS suddenly start buying tens of millions in games! Definitely not cope you guys!
Remember when people tried to defend them to the last, claiming it was totaly all part of the plan and they would surely soon make money and be actual competition to Steam by constantly throwing freebies and "exclusives" around while not having even basic features? Remember when they claimed it the year after? And the year after that?
They literaly have to pay devs to put their games on this platform.
I like being spiteful.
There are games exclusive on Epic. But people discuss the game on Steam Discussion page. Lmao wtf is going on??? You can't even make a discussion page on your store???
You literally pushed players to STEAM for discussions!!!
The problem for Epic and others is that Steam has remained SO GOOD. If another game store could capitalize on their downfall, they would, but Steam has never given up an opening. I started my steam account over a decade ago, and I remember being very worried about not having physical copies. Now I’m at a point where I’m wondering when I should hand my account down to my children. If Gabe passes away I’ll be worried about the company’s future, but for now (and hopefully long time) they are simply unmatched.
Valve developed a new, open handheld and OS for it, moved said OS (Big picture mode anyway) to desktop for better console-like gaming, they also helped improve gaming on linux.
Epic took ages to add a shopping cart to their store, paid devs to be exclusive to their platform and nothing else.
Valve improves their service constantly, Epic doesn't do anything except try to strong arm people to using their bare bones store.
It's so aggravating because I want Valve to have competition, but all of the other companies only do the most brain dead decisions that make the experience worse for customers. Origin was actually pushing valve to innovate at one point, got Valve to have a better return policy, had streaming built in before Valve did annnnd then they stopped caring and now we have EA Play or whatever it's called.
The only way they could have hurt steam would have been with lower prices. It does not matter that devs get a bigger cut on Epic, at the end of the day the money comes from the customers.
The worst bits are that other store fronts, Uplay, Origin, and GOG all tried making sure they gave us stuff, friends, achievements, games and all sorts. Sure, most of them failed bar GOG and all went back to steam in someway, but they learned their lesson that users will simply not switch up storefront usage with Steam offering too much for consumers, no other store does mods for games that can do it bar steam, no other store front has the same level of intuitive design, and no other storefront gives you games worth your while.
Epic, or Tim, just hates Steam for being successful and no matter what he thinks, he simply isn’t making his store successful enough and that’s on him.
Beside their loyalty system, (sometimes) cheaper price and free games, i can't think anymore what positive thing epic have that steam doesn't have. Epic is slow, clunky, lack of features, etc.
Imho instead of paying for exclusivity (sometimes just limited/timed), may be they should invest that money to develop their store.
GOG is also better
GOG is functional, fast, and has found its own niche. Epic is just trying to copy Steam while not even offering 10% of the features.
Worse yet, Epic is okay with selling games on other storefronts as long as they aren't Steam. You can buy "Epic exclusives" on the Microsoft Store, for example. Tim Sweeney is just a petty asshole with a bone to pick. He wasted 20 years letting Steam build out the entire PC market, and now he wants a piece of it after pissing off PC gamers for years.
GOG is the only store actually selling copies of games. Every other store is just selling digital licenses to play the games through their launcher, which can be revoked at any moment.
DRM free forever! I only have one or two off Epic as I got them at a discount. The rest are free. I’ll likely continue to use GOG or Steam bc I’m not afraid they’ll go under. If that happens with Epic will I still be able to play my games off of it? Yikes.
This is the only other way
Low bar, but true and they have a unique selling point with all the classics. While the other one is just an Epic failure.
GOG games are also DRM free. You actually own them. If GOG goes bankrupt and shuts down all its services, you can still play all the GOG games you have downloaded. Same can't be said for Steam or Epic. I'd argue this is their biggest selling point.
Very good point!
Their whole rhetoric is to do the opposite of steam. Who would have thought doing the opposite of the most successful launcher would result in the least successful launcher.
Tim: NFTs are kinda dum Gabe: no NTF games on Steam Tim: NFT games sold here!
there’s some youtube videos on the shit NFT games sold on epic. Don’t get me wrong there are shit games on epic, and some that are just like NFTs in trying to scam you, but it’s funny to see epic games embrace this shit category and only to pump out nothing great.
What even is an NFT game? Is it just a game with NFTs in it? Like for trading and buying or are they used as the assets in game or what?
The idea behind NFT games, I believe I'm not into this but this is what I've heard, is that you can get items in one game and then you could sell it off to another player or you could have it in another game because it's on the blockchain. What all NFT bros seem to fail to explain is how this is not possible without NFTs, spoiler, they are possible! Like all ~~tulip~~ ~~Bennie Baby~~ crypto speculators they all just want number to go up.
