The Games Industry And ATVI - Page 33
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Crateros
19 Posts
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Archeon
3251 Posts
@Hong Kong: The protesters forced the Hong Kong gov to take the law back and elected a new government. Sadly this one then took emergency powers during COVID and more or less secretly passed a new law that allowed them to remove "dissidents" and is continuing to turn HK into a dictatorship under China, including closed borders, banning people from elections and trying people without them being able to talk to their lawyers. So the protesters won the battle and lost the war shortly after. | ||
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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Crateros
19 Posts
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12128 Posts
On March 03 2021 06:16 Crateros wrote: Fuck, such a great gaming series is gonna be ruined.... No wait, that thing was just a throwaway game. Since when are Epic Games the bad guys? Since they decided to go after Steam with exclusivities and not with quality of services they can provide? Or since they decided to buy indy developers who then broke the trust their backers gave in? Not sure, maybe even other reasons. Can't tell, I am just channeling my inner fallen Anakin and scream I hate you at them. | ||
Manit0u
Poland17185 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21339 Posts
On March 03 2021 19:10 Manit0u wrote: Well Epic is claiming that them being allowed to open a store on ios would lower prices for consumers and that Apple denying it is manipulating the market. Speaking of Epic and Steam, during the Epic vs Apple trial they requested game sales data from Steam from the past 6 years. So Apple requested a bunch of price info from games on Steam and Epic in an attempt to show that the Epic Store opening did not reduce prices. It sounds insane when you just see a headline but it makes sense when you look a little deeper. | ||
Harris1st
Germany6691 Posts
On March 03 2021 08:47 deacon.frost wrote: Since they decided to go after Steam with exclusivities and not with quality of services they can provide? Or since they decided to buy indy developers who then broke the trust their backers gave in? Not sure, maybe even other reasons. Can't tell, I am just channeling my inner fallen Anakin and scream I hate you at them. I honestly don't mind Epic games launcher too much. Steam had the monopoly too long and was ripping of everyone. From AAA developer to small indie company. It was about time that Steam is forced to offer fair deals and if game exclusivity is the way then I am all for it | ||
WombaT
Northern Ireland23752 Posts
For example, Steam is so full of trash shovelware that it’s difficult for good games especially in the indie space to punch through. So if for example Epic had a more curated space and higher quality control, as a consumer it would be nice to have a store front where you could browse and find interesting games that might be buried on Steam. And if exclusives are needed to pull people over that’s perfectly fine, plus Epic does offer a more favourable split with devs right? I don’t really get why people are so slavishly defensive about Steam being challenged in any way, but on the other hand I don’t see the point in the Epic store basically being Steam 2.0 but worse in terms of consumer benefits: | ||
deacon.frost
Czech Republic12128 Posts
On March 03 2021 20:06 Harris1st wrote: I honestly don't mind Epic games launcher too much. Steam had the monopoly too long and was ripping of everyone. From AAA developer to small indie company. It was about time that Steam is forced to offer fair deals and if game exclusivity is the way then I am all for it They're noit breaking the monopoly of the Steam. They're creating they're own. They're not fighting Steam with better services, better client(and Steam isn't exactly the top notch client) or better anything. THey just have exclusive games. When I heard Epic is going in - I was hyped as it would eventually mean that Steam would have to do their shit better. The result is, that Steam doesn't have to do anything, because Epic didn't go the expected way. I mean they released a SHOP without a SHOPPING CART. So if you bough multiple cheap games during a sale your bank could have blocked payments/card as it appeared suspicious(happened). They put games on a sale WITHOUT the dev/publisher consent. Like WTF? There's a reason Steam(Valve) haven't done anything, this isn't a competitor which would steal their customers when services are worse. People started using Steam because it was easier than other shit. What has the Epic client done better than Steam? Honestly? I know about nothing, but as I admit I am an Epic hater, because WTF, Epic? #Edit> From the consumer perspective it's actually worse now, as Epic doesn't offer better services and if you use both Steam and Epic CLient you have double the chance some of your information will be stolen. On March 03 2021 20:45 WombaT wrote: + Show Spoiler + My issue with Epic is they aren’t competing with Steam by inhabiting a niche that Steam are doing badly in and giving an alternative that way. For example, Steam is so full of trash shovelware that it’s difficult for good games especially in the indie space to punch through. So if for example Epic had a more curated space and higher quality control, as a consumer it would be nice to have a store front where you could browse and find interesting games that might be buried on Steam. And if exclusives are needed to pull people over that’s perfectly fine, + Show Spoiler + I don’t really get why people are so slavishly defensive about Steam being challenged in any way, but on the other hand I don’t see the point in the Epic store basically being Steam 2.0 but worse in terms of consumer benefits: Kinda-ish. THis is more valid for indy devs as they're don't get payed in advance from the publisher. At this point it's better for these devs to be on the steam because bigger playerbase, curators and forums(saves devs own system). If you have a publisher then the publishers gets the bigger share, so you're not supporting the devs per se. | ||
