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News Epic reveals a strong year for the Epic Games Store

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by bit-tech, 15 Jan 2020.

  1. Paulg1971

    Paulg1971 Minimodder

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    Me personally I don't give a flying f@~k what Epic have done, they had to do some dirty,underhand tricks to get a toe in the market. I have 8 launchers on my pc and I don't care, I can on with a couple of clicks be playing the game via whatever launcher. I have bought one game through epic, assassins creed- odyssey which worked out £10 cheaper than anywhere with the Christmas voucher, and other 25 free games which I haven't played yet.
     
  2. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    To be fair, why would they?
     
  3. adidan

    adidan Guesswork is still work

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    I may be missing something but i'm not sure what the issue is with a company competing with Steam.
     
  4. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    The issue for quite a few people seems to be the fact Epic paid developers to release their games as (timed) exclusives on the Epic launcher.
     
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  5. adidan

    adidan Guesswork is still work

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    Yeah I get that, i'm not sure what other method a company could realistically use to compete with Steam though.

    Cheaper prices could work but probably not as well, I imagine some would have paid more via Steam just to keep it all in one place.

    I'm not defending or having beef with Epic, I find it difficult to care one way or another tbh. The reaction I find interesting though.
     
  6. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    THAT pretty much sums up what I think as well.
     
  7. yuusou

    yuusou Multimodder

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    Until Epic supports Linux in some way or form the way Steam does, I honestly don't care about it. I may open it and get whatever game is free if I boot into Windows, but that's about it. I know this is mostly a niche use case, but honestly Valve's support for gaming on Linux has been astounding and I'd prefer to continue supporting that.
     
  8. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Sell games at lower prices than Steam.
    The way Humble Bundle, Gamesplanet, Fanatical etc have been doing it for years.

    But definitely not by making grossly inferior software like Origin, Uplay, Epic Store, Windows Store or engaging in anti consumer practices like exclusives.
     
  9. adidan

    adidan Guesswork is still work

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    I wonder how well Epic is doing in comparison with those other companies?

    It may be their approach is working, business wise. Not that i'm saying I agree with it or not, but it's working for them so far it seems.
     
  10. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    In 2018 the total revenue from digital PC games (effectively 100% of the market) was 35.7 billion, assuming it was similar in 2019 that would mean the Epic Store got around 1.7% of the market, very hard to tell how that compares to others though as Valve, Tencent, Blizzard, Humble etc don't exactly release sales data.

    (some 3rd party estimates claim Steam makes in the region of 3 -4 billion a year, so about 10% of the entire digital PC gaming market)
     
    Last edited: 18 Jan 2020
  11. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    All of them are tiny in comparison to Steam and none of them have current AAA titles. Which seems to be what Epic wanted when launching their.... launcher.

    Morally it's wrong, that's true. From a pure business POV, though? Smart is what they call it.
     
  12. GeorgeStorm

    GeorgeStorm Aggressive PC Builder

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    People get way too mad, it's a free launcher, if you want to play the game when it comes out you can, not like you need to buy a different console.
     
  13. adidan

    adidan Guesswork is still work

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    Epic certainly are being aggressive to get a toe in, chucking £8million alone for exclusivity of Control apparently.

    I understand, competition should make prices come down but if someone wants to throw you millions for exclusivity it would be hard to ignore from a business perspective I guess.
     
  14. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    The only thing I can complain about with Epic (well, other than their store needs a few years more in dev) is the prices. They are throwing around money left right and centre for exclusives, yet then charging the same or more than console games. They seem to misunderstand the aggro that comes with PC gaming, and why historically PC games were cheaper. Mostly because on day one they are all unplayable, and not much has changed.

    Instead of them giving away free games etc they need to work on their prices. Money talks. I'm not paying £50 for a PC title with issues that I can get for £45 on my Xbox. Why would I bother?

    Before Epic you could usually get a new release on CDkeys for Steam for around £25-£30. Now they're more like £47.
     
  15. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

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    I think we can all agree that, whatever the relative merits of Epic as a market for games, the Epic store is absolute garbage. It's 2020 and they don't even have a shopping basket ffs.
     
  16. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    Cloud saves are still very hit and miss too, which is a joke.

    I'll admit all of this hoosafudge has steered me heavily toward consoles.

    I'm getting some VM software on Monday and going back into that black hole. Gaming on a PC now is just not worth bothering with.
     
  17. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    This is the essence of it. Exclusives are always bad, and we should always be opposed to them, forever. They are calculatedly anti-market, anti-competition, and, therefore, as Anfield says, anti-consumer. They're a ploy to achieve monopoly, and a fairly heavy-handed one at that.

    I won't buy anything that's a platform exclusive, on general principle. It's unethical.
     
  18. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    While I agree with you for the most part, I think Epic is actually far from trying to build a monopoly. At least right now. They use exclusives to get a foothold in a market dominated by Steam.
     
  19. edzieba

    edzieba Virtual Realist

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    I pay money, I receive game. Any functionality beyond that falls into the "crap I need to find how to disable" bucket that 99% of Steam dev seems focused on. No, I do not want: popup chat windows, achievements, 'cards', 'hats', 'buttons' whatever-the-f&#£-ever pointless crap Valve has through up to take a cut off of the trading of, screen recording, game streaming, this garbage library thing where "just show a single list" is an impossible task, yet another damn proprietary joystick button remapper, etc.
    Bloody bloatware the lot of it.
    Oh, and their awful proprietary 2FA app when everyone else (including Epic) are using standardised TOTP.

    And once again: not exclusive. It's a PC, you can install and run anything from anywhere. It's 'exclusive' because you refuse to install it, and refusing to install it because it's 'exclusive', is just tautological self-flagellation.
     
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  20. adidan

    adidan Guesswork is still work

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    Maybe i've not looked too hard but is there similar outrage at companies like Netflix that pay for exclusivity in other media? Although i'm a hypocrite, I hate the countless number of streaming services :lol:

    I can't actually see the Epic exclusives as aiming for a monopoly though they're timed for a year (is that right?)

    Mind you, like i say, i'm a tight git and almost never buy games on release so by the time i do there is not exclusivity variable for me to consider.

    Yeah, perhaps i'm not the best to comment :lol:
     
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