Seriously – one of the best Console Wars episode 😀
Drakontis
5 years ago
You know, at first I was apathetic to the whole Epic situation. But more and more, I view Epic games and their storefront with contempt. Why? They’ve locked games and experiences behind an unfinished storefront. I wouldn’t go to a restaurant where they told me to eat off the floor because tables and chairs are on the road map. I wouldn’t go to a grocery store where they’ve thrown the produce all over the ground because shelves are on the road map. I wouldn’t go to a GameStop or Best Buy where everything has been water damaged because a roof… Read more »
Khaisz
5 years ago
Here we go, We the high an mighty PC Master Race. We who stood on the side line to watch the Console Wars. We who are like gods.
We have now joined the Console war in a wierd way by fighting about which store is a better store on the same console. It’s like if Xbox and PS merged but had 2 different stores still with different games on it.
Well, technically yes and no. For a while there has been Steam and Origin and launchers (like UPlay, Battle.net) which have cornered the game market on PC’s. It’s been a content, happy-ish life style (both Steam and Origin and major pros and cons) for gamers.
Now, you have a sudden emergence in the market with Epic Game store, who is trying to “own” the market with game company exclusivity before they’ve even developed a good storefront. Which in turn has pissed off a lot of customers.
its not exactly like that because the Epic games store has no real fanbase. it would be like is the Solja game were to take your console exclusives, and now you can only play God of War… (insert Xbox exclusive) or last of us on the Solja game console.
its not a competitor in a console war. its a mafia stealing your games with financial manipulation.
NNextremNN
5 years ago
Well at least we have some choice and aren’t locked into the store of a single company.
GeorgeV
5 years ago
Except we don’t really have choice now. Thanks to the exclusivity bullshit, the only choice to play certain games when they come out is on Epic. While there is nothing wrong with having some competition to Steam, the problem is the disgusting way Epic is going about it. They’re offering nothing (for consumers) that Steam doesn’t do better already, so instead their only strategy is denying customers the choice of buying things on Steam or other platforms. It’s as if someone decides to open a store in a leaky alleyway, then tried to attract customers by hijacking the delivery truck… Read more »
raven0ak
5 years ago
now we have: third party exclusives: Epic; in house exclusives: Origin, Uplay ; nonexclusive: Steam, GoG
Hunter
5 years ago
I hate Epic like the next man, but someone (I think it was Jim Sterling) made the point that smaller storefronts did try to compete with Steam via what would be considered “fair” methods. GoG is a great store… It doesn’t have the overwhelming pile of asset flip shit clogging up its store front. But is it really creating strong competition for Steam. Unfortunately, no. Steam still holds a huge majority of the market share. So we have to ask, if Steam can’t by knocked down via “fair” competition, how can it be challenged? Like I said, I hate Epic… Read more »
But the point is that I simply don’t want another storefront. If game developers/publishers don’t want to pay Valve, then simply release the game as a normal installable application, like GoG do.
You may not want another storefront, but developers sure do. Valve has been gouging them for years and they’re getting sick of it. Epic is giving them a fresh, fairer option, and they’re flocking to it.
You missed the alternative he offered. Sell it direct yourselves, and install it as a standalone program, without ANY specific storefront. No Steam, no Epic. Just your game.
It depends on whom they want to sell the game. To be fair, they wouldn’t get more flak if they wasn’t known to be PAID for exclusivity. Big portion of people dislike any form of DRM, for that reason they prefer GOG. A lot of people would like to pay devs more, so they naturally would switch to EGS. Instead EGS follows policy of forcing “support for devs”, no one likes to be forced, especially those, who cares more about their personal convenience and less about those, who’s trying to make more money from their paychecks. Even those, who want… Read more »
This is a common narrative, unfortunately it’s completely off-base. Before Steam was around your only option to sell a game was via Retail. That system involves a Publisher selling their game to a Distributor who then sells it on to a Retailer. Steam being both the Distributor+Retailer actually revolutionized the market and essentially doubled the revenue per copy sold for Publishers. IE: When $50 MSRP was common, a Publisher got $18-20 selling copies to a Distributor who turned that around for $33 to Retailers who then sold it for $50. Between 2005-2010 the number of new games being sold in… Read more »
Nice ^^ though I’m surprise you didn’t have Gearbox and a few others running along with Epic dressed in leather gimp outfits lol Still I would say you captured the situation perfectly, in all it’s cringe inducing agony.