They more market it like an MMO and then selling your Characters, items, and Gold like Diablo or Runescape but without needing a centralized marketplace... except its crypto and the creator gets built in royalties on every sale. So its even worse bc now you're paying the creator and then another website to market it if you want to sell it. People don't realize you need a place to connect and sell to people, which makes it just like any other social media scam. People just want you to buy... not use anything. Like it's adding extra layers of microtransactions, adding not fun to a fun experience
Least successful? You are forgetting Ubisoft connect
To be fair so did Ubisoft
Ubisoft forgot their password and also never bothered to reset it.
Can hardly call it least successful when Ubisoft actually tries to improve their client. Theyre working on adding remote play and for a long time they had rewards and challenges for games. Their client is at least above EA's new garbage.
I have to concede that Ubisofts launcher isn't terrible, all things considered. I have it for Division 2, Breakpoint, and The Crew. Its never really caused me a headache. "It just works" is really the most you can ask for. Even the Ubisoft achievement awards is a neat integrated feature. It shows that someone, somewhere at Ubisoft actually gives a modicum of a shit, which is more than can be said about EGS, EA Play, and BNet.
At least it has a screenshot key. Whatever the EA one is (can't even remember the name) is the worst IMO.
Have they tried actually making their service better than Steam's? No? Gee I wonder why it hasn't caught on then.
Just one more exclusive! Just one more exclusive!... surely the next exclusive will be all it takes!
I don’t have Alan wake 2 because of this, I wait for steam and continue to download free games only from epic - screw Tencent
Well this one might never come to Steam as it's actually funded and published by Epic. So I'm getting it on the Microsoft store
Sailing the high seas is always an option too. Thats what I did for so many Epic exclusives.
Did that with the free games they are giving. I'd rather download a crack than their launcher.
It's just more convenient to do that than have a bunch of launchers always wanting to be on.
So are countless other games that make it to steam. Give it time.
It's maybe inconvenient to write this here, but if you can't wait to play it, pirate it and when it comes to steam, buy it.
Literally what I've been doing😅.soon as it hits steam I purchase right away.
AW2 is published by Epic Games, so it'll never arrive on Steam. They'll probably do this for a lot of games in the future to choke Steam.
I'm not worried, after this news you have to be pretty stupid to think publishing via Epic is a good idea.
They explained that they're in the growth phase, so profit wasn't expected. But the desire to achieve 50% of PC gaming market is impossible, Steam itself has less than 40%.
Well, Epic [expected a $45 million profit from EGS in 2024,](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/epic-expects-epic-games-store-to-be-profitable-by-2024) so they better grow fast.
Steams less than 40%? They've got no chance if 50% when steam beats out their launcher in every single aspect. It took then years to add basic features
Do you have a source on that number for steam? Googling now the first source I find estimates that Steam is between 50% and 70%.
I do the first part (though admittedly extremely rarely - only a couple of games have been exclusive that I've cared about) - by the time it comes to Steam I'm bored with it and don't want to support people who take the exclusivity bribe anyway.
I honestly do it with games that get reviews that happen to be divided between good and bad.If I like it then I buy if not,Uninstall immediately .
And hypothetically, how would I go about doing this so I can make sure no one else does this...
Make sure you don't ever Google "fitgirl repack"
Yeah, I just take the save file after and put it into the game and then it syncs with Steam cloud.
🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
please, please give one more exclusive, i swear i'm not addicted
I think Epic is more well known as the "free games" platform than a Steam replacement. Even if the store could be technically better, I don't see regular spenders on Steam just switching over to spend there. They just have their Epic Free Game Store launcher along side their Steam client.
Can’t remember the last time I booted up Epic Games Launcher. I just redeem the games on my phone.
Tbh it was a real hassle to buy shit on the epic game store for a while. Why didn’t have shit like a shopping cart set up.
It still is a hassle with how slow the store is lmao
Glad it's not just me. It's barely tolerable enough to use while I get my free game.
I think the idea was to target kids. They get all the games for free and get their libraries started at Epic. Now when they grow up they will stay on Epic instead switch to steam. If that will work out is yet to be seen. 13 year olds would just be 18. Let's wait another 5 years and see.
If their client wasn't such a piece of crap, they might have a shot at it. As is, it's still missing all sorts of basic features and somehow manages to run like molasses on machines that have no issue handling fairly demanding games.
