Well, it is upon us. Borderlands 3 is out on Friday, and PC gamers have a decision to make. Based on the outrage and vitriol that’s been directed at the Epic Games Store all summer long, choosing to purchase the game on Friday almost feels akin to crossing a picket line.
Some people don’t give a shit which store the game is in. Some things are exclusive to certain places, and that’s the way it is. Some phones are exclusive to certain carriers. Some Funko pops are exclusive to certain stores. It happens, life goes on.
For other people, supporting Epic is tantamount to selling your soul to the devil (Epic is literally the devil, to hear them talk). You are part of the problem, as far as they’re concerned, not willing to stand by their principles by waiting six months to play the game.
I feel like we’ve heard a lot about the Epic Games Store this year, due to various exclusivity announcements but more importantly, the harsh backlash surrounding those announcements. I wish there was a way I could see what the sales numbers look like, come Friday. A way to sort of measure the actual numbers against the cacophany of hatred that we’ve been listening to all year, and get an idea of how it all stacks up. Whether all the grumbling and tooth gnashing amounts to a less-than-projected launch, or if people’s desire to just play the damn game wins out.
I know which one I’m betting on.
Yeah…I’m buying the game on Xbox, and then probably on Epic. I don’t want to wait for it to hit steam to play it on my PC, and I also want the splitscreen with friends that I get on my One X.
Man… I think my Borderlands 1 and 2 are both on disks.
I’d take that option, but I don’t think they let us anymore.
I got Dragon Age 3 on disk… and it failed to install from the disk and required Origin anyway and then I just had to install it by downloading it. Likewise, a disk of Borderlands 3 would probably require Epic for 6 months.
I experienced the same thing with Skyrim. I thought I was buying the disk, and the disk had Steam and a key on it.
Had I known, I wouldn’t have spent 6 hours in line at a GameStop in 40°f weather and just downloaded the darn thing.
I’m pretty sure the disc still had the game data on it, there was just an issue with Steam/Bethesda at the time where it would default to downloading the product rather than installing from the disc. A quick couple steps would let you install using the disc instead.
Still silly that it wound up like that though.
Discs on PC are DVDs, if you wanted full game you would need 10 or 20 of them these times. Discs for Steam did get 4,7 GB of data, the rest needed to be downloaded.
Getting a disc day one? That would require putting on pants!. Fuck that noise.
I knew from day one I’d be getting it from EGS. I’m not fond of them, but I’m also not of a strong opinion. I’ve been looking forward to this for too long to let gaming politics get in my way.
Also, your devil gives me Jafar-genie vibes.
I think the Jafar genie was supposed to give devil vibes. . .
I think Tim missed a golden opportunity to have good ol’ Satan drinking his morning Earl Gray with a tiny pinkie salute.
Nailed the moustache, though.
I haven’t got an option but to wait since I’m on Linux and ECS isn’t running through Lutris as of yet and there is no platform or game support for Linux at this time.
It’s not a “I hate ECS” thing for me as much as a “I hate Windows 10” thing since I had nothing but headaches with Win10.
Too busy playing Gears of War, Borderlands will have to wait
My wife and I have watched the sh-… the circus that has been the EGS debacle for the last several months, and we’re not about to give them our money now. As far as I’m convinced, BL3 comes out in 2020 and that’s when she and I will enjoy it together. Til then, we’re happy to sit back and watch EGS trip over it’s own feet and enrage the community again and again.
…Them and Bethesda. Seriously, no lack of entertainment lately.
I love always online DRM in ports of classic games from the early to mid 90s for a sometimes handheld system that won’t always be connected to the internet! Having to sign into a Bethesda account to play Doom is totally reasonable!!!
(I know they removed it, but the fact that they had the gall to try in the first place… ?)
Could be worse.
EA.
Sim city.
Day of launch ‘always online connection’… ‘can’t connect to servers’ 😀
I mean, yeah. They could also kick us directly in the nuts, in person. The ‘It could be worse’ argument really is a lot like saying ‘Well at least we are not literally on fire!’ While true, it’s increeeedibly unhelpful. We should encourage them to be better, not give them a pass because someone else is worse.
Man it drives me crazy when people abbreviate it EGS because that’s the abbreviation for one of my favorite webcomics and it takes me a minute to figure out what they’re talking about. I know saying that changes nothing but I felt like I needed to get it off of my chest.
Grace?
Yes.
Squirrel?
YES!
I was having that exact problem I was like “Why are people angry at that guy?”
I love that comic, had the same issue when the Epic Game Store first started causing major problems, and am now ashamed that I have contributed to the problem.
people love drama, but i love borderlands(already downloading)
I’ve got plenty of replay value left in BL1 and 2, and I haven’t even touched the Pre-Sequel yet. I’m hyped for BL3, but I’ve got so much other stuff to play in the meantime (I have a huge backlog of games that I’ve not even looked at yet) that I don’t mind waiting until it’s out on Steam to get it. Hell, I’ll even wait for it to be on sale. It’s not a matter of principle for me either, it’s just that I want the convenience of having as many of my games as possible in one place.… Read more »
You *really* need to play TPS. It’s hilarious and fills a lot of holes in the plot between BL1 and 2.
