5 ms·

It's more than just throwing money at it. EA tried and failed to separate from Steam. Epic might succeed, but it's not going to be because of money, but because

It's more than just throwing money at it. EA tried and failed to separate from Steam. Epic might succeed, but it's not going to be because of money, but because Fortnite let them capture young gamers before they got into Steam. Wherever a user gets a critical mass of a library built up first is going to be the winner.

tyrfing 5y ago
> Wherever a user gets a critical mass of a library built up first is going to be the winner. This is where they've been throwing money at the problem: giving away a ridiculous amount of games for free. https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/12/22380895/epic-games-store-afford-give-away-17-5-billion-free-games https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/12/22380895/epic-games-store...
- Arrath 5y ago
  It is quite nice, I think I paid for 1 game of the 14 in my epic library.
  - trey-jones 5y ago
    I wonder how much I paid over the last 15 years for the 198 games in my Steam library. Not that much, I suspect between all the Humble Bundles and steam sales of yore. Nevertheless I was pissed when I had to get Origin in order to even play Mass Effect 3, and I never even considered the epic store, so I think the theory of library investment is sound. Steam has a good head start on a lot of us.
    - Arrath 5y ago
      It absolutely does. The singular reason I signed up for Epic was Borderlands 3, everything else is in my Steam library.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      Everybody hated Steam when it was new too and with the frequent Epic game giveaways people will eventually have large catalogs of Epic games they grabbed on a lark. Between that and a number of highly desired sequels being exclusive to the platform I can't see why they wouldn't be able to eventually make inroads.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  Useful to note that Prime Gaming has been doing the exact same strategy (for longer), backfilling users' catalogs by throwing a lot of money in games giveaways. Once the games have been added to your Amazon/Twitch today you can download an EXE installer from a hard to find Amazon page or use a really bland "Twitch Launcher" app that clearly is the first stage towards "Vapor" or whatever the final brand would be. For a lot of Amazon Prime users that pay attention to the Prime Gaming page month to month and click the bright shiny green "Claim" buttons whenever they show up, Amazon can just go "look at all the games you already 'own'" when they start actually marketing it as its own store.
  - echelon 5y ago
    It ought to be illegal for a 100B+ market cap company to operate in this way. They can just pour money at the problem until the incumbents shrivel up and die. Hyper fucking bad behavior that leaves the true innovators and people that care out in the cold. On the other hand, it should be possible for consumers to claim products they own on different platforms by peering a list of their their owned (licensed) products.
    - phlakaton 5y ago
      Tech companies engaging in monopolistic practices to destroy competition? You don't say. It happened to me. If you're in the industry long enough, I'll wager it happens to you too.
    - WorldMaker 5y ago
      The early 20th century put a lot of Monopoly and Trust Busting laws on the books that say some of this is illegal, not just "ought to be". What we've lost since then hasn't seemed to be the laws themselves but the willpower to regulate in the spirit of those laws and executive power to enforce those laws.
eric-hu 5y ago
Do you remember a time when people were predicting this deep pocketed company Microsoft would bomb with their Xbox? It’s not a sure thing that Amazon could dislodge Steam, but there’s precedent.

tyrfing 5y ago

> Wherever a user gets a critical mass of a library built up first is going to be the winner. This is where they've been throwing money at the problem: giving away a ridiculous amount of games for free. https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/12/22380895/epic-games-store-afford-give-away-17-5-billion-free-games https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/12/22380895/epic-games-store...

Arrath 5y ago
It is quite nice, I think I paid for 1 game of the 14 in my epic library.
- trey-jones 5y ago
  I wonder how much I paid over the last 15 years for the 198 games in my Steam library. Not that much, I suspect between all the Humble Bundles and steam sales of yore. Nevertheless I was pissed when I had to get Origin in order to even play Mass Effect 3, and I never even considered the epic store, so I think the theory of library investment is sound. Steam has a good head start on a lot of us.
  - Arrath 5y ago
    It absolutely does. The singular reason I signed up for Epic was Borderlands 3, everything else is in my Steam library.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    Everybody hated Steam when it was new too and with the frequent Epic game giveaways people will eventually have large catalogs of Epic games they grabbed on a lark. Between that and a number of highly desired sequels being exclusive to the platform I can't see why they wouldn't be able to eventually make inroads.
WorldMaker 5y ago
Useful to note that Prime Gaming has been doing the exact same strategy (for longer), backfilling users' catalogs by throwing a lot of money in games giveaways. Once the games have been added to your Amazon/Twitch today you can download an EXE installer from a hard to find Amazon page or use a really bland "Twitch Launcher" app that clearly is the first stage towards "Vapor" or whatever the final brand would be. For a lot of Amazon Prime users that pay attention to the Prime Gaming page month to month and click the bright shiny green "Claim" buttons whenever they show up, Amazon can just go "look at all the games you already 'own'" when they start actually marketing it as its own store.
- echelon 5y ago
  It ought to be illegal for a 100B+ market cap company to operate in this way. They can just pour money at the problem until the incumbents shrivel up and die. Hyper fucking bad behavior that leaves the true innovators and people that care out in the cold. On the other hand, it should be possible for consumers to claim products they own on different platforms by peering a list of their their owned (licensed) products.
  - phlakaton 5y ago
    Tech companies engaging in monopolistic practices to destroy competition? You don't say. It happened to me. If you're in the industry long enough, I'll wager it happens to you too.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    The early 20th century put a lot of Monopoly and Trust Busting laws on the books that say some of this is illegal, not just "ought to be". What we've lost since then hasn't seemed to be the laws themselves but the willpower to regulate in the spirit of those laws and executive power to enforce those laws.

eric-hu 5y ago

Do you remember a time when people were predicting this deep pocketed company Microsoft would bomb with their Xbox? It’s not a sure thing that Amazon could dislodge Steam, but there’s precedent.