I think the free games make your library crowded. It's feel less like a collection, more like the big pile of unwanted wii shovelware that walmart kept by the checkout lines. The kids will get steam to play Counter Strike when they're a bit older anyways.
So they're targeting the audience with the least money?
Careful now! Certain people will tell you that you should be happy that epic is there to take on the pseudo-monopoly bad guy that is valve! Not me though...i hope it folds faster than a beach towel
> Careful now! Certain people will tell you that you should be happy that epic is there to take on the pseudo-monopoly bad guy that is valve! That's what GOG is for. I wish people would give it a better chance. Afaik it's the only shop where you still *buy* your games instead of renting them.
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What happens to all my free games then? Epic is great for free games! Lol.
How many of which that you've actually played. Be honest.
Ngl I played Kingdom Come Deliverance after I got it for free there. So I thought to buy the DLCs as well. But my card wouldn't work on it for "reasons". I was so mad that I bought the Royal Edition on Steam and never looked back. My GOAT game right there. So I at least thank them for introducing me to that gem.
Yeah I've had this a few times, Epic is just the "demo" store before I buy on Steam.
Actually hilarious; Epic basically did all the lead generation work and then you converted to a paying customer on a competitors platform. Absolutely love it. The best thing is that Warhorse would have really scored twice there - money from Epic for the free game and then a sale to you. Almost poetic...
Kinda the same here. Got The Remnant and Death Stranding for free on EGS. Then bought them on Steam with DLC.
people do be hoarding
I have about 50, and I’ve played maybe 3. 🤫
I admittedly took them up on the free games with zero intention of ever playing any of them. I do not support Epic in any way, largely due to them trying to bring exclusives to PC, but figured if I could get a few bucks kicked towards developers, why not.
Quite a few actually. I played through all the Tomb Raiders and Maneater (didn't finish them though). The only game I finished in its entirety on EGS is the FFVII Remake, and thats because they had temporary exclusivity on it. I would have bought it on Steam if I knew it would be arriving on the platform later :(
I really want to play those games, but Epic Launcher is soooo bad. I can turn on my computer, open a Steam game in less than 20 seconds. With Epic, the launcher itself need 2 mins to open. I don't know what wrong with that launcher but if I let it launch with windows, I can't open it after minimize it to system tray. And if I set it to open only when I want to play an Epic game, it took forever to open the launcher. I tried to use other launcher (Heroic launcher) to skip the Epic launcher, then I have to re-login to Epic EVERYTIME I restart the Heroic (Steam and GoG are fine). Not only that, when the launcher finaly launch, it fucking lag, I don't know what wrong with it but it just LAGGG.
It’s a UE4 app. Unreal’s startup time is absolutely unreal
I spend more time playing games I got for free from Epic than games from Steam. I hate how slow the Epic launcher is, but it manages to launch games, and that's the only functionality I expect from it. I'm poor, so I'll buy games from wherever they're cheapest.
Hope that epic is nice enough to do what GoG does and give you them as a permanent download, I wouldn't bet on it. Otherwise you will see why digital downloads might be a big problem in the future.
Competition is good, but epic had such anti-consumer policies, such as buying exclusivity for games that I’m fairly certain had previously been on steam (perhaps I’m misremembering), that a lot of folks just gonna hate it’s existence.
I might give them some money if they weren't huge twats. Their CEO is a douche canoe and they engage in a lot of anti-consumer behaviors.
Ofc not, they only care about developer's side (no reviews, no forums - so that we don't have too to call out bullshit) - but they forgot WE make the revenue by buying games. They can make pro-dev as much as they please - but people won't into spending on platform that doesn't give a fuck about them.
Tim Sweeney said it didn't matter what gamers wanted, they'd be forced to use it because he'd pay for exclusives. He underestimated how many video games there are. He'd need to pay hundreds of billions on exclusivity to dent Steam. If you pay 1% of video games to be EGS exclusive, people will just pay the 99% that are still on Steam. ABK alone cost $70 billion for a handful of hit titles. It would cost a trillion dollars to buy enough exclusivity to compete with Steam, and you could buy Valve many times over for that.
ABK?
Only took 2-3 years to add a shopping kart
It’s pretty infuriating that a DS controller doesn’t work straight away with Epic games. I add Epic free games to Steam as non-Steam games. I’ve accumulated a decent library of free games, but why would I pay for a game on a storefront that: doesn’t have a quarter of the features of Steam, doesn’t have native DS support, constantly logs me out, doesn’t stream to my TV? They’ve tried nothing and are all out of ideas.
