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Your comment makes it sound like Epic Store was demonized because they charge 12%. I bet that's the only thing they did not get demonized about. Their shady pr

by m_0x 3y ago

Your comment makes it sound like Epic Store was demonized because they charge 12%. I bet that's the only thing they did not get demonized about. Their shady practices such as forcing exclusivity to Epic Store and suing Apple is what brought them shit all over them. Developers are free to submit their game to Steam and release their game in any other platform. Epic handcuffs the devs to the Epic Store for a while. > when did you ever see something critical of Steam on HN or Reddit? Jesus are we forgetting EVERYBODY hated Steam when it got released? You know what Valve did? They fucking fixed their platform. They listened to consumer's feedback. Now it's the best PC game store out there. That might change at some point, but today it's the best one.

whaleofatw2022 3y ago
Steam and Gog Galaxy are the only PC launchers I've used that don't make me cringe.
delecti 3y ago
Epic pays for temporary exclusivity. Lots of devs turn down that deal and release on both Epic and Steam. The reason so many devs take the offer is because it massively helps reduce risk. Gamers got angry at Epic because they didn't want to have to install a new launcher for a game they wanted. That's really it. And to be clear, I feel the same way. I have a ton of free games on EGS that I've never installed because I don't want to install another launcher.
- anonymousab 3y ago
  > Epic pays for temporary exclusivity In several cases, they sought out games that were already coming out on Steam and even had preorders (or kickstarter backers) there, and then paid those developers to rip it out. There is a seemingly minor but important distinction with what Epic does: they do not pay for exclusivity nor do most of their actions involve paying for a game to be made that otherwise would not have been. Either of those things are fine, even if begrudgingly. What Epic actually does is pay to harm Steam specifically; the stipulation is always "don't put it on Steam", not "only put it on our platform". It is purposely targeted and antagonistic towards steam and steam users; "we have deprived you of a thing, now you have to come here if you want to get it" is how that comes across, when they should have aimed for "we are getting this new thing made for our platform, come over here to check it out!" While they were doing this, their store was in a miserable state compared to its competitors, in terms of features and reliability (especially for the desktop app). So they were seen as prioritizing depriving another platform instead of prioritizing having a good platform and customer experience. When all of the above is put together, it comes across as petty and malicious, rather than them trying to throw their fortnite dollars at bootstrapping their platform, and at making and having a quality platform for consumers. If they had simply paid for a bunch of new exclusive games and IP to be made for their platform rather than seeking out existing, already advertised and in-development suitor games, it would have come across way differently. Or if so much more of the effort and money would have gone to making the store better and beyond feature parity with its main competitors (not that it necessarily reached even that), it would have been received quite differently.
belltaco 3y ago
> suing Apple is what brought them shit all over them It was and is strange to see Apple's stranglehold and forced 30% cut from developers being celebrated on HN. Imagine an extra 18% of indie game developers revenue going to themselves instead of distribution, a good chunk of the 12% is payment processing.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>You know what Valve did? They fucking fixed their platform. not really. The core complaints from 2003 are still there. Valve instead just conditioned users to not care about physical disks, not care about needing a store open to play a game, and undercut the competition. No different than Amazon in that regard. Only difference is that it they got good PR out of it (unlike most tech companies doing the same), because gamers are young and they praise cheap stuff above all else. Valve was also smart because they can just take a cut out of already premium games, compared to how most other websites had to sell a free website and monetize it in less savory ways.

by m_0x 3y ago

whaleofatw2022 3y ago

Steam and Gog Galaxy are the only PC launchers I've used that don't make me cringe.

delecti 3y ago

Epic pays for temporary exclusivity. Lots of devs turn down that deal and release on both Epic and Steam. The reason so many devs take the offer is because it massively helps reduce risk. Gamers got angry at Epic because they didn't want to have to install a new launcher for a game they wanted. That's really it. And to be clear, I feel the same way. I have a ton of free games on EGS that I've never installed because I don't want to install another launcher.

anonymousab 3y ago
> Epic pays for temporary exclusivity In several cases, they sought out games that were already coming out on Steam and even had preorders (or kickstarter backers) there, and then paid those developers to rip it out. There is a seemingly minor but important distinction with what Epic does: they do not pay for exclusivity nor do most of their actions involve paying for a game to be made that otherwise would not have been. Either of those things are fine, even if begrudgingly. What Epic actually does is pay to harm Steam specifically; the stipulation is always "don't put it on Steam", not "only put it on our platform". It is purposely targeted and antagonistic towards steam and steam users; "we have deprived you of a thing, now you have to come here if you want to get it" is how that comes across, when they should have aimed for "we are getting this new thing made for our platform, come over here to check it out!" While they were doing this, their store was in a miserable state compared to its competitors, in terms of features and reliability (especially for the desktop app). So they were seen as prioritizing depriving another platform instead of prioritizing having a good platform and customer experience. When all of the above is put together, it comes across as petty and malicious, rather than them trying to throw their fortnite dollars at bootstrapping their platform, and at making and having a quality platform for consumers. If they had simply paid for a bunch of new exclusive games and IP to be made for their platform rather than seeking out existing, already advertised and in-development suitor games, it would have come across way differently. Or if so much more of the effort and money would have gone to making the store better and beyond feature parity with its main competitors (not that it necessarily reached even that), it would have been received quite differently.

belltaco 3y ago

> suing Apple is what brought them shit all over them It was and is strange to see Apple's stranglehold and forced 30% cut from developers being celebrated on HN. Imagine an extra 18% of indie game developers revenue going to themselves instead of distribution, a good chunk of the 12% is payment processing.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>You know what Valve did? They fucking fixed their platform. not really. The core complaints from 2003 are still there. Valve instead just conditioned users to not care about physical disks, not care about needing a store open to play a game, and undercut the competition. No different than Amazon in that regard. Only difference is that it they got good PR out of it (unlike most tech companies doing the same), because gamers are young and they praise cheap stuff above all else. Valve was also smart because they can just take a cut out of already premium games, compared to how most other websites had to sell a free website and monetize it in less savory ways.