I’d steer clear of the Pre-Sequel. The added mechanic just makes the game frustrating to the point of obnoxious. I own it, but it is the only Borderlands game I actively don’t want to play.
I’ve got enough games in my back catalog to play. While the various borderlands games were fun enough to play none of them were skyrim/fallout levels of I cant think of anything but playing this game. Frankly I dont care enough to rush it. It will end up geting released elsewhere eventually and with the skeezy way the whole EGS exclusive shit has gone down I’ll probably not only wait for it to go elsewhere but also wait for a deep discount sale out of spite. Seriously my steam profile lists 506 games in the library. Thats a somewhat inflated… Read more »
>fallout level
oof
Hey now.
Fallout 1 and 2 are great games.
What is sort of ironic is that epic gave out so many free games recently, that I can just play all of those games. Tons of free games and not supporting epic since I have not bought anything from them. Anyway, this never been a debate for me, since I don’t buy brand new releases anyway. On release date games are often buggy as hell and they are overpriced. There is always the latest hype, but you save so much money and headache simply by just waiting.
Yeah, they definitely don’t quote the number of people playing games on their store to help get those exclusives.
I tried doing some of that… but epic started having ad pop ups on my DESKTOP. I uninstalled shortly after. I don’t mind the occasional ad for a game while I’m browsing a GAME STORE… but don’t go bugging me while I’m doing anything else on my PC. Bye Felicia.
I mean as for myself I avoid epic like the plague. Not exactly the DEVIL ..Or maybe Epic is the devil, but in that case they are in the best of company within the gaming industry *shudder* But the way in which they act, allt he while a certain someone on twitter keeps acting like some sort of altruistic saint is friggin disgusting. Plus, when people try to forceshove crap down my throat I *tend* to get a bit rebellious. ANd I really do not buy the whole “oh is the only way to compete with steam” thingy…they clearly got… Read more »
I know I’ll get a lot of backlash for this, but I really dislike the whole BL franchise.
I’ve been peer pressured into buying BL 1, 2, and Prequel (plus all DLCs) and boy, do I find all the games boring and unfunny!
Maybe I’m just too old, but how is the claptrap so popular when it just keeps spouting things that *may* be considered amusing by a 5 years old?
So yeah, not exactly a dilemma for me whether buying it or not 😛
I mean… just not your type of game, thats how taste works
Or maybe not old enough? A massive part of the humor in Borderlands is aimed at adults. And not just “adult-humor” like boobies and willies, but actual satirical commentary. And stuff too dark for kids. I enjoy the setting more and more as time goes on 🙂
“too old”, well, I’m 37 and I’m still young enough to enjoy bd. But hey, “chacun ses goûts”.
claptrap is not the favourite. Its an amusing mascot, but to me, the love is in the writing, the gameplay, the setting. They set themselves up with an awsome world.. awsome characters (handsome jack, is a villain you love to hate in borderlands 2, then in 1.5 you learn WHY he became that way)… The games are flashy, big explosions, some amusing parts, some ‘awww crap’ moments… but great both solo and co-op… how many games forget that ‘multiplayer is a thing’ or ‘multiplayer is the only thing’… so having something can jump on with a friend, murder a few… Read more »
Anyone that would give you flak for having your own opinion… well, that’s their own insecurities. I quite like Borderlands, but only when playing co-op. But hey, you do you and have a blast!
I don’t think children would find claptrap amusing though…
Clappy is mostly popular with guys like me: short, weird, a little obnoxious and possessed of very few friends. I really enjoy his lines in general, though, especially after you beat Boom Bewm in BL2 and just…everything in the Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragonkeep DLC. But yeah, as was mentioned, the writing is on a different level with this game.
Hey if a game tries to appeal to everyone it ends up appealing to no one. Theres enough games out there for everyone to play what interests them and no reason to hate on others for liking something different. I’m kinda Meh on BL myself. Dont hate it but not shouting “Shutup and take my money” either. I’ll grab it at some point when it goes on sale like I did with the rest of the series and it will get played at some point.
Des, if you don’t like the games, don’t buy them. I’m not at all a fan of the Fallout series. It just doesn’t do anything for me. I didn’t buy them.
Can’t say I’ll be getting it on Friday. Not out of any moral obligation, but I just really cannot be bothered to patch two stores if I want to just pick it up and play. Just going to wait 6 months, it’ll give them time to bug fix and fine tune because god knows we don’t get full, polished games on release anymore.
weakness disgusts me
I’ll just wait 6 months.
Same.
Probably catch a good amount of DLC, bug fixes, updates and helpful guides in the meantime.