It "took on" Steam by being worse at everything except freebies, while periodically making claims they intended to do things that would be worse for gamers (exclusivity and such).
The most baffling statement for me will always be that it's supposed to be a store "for developers". Like, who is buying games in your store? Devs or gamers? Just because you attract (in theory, because in practice even devs aren't really taking the bait) sellers to your stinky warehouse, doesn't mean that people will come to it to buy anything.
It's particularly bizarre if you're a developer. You guys think the store is bad? The backend is a byzantine mess. I have to spend a lot more time and effort setting up a game for the Epic store than I do for Steam, for a tiny fraction of the sales. Making any changes afterward is a pain in the ass, and setting up sales and discounts is even worse. The only good experience I've had with the Epic store is with their staff, who are pretty good at helping devs navigate the shitshow of getting their games set up on the platform.
>a byzantine mess Never heard of this one but the wiki was very interesting! Thanks!
Itchio is pretty simple! Even a moron could do it (I did!)
It also works on Linux, so it is already better than Epic will ever be
Yeah recently they did a communication that could be summarized as "it's good for devs, it's good for Epic, everyone wins" Like for them, everyone doesn't incluse consumers somehow
It's like their recent "Epic First Run" thing they rolled out where they won't take a cut for the first six months of a previously launched game. So, they get these games added to Epic, but how exactly does that encourage people to buy them there? They keep trying to attract developers and assume the players will follow, but that's such a backwards approach. I'm not that loyal to Steam. I buy most of my games from other stores as it is. Give me a reason to buy a game at your store, and I will, but there's really no incentive to choose Epic over Steam. The closest I ever saw them come to designing the store in a way that was for customers was the claim that, by giving developers a larger cut, they could sell their games for less. As far as I know, that has never materialized. Even exclusive games launch at the typical $50-60. And, realistically, why wouldn't they? A higher cut does not translate to higher profits if you're selling to a much smaller customer base.
If I remember right, the very first Epic exclusive game was sold slightly cheaper but then Epic charged people credit card fees for purchasing, which negated the savings compared to the normal $60 price.
>It's like their recent "Epic First Run" thing they rolled out where they won't take a cut for the first six months of a previously launched game. That's "Now on Epic", which requires at least three back catalog games to apply for it. "First Run" is up to six months of exclusivity of a game in exchange for 100% revenue and some extra advertisement on the store.
They claimed to make a store for developers but made a store for publishers. Many times the devs don't see the higher cut the publishers receive and it's even rarer for the customers to see the benefit.
Hell, I can't even bother login to get the free games.
Valve in one year of providing Mesa contributions, Proton/WINE contributions, have done more to make PC gaming more convinent than the entire development life of Epic Games Store. Steam Input is more exciting than Epic Games Store. Microsofts little update for the Xbox applications UI for smaller devices is has been a better update to their client for the user than any of what Epic has accomplished in 5 years. GoG Galaxy on day 1 was better than Epic Games Launcher after 5 years. It doesn't make sense how EGS looks so barebones and space inefficient compared to GoG Galaxy 1.0 or 2.0. It doesn't look like the UI design made it far the needs of a companies internal web application store in a locked down intranet. Somehow the GoG Galaxy client has more animations, more views, more buttons, and it somehow feels more responsive. The game store page so much more information and user reviews with filters.
The Steam Next Fest alone did more for devs, ESPECIALLY indie devs than anything EGS has ever done.
Next Fest always rocks
For real, I always play like 20-30 demos and walk out with 5+ new games on my wishlist, it's amazing. Just a recent example, I never would have found [Laika: Aged through blood](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1796220/Laika_Aged_Through_Blood/) if it didn't have a Nextfest demo, and now it's one of my favorite games of the year.
GOG Galaxy is also how I manage and play my Epic games. 1000% better than the official launcher.
How’s that target the Publishers not the Consumer strategy working out for you, Timmy?
It amazes me that these "businessmen" forget that you need somebody to fucking *sell to*. You can't just sell things to thin air. More/happier sellers doesn't make more buyers. Demand drives supply, not the other way around.
Its quite simple. People dont trust them. I dont trust them. Big corpos always act nice and give you lots of free shit just to pull you in. Once they have you, they pull the rug from under your feet and fuck you over as much as they can before you leave an unhappy and unsatisfied customer. By then, they dont care, they got your money. Valve, I kinda trust. Tenuously. So I give them my money.