Kinish
5 years ago
– It was such a nice city … we are moving!
– Moving where?
– Pirate Bay They say it is very profitable.
Eldest Gruff
5 years ago
Tim, thank you. This is the highlight of my week.
David Gibson
5 years ago
I get keeping it off Steam. That’s an extra 30% you’re making with each sale.
But why even add a new launcher? Just sell the game off your website (that way you can use existing https architecture for security rather than making your own) and have the game launch and update itself. The launcher is an extra program to maintain that adds nothing to playing the game and is only really useful if you’re a big publisher with a huge catalogue.
Simple, Piracy. It is easier to pirate a game that doesn’t require you to log in to an online account to play it. Launchers give them a layer of protection against Piracy. Additionally, it gives them a place to push ads for their games to people who they know are more likely to buy them.
Steam combining the retail and distribution channels revolutionized the market and actually doubled developer revenues compared to selling at physical retail. They literally made the market what it is today and to malign them over that specific point is uncalled for, especially with all the value-added features they provide developers AND consumers. See my other response in this comment thread for a more full explanation.
schnozzberries
5 years ago
Trying to reply to comments, but can’t. Not sure if it’s my networks settings disallowing that, or your site, but thought it should be mentioned jic. Exclusivity is nothing new. It has existed in consoles for decades, as well as pc launchers for a long while (maybe a decade?). So with exclusivity specifically, I do not see a problem here. As for an incomplete service, okay sure, but as a number of Tim’s comics and game releases have proven time and time again, we buy games that are unfinished all the time. ALL the time. So are you really surprised… Read more »
It’s like the restaurant analogy given earlier; fundamental aspects of something not being present really annoys people. It’s like playing Mario but the levels randomly turn into a solid brick wall, and you can’t fix it.
Robert Loughrey
5 years ago
Exclusivity doesn’t bother me. Steam has exclusive games. They all do. Make the storefront work and theres no problem. Make it a pain in the ass and hey its just a game, and I have a steam sale backlog to work though.
Tue
5 years ago
So what parties do we have in that section then?
Steam
GoG
Epic
Origin
Uplay
Windows store (basicly Xbox)
(Discord?)
Anything else that isn´t a more personal launcher like Bethesda, Battlenet, Nutaku etc?
dan
5 years ago
Epic is an utter mess, BUT I imagine it will be improving drastically. Steam has dominated the market, and had years to dump obscene amounts of money into what it is today. Steam has also had a “monopoly” for a very long time, and switching UIs will always be painful. Steam exists because it brought the convenience of downloading games to the players. Origin and Uplay only exist because it is forced. GoG exists because it brings something new to the table users REALLY want (no DRM!!!). Epic is going to have to come out with something new the users… Read more »
This is why I will never partake in anything that Epic Store peddles. They are 40% Chinese owned, and think that doing this is perfectly acceptable because it’s fine and dandy in China. It is just the opposite. This is the kind of shit that should not be tolerated AT ALL.
Croi
5 years ago
I laughed way too hard at this…seriously. I honestly couldn’t breathe for about ten seconds.
This is what a competitive market place looks like in the PC market, people, and I think people are finally waking up to understand game companies are NOT their friends.
MrMeng
5 years ago
What’s funny about this comic is that it’s the Steam cultists who are acting this way. Also monopolies are bad for gamers and game developers which is exactly what you’re helping Steam become mmmkay.
