3 ms·

With the rise of the Epic Game Store, I think there's more competition in the launcher/store space and I bet the big publishers got better deals which removed t

by sbarre 5y ago

With the rise of the Epic Game Store, I think there's more competition in the launcher/store space and I bet the big publishers got better deals which removed the need for them to invest in the ongoing development and maintenance of their own stores/launchers. It can't be that cheap to maintain an app like Origin or UPlay and all the associated infrastructure, etc..

Narishma 5y ago
Epic's launcher is one of the worst, constantly consuming resources doing who knows what in the background.
mjevans 5y ago
Intangibles are a major cost factor as well. Not just the servers, but an entire authentication and customer support infrastructure. Scammers are not an easy cost to estimate or an easy value to sell resistance against.
Macha 5y ago
It's not just the store cut. From what I understand, a big part of the motivation of Origin was also to avoid having to compete, at least in consumer perception with the sales. Battlefield 3 at €80 while it was a year old looked terrible value when Borderlands 2 had dropped to €50 and was regularly 30% off despite being only a couple of months old.
- Talanes 5y ago
  That seems backwards to how the actual customer perception worked out though. I very quickly noted that Origin prices were worse than Steam prices, and avoided it. If that was their intent, they forgot the storefront itself has a perceived value.
judge2020 5y ago
The issue with Epic is the pure lack of features (user profiles, reviews[^1], community forums) , and no Mac/Linux support. ^1: I doubt reviews are ever coming since it would mean bad games would get fewer sales; Imagine how many more sales Cyberpunk 2077 has gotten on the Epic store as no potential buyer sees the negative reviews for the game.
- Mindwipe 5y ago
  The Epic launcher supports Macs. There's not much software that supports Macs, but there's increasingly little on Steam too that runs on a modern version of MacOS too because of Apple's decision to abandon the space.
- Talanes 5y ago
  I've had to struggle with Epic just to delete a game at times. And the giant tiles in the library are already a pain to navigate through with a library 1/20th the size of my Steam library. I could live without features if the core functionality was nailed in, but it's just not there. The only people I know using it as a broad Steam replacement are doing so ideologically: they want a competitor to exist so they use it even if it's worse.
- eulers_secret 5y ago
  The other issue is Epic's buying exclusivity for certain titles on PC - even after they were announced as available on other online stores. These bribes, especially since Epic wasn't involved during development, upset a lot of folks.
  - baud147258 5y ago
    it's not (wasn't? I don't know if they still do it) as much as making games exclusives to Epic as making sure they aren't released on Steam; I'm pretty sure Epic's head honcho said something to that effect and a few games which had deals with Epic also released on the Microsoft store
  - account42 5y ago
    Right, they did that even for some crowd funded games. And for others it has meant that the Linux version was delayed until after the excusivity deal was over (e.g. Metro Exodus) or removed (Rocket League).

by sbarre 5y ago

Narishma 5y ago

Epic's launcher is one of the worst, constantly consuming resources doing who knows what in the background.

mjevans 5y ago

Intangibles are a major cost factor as well. Not just the servers, but an entire authentication and customer support infrastructure. Scammers are not an easy cost to estimate or an easy value to sell resistance against.

Macha 5y ago

It's not just the store cut. From what I understand, a big part of the motivation of Origin was also to avoid having to compete, at least in consumer perception with the sales. Battlefield 3 at €80 while it was a year old looked terrible value when Borderlands 2 had dropped to €50 and was regularly 30% off despite being only a couple of months old.

Talanes 5y ago
That seems backwards to how the actual customer perception worked out though. I very quickly noted that Origin prices were worse than Steam prices, and avoided it. If that was their intent, they forgot the storefront itself has a perceived value.

judge2020 5y ago

The issue with Epic is the pure lack of features (user profiles, reviews[^1], community forums) , and no Mac/Linux support. ^1: I doubt reviews are ever coming since it would mean bad games would get fewer sales; Imagine how many more sales Cyberpunk 2077 has gotten on the Epic store as no potential buyer sees the negative reviews for the game.

Mindwipe 5y ago
The Epic launcher supports Macs. There's not much software that supports Macs, but there's increasingly little on Steam too that runs on a modern version of MacOS too because of Apple's decision to abandon the space.
Talanes 5y ago
I've had to struggle with Epic just to delete a game at times. And the giant tiles in the library are already a pain to navigate through with a library 1/20th the size of my Steam library. I could live without features if the core functionality was nailed in, but it's just not there. The only people I know using it as a broad Steam replacement are doing so ideologically: they want a competitor to exist so they use it even if it's worse.
eulers_secret 5y ago
The other issue is Epic's buying exclusivity for certain titles on PC - even after they were announced as available on other online stores. These bribes, especially since Epic wasn't involved during development, upset a lot of folks.
- baud147258 5y ago
  it's not (wasn't? I don't know if they still do it) as much as making games exclusives to Epic as making sure they aren't released on Steam; I'm pretty sure Epic's head honcho said something to that effect and a few games which had deals with Epic also released on the Microsoft store
- account42 5y ago
  Right, they did that even for some crowd funded games. And for others it has meant that the Linux version was delayed until after the excusivity deal was over (e.g. Metro Exodus) or removed (Rocket League).