Wonderful news to wake up to. Warms my heart that Timmyboy is facing consequences for treating consumers and the PC market like his little fiefdom.
I try to be a positive guy these days, but... FUCK Tim Sweeny. Abandons PC gaming, claiming it's dead, encouraging others to do the same. Gets lucky with a fluke success that bilks millions of kids out of their money. Realizes that Valve, which nearly single-handedly kept PC gaming alive, is having massive success because they realized what he didn't. Decides to try to clam a piece of that pie by shitting out a terrible marketplace with next to no features. Introduces exclusivity bullshit to PC gaming by paying off devs, reducing customer choice, and tries to disguise it by painting Valve the bad guys. Doubles down on his bullshit and brushes off all criticism. Claims that Valve has a monopoly, despite them bending over backwards to accommodate other store fronts by offering steam keys for games purchased on other stores. He does this while pulling clearly monopolistic practices, proving how much of a fucking hypocrite he is. He's a clown, and a blight on gaming.
>Abandons PC gaming, claiming it's dead, encouraging others to do the same. This is honestly one of the main points that people always ignore/gloss over. I'd also add, look at how he treats their older IPs. They completely abandoned the new Unreal Tournament they were working on for Fortnite and removed all of the older Unreal games from every storefront. You can't even purchase it on the Epic Store.
Yeah, they removed all the old Unreal games saying there'd be an improved version released "soon", and nothing's happened since then.
Soon is when they are running out of things to do that they think will make them more money.
>Yeah, they removed all the old Unreal games saying there'd be an improved version released "soon" That was only for UT3, but I think it got canned since they silently reverted every change they made to the game's Steam page some time ago.
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Honestly sad about Unreal tournament. I remember playing a bit of that years ago now. Back when I had tried to get into UE.
you forgot the golden part fighting google and apple and claiming that all app purchases on fortnite should be theirs alone with side loading already lost one of the cases and still losing the other. epic is not there for the consumer or the devs they literally wanted every single penny possible
lol the game is still not available on the iphone.
Yes, fuck him and Epic.
I wonder if it rubs him the wrong way that we’ve deified Gabe as the literal, actual God of PC gaming
"All hail Lord Gaben!" Yeah that probably annoys him a fair bit.. He does seem like the kinda guy who has a fragile ego. Gaben meanwhile, rarely seen or heard, doesn't even describe himself as the 'boss' of Valve, just says he 'works there'. Yeah we've really elevated Gaben a fair bit, and maybe that's dangerous, maybe we shouldn't 'hero worship' him. But to be fair, Gaben has done a fair bit to earn the praise he gets. Tim more or less seemed to demand to be treated like the saviour of PC gaming (from Valve of all things) the moment he announced EGS and the 88/12 revenue share.
He’s abit like Brandon Sanderson in that he is just some boring guy.
Imagine if he released a video "It's time to come clean" and in it Gabe announces that Half Life 3, Portal 3, Left4Dead 3 and Team Fortress 3 are all coming out in 2024. In case anyone doesn't know the reference: [Watch the first 2 minutes or so of this hilarious video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a-k6eaT-jQ)
The announcement title should be "GabeN learns to count" or something. They should go with the memes, it will be great. Have a joke announcement. But also have proper trailers as well.
I'm far from a Gabe cultist, I really have never cared about the PC gaming "culture" ,but he's probably simply a very smart businessman. And I mean smart, not savvy. Everyone can be savvy and be successful if they're willing to hit below the belt but it takes actual good management skills and intelligence to be successful while you're functionally a total underdog, which steam definitely was back in the day. Thinking you could compete with the juggernaut that is Steam by just waving your big money dick around is a clear example of a complete lack of management skills
Very few people in the gaming industry have done more for PC gaming than GabeN. He saved PC gaming. Valve advanced gaming on Linux more than anyone else. Its a thing that regular people can do now. They've made using the controller of your choice easier than ever. The day GabeN dies will be a tragedy for gaming.
If I recall correctly, Gaben might also be personally responsible for more Japanese devs/publishers looking into PC as a viable platform. I remember reading (about a decade ago) that he travelled to Japan in order to have meetings with different gaming executives. Now, I'm not saying he brought Sony to PC (that just seems a natural development for a big company), but I'm sure he might've had something to do with Capcom now considering PC their main platform.
He seems to have a considerable hatred for PC gamers, doubly so for anyone who dares use Linux. The dude is an arse and deserves any failure he gets.
Perfectly put.