While wistfully caressing my monitor as I watch the gameplay videos, a single tear running down my cheek, whispering “betrayal”
Gamers defend Steam to the bone against the “evil” exclusivity tactics of EGS, but these same gamers strangely turn a blind eye to all the evil corporate tactics Steam itself has employed over the past decade in its reign as the undisputed monopoly king of PC. EGS might not have all the bells and whistles of the Steam app yet, but the exclusivity deals are helping to break up that monopoly and in turn netting devs substantial benefits at a better value, exactly the kind of positive results you’d expect when there’s suddenly market competition. PC gamers need to get… Read more »
The thing is, if the EGS was on pair with Steam and it’s features and didn’t try to buy exclusives and competed against Steam with better services/deals/functionality, nobody would hate the EGS as much as it is and that’s not getting into all the shady stuff with TenCent.
Honestly, though, even if EGS had the exact same services, deals and functionality that Steam has, that wouldn’t be enough to convince people to switch ecosystems, would it? You have to admit all things being equal there would be no reason to leave Steam when your entire library of games and friends lists are already there, a new competitor would literally have to offer something you can’t get anywhere else to convince people to adopt. And just like with every console generation since time immemorial, exclusives are the most realistic, straight-forward mechanism to encourage consumer buy-in. It would be difficult… Read more »
You’re right to a degree but the one thing the EGS does offer is that devs get a bigger cut of the proceeds. That would have been a good start. The problems start with how there are features on Steam that the EGS doesn’t have, there is absolutely no excuse to not have all the security and functionality that Steam offers. That’s the benefit of coming into the game so late, they can see what’s worked, what hasn’t and have those beneficial features integrated from the start. The EGS’s roadmap, wasn’t the future goals on that removed or hidden because… Read more »
A few extra clicks? You seem to forget the hard drive space that it takes up as well.
At 400mb, if you only have a hard drive with a single terabyte, the Epic Games Launcher represents 0.04% of your drive’s capacity.
My point still stands that Fledge was wrong that it was just a few extra clicks.
Because GoG and Discord don’t exist do they? Honestly I pick up just as much stuff on there as steam… but with Epic’s exclusivity bribes I can’t until 6months-1 year. and for smaller devs they flat out refuse to publish your game without one. They are just paying devs with fortnight money and making it back by having 100% of the initial zerg rush of purchases.
I mean, developers are completely capable of going back to installation disks or creating their own platforms, Steam just filled that niche for them and provided a platform for independent developers who don’t have those resources. They *always* had that choice, and Steam was, and remains the most upstanding, honest, and relatively third party application for that. It isn’t exactly *cheap* storing 30,000+ games worth of data and maintaining literal millions of user accounts which claim ownership thereof, all for free as far as users are concerned. It isn’t a picnic. You do know you used to have to buy… Read more »
“Steam was, and remains the most upstanding, honest, and relatively third party application…”
(Sigh) like I said, gamers overlook how Steam has played the role of “evil ultra-wealthy corporate monopoly” over the years. Here’s a good article from Polygon that goes into it pretty in depth:
https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/16/15622366/valve-gabe-newell-sales-origin-destructive
The word “Relatively” exists in the same sentence you copied my friend, and thanks for ignoring the *_entire rest of my post on what costs Steam is taking on themselves for these multi-million dollar skinner box developing twats._*
Relative, say to, EA’s Origin Store, Ubisoft’s UPLAY store, Blizzard’s whatever the fuck they have, and now the damn EPIC Store
And again, before Steam it was “Go and print your own CDs and sell them at Gamestop”. They can go back to that if they want to take up the extra cost themselves.
Still you said Steam was the “most upstanding” and “honest”, when that’s far from the truth if you read into their history of anti-consumer practices, illegal activity and worker exploitation. “Good Guy Valve” is the kind of down-to-earth grassroots brand image Steam and many multi-million dollar corporations carefully nurture into their customer base to create brand loyalty, lulling consumers into a carefully created cozy, comfortable complacency is exactly how businesses take advantage of people. I encourage you to exercise your independence as a consumer and not be seduced, glamored and charmed by these subversive tactics and examine the whole situation… Read more »
OK firstly
Steam was never that ethical, at best they’ve been apathetic, that’s why we have things like GoG.
Secondly,
All for free? you know they take a cut of the sales right? If you think the majority of users aren’t paying towards the store front you should check how steam makes its money.
Same as above, *Relatively*. Certainly more ethical than Origin, Uplay and Blizzard.
And yes, “For *fucking free”, I’m not paying a subscription fee to keep Steam’s servers up, am I? I didn’t get my account gormlessly deleted to make more room after a near decade of inactivity, they kept that shit up along with my old, old, OLD purchase of Counter Strike and it didn’t cost me a cent of upkeep.
And that’s a damn sight when you consider they aren’t solely catering to storing their own games but are storing *everyone’s games*
None the less some of the money you paid for Counter Strike went to pay for Steam. It wasn’t free for you even if it was cheap. Even if you’ve never bought another game since, it did cost you some money. Plus your Steam profile says you have 661 games, I’ll bet some of them cost money. Some of that money went for Steam.
Most of it is Humble Bundle Purchases, Holiday Sales, and Free Keys.
