4 ms·
Standard buyout practices. Epic wants the whole pie and is willing to be a toxic market player to get there. Valve was too good for the gaming market, consumers
by devwastaken 6y ago
Standard buyout practices. Epic wants the whole pie and is willing to be a toxic market player to get there. Valve was too good for the gaming market, consumers are bad at recognizing a snake pit, they just see the magical free games and exclusive cuts in price, not remembering that those costs will be made back by the company later.
- rthomas6 6y agoI don't understand why valve/steam gets a free pass from everyone. What does Epic do that Steam doesn't? Honest question.
- dleslie 6y agoAFAIK, Steam has never insisted on exclusivity from those selling on its store; yes, Valve's own games aren't sold elsewhere but that's not quite the same as demanding exclusivity from others. And Epic explicitly refuses to add forums and reviews, which many of us find to be invaluable sources of information. And Epic has/had atrocious account security; for instance, not verifying email addresses on new accounts. Those are my personal gripes; you'll find longer lists elsewhere.
- rthomas6 6y agoMakes sense. Thanks for the answer.
- rStar 6y agodishonest question
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoValve is not at all anti-competitive and will even let you sell Steam keys on other storefronts without taking a cut, for one. And they've demonstrated significant goodwill by having their VR platform be open and doing significant work in making Linux gaming viable.
- hakfoo 6y agoIMO, it comes down to having a clear, customer-facing message. Steam has spent a decade plus saying "we're going to make PC gaming a better experience than going to a Gamestop and buying a box with a CD-ROM in it." They've delivered in many ways-- from the technical/distribution space, to shaking price expectations, to providing discoverability for indie creators, to building a community big enough that people can use their reviews as a shopping tool. Epic came in and made some mealy-mouth comments about "we want to be a lower-margin store so devs keep more cash", but that doesn't directly mean much to the consumer. Rather than offering something inherently compelling, they have to force people into the door with exclusives, forced accounts, and selling dollar bills for 90 cents (subsidized discounts and giveaways.) A good counterpoint is GOG. They don't match Steam point for point, but they've made a clear niche out of benefits customers can see (no-DRM, and a catalog of retro titles that would be a pain to acquire and run today)
- zepto 6y agoAnd this is the company people think would run a better App Store than Apple?
- lern_too_spel 6y agoNo, but there are plenty of other organizations that would run a better app store than Apple, and Epic getting its way would mean that users stuck on iOS would get to benefit from them.
- zepto 6y agoThere is no reason to suppose that. If Epic gets its way, companies like Epic with large war chests will end up running stores. Amazon, Google, and presumably the stores that Phone Carriers will pre-install are good starting points. Presumably the Facebook app will integrate a store and the apps will provide telemetry without asking permission. Users and developers will have to contend with all of them. There is no reason whatsoever to suppose these will be better than Apple’s approach, and plenty of history to suggest that it will be worse. Who did you have in mind? Perhaps there is someone I haven’t thought of.
- lern_too_spel 6y agoF-Droid, Amazon, Google, etc. have all shown that they can run an app store better than Apple.
- nickysielicki 6y agoThe weird bit is that you can still buy in-game tokens in Rocket League, with Steam as the payment processor. I don't understand what they're doing.