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I absolutely welcome the competition, but it's going to take a lot for me to trust the Epic Games Store as much as I trust Valve. Lots has been written about V

I absolutely welcome the competition, but it's going to take a lot for me to trust the Epic Games Store as much as I trust Valve. Lots has been written about Valve (employee handbook, supposedly-not-there-but-actually-just-hidden political hierarchies), but I don't think of them as a normal for-profit company though they most certainly are. They've taken bets like steam for linux, the steam controller, steam boxes, their crazy no-hierarchy structure (no matter how misguided) and I just don't see other game companies or platform companies doing the same. They have my respect. I've also never seen them do anything blatantly greedy/money grubbing on a large scale (though their excuse is usually that they're a small company) and the gaming community absolutely loves to get out their pitchforks. Maybe I've just been marketed to really well but I think it takes a certain kind of company to be who Valve is -- they're like a mozilla in my eyes.

wallace_f 8y ago
Agreed, but their recent bootlicking of Chinese authorities stemming from a minor Dota2 drama is just sad and embarassing to be honest.
Felz 8y ago
> I've also never seen them do anything blatantly greedy/money grubbing on a large scale Have you ever heard of TF2?
- hardwaresofton 8y ago
  I feel like they just wandered into a crazy profitable business model and didn't know what to do? Could you be more specific -- I never played TF2 for very long, and I know hats were basically a huge thing, but from what I understand they allowed people to make hats right? Did they like take all the profit from community made hats or something? This must just be a controversy I didn't see because I don't play TF2
  - Felz 8y ago
    They basically turned the game into a testbed for extremely exploitative practices. It's been a while since I walked away in disgust, but one example I remember is the crates system. Essentially, they added "item drops" called crates. These crates do absolutely nothing unless you spend $2.50 to buy a key to open them with. It's basically an extremely insulting lootbox model. Aside from turning the game into a hat simulator, they also introduced loads of game-breaking straight upgrade weapons for you to grind for, and continually piled them on over the years, often just taking community-supplied models and slapping stats on them. At some point they even tried to add full sets of expensive cosmetic items that would give you straight stat bonuses when worn, which even they had to back down from. I've never seen more aggressive monetization while ruining the base product than I saw Valve apply to TF2, hence my surprise at your impression that Valve wasn't capable of money grubbing. In the case of TF2, they were somehow actually worse than Activision-Blizzard.
    - hardwaresofton 8y ago
      Hahha that's exactly like Counter Strike:Global Offensive (which I do play). It's definitely some dark UX/a manipulative practice, but well within their rights to do, as long as the stuff that comes out doesn't actually affect gameplay. Breaking the games balance with pay/gamble-to-win stuff is pretty shitty IMO though, yikes. Now that I think about it, Counter Strike: Source didn't have any of the crate nonsense or skins... Yeah they probably learned that from TF2.
pjc50 8y ago
Interesting, since I remember how controversial the Steam DRM was at the time of its launch. But Valve have outcompeted and outlasted other vendors by being the least anti-consumer DRM system with the best discounts that doesn't interfere with playing your games. If anyone remembers Games For Windows Live, that's an example of how not to do it. Here's the cheering on RPS when its closure was announced: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/08/20/it-liiiiiiiiives-gfwl-perma-closing-next-july/ https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/08/20/it-liiiiiiiiives... UPlay and Origin exist but are tolerated through gritted teeth. It remains to be seen whether Epic get a good or bad reputation.
- hardwaresofton 8y ago
  Point taken, that particular controversy definitely slipped my mind... There was a time when it didn't have that. This annoucement definitely made me think of UPlay and Origin, I think I played a demo of "The District" (?) and there was much gritting of teeth. I might also be biased against fortnite....
ppseafield 8y ago
> I've also never seen them do anything blatantly greedy/money grubbing on a large scale Well... Steam launched with Half Life 2, and you had to install it and have an internet connection to play the game on the CD you just bought. And Steam didn't work for several days after HL2's launch, so everyone who bought the game day one was forced to wait for the Steam gatekeeper to let you into your own game (again, that was sitting in the physical box). And it was quite buggy for a long time, even though it did very little for the user. They eventually rewrote the entire thing as an embedded web app! Also besides the Half-Life IP, many of Valve's franchises are either takeovers of user-created mods (Team Fortress, Counter Strike, DotA 2), and now Artifact appears to be heavily "inspired" by hearthstone. As for Steam for Linux, that was a contingency against the Windows Store when it was released. Valve recognized Microsoft could theoretically kick app and game stores off it's platform, leaving Valve with nothing.
- hardwaresofton 8y ago
  > Well... Steam launched with Half Life 2, and you had to install it and have an internet connection to play the game on the CD you just bought. And Steam didn't work for several days after HL2's launch, so everyone who bought the game day one was forced to wait for the Steam gatekeeper to let you into your own game (again, that was sitting in the physical box). And it was quite buggy for a long time, even though it did very little for the user. They eventually rewrote the entire thing as an embedded web app! This has definitely colored my view of valve, thanks for sharing. I bought HL2 on CD (DVD?) to play counter strike and didn't remember this happening since I got it so late. > Also besides the Half-Life IP, many of Valve's franchises are either takeovers of user-created mods (Team Fortress, Counter Strike, DotA 2), and now Artifact appears to be heavily "inspired" by hearthstone. Maybe this is the difference -- they don't actively kill things that made them successful. I feel like I've seen things like that happen to other companies and they step in and ruin it/don't know how to just let the community be and let it grow. > As for Steam for Linux, that was a contingency against the Windows Store when it was released. Valve recognized Microsoft could theoretically kick app and game stores off it's platform, leaving Valve with nothing. While I'm not sure that windows store was ever a real competitor to steam I definitely see the point here. Glad they did it though!

wallace_f 8y ago

Agreed, but their recent bootlicking of Chinese authorities stemming from a minor Dota2 drama is just sad and embarassing to be honest.