I don’t think Steam has even made six dollars per year off of how long my account has been around, and *I’m* not the one paying that money, Counter-Strike and Half-Life 2 aside, the developers are, because it’s ultimately the developer’s game being kept on Steam’s servers and it would still cost me the roughly, lets-say-it-was-a-brand-new-game $60 regardless of *where* I bought it.
I give the money to the Developer, the Developer gives Steam their cut. Simple
Competition is fine (praise GoG), but the problem with Epic is that they’re just an inferior platform with worse features. And instead of genuinely competing by offering a better or comparable product to Steam, they just buy up exclusives to force customers to either use their inferior product or be denied access.
Well like I said EGS isn’t nearly so feature-rich as Steam, but Steam does have the advantage of a decade-long monopoly to build that stuff out, any new competitor would have their work cut out for them. And while consumer’s aren’t getting many features out of the exclusivity yet (Epic did release a roadmap outlining what they’re bringing in the coming years), developers are making out like champs, in ways that feeds back into the development of the games we enjoy. Keep in mind Steam takes a hefty 30% revenue cut on game sales (an amount many devs complain about… Read more »
How does Steam having a head start excuse Epics failings? I get that it’s hard to compete against a behemoth like that, but that’s the challenge Epic decided to take on. If they’re not up to that, that’s their fault. If they want to compete, it’s their job to actually deliver a decent product that people want to use. Even if they couldn’t outdo Steams total package, they should’ve at least found some area to improve upon, to have something to weigh against Steam. Just having less features than Steam could be forgivable if there was some other reason for… Read more »
Well exclusives aren’t a new strategy by any stretch, it’s been a staple of the console wars since time immemorial, and this is often because the marginal differences in features between platforms aren’t exactly dealbreakers that help inform a consumer’s buy-in to a particular ecosystem. Think of it this way: if EGS offered all the functionality that Steam does, would you switch over? Even when Steam already has your entire existing game library and friendslists? I doubt you or most gamers would switch, that’s a huge hurdle to overcome for any would-be contender to Steam’s monopoly because users are already… Read more »
That’s what boggles my mind.
If it was about Pitchford’s general dickish behaviour, the treatment of staff, 2K strong-arming streamers, and the like I would understand the moral outrage.
But stuff like boycotting because Grearbox advertised on Steam? The hell? How does that affect gamers? I like Steam because of the sales but it’s not really deserving of brand loyalty. They’re a service.
Is that you Sweeney? oO
I kinda get why people are mad? Just so you know, you might not like it but what epic is doing is the reality of digital storefronts. not just in gaming. Another good example are streaming services who have the exact same problem. it’s not “a good service” that wins. it’s exclusives. But just like in streaming services, there is hope. with the “success” of epic, you might see more stores pop up. and eventually, the exclusives will be so widespread across stores that it stops being profitable and the market will collapse back to a single storefront. this is… Read more »
So.. the problem of epic offering big devs a ‘6 month exclusivity’ while telling small indy companys ‘come, sign our exclusivity… no? sorry we wont carry your product’… is no problem at all?
It’s no better than Steam saying “Give us 30% of profits or we won’t put your game on our site. Good luck getting your game to gain traction elsewhere, peasant.”
perhaps, but steam treats everyone equal (bethesda to small indy) where as epic treats big and small different.
30% compared to what? Do you even know?
Compared to developing your own platform, maintaining the game indefinitely barring legal issues, and troubleshooting, maintaining and protecting *millions of user accounts*
Sony can’t manage that for christ’s sake.
And it’s 30% of *sale*, not profit, and that’s only for the first $10 million. Then 25% until $50 million, and 20% afterwards, and remember: your games are available for sale *in perpetuity* unless you ask them to be taken down or you make a legal blunder like what happened with Alpha Protocol.
EGS charges 12% of sales. So more money goes to the developers.
They also aren’t hosting over 30,000 games, I expect when, if they start actually having to act more like a vendor platform that will change.
And 30% is chump change when compared to the costs of physical distribution. The stores take their cut. There’s the price of producing the units, theres the cost of shiping, theres the upfront costs of producing and storing units that may or may not sell that you may have to eat. You can mitigate some of those risks by geting a publisher that has access to existing networks but they will take an even bigger cut in the end for it. You can try to setup your own digitial store front to bypass those costs, which agian bring extra costs… Read more »
not saying that there isn’t a problem. just saying that this was inevitable, and that there is hope for the future
BD3 comes out tomorrow? Too busy with Iceborne to care…
To be fair my main problem with the Epic Games Store was what happened with Borderlands 3. The Devs exploited Steam to advertise the game with all apparent intent to release on Steam, then shortly before release they withdrew from Steam with the six month(?) Epic exclusivity deal because of better terms to the Devs. This has in turn led Steam to amend their terms of service stating that if you want to use Steam to advertise you CAN NOT back out and do an exclusivity deal with another store. Game Devs/Publishers then HAVE TO release on Steam at the… Read more »
The fact that Steam didn’t have that in their contract initially suggests they had a lot of goodwill for developers until that.