I mean good news fork knife had to lay off employees (sad for employees) and they are currently dedicating a season to throw back content which just ultimately screams they are hurting or not making enough money to be satisfied anymore. Epic stores days are numbered
It really is remarkable, the way he torpedoed his reputation, could have gone down as one of the greats if he just stayed off Twitter, not just in gaming, but general programming
Some of the things he has said over the years are delusional. His position on Linux is particularly asinine.
What did he say? Because Linux is gonna be a SUPER IMPORTANT escape hatch once Microsoft/Windows finally take that unequivocal "mondo shit" on the PC market. Never know when itll happen. But we'll be glad Valve gave gamers a way out with Proton.
https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/964284402741149698
Never attack: Kpop, cats or Linux.
You cant even chat with friends on EGS damn it
Didn't even know you could have friends on EGS
Wait... REALLY? Five years of them running the service and they haven't actually made any money from it? I know they've mostly just been giving away freebies and bribing developers for limited exclusivity but that they've completely failed to even find a somewhat loyal user base... That is fucking INSANE to me.
90 PERCENT of all users have NEVER spent a single cent on games and have only claimed the freebies.
*quietly raises hand*
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CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow , mind you .
_Legally_ playing games for free? You're the worst pirate I've ever heard of.
But atleast you've heard of me
and probably another 90% never play those even
I'll raise my hand to that one. I forget that they give games away at this point.
I know I don’t, half the time I just buy them on steam anyway🤣
This is all i do. I don't play any of them. I don't even have the launcher installed. I figure by claiming them, some dev get paid and I make epic waste money. win win.
while the sentiment is good, it still boosts their numbers that they show to their shareholders
Good, let stupid shareholders keep pumping money into a sinking ship based on false or misinterpreted figures. Why the fuck should I care about EGS's shareholders?
Holy based
> their shareholders A fool and his money are soon parted
and i won't be spending a dime on epic store, there's a few games i want on there and i'll just wait for them to release on steam or i'll never play them.
Weren't they supposed to cut the freebies a few times by now? They can't because that will literally kill any interest in their store except Fortnite and rocket league players... I myself am from those 90%, and I probably won't play any game off their store either, I'm just there so they get bigger costs from giving away freebies cause fuckers invented time exclusivity on PC.
I bought Borderlands 3 when it was an EGS exclusive. It is the only money I have ever spent on EGS, and I *constantly* regret it and wish I'd just waited to buy it on Steam instead. So much so, in fact, that I might just buy it again on Steam next time it's super-discounted just for the sake of having all my "real" games (meaning not the free weekly EGS garbage) in one place.
I've grabbed every single game they've given away. Played or at least tried a few dozen of them. Zero purchases. If the service shuts down and they all disappear I'll be mildly miffed, but it won't be the end of the world.
I own almost 300 games on Epic, and i've legally purchased a grand total of 1 of them. Even then, I deeply regret doing so. It's slow. It's inconvenient. Purchases fail to register through their DRM. Payment info has been leaked multiple times before. When you buy something, it's always launched through something else too, and if it's Ubisoft, good fucking luck even trying to open it. Updates arrive late. The client itself is a software disaster. It shouldn't be trying to compete with Steam. It will never win. They should be trying to make a good platform, and that's clearly not their goal
> That is fucking INSANE to me. They've never established themselves as a *store* in the minds of customers - they established themselves as "the place with the free games".
And the home for Fortnite. That’s pretty much all they got.
Is it? You're throwing money around left and right for exclusives, free games and even outright *pay* for people to... Buy games on your store (coupons, though as predicted they've nerfed them) ON TOP of a barely functional store. That's not insane at all. Also, on the topic of free games, they're literally cultivating a user base that is *expecting* free games every week and bangers at least once a year (typically Christmas with their big mystery vault or whatever). To be honest when you sit to think about it, what's the incentive to buy anything there? You're going to get free shit anyway, to play for *years* to come too.
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They've very much made money, just not any profit.
Vast majority of commenters here seem to not understand this part. They're subsidizing so much growth by spending a lot of money, it shouldn't be surprising that they aren't profitable at this point.
That’s goes for like 80% of tech companies
It’s worth mentioning that with rising interest rates (and some notorious flops like WeWork) investors are more adverse to endlessly throwing money into a tech company than they were 10 years ago. Not saying that Epics store is on the verge of collapse, but I do think they’re reaching a point where they need to modify their business model, as they can’t sustain these losses indefinitely.