Urazz
5 years ago
One thing to note that those that say each game store/launcher like Origin and Uplay that have exclusives forget that these are that company’s in-game store/launcher and so see no need to put their game on the likes of Steam and save themselves a ton of money that way. Epic is pretty much using their launcher for their own games which I find perfectly but they are buying out 3rd party game publishers to hold off the games they publish from going on Steam. Epic can only buy these companies to make their games exclusive to their store/launcher for so… Read more »
Solokov
5 years ago
I don’t normally comment on your comics… but this is one of those times. The Epic Games store exclusivity has pretty much locked me out of picking up any titles I was looking forward to buying and playing due to the always online drm of the epic games store. I bounce around working for the government and cannot reasonably rely on having constant internet connectivity as a result, which kinda torpedoes things for me. I was looking forward to Metro Exodus. I was looking forward to the outer worlds etc etc… Well I still am, it just is I’ll have… Read more »
The PC Master Race has always fought a cold civil war of sorts. The Intel vs AMD debate, NVidia vs ATi (now AMD); and now Steam vs Epic. But now, that cold war has become nothing short of a civil war.
Kasper
5 years ago
I’ve come to realize that there’s no game I need so bad and so fast that it’s worth getting on Epic. Sure I love Borderlands and I was really looking forward to Phoenix Point. But… Nothing is worth that pile of crap. And I have so much else to play. Those games will hold for half a year or a year – whatever the exclusive period is. Too bad. Please note that I’ve been a heavy critic of Steam from the day it was released until today. I’ve warned of the dangers it posed through monopoly and being what amounts… Read more »
Scortch
5 years ago
Hey Tim, did you see the CEO of Gearbox respond to the Steam review bombs, by saying that they might just pull all their games from Steam? I mean is this basically another game head not getting what his customers are trying to tell him and doing what he wants?
Archer
5 years ago
Reading over the comments in the last few pages this morning something stuck out to me that I’m surprised I hadn’t realized earlier.
A lot of people have talked about/complained about Epic tracking their files and their anti consumer practices, but why hasn’t anyone brought up the issue with their privacy policy yet?
Just out of curiosity, is there anyone here who is from the EU? Because there have been a number of concerns raised over the EGS not complying with data protection laws enforced there. For anyone interested have a look:
if the devs got more money dealing trough epic store, why the consumers got any advantage of it? the price is basically the same as it would be on Steam! wtf!
24
Seriously – one of the best Console Wars episode 😀
You know, at first I was apathetic to the whole Epic situation. But more and more, I view Epic games and their storefront with contempt. Why? They’ve locked games and experiences behind an unfinished storefront. I wouldn’t go to a restaurant where they told me to eat off the floor because tables and chairs are on the road map. I wouldn’t go to a grocery store where they’ve thrown the produce all over the ground because shelves are on the road map. I wouldn’t go to a GameStop or Best Buy where everything has been water damaged because a roof… Read more »
Here we go, We the high an mighty PC Master Race. We who stood on the side line to watch the Console Wars. We who are like gods.
We have now joined the Console war in a wierd way by fighting about which store is a better store on the same console. It’s like if Xbox and PS merged but had 2 different stores still with different games on it.
Well, technically yes and no. For a while there has been Steam and Origin and launchers (like UPlay, Battle.net) which have cornered the game market on PC’s. It’s been a content, happy-ish life style (both Steam and Origin and major pros and cons) for gamers.
Now, you have a sudden emergence in the market with Epic Game store, who is trying to “own” the market with game company exclusivity before they’ve even developed a good storefront. Which in turn has pissed off a lot of customers.
This would be better depicted as a civil war.
its not exactly like that because the Epic games store has no real fanbase. it would be like is the Solja game were to take your console exclusives, and now you can only play God of War… (insert Xbox exclusive) or last of us on the Solja game console.
its not a competitor in a console war. its a mafia stealing your games with financial manipulation.
Well at least we have some choice and aren’t locked into the store of a single company.
Except we don’t really have choice now. Thanks to the exclusivity bullshit, the only choice to play certain games when they come out is on Epic. While there is nothing wrong with having some competition to Steam, the problem is the disgusting way Epic is going about it. They’re offering nothing (for consumers) that Steam doesn’t do better already, so instead their only strategy is denying customers the choice of buying things on Steam or other platforms. It’s as if someone decides to open a store in a leaky alleyway, then tried to attract customers by hijacking the delivery truck… Read more »
now we have: third party exclusives: Epic; in house exclusives: Origin, Uplay ; nonexclusive: Steam, GoG
I hate Epic like the next man, but someone (I think it was Jim Sterling) made the point that smaller storefronts did try to compete with Steam via what would be considered “fair” methods. GoG is a great store… It doesn’t have the overwhelming pile of asset flip shit clogging up its store front. But is it really creating strong competition for Steam. Unfortunately, no. Steam still holds a huge majority of the market share. So we have to ask, if Steam can’t by knocked down via “fair” competition, how can it be challenged? Like I said, I hate Epic… Read more »
But the point is that I simply don’t want another storefront. If game developers/publishers don’t want to pay Valve, then simply release the game as a normal installable application, like GoG do.