Thanks Gearbox, you fucked it up for everyone.
My understanding is that it was in the contract for years, steam just don’t enforce it out of good will.
Check out SidAlpha’s update video on this subject. That clause has been in their developer agreement for at least the last 2 years and nobody noticed. Other stuff was updated and someone spotted that clause and thought it was a new response to the EGS stuff.
“I know which one I’m betting on.”
Me too. I still remember the Modern Warfare 2 boycott group on Steam, most of them playing Modern Warfare 2 on launch day. Borderlands 3 is going to sell just fine.
I won’t be buying it though. I could say it’s because of Epic, or because of Randy Pitchford, or because of 2K Games. All of those would be lies. I won’t be buying it because I can’t stand Borderlands. It was a chore forcing myself to finish 2, and when I was gifted the Prequel, I couldn’t make it to the end.
The Prequel was a bit of a slog, I was honestly able to play through two or three times with different characters in number 2 because I absolutely loved playing as Gauge the second time around and Jack was enough of an ass to let me allow myself be antagonized by him, but I only managed the once with Claptrap in the Prequel because I didn’t like any of the other characters. From what I hear there are a lot of quality of life improvements in this iteration and honestly I still like the occasional bout of mindless, funny, shooty… Read more »
THIS POST HAS TOO MANY SENTENCES! APOLOGIZE!
I certainly don’t think that other people buying the game are the problem. At the end of the day, everyone makes their own choice.
I will not be buying Borderlands 3.
Sad to say, but these antics are why I’d just pirate the game, enjoy it, and then buy it when it becomes available on the Steam store. With the videogame industry pulling a lot of shady stuff these days, I don’t trust any game well enough to throw money at it without knowing what it is. If I like it, I’ll buy it. And I’ll know if I like it only if I play it, and I’ll be able to play it, only if I can pirate it. Because I flat out refuse to fall for tricks again. This works… Read more »
Watching people complain that Steam takes a cut of sales to cover upkeep, marketing and maintenance of a literal library of games that they don’t personally own really gets my goat. They *could* be charging gamers to even have an account. They *could* be refusing developers they don’t like. They *could* be offering paper thin account protection They *could* force exclusives But they *Don’t* They offer a central point of sales for multiple developers, both large and small for a market of several million gamers. Your alternative to that is to make your own distributive platform, or to print CDs,… Read more »
Botherlands 3? Wut iz dat?
Seriously though, the whole BL franchise never really interested me so I won’t buy it, regardless of store. That said, if it did, I wouldn’t buy it on EGS either. Doing so does support the problem of pushed exclusivity, and I don’t want Tencent getting my money and data either.
As I’ve said in other places – I don’t mind having another launcher/platform/steam-like thing; we need Valve to face some competition.
My issues are just that Epic’s launcher doesn’t have the baseline things that we take for granted from Steam *and consoles*, and that instead of improving on those, they’ve been doing the scummy thing and strong-arming indie and small developers into exclusivity and going so far as to make them break promises of where their games will be available, whilst also not requiring the same exclusivity of larger developers.
Hell, even other online launcher like Origin, the Blizzard App, etc. are better than Epic Games’ Launcher.
Epic Launcher, is it better than Uplay was in 2013-2014?
I still get shivers when thinking back to updating… was it Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag or Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
Small update after small update after small update after small update after……..
Dunno for how long.
Blacklist I do have on Steam, altho not installed currently.
Big thing is that even the Uplay launcher improved. Epic Games haven’t improved their launcher at all (it took the devs for Borderlands 3 to help them get the Epic games Launcher viable for preload of their game.) and they have pretty much dumped the road map they put up. Maybe stop putting in so much money for those exclusives and hire some more people to improve your store instead?
Thank you for the information 🙂
Maybe I should install Uplay and Origin launchers.
Not touched those since I had to get a new PC built.
if wow classic keeps me busy until then I’ll wait for steam… if it does not, well.. Shut up and take my soul!
why downvotes?
Not gonna be playing BL3, I have all the previous, I just don’t want another launcher clogging up my HD, demanding resources. If the EGS was even at least a competent competition to the Steam platform, I might consider it. But it is not. I don’t like Origin either (aside the fact it’s EA, it’s also garbage)
I’ll just wait for it on the platform I have, and if Steam’s new platform rules change to challenge Epic’s exclusivity means BL3 never shows up on Steam… well I’ll never have to play it.
I’m so glad I’m not a Borderlands fan. Tried the second when it was free, didn’t like it. Happy enough with Greedfall this week thank you.
Anthem is the highest grossing game bioware has ever made so take what you will from that.
I guess ignorance is bliss, I haven’t really paid too much attention to the whole Epic store situation since I noticed people were near instantly boycotting it from the launch announcement. I’ve played some games on my PC (mostly MMO’s) but got a few good Humble Bundles, and personally I can’t get into just owning a major game digitally, I want the physical copy (though with patches and DLC I do realize the irony of this feeling since most of the game eventually ends up as digital content.) In the end, I just hope that everyone that wants to enjoy… Read more »
I figure I’ll have to wait 6 months for the stable linux release anyways.