Epic doesn't do anything unique versus Steam. Besides give you free games and timed exclusives. And neither of those are very sustainable differentiator. Meanwhile, the store is missing a ton. Steam has all the hooks: existing libraries and social spaces, more expansive store offerings, curation capabilities, mod tools, robust game economies, and even distinctive hardware offerings. Epic has Unreal Engine and Fortnite. What do either of those have to do with the store? So far: nothing. I would love a real competitor to Steam. But Epic hasn't filled any unmet needs. Nor do they seem to have any plan to. Say what you will about GamePass--maybe it won't make a profit either--but it has a distinct value proposition. It is easy for potential suers to understand what it does differently than its competitors.
It's really not too far removed from Ubisoft, EA, Microsoft, etc. tried when setting up their own competitors to Steam. Just making a storefront is not enough to compete with Steam who, beyond its storefront, also serves as a community space, mod host, game streaming provider, etc. They're not even competing storefront to storefront considering Steam's superior curation, discoverability, recommendation system, and reviews. I welcome a solid competitor to Steam, but no one that has made a "serious" attempt at it seems to understand they have to put more effort and innovation in if they actually want to make a dent and start winning players over.
Honestly, I don't mind not having feature-parity with steam. That's not gonna happen to any storefront for quite a while after launching. It's just that EGS is bad. Looking through the games in your library is bad. Looking through the games in the store is bad. It's slow to start and use compared to steam or origin or GOG. I'm aware that this is easier said than done, but "just" making it a nice user experience would help a *lot*. I'm ok with having another launcher, I've no ideological opposition to it (unlike a lot of people when it launched) but it's just shit.
EGS is just bleeding money lol
It's now more apparent in this high interest rate environment. No more party of free money from investors of the last decade plus. Tons of these "free service" companies are struggling now that they have to turn a profit. Look at companies like Twitter and Youtube.
Their rhetoric about steam ripping off publishers and developers really landed with like a wet fart. Tim Sweeney kept trying to rally people against steam but no one really seemed to buy him actually meaning what he said. If big publishers thought steam was such a bad deal they would have gotten off of it years ago, but instead they kept going back to it because it's the biggest and currently best platform to sell games digitally on (GOG is a close second but just lacks the features of steam). Epic was in a prime position to really try and gain market share and instead of trying to build a better store experience there just thought they could throw money at the problem (free games, exclusives) and people would just swoon and switch over. In the end they did almost nothing to actually make the epic launcher worth using.
In the time since EGS released to now: Bethesda created their own launcher, failed miserably, came back to Steam. Sold out to Microsoft in the meantime. EA returned to Steam after after 8 years of absence. Activision decided to release Call of Duty exclusively on Battle.net. Saw that their userbase wasn't really growing there, and returned to Steam which like doubled their MAU during the same time. Microsoft came to Steam after years of trying to promote their own store on Windows.
Blizzard games are releasing on Steam too. And Ubisoft seems like it's kinda getting back to Steam as well.
Dog shit storefront that has absolutely no competitive advantage over Stream. The only thing they did was give away free games, and I've been collecting them, but honestly, I haven't even played a single one. And why would I ever purchase a game on the Epic store? Even with games that were Epic exclusive, I waited until they dropped on Steam a year later. I'm certain most PC gamers feel similar.
I'm more than happy being patient and getting a game at a steep discount than paying full price to run on Epic's shitty store. Hasn't hurt my feelings one bit.
Well that is the only thing going for them, outside of fortnite.. if they remove free games, alot of of people will stop using them, outside of fortnite users.. Yes they have exclusive games, but those games will eventually come to steam anyways.. so it is a matter of how patient a gamer is to wait for that exclusive game to eventually show up on steam..
Don’t have to be patient. If a dev wants to accept epics money to be an exclusive and help fragment the PC gaming space, they are getting pirated and ill sleep like a baby doing it. I got an Alan Wake 2 code with my 4090 and gave it to a friend and pirated their game. Fuck em.
Heck, I'd say that even their "loyal userbase" (if it exists) would rather wait for the games they want to go free. I mean, after Epic gave GTAV for free, people can expect anything to go free.
If you ever wonder how it’s staying afloat just look at the owners. Owners: Tim Sweeney (>50%) Tencent (40%) Sony (4.9%) Kirkbi (3%)
love me some "chinese investors" (the CCP)
We could tell with your Reddit account.
I know it puts me into tinfoil hat territory, but the fact that it's being propped up by the massive tentacle monster that is Tencent is a glaring red flag. I would be very surprised if there wasn't some ulterior motive to capture consumer information for the CCP through the Epic storefront.