Felz 8y ago

> I've also never seen them do anything blatantly greedy/money grubbing on a large scale Have you ever heard of TF2?

hardwaresofton 8y ago
I feel like they just wandered into a crazy profitable business model and didn't know what to do? Could you be more specific -- I never played TF2 for very long, and I know hats were basically a huge thing, but from what I understand they allowed people to make hats right? Did they like take all the profit from community made hats or something? This must just be a controversy I didn't see because I don't play TF2
- Felz 8y ago
  They basically turned the game into a testbed for extremely exploitative practices. It's been a while since I walked away in disgust, but one example I remember is the crates system. Essentially, they added "item drops" called crates. These crates do absolutely nothing unless you spend $2.50 to buy a key to open them with. It's basically an extremely insulting lootbox model. Aside from turning the game into a hat simulator, they also introduced loads of game-breaking straight upgrade weapons for you to grind for, and continually piled them on over the years, often just taking community-supplied models and slapping stats on them. At some point they even tried to add full sets of expensive cosmetic items that would give you straight stat bonuses when worn, which even they had to back down from. I've never seen more aggressive monetization while ruining the base product than I saw Valve apply to TF2, hence my surprise at your impression that Valve wasn't capable of money grubbing. In the case of TF2, they were somehow actually worse than Activision-Blizzard.
  - hardwaresofton 8y ago
    Hahha that's exactly like Counter Strike:Global Offensive (which I do play). It's definitely some dark UX/a manipulative practice, but well within their rights to do, as long as the stuff that comes out doesn't actually affect gameplay. Breaking the games balance with pay/gamble-to-win stuff is pretty shitty IMO though, yikes. Now that I think about it, Counter Strike: Source didn't have any of the crate nonsense or skins... Yeah they probably learned that from TF2.

pjc50 8y ago

Interesting, since I remember how controversial the Steam DRM was at the time of its launch. But Valve have outcompeted and outlasted other vendors by being the least anti-consumer DRM system with the best discounts that doesn't interfere with playing your games. If anyone remembers Games For Windows Live, that's an example of how not to do it. Here's the cheering on RPS when its closure was announced: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/08/20/it-liiiiiiiiives-gfwl-perma-closing-next-july/ https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/08/20/it-liiiiiiiiives... UPlay and Origin exist but are tolerated through gritted teeth. It remains to be seen whether Epic get a good or bad reputation.

hardwaresofton 8y ago
Point taken, that particular controversy definitely slipped my mind... There was a time when it didn't have that. This annoucement definitely made me think of UPlay and Origin, I think I played a demo of "The District" (?) and there was much gritting of teeth. I might also be biased against fortnite....

ppseafield 8y ago

> I've also never seen them do anything blatantly greedy/money grubbing on a large scale Well... Steam launched with Half Life 2, and you had to install it and have an internet connection to play the game on the CD you just bought. And Steam didn't work for several days after HL2's launch, so everyone who bought the game day one was forced to wait for the Steam gatekeeper to let you into your own game (again, that was sitting in the physical box). And it was quite buggy for a long time, even though it did very little for the user. They eventually rewrote the entire thing as an embedded web app! Also besides the Half-Life IP, many of Valve's franchises are either takeovers of user-created mods (Team Fortress, Counter Strike, DotA 2), and now Artifact appears to be heavily "inspired" by hearthstone. As for Steam for Linux, that was a contingency against the Windows Store when it was released. Valve recognized Microsoft could theoretically kick app and game stores off it's platform, leaving Valve with nothing.

hardwaresofton 8y ago
> Well... Steam launched with Half Life 2, and you had to install it and have an internet connection to play the game on the CD you just bought. And Steam didn't work for several days after HL2's launch, so everyone who bought the game day one was forced to wait for the Steam gatekeeper to let you into your own game (again, that was sitting in the physical box). And it was quite buggy for a long time, even though it did very little for the user. They eventually rewrote the entire thing as an embedded web app! This has definitely colored my view of valve, thanks for sharing. I bought HL2 on CD (DVD?) to play counter strike and didn't remember this happening since I got it so late. > Also besides the Half-Life IP, many of Valve's franchises are either takeovers of user-created mods (Team Fortress, Counter Strike, DotA 2), and now Artifact appears to be heavily "inspired" by hearthstone. Maybe this is the difference -- they don't actively kill things that made them successful. I feel like I've seen things like that happen to other companies and they step in and ruin it/don't know how to just let the community be and let it grow. > As for Steam for Linux, that was a contingency against the Windows Store when it was released. Valve recognized Microsoft could theoretically kick app and game stores off it's platform, leaving Valve with nothing. While I'm not sure that windows store was ever a real competitor to steam I definitely see the point here. Glad they did it though!