In my eyes, part of the reason for this is that they forgot a key element of penetrating a market... you need a potential customer base that is actually displeased with the current available solutions and is actually looking for an alternative. And, by and large, the current storefronts had done a good enough work of pleasing their customer base that, when the Epic Store rolled out, few people were actively looking for a switch, to the point that no bonuses or goodies or exclusives that Epic offered could outweight the friction of moving from a platform that was perfectly serviceable, please and thank you.
this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
24 points (100.0% liked)
Gaming
2160 readers
1 users here now
founded 2 years ago
There are problems with Steam that a competitor could win customers from by solving those problems, but they didn't bother. They only went after the people producing games, not buying games.
People who don't like Steam already have GoG. To most people Epic Games is the fortnite launcher, and fortnite is in rapid decline:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1108992/fortnite-number-viewers/
As much as I like GoG, it doesn't really solve any problems that Steam has that I can think of. In fact, in several ways it seems like they've gone backwards in the last several years, imo (as a launcher/storefront alternative)
DRM-free games is already a big one.
My understanding is that GoG does some work to make sure that old games they sell will work on new PCs. I have at least one game that is bugged on Steam, but works fine from GoG.
When I bought Vampire the Masquerade from GoG it came pre-bundled with the primary community bugfix patch, I thought that was pretty neat. It didn't come baked in, so they still give you the base version of the game, but I pretty much just checked a box on install and it added it on.
That said, Steam could arguably be a better solution for that sentiment, now that it has such good Linux compatibility. I doubt I’ll be able to run Windows 11111 on my computer in 2080, but I can always choose a Linux install.
Yep. I have not and will not give epic store money because they didn't try to make a better product.
In fact they attacked me as a customer, in essence, by offering a worse product but then paying for exclusivity on various games. And in exchange they try to bribe me with free games.
Well, I'll take the bribes, as I try to remember to collect my free games each week, but I'm not giving them money.
but at the same time steam have a fuckton of features, it take tine to implement everything
It does take time, but when you launch a product that's missing basic features (like a shopping cart, something almost every online store in existence has) you tell on yourself to your customers, and let them know they're not a priority.
I don't disagree that Steam's feature rich platform makes it hard to compete with on that level... but for fuck's sake, at least try a little bit. Especially if your first move is to say they're unfairly gaming the market by... providing something people want.
I was never happy with Steam. It always seemed bloated with unwanted features that had nothing to do with playing a game, constantly wanted to run in the background and update, launched at a snail's pace.
I've found myself liking EGS a lot more because it's clean and simple.
Both are owned by big gross corporations, so really I'd prefer no launcher at all.
They started out pissing off Steam users with Metro Exodus going exclusives and pulling it from Steam. Not a great first impression and a lasting one at that. Not everyone will care and will buy from epic, but alienating a whole bunch of Steam's core users off the bat is probably going to ensure they'll never win them over.
I claim games from epic and have bought from even origin and uplay, but I'll probably never spend any money at epic.
Hopefully this becomes a case study of how not to antagonize your customers when launching a product.
I'm not surprised.
I'm surprised since I'd assume most people don't care where games are from and just buy it from whatever launcher. At least that's what people claimed throughout the years.
I don't think anyone has claimed that ever. Having all my games spread across 8 different libraries is a pain in the ass. Having Steam plus Blizzard's Battlenet launcher was already pushing it in my opinion and I dropped them too after Overwatch 2. (Which, hilariously, is also now available on steam anyway).
to disagree slightly: there were many different stores and lunchers before Epic even existed. Apart from Steam I have bought games and other digital goods on Gog, Humble and the now- extinct Desura. While totally avoiding the stores from companies as Ubi or Ea because they just suck.
Having an addititional account wasn't the big issue. There were already attemts to integrade several libs into one launcher, and if not you can at least run the start commands for that games out of steam.
What was sucking from the beginning was that arrogance of this sweeny guy, his promises of hot air, and his telling us of being the great saviour for all developers - while we as paying custemers were fed up with this bad launcher that is still missing every user interaction.
In the end not even the developers have profited from the store. Sales are not as promised, and in order to release a game on this platform sweeny blackmails you to give away older titles for free.
I’m this way, but I recognized I was a minority.
It’s the equivalent of “I don’t want to buy my produce from Mike’s Fresh Local Produce, electronics from Three Brothers Electronics Since 1978, and my car from Local Town Used Motors. I want to buy EVERYTHING from WAL-MART, where I have my WAL-MART loyalty membership.”
But, I also note the exception to that comparison - that Steam genuinely does work harder on their consumer features, and even trades away profit to let people buy games from other websites (eg, Greenmangaming)
I think I'd be more surprised if it was profitable. Anecdotal, but I (and most people I know) exclusively use Epic for free games.
They gave away so many good games ... and in doing so taught their target group not to spend money to buy games on their platform. Outstanding move!
When I saw Alan Wake 2 was an epic exclusive my immediate thought was I can just wait for a giveaway like they did for Control.
With the way they've been handling things it won't ever be profitable.
Have to wonder if they would actually be totally fine if they just didn’t have to pay out such huge legal expenses in lawsuits, and for enormous settlements, and had just played it straight with customers, and just accepted Apple and Google’s fees.
This is good, 30% cut is only possible because of monopolistic behavior.
Why would this be good, for that reason...?
I could be wrong, but I believe Epic or Sweeney threw something like that around about Steam's pricing model. Or maybe it was just an Internet thing. Regardless, the idea floated was that the only reason Steam took such a cut was it's monopolistic powers. What I believe jaden is trying to say is that that line of reasoning is being shown to be bullshit and that Steam takes that much so it can be profitable.