Either way, I’m not installing the Epic launcher.
You may not want another storefront, but developers sure do. Valve has been gouging them for years and they’re getting sick of it. Epic is giving them a fresh, fairer option, and they’re flocking to it.
You missed the alternative he offered. Sell it direct yourselves, and install it as a standalone program, without ANY specific storefront. No Steam, no Epic. Just your game.
The amount of infrastructure that needs to be set up to do that? That’ll kill games faster than “Oops, we’ve accidentally entered development hell.”
It’s just like the situation with Game Engines. “Don’t like all the different game engines? MAKE YOUR OWN!!” … well… about that…
It depends on whom they want to sell the game. To be fair, they wouldn’t get more flak if they wasn’t known to be PAID for exclusivity. Big portion of people dislike any form of DRM, for that reason they prefer GOG. A lot of people would like to pay devs more, so they naturally would switch to EGS. Instead EGS follows policy of forcing “support for devs”, no one likes to be forced, especially those, who cares more about their personal convenience and less about those, who’s trying to make more money from their paychecks. Even those, who want… Read more »
This is a common narrative, unfortunately it’s completely off-base. Before Steam was around your only option to sell a game was via Retail. That system involves a Publisher selling their game to a Distributor who then sells it on to a Retailer. Steam being both the Distributor+Retailer actually revolutionized the market and essentially doubled the revenue per copy sold for Publishers. IE: When $50 MSRP was common, a Publisher got $18-20 selling copies to a Distributor who turned that around for $33 to Retailers who then sold it for $50. Between 2005-2010 the number of new games being sold in… Read more »
I believe that’s true when Steam first came out.
Now?
Cmon, Tim, you should be over this situation
Nice ^^ though I’m surprise you didn’t have Gearbox and a few others running along with Epic dressed in leather gimp outfits lol Still I would say you captured the situation perfectly, in all it’s cringe inducing agony.
– It was such a nice city … we are moving!
– Moving where?
– Pirate Bay They say it is very profitable.
Tim, thank you. This is the highlight of my week.
I get keeping it off Steam. That’s an extra 30% you’re making with each sale.
But why even add a new launcher? Just sell the game off your website (that way you can use existing https architecture for security rather than making your own) and have the game launch and update itself. The launcher is an extra program to maintain that adds nothing to playing the game and is only really useful if you’re a big publisher with a huge catalogue.
Probably because they have plans to become a bug publisher/storefront? I would say that’s obvious… but… well…
I don’t get why a launcher is such a big deal here.
Simple, Piracy. It is easier to pirate a game that doesn’t require you to log in to an online account to play it. Launchers give them a layer of protection against Piracy. Additionally, it gives them a place to push ads for their games to people who they know are more likely to buy them.
Steam combining the retail and distribution channels revolutionized the market and actually doubled developer revenues compared to selling at physical retail. They literally made the market what it is today and to malign them over that specific point is uncalled for, especially with all the value-added features they provide developers AND consumers. See my other response in this comment thread for a more full explanation.
Trying to reply to comments, but can’t. Not sure if it’s my networks settings disallowing that, or your site, but thought it should be mentioned jic. Exclusivity is nothing new. It has existed in consoles for decades, as well as pc launchers for a long while (maybe a decade?). So with exclusivity specifically, I do not see a problem here. As for an incomplete service, okay sure, but as a number of Tim’s comics and game releases have proven time and time again, we buy games that are unfinished all the time. ALL the time. So are you really surprised… Read more »
It’s like the restaurant analogy given earlier; fundamental aspects of something not being present really annoys people. It’s like playing Mario but the levels randomly turn into a solid brick wall, and you can’t fix it.