Gorsameth
Netherlands21339 Posts
That is not competing with Steam for the benefit of the consumer, that is just building your own niche people are 'forced' to use. | ||
Simberto
Germany11313 Posts
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Blitzkrieg0
United States13132 Posts
On March 03 2021 21:52 Simberto wrote: The problem is that just being better doesn't seem to work well with regards to steam. GOG beats steam in a lot of areas that should matter to the consumer, and also gives a better deal to publishers, and yet its percentage of the market is miniscule. So i can see why Epic doesn't try to do that. Steam has a natural monopoly at this point. I don't want to have twelve different launchers to play games and steam was the first. They might not have the best software anymore, but they were the first and still in the top three. Then there is the problem that what happens to my games on steam if valve were to go under somehow because Epic took over the market? Epic is trying to bully in to get market share. You're right that they don't have another option to get in, but you don't see them making lawsuits against Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo even though consoles have the same 30% standard that they're against Apple/Andrdoid using on mobile. I'd echo Wombat about all the basic features that epic was missing on release as well. Their software is trash and people would have never installed it if they didn't hand out free games. | ||
Harris1st
Germany6691 Posts
On March 03 2021 21:00 deacon.frost wrote: They're noit breaking the monopoly of the Steam. They're creating they're own. They're not fighting Steam with better services, better client(and Steam isn't exactly the top notch client) or better anything. THey just have exclusive games. When I heard Epic is going in - I was hyped as it would eventually mean that Steam would have to do their shit better. The result is, that Steam doesn't have to do anything, because Epic didn't go the expected way. I mean they released a SHOP without a SHOPPING CART. So if you bough multiple cheap games during a sale your bank could have blocked payments/card as it appeared suspicious(happened). They put games on a sale WITHOUT the dev/publisher consent. Like WTF? There's a reason Steam(Valve) haven't done anything, this isn't a competitor which would steal their customers when services are worse. People started using Steam because it was easier than other shit. What has the Epic client done better than Steam? Honestly? I know about nothing, but as I admit I am an Epic hater, because WTF, Epic? #Edit> From the consumer perspective it's actually worse now, as Epic doesn't offer better services and if you use both Steam and Epic CLient you have double the chance some of your information will be stolen. Kinda-ish. THis is more valid for indy devs as they're don't get payed in advance from the publisher. At this point it's better for these devs to be on the steam because bigger playerbase, curators and forums(saves devs own system). If you have a publisher then the publishers gets the bigger share, so you're not supporting the devs per se. Don't get me wrong, the epic launcher is shit. But people don't change their stuff if not forced to (as someone stated with GoG, which is vastly superior to Steam and Epic) Also Steam didn't start out the way it is now. It took some years to make it from shitty to acceptable Best thing you can do is get GoG 2.0 and link all your launchers to it IMO. It is the launcher of launchers ^^ The same thing is happening right now with CS GO and Valorant. If not for Valorant, Valve never would have worked on CSGO. Now they are forced to and the user wins (mostly) | ||
deacon.frost
Czech Republic12128 Posts
On March 03 2021 23:12 Harris1st wrote: Don't get me wrong, the epic launcher is shit. But people don't change their stuff if not forced to (as someone stated with GoG, which is vastly superior to Steam and Epic) Also Steam didn't start out the way it is now. It took some years to make it from shitty to acceptable Best thing you can do is get GoG 2.0 and link all your launchers to it IMO. It is the launcher of launchers ^^ The same thing is happening right now with CS GO and Valorant. If not for Valorant, Valve never would have worked on CSGO. Now they are forced to and the user wins (mostly) Yeah, it took some time to get STeam where it is. But Epic isn't some poor company. They have the money to have a shopping cart and forums. As an example(maybe htey have it now). | ||
Blitzkrieg0
United States13132 Posts
On March 04 2021 03:40 deacon.frost wrote: Yeah, it took some time to get STeam where it is. But Epic isn't some poor company. They have the money to have a shopping cart and forums. As an example(maybe htey have it now). Don't worry everyone. The shopping cart is on the road map to release this year! | ||
WombaT
Northern Ireland23752 Posts