Yeah, I would love to see the sales numbers of Borderlands 3, come Friday, but I doubt we’ll get any honest representation of sales. Since the money Epic gives to these companies has been referred to as saying they sale a minimum amount of copies, I bet they’ll say they sold that amount at the very least. I myself never bought the Borderlands games on launch and bought them like a year later when we would get a game of the year edition, so for me, I’m not going to get it until then. Hell, I might even wait for… Read more »
I never understood the need to buy a game asap the day it came out. I just fav it, wait till it gets down to a reasonable price either due holidays or the devs themselves wanna half the price for whatever reason and then get it and play it. That and I still got like 20 games I have yet to touch. Why add more to the pile? <.<
What the heck? I can only give a comment ONE upvote? What kind of dystopian nightmare is this?
?
well you know that some people are waiting games for a long time? (like I was with classic or am with cyberpunk)
In the past if you liked a game enough you had no issue paying full price for it at launch. Quality was usually good to decent for these games, especially if they were a Triple A game. Nowadays, you can’t even trust any developer, especially the Triple A companies, to have a game at a decent state at launch it feels like.
I’m just going to play it on Xbox for now. I’ll buy it on Steam when it releases. I don’t trust the Epic store and I don’t like having multiple game browsers/platforms on my PC.
I understand how some people might favorite their preferred store over a new one. But has it really been any different than _all_ the others we already have? Steam, Origin, Uplay, Kalypso, Battle.net the list probably goes on. The way that epic now does what they do actually fits into their businessmodel. Remember, those are the guys that make the unreal engine, that a lot of games use. They also offer better prices than steam does, so developers dont have to hand to much money over to a distributor. So it is actually good for developers. I feel that part… Read more »
As much as some of the other launchers anoyed me at the time they were selling games that were developed under their own umbrella as exclusives. You make it you can sell it in as many or as few places as you like. Buying out exclusivity contracts for games from other developers sounds skeezy to me. IF the dev’s decided to only sell through them from the start due to better prices that would be one thing but those big ass bribes and other strong arm tactics rub me the wrong way. And just because the console war is worse… Read more »
You are of course not wrong. But having only steam dominate the market, gives us as consumers worse conditions. It forces developers to taken offer they cannot refuse.
I am not a fan of this procedure, not by a long shot!
But i understand the need for more competition on the game stores, valve and steam have evolved like they are because of the lack of competition. Now it is convenient for us to have one place to go to, but lack of competition will always be a benefit for the business and not for the customer.
Never cared for the Borderland series so it doesn’t really affect me. Now there are some games that are coming out on Epic that I do want to play, but I’m also old enough to be patient and wait. Surprisingly, I have found a number of them are releasing on the Xbox Game Pass for PC subscription so I feel even less of a motivation to purchase those games now.
Now begins the 6’th month wait for borderlands on steam (where I have 1, 2, 1.5). Also ‘the outer worlds’ is getting a epic limited exclucivity.. so i’ll be waiting for that to hit steam.
Yesterday I bought the super deluxe edition from EGS, right now I am currently pre-loading the game. I don’t like EGS either, but I’m not letting their bullshit stop me from playing one of my all time favorite game series. If that means I’m “selling my soul to the devil,” then so be it, just as long as the game is good and I get to play it.
Alright, I’m going to be fair here. I don’t mind the idea of exclusives. Its a tried and true practice. My problem is with Epic’s methods of obtaining said exclusivity and their reasoning for it. Not to mention the lack of respect for the customers and their custom, that attitude that THEY are more entitled to our purchase than Valve or GoG are. What’s more is I don’t see that improving in the near future.
It would be one thing if they like funded the development of a game and that was the condition for funding the development of the game or the company owns their own launcher. I.E. EA releasing their games on their own launcher, Origin, Ubisoft on Uplay, Activision/Blizzard games on the Blizzard App (it was originally just the Blizzard sub division games on the Blizzard App but Activision/Blizzard decided it could be used for all games in the company).
It’s not the exclusivity deals, rather piss poor storefront functionality. Any way EGS is getting my money on Paranoia: Happiness is mandatory, and maybe for Mechwarrior 5. Not going to preorder though, that idea can go kiss it’s arse goodbye.
Even if every person who complained boycotts the game, it’ll be a bestseller.
It’s already evident from facebook comments sections that the vast, vast majority of gamers fondly remember borderlands and will buy anything with a 3 on it regardless of any news.
You underestimate how large the borderlands fan base unfortunately is.
anyone else notice its friday the 13th?
I believe they intended it to play into their whole “mayhem” theme, at least that’s what I thought when they announced the release date.
Good thing i play on consoles.
Definitely not getting Borderlands 3 on EGS. If other people are getting it on EGS, that’s fine, but there’s no way I’m supporting Tim Sweeney’s mess of store. Honestly, part of me toyed with the idea of buying a PS4 just to play BL3 on launch day, but that feels a bit petty, right?