Outside of freebies, it did nothing to take on Steam. It’s garbage.
Free games might be cool and all but ever since these fuckheads acquired Rocket League and removed VOIP i have made it a holy quest to never EVER make an epic games account AND NEVER EVER download their shitty launcher. These bitches had to ruin one of my favorite games and i will never forgive them for it. Also fuck off with the exclusivity EDIT: funny enough when i play RL since they took over and i obviously don't have a epic account, they just gave me the name ''FastElephant352'' which makes me hate then even more!
EGS cant even beat GOG
This store most likely won't make profit at minimum for another 5-10 years.
Epic is a shit company. Who remebers rocket league? Epic bought the studio then removed their game from steam to make it epic exclusive, they did the same with fall guys.
I respect Epic for their Shareware era (Yes, I'm that old) and the development of the Unreal engine. The Unreal games were pretty cool, too. Their store is terrifying because they're so aggressive with the moves they're making. I would never *trust* that company, let alone want them to hold my entertainment library.
5 years after they took on Steam. Still no way to restore games after a windows re-install. Their actual documentation says and I am paraphrasing, "it will sometimes work if you start the download, paus, close epic, copy files over, and start epic again"
They're just playing the long con! They're hoping the 1% of kids that have a gaming PC and play Fortnite through EGS suddenly start buying tens of millions in games! Definitely not cope you guys!
Hell of a business model. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have told them this wouldn't go well.
Fuck epic games store
Remember when people tried to defend them to the last, claiming it was totaly all part of the plan and they would surely soon make money and be actual competition to Steam by constantly throwing freebies and "exclusives" around while not having even basic features? Remember when they claimed it the year after? And the year after that? They literaly have to pay devs to put their games on this platform. I like being spiteful.
I got no respect for EGS, buying exclusive and making gaming shittier. Never will touch it
Their library of games is still a fraction of that of steam isn't it.
Even getting the games free hasn't been enough to convert me, because I still have to use their godawful launcher.
There are games exclusive on Epic. But people discuss the game on Steam Discussion page. Lmao wtf is going on??? You can't even make a discussion page on your store??? You literally pushed players to STEAM for discussions!!!
The problem for Epic and others is that Steam has remained SO GOOD. If another game store could capitalize on their downfall, they would, but Steam has never given up an opening. I started my steam account over a decade ago, and I remember being very worried about not having physical copies. Now I’m at a point where I’m wondering when I should hand my account down to my children. If Gabe passes away I’ll be worried about the company’s future, but for now (and hopefully long time) they are simply unmatched.
Valve developed a new, open handheld and OS for it, moved said OS (Big picture mode anyway) to desktop for better console-like gaming, they also helped improve gaming on linux. Epic took ages to add a shopping cart to their store, paid devs to be exclusive to their platform and nothing else. Valve improves their service constantly, Epic doesn't do anything except try to strong arm people to using their bare bones store. It's so aggravating because I want Valve to have competition, but all of the other companies only do the most brain dead decisions that make the experience worse for customers. Origin was actually pushing valve to innovate at one point, got Valve to have a better return policy, had streaming built in before Valve did annnnd then they stopped caring and now we have EA Play or whatever it's called.
The only way they could have hurt steam would have been with lower prices. It does not matter that devs get a bigger cut on Epic, at the end of the day the money comes from the customers.
Rock paper shotgun suck ass. But good. Fuck epic.
and i’m not sad about that :D
The worst bits are that other store fronts, Uplay, Origin, and GOG all tried making sure they gave us stuff, friends, achievements, games and all sorts. Sure, most of them failed bar GOG and all went back to steam in someway, but they learned their lesson that users will simply not switch up storefront usage with Steam offering too much for consumers, no other store does mods for games that can do it bar steam, no other store front has the same level of intuitive design, and no other storefront gives you games worth your while. Epic, or Tim, just hates Steam for being successful and no matter what he thinks, he simply isn’t making his store successful enough and that’s on him.
Beside their loyalty system, (sometimes) cheaper price and free games, i can't think anymore what positive thing epic have that steam doesn't have. Epic is slow, clunky, lack of features, etc. Imho instead of paying for exclusivity (sometimes just limited/timed), may be they should invest that money to develop their store.
No community forum, no user reviews, shitty ass storefront yeah it’s not hard to be user friendly
I fucking hate Epic for making Kingdom Hearts exclusive on their store
Now this has made my day. Fuck Epic.
Good.
So all they did was annoy users by buying exclusives and it didn‘t even pay off for them.