On March 03 2021 23:12 Harris1st wrote: Don't get me wrong, the epic launcher is shit. But people don't change their stuff if not forced to (as someone stated with GoG, which is vastly superior to Steam and Epic) Also Steam didn't start out the way it is now. It took some years to make it from shitty to acceptable Best thing you can do is get GoG 2.0 and link all your launchers to it IMO. It is the launcher of launchers ^^ The same thing is happening right now with CS GO and Valorant. If not for Valorant, Valve never would have worked on CSGO. Now they are forced to and the user wins (mostly) I’m not a huge Epic fanboy but Valve have been resting on their laurels for forever now. Ok not a huge fanboy but Epic did give me innumerable fun as a kid with fucking Unreal and especially the UT games, so I’m a bit liable to play devil’s advocate on their behalf. There’s 100% legitimate criticism of Epic’s effort thus far, hell I supplied some myself but there is this strange visceral reaction to competition regardless of how good (or not it is). The amount of utter incoherent rationalisations from ‘true gamers’ as to why Epic making a store is awful is quite something to behold. What’s GoG doing better? I had it fucking forever ago and still buy the odd retro game (usually old point and clicks). Be tempted to reinstall when I get gaming regularly again! plus I heard some of their older games tended to be better in compatibility and features with modern PCs | ||
Archeon
3251 Posts
Steam is by no means perfect, but it's easy to use, gives me a powerful user-based review system to check for game qualities beyond a pretty trailer and has a good user system and guides. Epic in the meantime uses spyware and delays titles on other shops. It's easy to see why I mostly stay away. And I really don't mind competition and if we can get higher payments to studios and devs great, but the exclusive deals are a thing that always pissed me off back when I had a console and really don't want to see now too on the PC market. In my ideal world I'd get GoG's download service with steam's mod support and review system and Epic's price share. But Epic and GoG are years behind steam's platform in terms of ease of use and feature list. | ||
WombaT
Northern Ireland23752 Posts
On March 05 2021 10:29 Archeon wrote: The fact that I both enjoyed UT to play and the unreal engine during college to build is the only thing keeping me from constantly shitting on epic. Exclusivity is a bane for consumers and their launcher is significantly lacking in comparison to steam. They could easily put the money they pay publishers to release only on their platform to more quickly develop mod support and reviews. Steam is by no means perfect, but it's easy to use, gives me a powerful user-based review system to check for game qualities beyond a pretty trailer and has a good user system and guides. Epic in the meantime uses spyware and delays titles on other shops. It's easy to see why I mostly stay away. And I really don't mind competition and if we can get higher payments to studios and devs great, but the exclusive deals are a thing that always pissed me off back when I had a console and really don't want to see now too on the PC market. In my ideal world I'd get GoG's download service with steam's mod support and review system and Epic's price share. But Epic and GoG are years behind steam's platform in terms of ease of use and feature list. Yeah I mean fuck that and I’m unsure what Epic are doing there, but Jesus the amount of hate they get for the act of trying rather than the act of failing is what’s mental to me. I think the success of Fortnite (which in fairness gets undue hate for no good reason, me and kiddo played our first online games together there and had a great time) has melted Epic’s brains in terms of, well anything structurally cohesive. I don’t know if you played the aborted UT game, but I think it had a ton of potential and its model was pretty creative. I was super excited because I do like mods, but I like playing the stock game too. At least based on the pitch and the pre Alpha they were going to provide a base game to work around, mod support and paid and unpaid assets like cool models so the community could add to the pile either for free or it’d be charged and they and Epic would take a slice. I’m guessing honestly looking at Quake Champions and how it did the numbers weren’t there and it was canned, but the proposed model was great (indeed Starcraft could benefit from adopting it now). But it was at least a good idea, IMO anyway, I’m not sure where Epic’s good ideas have been recently. It seems patently obvious to me that, with the bigger cut for devs already pushing that direction and the fact you own a widely used game engine that you make the Epic store a combination of a curated indie/mid-range dev heaven and a modders paradise. Hell maybe even throw some Unreal Engine tutorials and learning materials up there. You fucking OWN A GAME ENGINE and you don’t have mod support? It’s not so much not making the most of your biggest actual USP as forgetting it exists at all. It’s baffling I’m not expert, tell me if that makes less sense than what they’re doing now. Methinks if they hadn’t got the fuck you money from Fortnite they’d by necessity be being way smarter in this domain. I think multiple store fronts/launcher makes sense, just not too many. I fucking despise most publisher-specific launchers because they’re utterly pointless bloatware with fuck all purpose. You can’t be all things to everyone though, hence the need for at least a few. If your store is easy to upload anything to, a place for anyone of any means to try get their game traction, then eventually you’ll end up with so much trash that it becomes difficult for the good stuff to punch through. If you gate and quality control every potential item for sale then eventually that process becomes too slow to process plenty of things meritorious of a place in your store. Anyway yeah, rambly. Unlike me. I think if you have Steam as the general purpose launcher for most of PC gaming, Epic doing what I vaguely outlined it should do, and GOG being a haven for well-restored retro games and its other qualities and niches then that’s a pretty good PC gaming ecosystem. You really don’t need more, or less indeed. | ||
Manit0u
Poland17185 Posts
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