Also, if there was a way that I could pay everyone at Gearbox but Randy Pitchford, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
I was a big fan of BL2 and Tales from the Borderlands. Even though I’m usually a Wait-for-GOTY type of guy for games that you know will be heavy with DLC, BL3 would probably of gotten me to break that rule.Hell, my wife would of picked it up on an whim and I would of been sucked into it. That being said, we both don’t appreciate the tactic of buying up games already in development to lock them into exclusivity deals. It is one thing to release your first party content or development you’ve funded from the get-go on an… Read more »
Exclusivity, doesn’t matter to me. As you said, there are exclusives in nearly every product line. Even with groceries! The “missing” features of EGS, no big deal to me either, just use the other five or six launchers as just that, game launchers. Does it suck to have your games across multiple launchers, sure. Still easy to keep track of where they’re at if you’re organized. Really no different than having to keep track of which movies/shows are on which digital service (of which there are dozens). Then there’s the so called “bribing” to get the exclusives, again, no different… Read more »
I just do NOT get the outrage over the Epic Game Store. Between Battle.net, Steam, and Origin, I had three already. What’s a fourth one? (Not including stuff like Minecraft, which has its own launcher in the game.)
And it’s 400mb in size. That’s nothing. I’m sure I’m wasting five times that space on save game files for games I’ll never replay/ finish.
Now…Randy Pitchford on the other hand. Yeah, that guy sounds like a tool. And 2K Games are assholes.
FYI, the difference is that they are paying other companies that are even tied to them to go exclusive on their launcher. The Blizzard Battle.net app and Origin are apps for the companies that own them so it’s actually cheaper to just make it exclusive to their own launchers. I.E. why put WoW on the Steam store when it costs a lot less money to just put it on Blizzard’s own launcher. If WoW was put on Steam then Steam would take a cut of the profits and Blizzard would make less money.
That sounds like a great deal for those companies, the smaller game studios that can’t establish their own launcher.
Rather than have Steam take a high cut of their profits they get PAID to go to Epic. That’s fantastic for both those game companies, and their employees. And if the studioes make more money, they can potentially funnel that money into more staff and better games for gamers.
This sounds great! Why is everyone upset?
Honestly, it comes down to I hate bullies. Forcing the gaming public to bow down to an exclusivity deal is pure bully tactics. I love Borderlands, and can’t wait to play BL3. That said, EGS has a lot of my “waiting-for” games under its umbrella, and they will be coming out soon enough. I can wait. In the meantime, I have at least 3-4 playthroughs of State of Decay 2 to keep me busy, to say nothing of WoW and my Steam backlog. If you want to compete with a company, make a better product. Don’t strong-arm your consumers. Americans… Read more »
“I won’t be bullied by exclusivity!” He says, as he plays WoW EXCLUSIVELY through Blizzard’s not-a-better-product-than-Steam Launcher, and State of Decay EXCLUSIVELY through a Microsoft app…
Ok, so how long was WoW advertised on Steam before signing the Blizzard exclusivity deal? Did I miss SoD2 being pulled off Steam a couple weeks before release to become a Microsoft exclusive?
EGS uses some extremely scummy tactics and I think that is what most people object to. If you are willing to overlook them, more power to you but don’t act like everyone else is being unreasonable.
in the instance of borderlands 3 at least, it was never advertised as being released on steam. As for games that were advertised for steam release then pulled.. that was the publisher/dev’s decision to make. Epic made them an offer and they took it, removing the game from steam. The dev’s/publishers didn’t have to, they chose to. I’m not saying Epic is blameless in this, but they also should not be getting all the blame.
Fair enough, while I dislike exclusivity I can understand it. The problem I have is with EGS itself and the tactics it uses to get that exclusivity. Publishers/Devs are free to take EGS’s cash and I am free to not buy anything from them on it. God knows my backlog of games is big enough already.
What tactics? As far as I can tell, the only “tactic” is offering the developer a bigger percentage of profits (or guaranteed amount of $ regardless of sales, which = stability for indie devs).
Are they doing something seedier? Sending masked goons to the developers’ houses at night? 😉
Telling people to sign exclusivity deals or they wont carry the game seems pretty scummy but maybe thats just me. You are, of course, free to spend your money anyway you choose and to support whomever you like. I just know how I am going to spend mine.
Gonna be honest… don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that said that Epic was refusing to carry games that don’t sign Exclusivity deals.. and their is one pre-orderable game I know wasn’t signed as an epic exclusive that is on both steam and epic, Cyberpunk 2077. So I’ll ask, please link an article saying epic is refusing to carry games that don’t sign exclusivity deals for the launch window.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/08/why-one-pc-developer-turned-down-the-security-of-epics-exclusivity-offer/?comments=1
“The other reason for Unfold’s exclusivity rejection is more interesting, from a platform competition standpoint. According to the studio, Epic “made it clear that releasing DARQ non-exclusively [on the Epic Game Store] is not an option.” In other words, the only way for DARQ to get on EGS, at this point, was to sign an exclusivity agreement and stop offering the game on other PC platforms.”