Exclusivity doesn’t bother me. Steam has exclusive games. They all do. Make the storefront work and theres no problem. Make it a pain in the ass and hey its just a game, and I have a steam sale backlog to work though.
So what parties do we have in that section then?
Steam
GoG
Epic
Origin
Uplay
Windows store (basicly Xbox)
(Discord?)
Anything else that isn´t a more personal launcher like Bethesda, Battlenet, Nutaku etc?
Epic is an utter mess, BUT I imagine it will be improving drastically. Steam has dominated the market, and had years to dump obscene amounts of money into what it is today. Steam has also had a “monopoly” for a very long time, and switching UIs will always be painful. Steam exists because it brought the convenience of downloading games to the players. Origin and Uplay only exist because it is forced. GoG exists because it brings something new to the table users REALLY want (no DRM!!!). Epic is going to have to come out with something new the users… Read more »
Epic wang is epic…ly weird looking…
Is… is this a Console Wars comic??
https://segmentnext.com/2019/03/18/valve-responds-to-epic-games-stealing-data/
This is why I will never partake in anything that Epic Store peddles. They are 40% Chinese owned, and think that doing this is perfectly acceptable because it’s fine and dandy in China. It is just the opposite. This is the kind of shit that should not be tolerated AT ALL.
I laughed way too hard at this…seriously. I honestly couldn’t breathe for about ten seconds.
This is what a competitive market place looks like in the PC market, people, and I think people are finally waking up to understand game companies are NOT their friends.
What’s funny about this comic is that it’s the Steam cultists who are acting this way. Also monopolies are bad for gamers and game developers which is exactly what you’re helping Steam become mmmkay.
One thing to note that those that say each game store/launcher like Origin and Uplay that have exclusives forget that these are that company’s in-game store/launcher and so see no need to put their game on the likes of Steam and save themselves a ton of money that way. Epic is pretty much using their launcher for their own games which I find perfectly but they are buying out 3rd party game publishers to hold off the games they publish from going on Steam. Epic can only buy these companies to make their games exclusive to their store/launcher for so… Read more »
I don’t normally comment on your comics… but this is one of those times. The Epic Games store exclusivity has pretty much locked me out of picking up any titles I was looking forward to buying and playing due to the always online drm of the epic games store. I bounce around working for the government and cannot reasonably rely on having constant internet connectivity as a result, which kinda torpedoes things for me. I was looking forward to Metro Exodus. I was looking forward to the outer worlds etc etc… Well I still am, it just is I’ll have… Read more »
EGS does have offline mode:
https://epicgames.com/store/en-US/news/launcher-offline-mode
The PC Master Race has always fought a cold civil war of sorts. The Intel vs AMD debate, NVidia vs ATi (now AMD); and now Steam vs Epic. But now, that cold war has become nothing short of a civil war.
I’ve come to realize that there’s no game I need so bad and so fast that it’s worth getting on Epic. Sure I love Borderlands and I was really looking forward to Phoenix Point. But… Nothing is worth that pile of crap. And I have so much else to play. Those games will hold for half a year or a year – whatever the exclusive period is. Too bad. Please note that I’ve been a heavy critic of Steam from the day it was released until today. I’ve warned of the dangers it posed through monopoly and being what amounts… Read more »
Hey Tim, did you see the CEO of Gearbox respond to the Steam review bombs, by saying that they might just pull all their games from Steam? I mean is this basically another game head not getting what his customers are trying to tell him and doing what he wants?
Reading over the comments in the last few pages this morning something stuck out to me that I’m surprised I hadn’t realized earlier.
A lot of people have talked about/complained about Epic tracking their files and their anti consumer practices, but why hasn’t anyone brought up the issue with their privacy policy yet?
Just out of curiosity, is there anyone here who is from the EU? Because there have been a number of concerns raised over the EGS not complying with data protection laws enforced there. For anyone interested have a look:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/a43dxi/the_epic_games_store_does_not_seem_to_comply_with/
if the devs got more money dealing trough epic store, why the consumers got any advantage of it? the price is basically the same as it would be on Steam! wtf!