Oh, I’d say poaching titles off Steam that were going to be released on there and were trending high on that platform is definitely a shadow tactic.
Also Tim, the bigger percentage of profits is a bad argument. Even Tim Sweeney admitted that the practice is not feasible in the long run. Steam may take a bigger piece of the pie from developers but they use that bigger piece to pay for some fees that customers themselves would be paying, and the fees actually go to developing Steam and other things more for gamers.
He didn’t even mention that as a reason for not liking the EGS XD
EGS may use “scummy tactics”, but as far as what “most people object to” how the hell would anyone even KNOW what “most” people object to? Everyone’s got a different “reason” for why the EGS is bad.
“Oh, it’s the lack of features.”
“The fact that they promised a developer they’d make money if the game was exclusive is the problem!”
“They’re owned by a chinese company!”
“I want all my games in the same place!”
But on that point, –>EPIC<--- didn't advertise any games on Steam. I doubt even a publisher used steam as "Advertisement." Most likely a game might be listed on Steam because a developer assumes they'll launch it on Steam, but then gets a better offer from Epic and changes their mind. They're allowed to change their mind, you don't have to assign some nefarious intent to it, or act like because a developer at one point considers releasing their game on Steam that they are then irreversably locked into that decision 😛 But if that STILL angers you, your anger is with the developer who decided Epic is the best platform for their product, not with Epic for simply BEING an alternative, no? In which case you wouldn't buy the developer's game, period? No matter the exclusivity window? My point is, there are probably a lot of valid reasons to not want to use the EGS, and those reasons will vary by person. But there's also a lot of hypocrisy and double standard and bandwagoning in the complaints I'm see, and there is not a single, unified "THIS is the problem" theme here. 😉
Wow, its almost like I said I think as in my opinion not a fact. Of course people will have different reasons for disliking EGS, hell, I am sure there are people who dislike EGS because of the color of the background.
So you dont think EGS saying to smaller developers “Sign exclusively with us or we wont carry your game at all” is scummy? Sure they can do that, and I also can choose not to use their platform. Im not trying to tell anyone what to do with their money/time Im just trying to explain my personal stance
I think if your neighbor asked to borrow your lawnmower, and said if you turned him down he’d never speak to you again, that would be “scummy.” But a company trying to work out an exclusivity deal with another in order to make money (and then passing on an alternative that promises little to no money)? I guess I’d call that “business.” 😉 And yeah, of course you can decide you don’t like the way a company conducts business, and choose not to give them money as a result. Where in the sand you draw that line is up to… Read more »
“I think if your neighbor asked to borrow your lawnmower, and said if you turned him down he’d never speak to you again, that would be “scummy.” “I think if your neighbor asked to borrow your lawnmower, and said if you turned him down he’d never speak to you again, that would be “scummy.”” Interesting analogy although I think it would be more accurate to say if my neighbor asked to rent my lawnmower than demanded that I not let anyone else use said lawnmower for months or years than yes, that would be scummy. “But a company trying to… Read more »
that kind of business is shitty enough to boycott them imho
Difference is Tim, that Blizzard made WoW and are putting it on their own store only. Different story with the Epic Games Store mostly. I don’t begrudge them putting Fortnite on their store exclusively but I think their practice of paying for the exclusivity deals is scummy, especially when the game was announced to go on Steam and then they retroactively pull out of it for Epic’s money.
blizzard made a launcher… for THEIR games. Makes sense, totally. I don’t get your point. No comparison is possible here.
Tim, you can’t compare WoW or other first party IPs to third party exclusivity. Every company has the right to exclusively sell their products through their own store. Its the same thing with first party console exclusives. Even the whole Epic buying exclusivity thing for EGS doesn’t bother me itself. I think the issue is that EGS is a subpar storefront, and its the equivalent of going from having a Best Buy or Fry’s type store for games (Steam) to some guy in the parking lot selling you the same things out of the back of his Golf. Its all… Read more »
While it’s annoying to have yet another launch platform, I think in the end competition will help. Overall I prefer steam launcher to Epic launcher. GOG Galaxy is my favorite though and I look forward to wide release of Galaxy 2.0. In not ready to start BL3 anyway, so I’ll buy it when I find a good sale price, maybe GOTY edition.
That’s the thing, it’s not good competition that fosters the competitors and Steam to actually improve. It’s Epic Games trying to compete with a shoddy platform and shady business practices.
I’m not fond of Randy, and I won’t be buying it at launch. But then again, I have the luxury of like 12 other games I also want to play right now, so it’s a small sacrifice. I’ve got 2 Wolfensteins, Man of Medan, and (soon) Surge 2 to occupy my time, plus I’ve got my eye on that new game from the people who made Her Story.
Going to be honest myself. I pre-purchased and preloaded this on Epic. I already have 4 launchers on my computer, Battle.net, Origin, Uplay and steam.. one more really didn’t make a difference.